Acts 16–20

Timothy Goes with Paul and Silas

16Paul travelled on to Derbe and Lystra, where a Christian named Timothy lived. His mother, who was also a Christian, was Jewish, but his father was a Greek. ²All the believers in Lystra and Iconium spoke well of Timothy. ³Paul wanted to take Timothy along with him, so he circumcised him. He did so because all the Jews who lived in those places knew that Timothy’s father was Greek. ⁴As they went through the towns, they delivered to the believers the rules decided upon by the apostles and elders in Jerusalem, and told them to obey those rules. ⁵So the churches were made stronger in the faith and grew in numbers every day.

In Troas: Paul’s Vision

⁶They travelled through the region of Phrygia and Galatia because the Holy Spirit did not let them preach the message in the province of Asia. ⁷When they reached the border of Mysia, they tried to go into the province of Bithynia, but the Spirit of Jesus did not allow them. ⁸So they travelled right on through^w Mysia and went to Troas. ⁹That night Paul had a vision in which he saw a Macedonian standing and begging him, “Come over to Macedonia and help us!” ¹⁰As soon as Paul had this vision, we got ready to leave for Macedonia, because we decided that God had called us to preach the Good News to the people there.

In Philippi: the Conversion of Lydia

¹¹We left by ship from Troas and sailed straight across to Samothrace, and the next day to Neapolis. ¹²From there we went inland to Philippi, a city of the first district of Macedonia;^x it is also a Roman colony. We spent several days there. ¹³On the Sabbath we went out of the city to the riverside, where we thought there would be a place where Jews gathered for prayer. We sat down and talked to the women who gathered there. ¹⁴One of those who heard us was Lydia from Thyatira, who was a dealer in purple cloth. She was a woman who worshipped God, and the Lord opened her mind to pay attention to what Paul was saying. ¹⁵After she and the people of her house had been baptized, she invited us, “Come and stay in my house if you have decided that I am a true believer in the Lord.” And she persuaded us to go.

In Prison at Philippi

¹⁶One day as we were going to the place of prayer, we were met by a young servant woman who had an evil spirit that enabled her to predict the future. She earned a lot of money for her owners by telling fortunes. ¹⁷She followed Paul and us, shouting, “These men are servants of the Most High God! They announce to you how you can be saved!” ¹⁸She did this for many days, until Paul became so upset that he turned round and said to the spirit, “In the name of Jesus Christ I order you to come out of her!” The spirit went out of her that very moment.

¹⁹When her owners realized that their chance of making money was gone, they seized Paul and Silas and dragged them to the authorities in the public square. ²⁰They brought them before the Roman officials and said, “These men are Jews, and they are causing trouble in our city. ²¹They are teaching customs that are against our law; we are Roman citizens, and we cannot accept these customs or practice them.” ²²And the crowd joined in the attack against Paul and Silas.

Then the officials tore the clothes off Paul and Silas and ordered them to be whipped. ²³After a severe beating, they were thrown into jail, and the jailer was ordered to lock them up tight. ²⁴Upon receiving this order, the jailer threw them into the inner cell and fastened their feet between heavy blocks of wood.

²⁵About midnight Paul and Silas were praying and singing hymns to God, and the other prisoners were listening to them. ²⁶Suddenly there was a violent earthquake, which shook the prison to its foundations. At once all the doors opened, and the chains fell off all the prisoners. ²⁷The jailer woke up, and when he saw the prison doors open, he thought that the prisoners had escaped; so he pulled out his sword and was about to kill himself. ²⁸But Paul shouted at the top of his voice, “Don’t harm yourself! We are all here!”

²⁹The jailer called for a light, rushed in, and fell trembling at the feet of Paul and Silas. ³⁰Then he led them out and asked, “Sirs, what must I do to be saved?”

³¹They answered, “Believe in the Lord Jesus, and you will be saved—you and your family.” ³²Then they preached the word of the Lord to him and to all the others in his house. ³³At that very hour of the night the jailer took them and washed their wounds; and he and all his family were baptized at once. ³⁴Then he took Paul and Silas up into his house and gave them some food to eat. He and his family were filled with joy, because they now believed in God.

³⁵The next morning the Roman authorities sent police officers with the order, “Let those men go.”

³⁶So the jailer told Paul, “The officials have sent an order for you and Silas to be released. You may leave, then, and go in peace.”

³⁷But Paul said to the police officers, “We were not found guilty of any crime, yet they whipped us in public—and we are Roman citizens! Then they threw us in prison. And now they want to send us away secretly. Not likely! The Roman officials themselves must come here and let us out.”

³⁸The police officers reported these words to the Roman officials; and when they heard that Paul and Silas were Roman citizens, they were afraid. ³⁹So they went and apologized to them; then they led them out of the prison and asked them to leave the city. ⁴⁰Paul and Silas left the prison and went to Lydia’s house. There they met the believers, spoke words of encouragement to them, and left.

In Thessalonica

17Paul and Silas travelled on through Amphipolis and Apollonia and came to Thessalonica, where there was a synagogue. ²According to his usual habit Paul went to the synagogue. There during three Sabbaths he held discussions with the people, quoting ³and explaining the Scriptures and proving from them that the Messiah had to suffer and rise from death. “This Jesus whom I announce to you,” Paul said, “is the Messiah.” ⁴Some of them were convinced and joined Paul and Silas; so did many of the leading women and a large group of Greeks who worshipped God.

⁵But some Jews were jealous and gathered worthless loafers from the streets and formed a mob. They set the whole city in an uproar and attacked the home of a man called Jason, in an attempt to find Paul and Silas and bring them out to the people. ⁶But when they did not find them, they dragged Jason and some other believers before the city authorities and shouted, “These men have caused trouble everywhere! Now they have come to our city, ⁷and Jason has kept them in his house. They are all breaking the laws of the Emperor, saying that there is another king, whose name is Jesus.” ⁸With these words they threw the crowd and the city authorities into an uproar. ⁹The authorities made Jason and the others pay the required amount of money to be released, and then let them go.

In Berea

¹⁰As soon as night came, the believers sent Paul and Silas to Berea. When they arrived, they went to the synagogue. ¹¹The people there were more open-minded than the people in Thessalonica. They listened to the message with great eagerness, and every day they studied the Scriptures to see if what Paul said was really true. ¹²Many of them believed; and many Greek women of high social standing and many Greek men also believed. ¹³But when the Jews in Thessalonica heard that Paul had preached the word of God in Berea also, they came there and started exciting and stirring up the mob. ¹⁴At once the believers sent Paul away to the coast; but both Silas and Timothy stayed in Berea. ¹⁵The men who were taking Paul went with him as far as Athens and then returned to Berea with instructions from Paul that Silas and Timothy should join him as soon as possible.

In Athens

¹⁶While Paul was waiting in Athens for Silas and Timothy, he was greatly upset when he noticed how full of idols the city was. ¹⁷So he held discussions in the synagogue with the Jews and with the Gentiles who worshipped God, and also in the public square every day with the people who happened to pass by. ¹⁸Certain Epicurean and Stoic teachers also debated with him. Some of them asked, “What is this ignorant show-off trying to say?”

Others answered, “He seems to be talking about foreign gods.” They said this because Paul was preaching about Jesus and the resurrection.^{y 19}So they took Paul, brought him before the city council, the Areopagus, and said, “We would like to know what this new teaching is that you are talking about. ²⁰Some of the things we hear you say sound strange to us, and we would like to know what they mean.” ²¹(For all the citizens of Athens and the foreigners who lived there liked to spend all their time telling and hearing the latest new thing.)

²²Paul stood up in front of the city council and said, “I see that in every way you Athenians are very religious. ²³For as I walked through your city and looked at the places where you worship, I found an altar on which is written, ‘To an Unknown God’. That which you worship, then, even though you do not know it, is what I now proclaim to you. ^24*God, who made the world and everything in it, is Lord of heaven and earth and does not live in temples made by human hands. ^25*Nor does he need anything that we can supply by working for him, since it is he himself who gives life and breath and everything else to everyone. ²⁶From one human being he created all races on earth and made them live throughout the whole earth. He himself fixed beforehand the exact times and the limits of the places where they would live. ²⁷He did this so that they would look for him, and perhaps find him as they felt about for him. Yet God is actually not far from any one of us; ²⁸as someone has said,

‘In him we live and move and exist.’

It is as some of your poets have said,

‘We too are his children.’

²⁹Since we are God’s children, we should not suppose that his nature is anything like an image of gold or silver or stone,…