Summary:

These unsaved Jews took Paul to court (v.12) and charged him with worshipping God “contrary to the law” (v.13).  In the past, unsaved Jews charged Paul with worshipping God contrary to Roman law (17:7).  But if that’s what they meant here, that’s not how the deputy took it (18:14-16).

The “words” they must have charged Paul (v.15) with saying were probably the same “blasphemous words” they charged Stephen with saying against the law (6:11,13).  But that was not true of Stephen or Paul.  The “names” (18:15) the deputy refused to hear them argue about were the names of Jesus, and whether He deserved to be called by the name Messiah. 

Gallio the deputy wasn’t the only one upset with the Jews that day.  All the Greeks in his courtroom got so mad at them that they began beating their leader (v.17). If that seems like an overreaction for wasting the court’s time, what you’re seeing is the hatred men have always had for Jews.  Gallio must have hated them too, because he was completely carefree about it.  Judges today would have a bailiff restore order.

We know Sosthenes (v.17) was the new “chief ruler of the synagogue,” because the old one got saved (18:8).  Sosthenes must have also gotten saved, because Paul mentions him in I Corinthians 1:1.  And it was no coincidence that synagogue rulers kept getting saved.  They’d usually be men who knew the Scriptures well, and men like that would know what it meant when the Gentiles in the church next door spoke in tongues. They’d know God gave tongues to Jews to help them share the gospel with Gentiles in the kingdom (cf. Zech.8:22,23). So they’d know God gave the Jews tongues in Acts 2:4 as a sign He was about to bless them with the kingdom. But they’d also know God gave tongues to Gentiles as a sign He was judging the Jews, not blessing them.  We know this because when Paul was explaining to the Corinthians why they had the gift of tongues, he quoted Isaiah 28:11,12 (ICor.14:21).  God had been telling the Jews to repent in Hebrew, but they wouldn’t listen.  So He said, “I’ll speak to you in the only language you seem to understand, that of judgment.  I’ll let the Babylonians conquer you, and speak to you in their language.”  And He did!  Half of Daniel was written in Chaldee.  And since men of the other nations that Babylon conquered were always coming and going in Babylon, they heard their languages too.  And when those Jews heard those tongues, they knew God judged them.  And when the leaders of the Corinthian synagogue heard Gentile tongues, they knew God judged them for rejecting their King.

Why’d Paul take a vow found in the law while telling others we’re not under the law?  To save the Jews (ICor.9:20,23)—the Jews who took him to court!  That’s love!  But it was a voluntary vow the law didn’t require, so he didn’t have to put himself under the law to do it.  It involved a sacrifice (Num.6), but priests will offer them in the kingdom (Ezek. 45). Later, God prevented Paul from offering one, so we know He didn’t want sacrifices to continue in our age.

Paul’s tactic worked!  The Jews listened to him (Acts18:19, 20).  So he left to do something equally Jewish—keep a voluntary feast in Jerusalem (v.21cf.Jo.10:22). After he landed in “Caesarea” (v.22), Jerusalem’s seaport, he went “up” to Jerusalem (elevation 2,474ft.). But after sailing 1200 miles, he only kept the feast and greeted the 12.  He sailed that much to show Jerusalem Jews he took that vow, so they would go home and tell Jews in their synagogues about his vow, so when Paul arrived in their synagogues, they’d listen.

Paul also stopped in his home church of Antioch (v.22) because he knew they’d have heard he took the vow, and he wanted them to know he wasn’t a hypocrite. Then he went to Galatia (v.23) to prove to those Jews he didn’t disrespect the law.  This is more proof he did nothing hypocritical.  If he had, he wouldn’t have dared show his face in Galatia, after the letter he wrote them scolding them about the law!

A video of this message is available on YouTube: “The Tale Of A Carefree Deputy” Acts 18:12-23

Summary:

Corinth (v.1) spanned the Isthmus of Corinth, so it had a sea-port on two coasts.  That gave it twice the commercial traffic of other seaports, and twice their wealth.  Paul didn’t want them to think he was after their money, so rather than go straight to the synagogue as he usually did, he got a job (v.2,3). Before he became a rabbi, his father taught him to make tents, as the Lord’s father taught Him to be a carpenter.

That was the perfect trade for the apostle who tells us to rightly divide the Word (IITim.2:15).  We get accused of cutting up the Bible and throwing away the parts not written to us, but that’s not how Paul made tents!  He sewed the parts back together to make something useful, and we put the divided parts of the Bible together to make the Bible useful.

Claudius may have told Jews to leave Rome (v.2) because they’ve always been hated due to their laws and customs that made them different (cf.Jer.12:9)—so don’t be prejudiced! 

Paul preached harder when Silas and Timothy arrived (18:5) because he was refreshed by their fellowship, and by the news Timothy brought him from Thessalonica that they were withstanding the persecution storm he raised there (IThes.3: 1-8).  You should be in church so you can be encouraged in your stand for the truth when you see others standing for it.

The Jews contradicted themselves when they tried to argue with Paul, which made them mad enough to blaspheme (18: 6). So he shook off their dust (cf.Mt.10:5,7,14). That was his way of washing his hands of their blood (cf.Mt.27: 4).  If he hadn’t warned them to get saved, he would have been guilty of their blood (cf.Ezek.3:18,19) because a dispensation was committed to him (ICor.9:16,17).  If he didn’t dispense it to leaders (Acts 20:26) we wouldn’t have a gospel go preach.  We know we’re not guilty of anyone’s blood because we don’t have the authority to make pronouncements like Paul did (18:6).  Our motive to share the gospel is the love of Christ (IICor.5:14), not the fear of what He’ll do if we don’t.

In Acts 13:46, Paul turned to the Gentiles, but he said “henceforth” he’d “go” to them (18:6). He just went to a hillfull of them (17:22-31), so here he meant from that point on he’d go to Gentiles in a different way, by sending them epistles (cf.28:28’s sent).The “now” in IThessalonians 3:6 suggests he wrote that letter here, which some say was his first.

If you commit three crimes, it’s often three strikes and you’re out.  They lock you up forever.  God gave Israel three strikes (Acts 13:46; 18:6; 28:28), then locked them up—but only till after the Rapture, when they’ll be His people again.

Justus (18:7) must have been a Gentile or he’d have been in the synagogue with the Jews.  He worshipped God, but never became a Jew, perhaps because he thought Jesus was their Christ, and those Jews didn’t.  So when he overheard Paul preach He was Christ from his house next door, he invited Paul in to hear more.  That’s where Paul started the church!  Justus’ salvation provoked Crispus to emulation (18:8cf.Ro. 11:13,14), i.e., to want to equal or excel Paul at what he was doing. Crispus got so jealous that he was never able to reach the Gentile next door, he joined Paul to help him reach them.

It provoked the rest of the Jews to envy when they saw how “many” of the Corinthian Gentiles got saved (v.8)—and when they heard them speak with tongues (ICor.14). Tongues were a sign to the unbelieving Jews next door (1:22; 14:22).  Signs belonged to Israel (Ps.74:9), but God took them away when they disobeyed Him—like when they killed Christ!  When God gave their Acts 2:4 sign of tongues to the Gentiles, their envy drove them to try to kill Paul (cf.ICor.2: 3), so the Lord assured him of his safety (Acts 18:9,10).  The “much people” He saw in Corinth were the humble kind (ICor.1:26-28).  Hearing there were “many”, Paul stayed longer in Corinth than any other city so far (Acts 18:11).

A video of this message is available on YouTube: “The Establishing Of The Corinthian Church” Acts 18:1-11

Summary:

“Superstitious” (v.22) means excessively devoted, as the Athenians were to their idols (cf.v.16). They’d park an “altar” (v.23) in front of each idol to sacrifice to it (Ezek.6:13). But the one Paul found had no idol, for it was to the unknown God (v.23).  They had 30,000 gods, but were superstitiously afraid they’d missed one!  Paul said he would tell them about that god they were already worshipping, lest they kill him for trying to introduce a new god, like they did to Socrates.

Paul told them their unknown God created heaven and earth (v.24), because after He did, He spent the next 2,000 years trying to get the Gentiles to worship Him.  They refused to (Rom.1:21), so Paul is taking them back to their roots as Gentiles to show them where they went wrong, as Stephen did when he took the Jews back to their roots (Acts 7:2).

The first place they went wrong was in building God temples (Acts 17:24cf.IISam.7:5-7). Secondly, they worshipped Him “with men’s hands” (Acts 17:25), i.e., with idols (cf.Isa.2:8),  “as though” God needed an idol to represent Him!  He’s a giver, not a needer.  He gave us all “life” (Acts 17:25) when He gave us “breath” (v.25cf.Gen.2:7).  And He gave us “all things” (v.25) when He made Adam king of the world.

God didn’t make us “all of one blood” as opposed to the four blood types.  He made us “one blood” as compared to when Satan made men of two bloods (Gen.6:1-4). Letting that happen was the Gentiles’ third mistake. But the Athenians could relate to that!  Their gods were always sleeping with women and having kids called demigods.  But God made men of one blood when He killed off those men of demonic blood with the flood, and appointed Noah king of the world, and all men came from his blood.  That’s what “determined the times before appointed” means (Dan.2:21).  They could relate to that too, since they believed Zeus flooded the world, and Deucalion survived on an ark, and we all came from his blood.

Ancient man’s fourth mistake came when Noah’s seed refused to “replenish” the earth (Gen.9:1), and built a city instead (11:1-4).  God scattered their language (v.6-9) to make them scatter.  That set up “nations” (Acts 17:26), nations who set “the bounds of their habitation” when they set up borders around their nations. God did that to make them “seek the Lord” (v.27cf.Gen.11:4-6), but those scattered Gentiles built more cities in their nations.  And when men live together, they start telling each other how smart they are, and “imagine” (Rom.1:21-23) something really vain—that they are God.  They had a better chance finding God by feeling after Him, like blind unsaved men have to, than they had living next to a neighbor who told them they were gods.

The Greeks believed the gods all lived far off on Mt. Olympus, but Paul says the unknown God wasn’t far from them (v.27cf.Ps.139:7-10).  They made images to their faroff gods to bring them up close and personal, but Paul said they didn’t need to do that for their unknown God.  He then reminded them their own poets said we’re God’s “offspring” (v.28).  We’re His offspring by creation (Lu.3:23, 38), but His children by faith (Gal.3:26).  But since offspring resemble their fathers, and we “live” and “move,” they shouldn’t think God is an idol that doesn’t live and move (Acts 17:29).

“Winked at” (v.30) means to overlook, as when a grandfather winks at a grandson who did wrong instead of punishing him.  God overlooked idolatry in Gentiles for 2,000 years (Acts 14:15,16) because He intended to get the Jews saved and have them tell Gentiles to repent.  So He didn’t suffer idolatry in Jews (Ezek.14:6), but He suffered it in Gentiles—until Paul.  He then sent Paul to tell “all men” to repent of idolatry (Acts 17:30cf.26:20), not just Jewish men.

They knew what “man” Paul meant (v.31cf.v.18). God made Him the world’s judge (Jo.5:22,27) because He could judge as one who’d been tempted and didn’t sin.  Men thought they got rid of their judge when He died, but they didn’t!

A video of this sermon is available on YouTube: “Paul’s Answer To Superstition” Acts 17:22-34

Summary:

How important is it to search the Scriptures (v.10,11)?  Even the prophets who wrote the Scriptures searched them (I Peter 1:10,11), as did angels (v.12 cf. Eph.3:10). “Noble” (Acts 17:11) refers to noblemen (Acts 24:3), and Luke wrote Acts to a nobleman (Acts 1:1cf.Luke1:3; Acts 23:26).  He was reminding Theophilus that he may be noble in men’s eyes, but he’d have to search the Scriptures to be noble in God’s eyes.

History’s greatest nobleman said, “It is the glory of God to conceal a thing: but the honour of kings is to search out a matter” (Pr.25:1,2).  It was the glory of God that He was able to conceal Paul’s mystery (ICor.2:7,8) from the devil himself.  It wasn’t hid in Scripture, it was hid in the heart and mind of God (Eph.3:9). But now that Paul’s written 13 epistles about it, it’s our honor to search it out in those epistles. 

We know God was thinking about the mystery when He inspired Solomon to write Proverbs 25, for verse 3 says it is the honor of kings to search out a matter, “the heaven for height, and the earth for depth” (cf.Eph.3:1-3,18).  When Proverbs 25:3 ends, “and the heart of kings is unsearchable,” hindsight tells us God had the mystery in mind there, because the heart of the King of kings is certainly unsearchable!

But if Paul told the Bereans about the mystery, how did they search the Scriptures to see if it was so if the mystery isn’t in the Old Testament Scriptures?  He said, “It’s not there.  If you don’t believe me, search and see!”  When they did, they found it was so! They also found what James found when he heard about the mystery from Paul—it “agreed” with the Old Testament (Acts15:15). He’d have known the mystery was not so if it didn’t, because God never contradicts Himself.  And the Bereans knew it was so for that reason as well.

Only some in Thessalonica got saved (Acts17:4), but many Bereans did (v.12) because they searched the Scriptures.

Paul went to Athens (Acts 17:13-15) because it was such an influential city.  He didn’t usually order his helpers around (v.15), but he knew the importance of fellowship, even for a great apostle like himself.  Looking around Athens, he saw what history says were 30,000 idols (v.16).  So he was itching to witness to some idolaters, but he didn’t let that keep him from doing what God sent him to do and go to the Jews first (v.17).  You shouldn’t let anything you see around you keep you from preaching Christ & the mystery either.

The Greeks were famous for philosophers. Epicureans (v.18) believed man’s chief goal in life was to get pleasure, while Stoicks believed in stoically accepting whatever lack of pleasure life brought.  These were opposite philosophies, much like Corinthianism and Galatianism.  The Corinthians were guilty of pleasurable sins like fornication, but the Galatians were guilty of legalism.  Legalism denied that pleasure, but it also denied the good kinds of pleasure, like giving(Gal. 4:15 cf.Acts 20:35).  All the sins Christians commit fall into one or the other category, and all philosophies are either the lust of Epicurean flesh or the lust of Stoic mind (Eph.2:3).

Babble (Acts 17:18) means to speak incoherently, like a drunk (Pr.23:29,30).  Greeks called anyone who wasn’t Greek a barbarian (Rom.1:14) because it sounded like they were saying bar bar to them.  They had gods of abstract things like harmony and democracy, so they thought Paul preached the gods of Jesus and resurrection.  This shows he didn’t believe you had to study a false religion to win proponents of it, as some say today (cf.Deut.12:30;Rom.16:19).

The “Areopagus” (Acts 17:19) was named after the Greek god Ares, whom the Romans renamed Mars, and “pagus” means hill, so Paul followed them to “Mars’ Hill” (v.22).  This is a tale of three cities because those in Thessalonica were too closeminded, and the Athenians were too openminded (v.21).  In between stood the Bereans, who kept an open mind to new truth, then searched to see if it was truth.

A video of this sermon is available on YouTube: “A Tale Of Three Cities” Acts 17:10-21