Study Desk

and bringing the Apostles up into his house, he spread a meal for them, and was filled with gladness, with his whole household, his faith resting on God.

Paul--following his usual custom--betook himself to it, and for three successive Sabbaths reasoned with them from the Scriptures,

Jason has received them into his house; and they all set Caesar's authority at defiance, declaring that there is another Emperor-- one called Jesus."

While Paul was waiting for them in Athens, his spirit was stirred within him when he noticed that the city was full of idols.

A few of the Epicurean and Stoic philosophers also encountered him. Some of them asked, "What has this beggarly babbler to say?" "His business," said others, "seems to be to cry up some foreign gods." This was because he had been telling the Good News of Jesus and the Resurrection.

So Paul, taking his stand in the centre of the Areopagus, spoke as follows: "Men of Athens, I perceive that you are in every respect remarkably religious.

For it is in closest union with Him that we live and move and have our being; as in fact some of the poets in repute among yourselves have said, `For we are also His offspring.'

Since then we are God's offspring, we ought not to imagine that His nature resembles gold or silver or marble, or anything sculptured by the art and inventive faculty of man.

Here he found a Jew, a native of Pontus, of the name of Aquila. He and his wife Priscilla had recently come from Italy because of Claudius's edict expelling all the Jews from Rome. So Paul paid them a visit;

But upon their opposing him with abusive language, he shook his clothes by way of protest, and said to them, "Your ruin will be upon your own heads. I am not responsible: in future I will go among the Gentiles."

So he left the place and went to the house of a person called Titius Justus, a worshipper of the true God. His house was next door to the synagogue.

And Crispus, the Warden of the synagogue, believed in the Lord, and so did all his household; and from time to time many of the Corinthians who heard Paul believed and received baptism.

But, when Paul was about to begin his defence, Gallio said to the Jews, "If it had been some wrongful act or piece of cunning knavery I might reasonably have listened to you Jews.

After remaining a considerable time longer in Corinth, Paul took leave of the brethren and set sail for Syria; and Priscilla and Aquila were with him. He had shaved his head at Cenchreae, because he was bound by a vow.

They put in at Ephesus, and there Paul left his companions behind. As for himself, he went to the synagogue and had a discussion with the Jews.

Then, as he had made up his mind to cross over into Greece, the brethren wrote to the disciples in Corinth begging them to give him a kindly welcome. Upon his arrival he rendered valuable help to those who through grace had believed;

and when Paul laid his hands upon them, the Holy Spirit came on them, and they began to speak in tongues and to prophesy.

When matters had reached this point, Paul decided in his own mind to travel through Macedonia and Greece, and go to Jerusalem. "After that," he said, "I must also see Rome."

But he sent two of his assistants, Timothy and Erastus, to Macedonia, while he himself remained for a while in Roman Asia.

There was a certain Demetrius, a silversmith, who made miniature silver sanctuaries of Diana, a business which brought great gain to the mechanics in his employ.