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Kostas Trigkas - North Shore
Acts 17:16-34 ESV
16 Now while Paul was waiting for them at Athens, his spirit was provoked within him as he saw that the city
was full of idols. 17 So he reasoned in the synagogue with the Jews and the devout persons, and in the
marketplace every day with those who happened to be there. 18 Some of the Epicurean and Stoic philosophers
also conversed with him. And some said, “What does this babbler wish to say?” Others said, “He seems to be a
preacher of foreign divinities”—because he was preaching Jesus and the resurrection. 19 And they took him
and brought him to the Areopagus, saying, “May we know what this new teaching is that you are
presenting? 20 For you bring some strange things to our ears. We wish to know therefore what these things
mean.” 21 Now all the Athenians and the foreigners who lived there would spend their time in nothing except
telling or hearing something new.
22 So Paul, standing in the midst of the Areopagus, said: “Men of Athens, I perceive that in every way you are
very religious. 23 For as I passed along and observed the objects of your worship, I found also an altar with this
inscription: ‘To the unknown god.’ What therefore you worship as unknown, this I proclaim to you. 24 The God
who made the world and everything in it, being Lord of heaven and earth, does not live in temples made by
man,[a] 25 nor is he served by human hands, as though he needed anything, since he himself gives to all
mankind life and breath and everything. 26 And he made from one man every nation of mankind to live on all
the face of the earth, having determined allotted periods and the boundaries of their dwelling place, 27 that
they should seek God, and perhaps feel their way toward him and find him. Yet he is actually not far from each
one of us, 28 for
“‘In him we live and move and have our being’;[b]
as even some of your own poets have said,
“‘For we are indeed his offspring.’[c]
29 Being then God's offspring, we ought not to think that the divine being is like gold or silver or stone, an
image formed by the art and imagination of man. 30 The times of ignorance God overlooked, but now
he commands all people everywhere to repent, 31 because he has fixed a day on which he will judge the
world in righteousness by a man whom he has appointed; and of this he has given assurance to all by raising
him from the dead.”
32 Now when they heard of the resurrection of the dead, some mocked. But others said, “We will hear you
again about this.” 33 So Paul went out from their midst. 34 But some men joined him and believed, among
whom also were Dionysius the Areopagite and a woman named Damaris and others with them.
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