Acts 15:36-18:22

New American Bible (Revised Edition)

V. The Mission of Paul to the Ends of the Earth

Paul and Barnabas Separate. ^36 [a]After some time, Paul said to Barnabas, “Come, let us make a return visit to see how the brothers are getting on in all the cities where we proclaimed the word of the Lord.” ³⁷ Barnabas wanted to take with them also John, who was called Mark, ³⁸ but Paul insisted that they should not take with them someone who had deserted them at Pamphylia and who had not continued with them in their work.^{(A) 39} So sharp was their disagreement that they separated. Barnabas took Mark and sailed to Cyprus. ⁴⁰ But Paul chose Silas and departed after being commended by the brothers to the grace of the Lord. ⁴¹ He traveled through Syria and Cilicia bringing strength to the churches.

Chapter 16

Paul in Lycaonia: Timothy. ¹ He reached [also] Derbe and Lystra where there was a disciple named Timothy, the son of a Jewish woman who was a believer, but his father was a Greek.^{(B) 2} The brothers in Lystra and Iconium spoke highly of him,^{(C) 3} and Paul wanted him to come along with him. On account of the Jews of that region, Paul had him circumcised,^[b] for they all knew that his father was a Greek. ⁴ As they traveled from city to city, they handed on to the people for observance the decisions reached by the apostles and presbyters in Jerusalem. ⁵ Day after day the churches grew stronger in faith and increased in number.

Through Asia Minor. ⁶ They traveled through the Phrygian and Galatian territory because they had been prevented by the holy Spirit from preaching the message in the province of Asia. ⁷ When they came to Mysia, they tried to go on into Bithynia, but the Spirit of Jesus^[c] did not allow them, ⁸ so they crossed through Mysia and came down to Troas. ⁹ During [the] night Paul had a vision. A Macedonian stood before him and implored him with these words, “Come over to Macedonia and help us.” ¹⁰ When he had seen the vision, we^[d] sought passage to Macedonia at once, concluding that God had called us to proclaim the good news to them.

Into Europe. ^11 [e]We set sail from Troas, making a straight run for Samothrace, and on the next day to Neapolis, ¹² and from there to Philippi, a leading city in that district of Macedonia and a Roman colony. We spent some time in that city. ¹³ On the sabbath we went outside the city gate along the river where we thought there would be a place of prayer. We sat and spoke with the women who had gathered there. ¹⁴ One of them, a woman named Lydia, a dealer in purple cloth, from the city of Thyatira, a worshiper of God,^[f] listened, and the Lord opened her heart to pay attention to what Paul was saying. ¹⁵ After she and her household had been baptized, she offered us an invitation, “If you consider me a believer in the Lord, come and stay at my home,” and she prevailed on us.

Imprisonment at Philippi. ¹⁶ As we were going to the place of prayer, we met a slave girl with an oracular spirit,^[g] who used to bring a large profit to her owners through her fortune-telling. ¹⁷ She began to follow Paul and us, shouting, “These people are slaves of the Most High God, who proclaim to you a way of salvation.” ¹⁸ She did this for many days. Paul became annoyed, turned, and said to the spirit, “I command you in the name of Jesus Christ to come out of her.” Then it came out at that moment.

¹⁹ When her owners saw that their hope of profit was gone, they seized Paul and Silas and dragged them to the public square before the local authorities. ²⁰ They brought them before the magistrates^[h] and said, “These people are Jews and are disturbing our city ²¹ and are advocating customs that are not lawful for us Romans to adopt or practice.” ^22 (D)The crowd joined in the attack on them, and the magistrates had them stripped and ordered them to be beaten with rods. ²³ After inflicting many blows on them, they threw them into prison and instructed the jailer to guard them securely. ²⁴ When he received these instructions, he put them in the innermost cell and secured their feet to a stake.

Deliverance from Prison. ²⁵ About midnight, while Paul and Silas were praying and singing hymns to God as the prisoners listened, ²⁶ there was suddenly such a severe earthquake that the foundations of the jail shook; all the doors flew open, and the chains of all were pulled loose. ²⁷ When the jailer woke up and saw the prison doors wide open, he drew [his] sword and was about to kill himself, thinking that the prisoners had escaped. ²⁸ But Paul shouted out in a loud voice, “Do no harm to yourself; we are all here.” ²⁹ He asked for a light and rushed in and, trembling with fear, he fell down before Paul and Silas. ³⁰ Then he brought them out and said, “Sirs, what must I do to be saved?” ³¹ And they said, “Believe in the Lord Jesus and you and your household will be saved.” ³² So they spoke the word of the Lord to him and to everyone in his house. ³³ He took them in at that hour of the night and bathed their wounds; then he and all his family were baptized at once. ³⁴ He brought them up into his house and provided a meal and with his household rejoiced at having come to faith in God.

³⁵ But when it was day, the magistrates sent the lictors^[i] with the order, “Release those men.” ³⁶ The jailer reported the[se] words to Paul, “The magistrates have sent orders that you be released. Now, then, come out and go in peace.” ³⁷ But Paul said to them, “They have beaten us publicly, even though we are Roman citizens and have not been tried, and have thrown us into prison.^(E) And now, are they going to release us secretly? By no means. Let them come themselves and lead us out.”^{[j] 38} The lictors reported these words to the magistrates, and they became alarmed when they heard that they were Roman citizens.^{(F) 39} So they came and placated them, and led them out and asked that they leave the city. ⁴⁰ When they had come out of the prison, they went to Lydia’s house where they saw and encouraged the brothers, and then they left.

Chapter 17

Paul in Thessalonica. ¹ When they took the road through Amphipolis and Apollonia, they reached Thessalonica, where there was a synagogue of the Jews.^{(G) 2} Following his usual custom, Paul joined them, and for three sabbaths he entered into discussions with them from the scriptures, ³ expounding and demonstrating that the Messiah had to suffer and rise from the dead, and that “This is the Messiah, Jesus, whom I proclaim to you.”^{(H) 4} Some of them were convinced and joined Paul and Silas; so, too, a great number of Greeks who were worshipers, and not a few of the prominent women. ⁵ But the Jews became jealous and recruited some worthless men loitering in the public square, formed a mob, and set the city in turmoil. They marched on the house of Jason,^(I) intending to bring them before the people’s assembly. ^6 [k]When they could not find them, they dragged Jason and some of the brothers before the city magistrates, shouting, “These people who have been creating a disturbance all over the world have now come here, ⁷ and Jason has welcomed them.^(J) They all act in opposition to the decrees of Caesar and claim instead that there is another king, Jesus.”^{[l] 8} They stirred up the crowd and the city magistrates who, upon hearing these charges, ⁹ took a surety payment from Jason and the others before releasing them.

Paul in Beroea. ¹⁰ The brothers immediately sent Paul and Silas to Beroea during the night. Upon arrival they went to the synagogue of the Jews. ¹¹ These Jews were more fair-minded than those in Thessalonica, for they received the word with all willingness and examined the scriptures daily to determine whether these things were so.^{(K) 12} Many of them became believers, as did not a few of the influential Greek women and men. ¹³ But when the Jews of Thessalonica learned that the word of God had now been proclaimed by Paul in Beroea also, they came there too to cause a commotion and stir up the crowds. ¹⁴ So the brothers at once sent Paul on his way to the seacoast, while Silas and Timothy remained behind.^{(L) 15} After Paul’s escorts had taken him to Athens, they came away with instructions for Silas and Timothy to join him as soon as possible.

Paul in Athens.^{[m] 16} While Paul was waiting for them in Athens, he grew exasperated at the sight of the city full of idols. ¹⁷ So he debated in the synagogue with the Jews and with the worshipers, and daily in the public square with whoever happened to be there. ¹⁸ Even some of the Epicurean and Stoic philosophers^[n] engaged him in discussion. Some asked, “What is this scavenger trying to say?” Others said, “He sounds like a promoter of foreign deities,” because he was preaching about ‘Jesus’ and ‘Resurrection.’ ¹⁹ They took him and led him to the Areopagus^[o] and said, “May we learn what this new teaching is that you speak of?^{(M) 20} For you bring some strange notions to our ears; we should like to know what these things mean.” ²¹ Now all the Athenians as well as the foreigners residing there used their time for nothing else but telling or hearing something new.

Paul’s Speech at the Areopagus. ²² Then Paul stood up at the Areopagus and said:^[p]

“You Athenians, I see that in every respect you are very religious. ²³ For as I walked around looking carefully at your shrines, I even discovered an altar inscribed, ‘To an Unknown God.’^[q] What therefore you unknowingly worship, I proclaim to you. ²⁴ The God who made the world and all that is in it, the Lord of heaven and earth, does not dwell in sanctuaries made by human hands,^{(N) 25} nor is he served by human hands because he needs anything. Rather it is he who gives to everyone life and breath and everything. ²⁶ He made from one^[r] the whole human race to dwell on the entire surface of the earth, and he fixed the ordered seasons and the boundaries of their regions, ²⁷ so that people might seek God, even perhaps grope for him and find him, though indeed he is not far from any one of us.^{(O) 28} For ‘In him we live and move and have our being,’^[s] as even some of your poets have said, ‘For we too are his offspring.’ ²⁹ Since therefore we are the offspring of God, we ought not to think that the divinity is like an image fashioned from gold, silver, or stone by human art and imagination.^{(P) 30} God has overlooked the times of ignorance, but now he demands that all people everywhere repent ³¹ because he has established a day on which he will ‘judge the world with justice’ through a man he has appointed, and he has provided confirmation for all by raising him from the dead.”^(Q)

³² When they heard about resurrection of the dead, some began to scoff, but others said, “We should like to hear you on this some other time.” ³³ And so Paul left them. ³⁴ But some did join him, and became believers. Among them were Dionysius, a member of the Court of the Areopagus, a woman named Damaris, and others with them.

Chapter 18

Paul in Corinth. ¹ After this he left Athens and went to Corinth. ² There he met a Jew named Aquila,^(R) a native of Pontus, who had recently come from Italy with his wife Priscilla^[t] because Claudius had ordered all the Jews to leave Rome. He went to visit them ³ and, because he practiced the same trade, stayed with them and worked, for they were tentmakers by trade. ⁴ Every sabbath, he entered into discussions in the synagogue, attempting to convince both Jews and Greeks.

⁵ When Silas and Timothy came down from Macedonia, Paul began to occupy himself totally with preaching the word, testifying to the Jews that the Messiah was Jesus. ⁶ When they opposed him and reviled him, he shook out his garments^[u] and said to them, “Your blood be on your heads! I am clear of responsibility. From now on I will go to the Gentiles.”^{(S) 7} So he left there and went to a house belonging to a man named Titus Justus, a worshiper of God;^[v] his house was next to a synagogue.^{(T) 8} Crispus,^[w] the synagogue official,^(U) came to believe in the Lord along with his entire household, and many of the Corinthians who heard believed and were baptized. ^9 (V)One night in a vision the Lord said to Paul, “Do not be afraid. Go on speaking, and do not be silent, ¹⁰ for I am with you. No one will attack and harm you, for I have many people in this city.” ¹¹ He settled there for a year and a half and taught the word of God among them.

Accusations Before Gallio. ¹² But when Gallio was proconsul of Achaia,^[x] the Jews rose up together against Paul and brought him to the tribunal, ¹³ saying, “This man is inducing people to worship God contrary to the law.”^{[y] 14} When Paul was about to reply, Gallio spoke to the Jews, “If it were a matter of some crime or malicious fraud, I should with reason hear the complaint of you Jews; ¹⁵ but since it is a question of arguments over doctrine and titles and your own law, see to it yourselves. I do not wish to be a judge of such matters.” ¹⁶ And he drove them away from the tribunal. ¹⁷ They all seized Sosthenes, the synagogue official, and beat him in full view of the tribunal. But none of this was of concern to Gallio.

Return to Syrian Antioch. ¹⁸ Paul remained for quite some time, and after saying farewell to the brothers he sailed for Syria, together with Priscilla and Aquila. At Cenchreae he had his hair cut^(W) because he had taken a vow.^{[z] 19} When they reached Ephesus, he left them there, while he entered the synagogue and held discussions with the Jews. ²⁰ Although they asked him to stay for a longer time, he did not consent, ²¹ but as he said farewell he promised, “I shall come back to you again, God willing.” Then he set sail from Ephesus. ²² Upon landing at Caesarea, he went up and greeted the church^[aa] and then went down to Antioch.