Acts Chapter 17 Study Guide

Family Study Guide for January 4, 2006 - January 10, 2007
(Read Acts 17 Online)

Reflections on Acts 17 by Mark Chesner, Coach

There is an interesting idea that you can see floating around the American airwaves. It is that a religious person must be fundamentally illogical - a slave to their emotions, who is somehow weak in needing God as a "crutch". This idea is commonly espoused by atheists and agnostics on the airwaves, as they attempt to tear down religious arguments and assumptions, and for some reason many Christians have accepted this. They tend to assume they need to check their brain at the door of the church on Sunday, and pick it up again for school or work on Monday.

Acts 17 shows us that this idea is simply wrong. As we see Paul going from town to town, and place to place within the towns, he is not acting the part of a hyper-emotional preacher, but rather carefully laying out the facts of Jesus's life and the logic of his identity as the Messiah. Consider these verses:

As his custom was, Paul went into the synagogue, and on three Sabbath days he reasoned with them from the Scriptures, explaining and proving that the Christ had to suffer and rise from the dead. "This Jesus I am proclaiming to you is the Christ," he said.
Acts 17:2-3

Now the Bereans were of more noble character than the Thessalonians, for they received the message with great eagerness and examined the Scriptures every day to see if what Paul said was true.
Acts 17:11

So he reasoned in the synagogue with the Jews and the God-fearing Greeks, as well as in the marketplace day by day with those who happened to be there. 18A group of Epicurean and Stoic philosophers began to dispute with him.
Acts 17:17-18

You will note in each of these passages that Paul is not appealing to his audience's emotions and unreasoning fears, but rather to their minds. Furthermore, the author of Acts praises he Bereans especially because they did not take Paul's words at face value, but compared them to the prophecies in scripture! Apparently, Paul's favorite audience is the one who is intellectually engaged and eager to learn.

Christians need to be aware that when the world tells us that religious people are somehow inferiour intellectually, they are ignoring the evidence of history. Christians are a reasoning and reasonable people who are eager to find audiences who want to honestly evaluate the intellectual side of the gospel. Let us not forget that many of our modern heroes - Josh McDowell and C.S. Lewis among others - actually started out as atheists or agnostics who set out to disprove the claims of scripture. But scripture holds up under scrutiny, and general converts those who give it an honest evaluation.

Questions to Consider
- When has someone tried to convince you that Christianity is illogical? How did you answer them?
- Have you ever wondered why some of the greatest philosophers and scientists of the past were also devout believers? Do you think that is a coincidence or an accident of history, or an indication of something else?
- How can you bring your intellect to bear on scripture to prove out what it says?

Bible.Org Outline for Acts 17
B. Thessalonica (17:1-9)
1. Through Amphipolis and Apollonia (17:1a)
2. In Thessalonica (17:1b-9)
a. Paul’s Proclamation in the Synagogue (17:1b-3)
b. The Conversion of Some Jews and Greeks (17:4)
c. The Hostility of other Jews (17:5-9)
C. Berea (17:10-14)
D. Athens (17:15-34)
1. Discussion in the Agora (17:15-18)
2. Dispute on the Areopagus (17:19-34)
a. Paul’s Message (17:19-31)
b. The Athenians’ Reaction (17:32-34)