Atos 17
Marvin Vincent · Citado em PreceptAustin
Atos 17
Vincent - The charge at Philippi was that of introducing new customs; but as Thessalonica was not a colony, that charge could have no force there. The accusation substituted is that of treason against the emperor; that of which Jesus was accused before Pilate. “The law of treason, by which the ancient legislators of the republic had sought to protect popular liberty from the encroachments of tyranny, … was gradually concentrated upon the emperor alone, the sole impersonation of the sovereign people. The definition of the crime itself was loose and elastic, such as equally became the jealousy of a licentious republic or of a despotic usurper” (Merivale, “History of the Romans under the Empire”). (Acts 17 - Vincent's Word Studies) Regarding another king
Atos 17
Vincent writes that pisteuo "means to persuade, to cause belief, to induce one to do something by persuading, and so runs into the meaning of to obey, properly as the result of persuasion." This passage is a beautiful illustration of the principle Jesus declared in John 5... For if you believed Moses, you would believe Me; for he wrote of Me. (Jn 5:46) Believing the OT, many of the Bereans believed the Gospel of Christ, for in fact the Gospel is found in the OT. In Galatians Paul declares... And the Scripture, foreseeing that God would justify the Gentiles by faith, preached the gospel beforehand to Abraham, saying, "ALL THE NATIONS SHALL BE BLESSED IN YOU." (Gal 3:8) Regarding the phrase many of them therefore believed John
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Vincent - The word, which occurs only here in the New Testament, and nowhere in classical Greek, means full of idols. It applies to the city, not to the inhabitants. “We learn from Pliny that at the time of Nero, Athens contained over three thousand public statues, besides a countless number of lesser images within the walls of private houses. Of this number the great majority were statues of gods, demi-gods, or heroes. In one street there stood before every house a square pillar carrying upon it a bust of the god Hermes. Another street, named the Street of the Tripods, was lined with tripods, dedicated by winners in the Greek national games, and carrying each one an inscription to a deity. Every gateway and porch carried its protecting god. Every street, every square, nay, every purlieu, had its sanctuaries, and a Roman poet bitterly remarked that it was easier in Athens to find gods than men” (G. S. Davies, “St. Paul in Greece”). Zodhiates kateidolos "is a peculiar word describing the deisidaímones (1174 - piety that leads to fear instead of worship), superstitious, those wholly given up to the worship of false gods (Acts 17:22)." (BORROW The Complete Word Study Dictionary: New Testament)
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Vincent - Epicureans = Disciples of Epicurus, and atheists. They acknowledged God in words, but denied his providence and superintendence over the world. According to them, the soul was material and annihilated at death. Pleasure was their chief good; and whatever higher sense their founder might have attached to this doctrine, his followers, in the apostle's day, were given to gross sensualism. Stoics = Pantheists. God was the soul of the world, or the world was God. Everything was governed by fate, to which God himself was subject. They denied the universal and perpetual immortality of the soul; some supposing that it was swallowed up in deity; others, that it survived only till the final conflagration; others, that immortality was restricted to the wise and good. Virtue was its own reward, and vice its own punishment. Pleasure was no good, and pain no evil. The name Stoic was derived from stoaa porch. Zeno, the founder of the Stoic sect, held his school in the Stoa Poecile, or painted portico, so called because adorned with pictures by the best masters. (Acts 17 - Vincent's Word Studies) Stoics (Stoicism - Wikipedia) - This group believed God was the world's soul, and life's goal was to rise above all things, showing no emotional response to either pain or pleasure. The Stoics were pantheists, much like modern New Age evolutionists. They rejected the idolatry of pagan worship and taught that there was one World God. The Stoics emphasized personal discipline and self-control and their goal in life was to follow one's reason and be self-sufficient, unmoved by inner feelings or outward circumstances. It telling that the first two leaders of the Stoics committed suicide. The doctrine of the Stoics taught that human beings should be free from passion, unmoved by joy or grief, and submissive to natural law, calmly accepting all things as the result of divine will. Zeno of Citium (c. 334 – c. 262 BC) taught in the Stoa (Porch), and his teaching accordingly was called Stoicism. He advanced many noble ideas, such as self-mastery, but occasionally he or his followers would adhere to the ideas with such strictness that their austerity led to immense pride, and suicide became the solution for failure. Thus, many followers were distinctly selfish and unloving, frequently espousing a pantheistic world view (Modern day New Age Movement). Pantheism says that god is the all, and therefore all that exists is god. God is almost always an impersonal god in any pantheistic system. John
Atos 17
Vincent - Areopagus = The Hill of Mars: the seat of the ancient and venerable Athenian court which decided the most solemn questions connected with religion. Socrates was arraigned and condemned here on the charge of innovating on the state religion. It received its name from the legend of the trial of Mars for the murder of the son of Neptune. The judges sat in the open air upon seats hewn out in the rock, on a platform ascended by a flight of stone steps immediately from the market-place. A temple of Mars was on the brow of the edifice, and the sanctuary of the Furies was in a broken cleft of the rock immediately below the judges' seats. The Acropolis rose above it, with the Parthenon and the colossal statue of Athene. “It was a scene with which the dread recollections of centuries were associated. Those who withdrew to the Areopagus from the Agora, came, as it were, into the presence of a higher power. No place in Athens was so suitable for a discourse upon the mysteries of religion” (Conybeare and Hewson). (Acts 17 - Vincent's Word Studies) May we know what this new teaching is which you are proclaiming - Their question is a great one! The word for know (ginosko) means to know by experience, the very word Jesus used in His last great prayer in John 17 declaring "“This is eternal life, that they may know (ginosko) You, the only true God, and Jesus Christ whom You have sent." (Jn 17:3). Teaching (1322)(didache from didasko = to give instruction in a formal or informal setting with the highest possible development of the pupil as the goal; English = didactic = intended to teach, particularly in having moral instruction as an ulterior motive) is a noun which describes the activity of teaching (instruction). In the passive sense, it describes teaching which is given. In Acts 2:42+ didache describes the early church giving primacy to "the apostles’ teaching." The Jewish religious leaders instructed the apostles saying “We gave you strict orders not to continue teaching in this name, and yet, you have filled Jerusalem with your teaching and intend to bring this man’s blood upon us.”(Acts 5:28+) And in Acts 13:12+ "the proconsul believed when he saw what had happened, being amazed at the teaching of the Lord." This last use is intriguing in the present context, for here are these philosophically disposed men who want to know the teaching and clearly Paul has been giving out the "teaching of the Lord." So the seed was the same for the Proconsul and the Philosophers, and the soil of the former was good (Lk 8:15), while the soil of the hearts of the philosophers was not so good (in Acts 17:32 some sneered, some wanted more, but in Acts 17:34 only a few received the Word implanted able to save their souls - James 1:21+). The "seed" which constituted Paul's teaching was good. Proclaiming (2980)(laleo) is the Greek verb meaning to make a sound and then to utter words. Note the present tense indicating Paul was continuously speaking this teaching again giving us all a pattern to imitate (1 Cor 11:1). Areopagus (Areopagus - Wikipedia) - AREOPAGUS - ar-e-op'-a-gus (Areios pagos; Acts 17:19,22. Mars' Hill, Acts 17:22 the King James Version): A sort of spur jutting out from the western end of the Acropolis and separated from it by a very short saddle. Traces of old steps cut in the rock are still to be seen. Underneath are deep grottoes, once the home of the Eumenides (Furies). On the flat surface of the summit are signs still visible of a smoothing of the stone for seats. Directly below to the North was the old Athenian agora, or market-place. To the East, on the descent from the Acropolis, could be seen in antiquity a small semicircular platform--the orchestra--from which rose the precipitous rock of the citadel. Here the booksellers kept their stalls; here the work of Anaxagoras could be bought for a drachma; from here his physical philosophy was disseminated, then, through Euripides, the poetic associate of Socrates and the sophists, leavened the drama, and finally reached the people of Athens. Then came the Stoics and Epicureans who taught philosophy and religion as a system, not as a faith, and spent their time in searching out some new thing in creed and dogma and opinion. Five centuries earlier Socrates was brought to this very Areopagus to face the charges of his accusers. To this same spot the apostle Paul came almost five hundred years after 399 BC, when the Attic martyr was executed, with the same earnestness, the same deep-rooted convictions, and with even greater ardor, to meet the philosophers of fashion. The Athenian guides will show you the exact place where the apostle stood, and in what direction he faced when he addressed his audience. No city has ever seen such a forest of statues as studded the market-place, the streets and the sides and summit of the Acropolis of Athens. A large part of this wealth of art was in full view of the speaker, and the apostle naturally made this extraordinary display of votive statues and offerings the starting-point of his address. He finds the Athenians extremely religious. He had found an altar to a god unknown. Then he develops theme of the great and only God, not from the Hebrew, but from the Greek, the Stoic point of view. His audiences consisted, on the one hand, of the advocates of prudence as the means, and pleasure as the end (the Epicureans); on the other, of the advocates of duty, of living in harmony with the intelligence which rules the world for good. He frankly expresses his sympathy with the nobler principles of the Stoic doctrine. But neither Stoic nor Epicurean could believe the declarations of the apostle: the latter believed death to be the end of all things, the former thought that the soul at death was absorbed again into that from which it sprang. Both understood Paul as proclaiming to them in Jesus and Anastasis ("resurrection") some new deities. When they finally ascertained that Jesus was ordained by God to judge the world, and that Anastasis was merely the resurrection of the dead, they were disappointed. Some scoffed, others departed, doubtless with the feeling that they had already given audience too long to such a fanatic. The Areopagus, or Hill of Ares, was the ancient seat of the court of the same name, the establishment of which leads us far back into the mythical period long before the dawn of history. This court exercised the right of capital punishment. In 594 BC the jurisdiction in criminal cases was given to the archons who had discharged the duties of their office well and honorably, consequently to the noblest, richest and most distinguished citizens of Athens. The Areopagus saw that the laws in force were observed and executed by the properly constituted authorities; it could bring officials to trial for their acts while in office, even raise objections to all resolutions of the Council and of the General Assembly, if the court perceived a danger to the state, or subversion of the constitution. The Areopagus also protected the worship of the gods, the sanctuaries and sacred festivals, and the olive trees of Athens; and it supervised the religious sentiments of the people, the moral conduct of the citizens, as well as the education of the youth. Without waiting for a formal accusation the Areopagus could summon any citizen to court, examine, convict and punish him. Under unusual circumstances full powers could be granted by the people to this body for the conduct of various affairs of state; when the safety of the city was menaced, the court acted even without waiting for full power to be conferred upon it. The tenure of office was for life, and the number of members without restriction. The court sat at night at the end of each month and for three nights in succession. The place of meeting was a simple house, built of clay, which was still to be seen in the time of Vitruvius. The Areopagus, hallowed by the sacred traditions of the past, a dignified and august body, was independent of and uninfluenced by the wavering discordant multitude, and was not affected by the ever-changing public opinion. Conservative almost to a fault, it did the state good service by holding in check the too rash and radical younger spirits. When the democratic party came to power, after Cimon's banishment, one of its first acts was to limit the powers of the Areopagus. By the law of Ephialtes in 460 the court lost practically all jurisdiction. The supervision of the government was transferred to the nomophulakes (law-guardians). At the end of the Peloponnesian war, however, in 403 its old rights were restored. The court remained in existence down to the time of the emperors. From Acts 17:19,22 we learn that it existed in the time of Claudius. One of its members was converted to the Christian faith (17:34). It was probably abolished by Vespasian. -- J. E. Harry (International Standard Bible Encyclopedia) Acts 17:20 For you are bringing some strange things to our ears; so we want to know what these things mean. strange Hosea 8:12; Matthew 19:23-25; Mark 10:24-26; John 6:60; 7:35,36; 1Corinthians 1:18,23; 1Corinthians 2:14; Hebrews 5:11; 1Peter 4:4 what Acts 17:2:12; 10:17; Mark 9:10 Acts 17 Resources - Multiple Sermons and Commentaries Acts 17:16-34 God's Man Confronts Satan's City - John MacArthur Acts 17:16-34 The God of Resurrection - John MacArthur THE GOSPEL IS STRANGE TO NATURAL MEN! For (gar) - Term of explanation. This explains their statement "new teaching" which they describe as "strange." You are bringing some strange things to our ears - "things surprising or shocking us." Paul was "bringing" Jesus and the resurrection and clearly they had never heard this teaching before. And this was the honey that attracted the bees so to speak. The Athenians ("bees") were attracted to any and all "new teaching" so Paul would be given a hearing by the erudite fools. Bringing (1533)(eisphero from eis = in or to, into + phero = to bring, bear) means literally to bring into as in Lk 5:18, 19, Heb 13:11. Figuratively in the present passage eisphero means to bring into someone's ears and so to "announce."
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Vincent - to an unknown God. The origin of these altars, of which there were several in Athens, is a matter of conjecture. Hackett's remarks on this point are sensible, and are borne out by the following words: “whom therefore,” etc. “The most rational explanation is unquestionably that of those who suppose these altars to have had their origin in the feeling of uncertainty, inherent, after all, in the minds of the heathen, whether their acknowledgment of the superior powers was sufficiently full and comprehensive; in their distinct consciousness of the limitation and imperfection of their religious views, and their consequent desire to avoid the anger of any still unacknowledged god who might be unknown to them. That no deity might punish them for neglecting his worship, or remain uninvoked in asking for blessings, they not only erected altars to all the gods named or known among them, but, distrustful still lest they might not comprehend fully the extent of their subjection and dependence, they erected them also to any other god or power that might exist, although as yet unrevealed to them … .Under these circumstances an allusion to one of these altars by the apostle would be equivalent to his saying to the Athenians thus: 'You are correct in acknowledging a divine existence beyond any which the ordinary rites of your worship recognize; there is such an existence. You are correct in confessing that this Being is unknown to you; you have no just conceptions of his nature and perfections.'” (Acts 17 - Vincent's Word Studies) Calvin said it is better to have knowledge of God than to worship without knowing Him, for God cannot be worshiped reverently unless He first becomes known. What irony -- Athenians the bastion of "learning" does not know the "god" and yet worships him. In so doing, they are in effect acknowledging that such a deity exists, but they have no knowledge of Him. Their worship is deficient because their knowledge is deficient. Worship is related to the word "worthy." If you do not know something, it is ludicrous to ascribe it worth! It is into this "spiritual (deity) vacuum" that Paul introduces the Worthy One, the Only God worthy of our worship! Paul proceeds to explain that this God is not only their Creator and Giver of breath (Acts 17:25), the Determiner of the length of their life ("having determined their appointed times" - Acts 17:26) but He will one day be their Righteous Judge! (Acts 17:31) A. W. Pink has the following note regarding knowing God - God can only be known by means of a supernatural revelation of Himself Apart from the Scriptures, even a theoretical acquaintance with Him is impossible. It still holds true that 'the world by wisdom knew not God' (1Cor 1:21). Where the Scriptures are ignored, God is "the unknown God' (Acts 17:23). But something more than the Scriptures is required before the soul can know God, know Him in a real, personal, vital way. This seems to be recognized by few today. The prevailing practice assumes that a knowledge of God can be obtained through studying the Word, in the same way as a knowledge of chemistry may be secured by mastering its textbooks. An intellectual knowledge of God maybe; not so a spiritual one. A supernatural God can only be known supernatural (i.e. known in a manner above that which mere nature can acquire), by a supernatural revelation of Himself to the heart. 'God, who commanded the light to shine out of darkness, hath shined in our hearts, to give the light of the knowledge of the glory of God in the face of Jesus Christ' (2Cor 4:6). The one who has been favored with this supernatural experience has learned that only 'in thy light shall we see light' (Ps 36:9-note). PAUL IS BOLD Therefore what you worship in ignorance, this I proclaim to you - More literally this reads "that you worship without knowing." Earlier they had accused him to be a proclaimer of strange deities. Now he proceeds to explain to the the identity of the unknown God. He is seeking to correct their ignorance by describing Him in the following passages. Paul's sermon might be entitled "Getting to Know the Unknown God!" As
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Vincent on chleuazo - Only here in New Testament (3x in the apocryphal Septuagint - 2Macc 7:27; 4Macc 5:22; Wisdom 11:14) , though a compound, diachleuazo, mock, occurs, according to the best texts, at Acts 2:13. The force of the imperfect, began to mock, should be given here in the translation, as marking the outbreak of derision. The response is not surprising for whenever one preaches or witnesses of the creation and resurrection to unbelievers, especially to modern day Stoics (atheists) or Epicureans (pantheists, New Agers), many ridicule, some defer judgment, and some believe.
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Vincent - In this remarkable speech of Paul are to be noted: his prudence and tact in not needlessly offending his hearers; his courtesy and spirit of conciliation in recognizing their piety toward their gods; his wisdom and readiness in the use of the inscription “to the unknown God,” and in citing their own poets; his meeting the radical errors of every class of his hearers, while seeming to dwell only on points of agreement; his lofty views of the nature of God and the great principle of the unity of the human race; his boldness in proclaiming Jesus and the resurrection among those to whom these truths were foolishness; the wonderful terseness and condensation of the whole, and the rapid but powerful and assured movement of the thought. Jack Andrews on others said, “We shall hear you again concerning this.” We can respond aggressively against the message or we can respond apathetically towards the message. Both responses are wrong. These folks that Luke reminds us of were not aggressive against the message, but they were not accepting of the message. It is an awful thing to receive this kind of response in the world, but it is even worse when there is apathy within the church. R. Kent
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Vincent adds Areopagite refers to "One of the judges of the court of Areopagus. Of this court Curtius remarks: “Here, instead of a single judge, a college of twelve men of proved integrity conducted the trial. If the accused had an equal number of votes for and against him, he was acquitted. The Court on the hill of Ares is one of the most ancient institutions of Athens, and none achieved for the city an earlier or more widely spread recognition. The Areopagitic penal code was adopted as a norm by all subsequent legislators” (“History of Greece,” i., 307)." R Kent