The Living Bible (348 page)
Authors: Inc. Tyndale House Publishers
Tags: #BIBLES / Other Translations / Text
Paul and Silas went first to Derbe and then on to Lystra where they met Timothy, a believer whose mother was a Christian Jewess, but his father a Greek.
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Timothy was well thought of by the brothers in Lystra and Iconium,
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so Paul asked him to join them on their journey. In deference to the Jews of the area, he circumcised Timothy before they left, for everyone knew that his father was a Greek and hadn’t permitted this before.
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Then they went from city to city, making known the decision concerning the Gentiles, as decided by the apostles and elders in Jerusalem.
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So the church grew daily in faith and numbers.
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Next they traveled through Phrygia and Galatia because the Holy Spirit had told them not to go into the Turkish province of Asia Minor at that time.
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Then going along the borders of Mysia they headed north for the province of Bithynia, but again the Spirit of Jesus said no.
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So instead they went on through Mysia province to the city of Troas.
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That night
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Paul had a vision. In his dream he saw a man over in Macedonia, Greece, pleading with him, “Come over here and help us.”
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Well, that settled it. We
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would go to Macedonia, for we could only conclude that God was sending us to preach the Good News there.
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We went aboard a boat at Troas, and sailed straight across to Samothrace, and the next day on to Neapolis,
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and finally reached Philippi, a Roman
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colony just inside the Macedonian border, and stayed there several days.
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On the Sabbath we went a little way outside the city to a riverbank where we understood some people met for prayer; and we taught the Scriptures to some women who came.
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One of them was Lydia, a saleswoman from Thyatira, a merchant of purple cloth. She was already a worshiper of God and as she listened to us, the Lord opened her heart and she accepted all that Paul was saying.
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She was baptized along with all her household and asked us to be her guests. “If you agree that I am faithful to the Lord,” she said, “come and stay at my home.” And she urged us until we did.
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One day as we were going down to the place of prayer beside the river, we met a demon-possessed slave girl, who was a fortune-teller and earned much money for her masters.
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She followed along behind us shouting, “These men are servants of God, and they have come to tell you how to have your sins forgiven.”
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This went on day after day until Paul, in great distress, turned and spoke to the demon within her. “I command you in the name of Jesus Christ to come out of her,” he said. And instantly it left her.
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Her masters’ hopes of wealth were now shattered; they grabbed Paul and Silas and dragged them before the judges at the marketplace.
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“These Jews are corrupting our city,” they shouted. “They are teaching the people to do things that are against the Roman laws.”
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A mob was quickly formed against Paul and Silas, and the judges ordered them stripped and beaten with wooden whips.
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Again and again the rods slashed down across their bared backs; and afterwards they were thrown into prison. The jailer was threatened with death if they escaped,
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so he took no chances, but put them into the inner dungeon and clamped their feet into the stocks.
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Around midnight, as Paul and Silas were praying and singing hymns to the Lord—and the other prisoners were listening—
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suddenly there was a great earthquake; the prison was shaken to its foundations, all the doors flew open—and the chains of every prisoner fell off!
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The jailer wakened to see the prison doors wide open, and assuming the prisoners had escaped, he drew his sword to kill himself.
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But Paul yelled to him, “Don’t do it! We are all here!”
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Trembling with fear, the jailer called for lights and ran to the dungeon and fell down before Paul and Silas.
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He brought them out and begged them, “Sirs, what must I do to be saved?”
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They replied, “Believe on the Lord Jesus and you will be saved, and your entire household.”
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Then they told him and all his household the Good News from the Lord.
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That same hour he washed their stripes, and he and all his family were baptized.
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Then he brought them up into his house and set a meal before them. How he and his household rejoiced because all were now believers!
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The next morning the judges sent police officers over to tell the jailer, “Let those men go!”
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So the jailer told Paul they were free to leave.
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But Paul replied, “Oh no they don’t! They have publicly beaten us without trial and jailed us—and we are Roman citizens! So now they want us to leave secretly? Never! Let them come themselves and release us!”
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The police officers reported to the judges, who feared for their lives when they heard Paul and Silas were Roman citizens.
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So they came to the jail and begged them to go, and brought them out and pled with them to leave the city.
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Paul and Silas then returned to the home of Lydia, where they met with the believers and preached to them once more before leaving town.
Now they traveled through the cities of Amphipolis and Apollonia and came to Thessalonica, where there was a Jewish synagogue.
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As was Paul’s custom, he went there to preach, and for three Sabbaths in a row he opened the Scriptures to the people,
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explaining the prophecies about the sufferings of the Messiah and his coming back to life, and proving that Jesus is the Messiah.
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Some who listened were persuaded and became converts—including a large number of godly Greek men and also many important women of the city.
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But the Jewish leaders were jealous and incited some worthless fellows from the streets to form a mob and start a riot. They attacked the home of Jason, planning to take Paul and Silas to the City Council for punishment.
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Not finding them there, they dragged out Jason and some of the other believers, and took them before the Council instead. “Paul and Silas have turned the rest of the world upside down, and now they are here disturbing our city,” they shouted,
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“and Jason has let them into his home. They are all guilty of treason, for they claim another king, Jesus, instead of Caesar.”
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The people of the city, as well as the judges, were concerned at these reports and let them go only after they had posted bail.
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That night the Christians hurried Paul and Silas to Berea, and, as usual,
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they went to the synagogue to preach.
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But the people of Berea were more open-minded than those in Thessalonica, and gladly listened to the message. They searched the Scriptures day by day to check up on Paul and Silas’ statements to see if they were really so.
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As a result, many of them believed, including several prominent Greek women and many men also.
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But when the Jews in Thessalonica learned that Paul was preaching in Berea, they went over and stirred up trouble.
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The believers acted at once, sending Paul on to the coast, while Silas and Timothy remained behind.
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Those accompanying Paul went on with him to Athens and then returned to Berea with a message for Silas and Timothy to hurry and join him.
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While Paul was waiting for them in Athens, he was deeply troubled by all the idols he saw everywhere throughout the city.
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He went to the synagogue for discussions with the Jews and the devout Gentiles, and spoke daily in the public square to all who happened to be there.
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He also had an encounter with some of the Epicurean and Stoic philosophers. Their reaction, when he told them about Jesus and his resurrection, was, “He’s a dreamer,” or, “He’s pushing some foreign religion.”
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But they invited him to the forum at Mars Hill. “Come and tell us more about this new religion,” they said,
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“for you are saying some rather startling things and we want to hear more.”
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(I should explain that all the Athenians as well as the foreigners in Athens seemed to spend all their time discussing the latest new ideas!)
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So Paul, standing before them at the Mars Hill forum, addressed them as follows:
“Men of Athens, I notice that you are very religious,
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for as I was out walking I saw your many altars, and one of them had this inscription on it—‘To the Unknown God.’ You have been worshiping him without knowing who he is, and now I wish to tell you about him.
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“He made the world and everything in it, and since he is Lord of heaven and earth, he doesn’t live in man-made temples;
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and human hands can’t minister to his needs—for he has no needs! He himself gives life and breath to everything, and satisfies every need there is.
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He created all the people of the world from one man, Adam,
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and scattered the nations across the face of the earth. He decided beforehand which should rise and fall, and when. He determined their boundaries.
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“His purpose in all of this is that they should seek after God, and perhaps feel their way toward him and find him—though he is not far from any one of us.
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For in him we live and move and are! As one of your own poets says it, ‘We are the sons of God.’
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If this is true, we shouldn’t think of God as an idol made by men from gold or silver or chipped from stone.
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God tolerated man’s past ignorance about these things, but now he commands everyone to put away idols and worship only him.
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For he has set a day for justly judging the world by the man he has appointed, and has pointed him out by bringing him back to life again.”
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When they heard Paul speak of the resurrection of a person who had been dead, some laughed, but others said, “We want to hear more about this later.”
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That ended Paul’s discussion with them,
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but a few joined him and became believers. Among them was Dionysius, a member of the City Council, and a woman named Damaris, and others.