New Testament Plan

¹Now when they had traveled through Amphipolis and Apollonia, they came to Thessalonica, where there was a synagogue of the Jews.

²And according to Paul’s custom, he visited them, and for three Sabbaths reasoned with them from the Scriptures,

³explaining and giving evidence that the Christ had to suffer and rise from the dead, and saying, “This Jesus whom I am proclaiming to you is the Christ.”

⁴And some of them were persuaded and joined Paul and Silas, along with a large number of the God-fearing Greeks and a significant number of the leading women.

⁵But the Jews, becoming jealous and taking along some wicked men from the marketplace, formed a mob and set the city in an uproar; and they attacked the house of Jason and were seeking to bring them out to the people.

⁶When they did not find them, they began dragging Jason and some brothers before the city authorities, shouting, “These men who have upset the world have come here also;

⁷and Jason has welcomed them, and they all act contrary to the decrees of Caesar, saying that there is another king, Jesus.”

⁸They stirred up the crowd and the city authorities who heard these things.

⁹And when they had received a pledge from Jason and the others, they released them.

¹⁰The brothers immediately sent Paul and Silas away by night to Berea, and when they arrived, they went into the synagogue of the Jews.

¹¹Now these people were more noble-minded than those in Thessalonica, for they received the word with great eagerness, examining the Scriptures daily to see whether these things were so.

¹²Therefore, many of them believed, along with a significant number of prominent Greek women and men.

¹³But when the Jews of Thessalonica found out that the word of God had been proclaimed by Paul in Berea also, they came there as well, agitating and stirring up the crowds.

¹⁴Then immediately the brothers sent Paul out to go as far as the sea; and Silas and Timothy remained there.

¹⁵Now those who escorted Paul brought him as far as Athens; and receiving a command for Silas and Timothy to come to him as soon as possible, they left.

¹⁶Now while Paul was waiting for them in Athens, his spirit was being provoked within him as he observed that the city was full of idols.

¹⁷So he was reasoning in the synagogue with the Jews and the God-fearing Gentiles, and in the marketplace every day with those who happened to be present.

¹⁸And some of the Epicurean and Stoic philosophers as well were conversing with him. Some were saying, “What could this scavenger of tidbits want to say?” Others, “He seems to be a proclaimer of strange deities,”—because he was preaching Jesus and the resurrection.

¹⁹And they took him and brought him to the Areopagus, saying, “May we know what this new teaching is which you are proclaiming?

²⁰For you are bringing some strange things to our ears; so we want to know what these things mean.”

²¹(Now all the Athenians and the strangers visiting there used to spend their time in nothing other than telling or hearing something new.)

²²So Paul stood in the midst of the Areopagus and said, “Men of Athens, I see that you are very religious in all respects.

²³For while I was passing through and examining the objects of your worship, I also found an altar with this inscription, ‘TO AN UNKNOWN GOD.’ Therefore, what you worship in ignorance, this I proclaim to you.

²⁴The God who made the world and everything that is in it, since He is Lord of heaven and earth, does not dwell in temples made by hands;

²⁵nor is He served by human hands, as though He needed anything, since He Himself gives to all people life and breath and all things;

²⁶and He made from one man every nation of mankind to live on all the face of the earth, having determined their appointed times and the boundaries of their habitation,

²⁷that they would seek God, if perhaps they might feel around for Him and find Him, though He is not far from each one of us;

²⁸for in Him we live and move and exist, as even some of your own poets have said, ‘For we also are His descendants.’

²⁹Therefore, since we are the descendants of God, we ought not to think that the Divine Nature is like gold or silver or stone, an image formed by human skill and thought.

³⁰So having overlooked the times of ignorance, God is now proclaiming to mankind that all people everywhere are to repent,

³¹because He has set a day on which He will judge the world in righteousness through a Man whom He has appointed, having furnished proof to all people by raising Him from the dead.”

³²Now when they heard of the resurrection of the dead, some began to scoff, but others said, “We shall hear from you again concerning this.”

³³So Paul went out from among them.

³⁴But some men joined him and believed, among whom also were Dionysius the Areopagite and a woman named Damaris, and others with them.

¹After these events Paul left Athens and went to Corinth.

²And he found a Jew named Aquila, a native of Pontus having recently come from Italy with his wife Priscilla, because Claudius had commanded all the Jews to leave Rome. He came to them,

³and because he was of the same trade he stayed with them, and they worked together, for they were tent-makers by trade.

⁴And Paul was reasoning in the synagogue every Sabbath and trying to persuade Jews and Greeks.

⁵But when Silas and Timothy came down from Macedonia, Paul began devoting himself completely to the word, testifying to the Jews that Jesus was the Christ.

⁶But when they resisted and blasphemed, he shook out his garments and said to them, “Your blood is on your own heads! I am clean. From now on I will go to the Gentiles.”

⁷Then he left the synagogue and went to the house of a man named Titius Justus, a worshiper of God, whose house was next door to the synagogue.

⁸Crispus, the leader of the synagogue, believed in the Lord together with his entire household; and many of the Corinthians, as they listened to Paul, were believing and being baptized.

⁹And the Lord said to Paul by a vision at night, “Do not be afraid any longer, but go on speaking and do not be silent;

¹⁰for I am with you, and no one will attack you to harm you, for I have many people in this city.”

¹¹And he settled there for a year and six months, teaching the word of God among them.

¹²But while Gallio was proconsul of Achaia, the Jews rose up together against Paul and brought him before the judgment seat,

¹³saying, “This man is inciting the people to worship God contrary to the law.”

¹⁴But when Paul was about to open his mouth, Gallio said to the Jews, “If it were a matter of some crime or vicious, unscrupulous act, O Jews, it would be reasonable for me to put up with you;

¹⁵but if there are questions about teaching and persons and your own law, see to it yourselves; I am unwilling to be a judge of these matters.”

¹⁶And he drove them away from the judgment seat.

¹⁷But they all took hold of Sosthenes, the leader of the synagogue, and began beating him in front of the judgment seat. And yet Gallio was not concerned about any of these things.

¹⁸Now Paul, when he had remained many days longer, took leave of the brothers and sisters and sailed away to Syria, and Priscilla and Aquila were with him. Paul first had his hair cut at Cenchrea, for he was keeping a vow.

¹⁹They came to Ephesus, and he left them there. Now he himself entered the synagogue and reasoned with the Jews.

²⁰When they asked him to stay for a longer time, he did not consent,

²¹but took leave of them and said, “I will return to you again if God wills,” and he set sail from Ephesus.

²²When he had landed in Caesarea, he went up to Jerusalem and greeted the church, and went down to Antioch.

²³And after spending some time there, he left and passed successively through the Galatian region and Phrygia, strengthening all the disciples.

²⁴Now a Jew named Apollos, an Alexandrian by birth, an eloquent man, came to Ephesus; and he was proficient in the Scriptures.

²⁵This man had been instructed in the way of the Lord; and being fervent in spirit, he was accurately speaking and teaching things about Jesus, being acquainted only with the baptism of John;

²⁶and he began speaking boldly in the synagogue. But when Priscilla and Aquila heard him, they took him aside and explained the way of God more accurately to him.

²⁷And when he wanted to go across to Achaia, the brothers encouraged him and wrote to the disciples to welcome him; and when he had arrived, he greatly helped those who had believed through grace,

²⁸for he powerfully refuted the Jews in public, demonstrating by the Scriptures that Jesus was the Christ.

¹Now it happened that while Apollos was in Corinth, Paul passed through the upper country and came to Ephesus, and found some disciples.

²He said to them, “Did you receive the Holy Spirit when you believed?” And they said to him, “On the contrary, we have not even heard if there is a Holy Spirit.”

³And he said, “Into what then were you baptized?” And they said, “Into John’s baptism.”

⁴Paul said, “John baptized with a baptism of repentance, telling the people to believe in Him who was coming after him, that is, in Jesus.”

⁵When they heard this, they were baptized in the name of the Lord Jesus.

⁶And when Paul had laid hands upon them, the Holy Spirit came on them and they began speaking with tongues and prophesying.

⁷There were about twelve men in all.

⁸And he entered the synagogue and continued speaking out boldly for three months, having discussions and persuading them about the kingdom of God.

⁹But when some were becoming hardened and disobedient, speaking evil of the Way before the people, he withdrew from them and took the disciples away with him, and had discussions daily in the school of Tyrannus.

¹⁰This took place for two years, so that all who lived in Asia heard the word of the Lord, both Jews and Greeks.

¹¹God was performing extraordinary miracles by the hands of Paul,

¹²so that handkerchiefs or aprons were even carried from his body to the sick, and the diseases left them and the evil spirits went out.

¹³But also some of the Jewish exorcists, who went from place to place, attempted to use the name of the Lord Jesus over those who had the evil spirits, saying, “I order you in the name of Jesus whom Paul preaches!”

¹⁴Now there were seven sons of Sceva, a Jewish chief priest, doing this.

¹⁵But the evil spirit responded and said to them, “I recognize Jesus, and I know of Paul, but who are you?”

¹⁶And the man in whom was the evil spirit, pounced on them and subdued all of them and overpowered them, so that they fled out of that house naked and wounded.

¹⁷This became known to all who lived in Ephesus, both Jews and Greeks; and fear fell upon them all and the name of the Lord Jesus was being magnified.

¹⁸Also many of those who had believed kept coming, confessing and disclosing their practices.

¹⁹And many of those who practiced magic brought their books together and began burning them in the sight of everyone; and they added up the prices of the books and found it to be fifty thousand pieces of silver.

²⁰So the word of the Lord was growing and prevailing mightily.

²¹Now after these things were finished, Paul resolved in the Spirit to go to Jerusalem after he had passed through Macedonia and Achaia, saying, “After I have been there, I must also see Rome.”

²²And after he sent into Macedonia two of those who assisted him, Timothy and Erastus, he himself stayed in Asia for a while.

²³About that time a major disturbance occurred in regard to the Way.

²⁴For a man named Demetrius, a silversmith who made silver shrines of Artemis, was bringing considerable business to the craftsmen;

²⁵he gathered these men together with the workmen of similar trades, and said, “Men, you know that our prosperity depends upon this business.

²⁶You see and hear that not only in Ephesus, but in almost all of Asia, this Paul has persuaded and turned away a considerable number of people, saying that gods made by hands are not gods at all.

²⁷Not only is there danger that this trade of ours will fall into disrepute, but also that the temple of the great goddess Artemis will be regarded as worthless, and that she whom all of Asia and the world worship will even be dethroned from her magnificence.”

²⁸When they heard this and were filled with rage, they began shouting, saying, “Great is Artemis of the Ephesians!”

²⁹The city was filled with the confusion, and they rushed together into the theater, dragging along Gaius and Aristarchus, Paul’s Macedonian traveling companions.

³⁰And when Paul wanted to go into the assembly, the disciples would not let him.

³¹Also some of the Asiarchs who were friends of his sent word to him and repeatedly urged him not to venture into the theater.

³²So then, some were shouting one thing and some another, for the assembly was in confusion and the majority did not know for what reason they had come together.

³³Some of the crowd concluded it was Alexander, since the Jews had put him forward; and having motioned with his hand, Alexander was intending to make a defense to the assembly.

³⁴But when they recognized that he was a Jew, a single outcry arose from them all as they shouted for about two hours, “Great is Artemis of the Ephesians!”

³⁵After quieting the crowd, the town clerk *said, “Men of Ephesus, what person is there after all who does not know that the city of the Ephesians is guardian of the temple of the great Artemis and of the image which fell down from the sky?

³⁶So, since these are undeniable facts, you ought to keep calm and to do nothing rash.

³⁷For you have brought these men here who are neither temple robbers nor blasphemers of our goddess.

³⁸So then, if Demetrius and the craftsmen who are with him have a complaint against anyone, the courts are in session and proconsuls are available; have them bring charges against one another.

³⁹But if you want anything beyond this, it shall be settled in the lawful assembly.

⁴⁰For indeed, we are in danger of being accused of a riot in connection with today’s events, since there is no real reason for it, and in this connection we will be unable to account for this disorderly gathering.”

⁴¹After saying this he dismissed the assembly.