M’Cheyne Bible Reading Plan
Another king!
17 Paul and Silas traveled through Amphipolis and Apollonia, and came to Thessalonica, where there was a Jewish synagogue. 2 Paul went there, as he usually did, and for three sabbaths he spoke to them, expounding the scriptures, 3 interpreting and explaining that it was necessary for the Messiah to suffer and to rise from the dead, and that “This Jesus, that I am announcing to you, is the Messiah.” 4 Some of them were persuaded, and threw in their lot with Paul and Silas, including a large crowd of godfearing Greeks, together with quite a few of the leading women.
5 But the Jews were righteously indignant. They took some villainous men from the marketplace, drew a crowd, and threw the city into an uproar. They besieged Jason’s house and searched for Paul and Silas, to bring them out to the mob. 6 When they couldn’t find them, they dragged Jason and some of the Christians before the town authorities.
“These are the people who are turning the world upside down!” they yelled. “Now they’ve come here! 7 Jason has had them in his house! They are all acting against the decrees of Caesar—and they’re saying that there is another king, Jesus!”
8 When they heard these words, the crowd and the authorities were both greatly agitated. 9 They bound over Jason and the others, and then dismissed them.
Paul reaches Athens
10 The Christians in Thessalonica quickly sent Paul and Silas on, by night, to Beroea. When they got there, they went to the Jewish synagogue. 11 The people there were more generous in spirit than those in Thessalonica. They received the word with considerable eagerness, searching the scriptures day by day to see if what they were hearing was indeed the case. 12 Many of them became believers, including some of the well-born Greek women, and quite a few men.
13 But when the Jews from Thessalonica knew that the word of God had been proclaimed by Paul in Beroea, too, they came there as well, stirring up trouble and whipping up the crowd. 14 So the Christians quickly sent Paul away as far as the seacoast, while Silas and Timothy remained behind. 15 Those who were conducting Paul brought him all the way to Athens, where he told them to tell Silas and Timothy to join him as soon as possible. Then they left him there.
16 So Paul waited in Athens. While he was there, his spirit was stirred up as he saw the whole city absolutely full of idols. 17 He argued in the synagogue with the Jews and the godfearers, and in the marketplace every day with those who happened to be there. 18 Some of the Epicurean and Stoic philosophers were disputing with him.
“What can this word-scatterer be on about?” some were saying.
“He seems to be proclaiming foreign divinities,” declared others—since he was preaching “Jesus and Anastasis.” (“Anastasis” means “resurrection.”) 19 So they took him up to the Areopagus.
“Are we able to know,” they said, “what this new teaching really is that you are talking about? 20 You are putting very strange ideas into our minds. We’d like to find out what it all means.”
21 All the Athenians, and the foreigners who live there, spend their time simply and solely in telling and hearing the latest novelty.
Paul among the philosophers
22 So Paul stood up in the midst of the Areopagus.
“Men of Athens,” he said, “I see that you are in every way an extremely religious people. 23 For as I was going along and looking at your objects of worship, I saw an altar with the inscription, TO AN UNKNOWN GOD. Well: I’m here to tell you about what it is that you are worshiping in ignorance. 24 The God who made the world and everything in it, the one who is Lord of heaven and earth, doesn’t live in temples made by human hands. 25 Nor does he need to be looked after by human hands, as though he lacked something, since he himself gives life and breath and all things to everyone. 26 He made from one stock every race of humans to live on the whole face of the earth, allotting them their properly ordained times and the boundaries for their dwellings. 27 The aim was that they would search for God, and perhaps reach out for him and find him. Indeed, he is actually not far from each one of us, 28 for in him we live and move and exist; as also some of your own poets have put it, ‘For we are his offspring.’
29 “Well, then, if we really are God’s offspring, we ought not to suppose that the divinity is like gold or silver or stone, formed by human skill and ingenuity. 30 That was just ignorance; but the time for it has passed, and God has drawn a veil over it. Now, instead, he commands all people everywhere to repent, 31 because he has established a day on which he intends to call the world to account with full and proper justice by a man whom he has appointed. God has given all people his pledge of this by raising this man from the dead.”
32 When they heard about the resurrection of the dead, some of them ridiculed Paul. But others said, “We will give you another hearing about this.” 33 So Paul went out from their presence. 34 But some people joined him and believed, including Dionysius, a member of the court of the Areopagus, and a woman named Damaris, and others with them.
The parable of the tenants
12 Jesus began to speak to them with parables.
“Once upon a time,” he began, “there was a man who planted a vineyard. He built a fence around it, dug out a wine-press, built a watchtower, and then let it out to tenant farmers. He himself went abroad. 2 When the time came he sent a slave to the farmers to collect from them his portion of the vineyard’s produce. 3 They seized him, beat him and sent him away empty-handed.
4 “So again he sent another slave to them. This one they beat about the head, and treated shamefully. 5 He sent another, and they killed him. He sent several more; they beat some and killed others.
6 “He had one more to send: his beloved son. He sent him to them last of all, thinking ‘They will respect my son.’
7 “But the tenant farmers said to themselves, ‘This is the heir! Come on—let’s kill him, and we’ll get the inheritance!’ 8 So they seized him and killed him, and threw him out of the vineyard.
9 “So what will the vineyard owner do? He will come and destroy those tenants, and give the vineyard to others. 10 Or haven’t you read the scripture which says,
There is the stone the builders refused;
now it’s in place at the top of the corner.
11 This was the way the Lord planned it;
we were astonished to see it.”
12 They tried to find a way of arresting him, because they realized he had directed the parable against them. But they were afraid of the crowd. They left him and went away.
On paying taxes to Caesar
13 They sent some Pharisees to Jesus, and some Herodians, to try to trick him into saying the wrong thing.
14 “Teacher,” they said, “we know you are a man of integrity; you don’t regard anybody as special. You don’t bother about the outward show people put up; you teach God’s way truly.
“Well then: is it lawful to give tribute to Caesar or not? Should we pay it, or shouldn’t we?”
15 He knew the game they were playing. “Why are you trying to trap me?” he said. “Bring me a tribute-coin; let me look at it.”
16 They brought one to him.
“This image,” he asked, “whose is it? And whose is this superscription?”
“Caesar’s,” they replied.
17 “Well then,” said Jesus, “give Caesar back what belongs to Caesar—and give God back what belongs to God!”
They were astonished at him.
Marriage and the resurrection
18 Some Sadducees approached Jesus (Sadducees, by the way, deny the resurrection).
19 “Teacher,” they said, “Moses wrote for us that ‘if a man’s brother dies, and leaves a wife but no child, the brother should take the wife and raise up descendants for his brother.’ 20 Well now: there were once seven brothers. The first married a wife, and died without children. 21 The second married the widow, and died without children. The third did so as well, 22 and so did all seven, still without leaving children. Finally the woman died too. 23 So: when they rise again in the resurrection, whose wife will she be? All seven had her, after all.”
24 “Where you’re going wrong,” replied Jesus, “is that you don’t know the scriptures, or God’s power. 25 When people rise from the dead, they don’t marry, nor do people give them in marriage. They are like angels in heaven.
26 “However, to show that the dead are indeed to be raised, surely you’ve read in the book of Moses, in the passage about the bush, what God says to Moses? ‘I am Abraham’s God, Isaac’s God and Jacob’s God’? 27 He isn’t the God of the dead, but of the living. You are completely mistaken.”
The most important commandment
28 One of the legal experts came up, and overheard the discussion. Realizing that Jesus had given a splendid answer, he put a question of his own.
“Which commandment,” he asked, “is the first one of all?”
29 “The first one,” replied Jesus, “is this: ‘Listen, Israel: the Lord your God, the Lord is one; 30 and you shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your understanding, and with all your strength.’ 31 And this is the second one: ‘You shall love your neighbor as yourself.’ No other commandment is greater than these ones.”
32 “Well said, Teacher,” answered the lawyer. “You are right in saying that ‘he is one and that there is no other beside him,’ 33 and that ‘to love him with all the heart, and with all the intelligence, and with all the strength’ and ‘to love one’s neighbor as oneself’ is worth far more than all burnt offerings and sacrifices.”
34 Jesus saw that his answer came out of deep understanding.
“You are not far from God’s kingdom,” he said to him.
After that, nobody dared put any more questions to him.
David’s son and the widow’s mite
35 By way of response to it all, Jesus began to teach in the Temple.
“Why do the experts say,” he asked, “that the Messiah is the son of David? 36 David himself, inspired by the holy spirit, said:
The Lord said to my Lord:
sit at my right hand,
until I place your enemies
right underneath your feet.
37 “David himself calls him ‘Lord’; how then can he be his son?”
The whole crowd listened to him with delight.
38 During his teaching, he said, “Beware of the lawyers! They like to walk about in long robes, and to be greeted in the market-places. 39 They take the chief seats in the synagogue, and the best places at dinner parties. 40 They devour the property of widows, and make long prayers without meaning them. They will receive all the more condemnation.”
41 As he sat opposite the Temple treasury, he watched the crowd putting money into the alms boxes. Lots of rich people put in substantial amounts. 42 Then there came a single poor widow, who put in two tiny coins, together worth a single penny.
43 Jesus called his disciples.
“I’m telling you the truth,” he said. “This poor widow just put more into the treasury than everybody else. 44 You see, all the others were contributing out of their wealth; but she put in everything she had, out of her poverty. It was her whole livelihood.”
Scripture quotations from The New Testament for Everyone are copyright © Nicholas Thomas Wright 2011, 2018, 2019.