Revised Common Lectionary (Semicontinuous)

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.”

¹³ Who is there, then, to harm you if you are eager to do what is right? ¹⁴ But if you do suffer because of your righteous behavior, God’s blessing is upon you! “Don’t fear what they fear; don’t be disturbed.” ¹⁵ Sanctify the Messiah as Lord in your hearts, and always be ready to make a reply to anyone who asks you to explain the hope that is in you. ¹⁶ Do it, though, with gentleness and respect. Hold on to a good conscience, so that when people revile your good behavior in the Messiah they may be ashamed.

Suffering for doing right

¹⁷ It’s better to suffer for good conduct (if God so wills it) than for bad. ¹⁸ For the Messiah, too, suffered once for sins, the just for the unjust, so that he might bring you to God. He was put to death in the flesh, but made alive by the spirit. ¹⁹ In the spirit, too, he went and made the proclamation to the spirits in prison ²⁰ who had earlier on been disobedient during the days of Noah, when God waited in patience. Noah built the ark, in which a few people, eight in fact, were rescued through water. ²¹ That functions as a signpost for you, pointing to baptism, which now rescues you—not by washing away fleshly pollution, but by the appeal to God of a good conscience, through the resurrection of Jesus the Messiah. ²² He has gone into heaven and is at God’s right hand, with angels, authorities and powers subject to him.

¹⁵ “If you love me,” he went on, “you will keep my commands. ¹⁶ Then I will ask the father, and he will give you another helper, to be with you forever. ¹⁷ This other helper is the spirit of truth. The world can’t receive him, because it doesn’t see him or know him. But you know him, because he lives with you, and will be in you.

¹⁸ “I’m not going to leave you bereft. I am coming to you. ¹⁹ Not long from now, the world won’t see me anymore; but you will see me. Because I live, you will live too. ²⁰ On that day you will know that I am in my father, and you in me, and I in you.

²¹ “Anyone who has my commandments and keeps them—that’s the person who loves me. Anyone who loves me will be loved by my father, and I will love them and show myself to them.”