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Chapter 15
The Council at Jerusalem
1Some men came down from Judea to Antioch and were teaching the brothers: “Unless you are circumcised, according to the custom taught by Moses, you cannot be saved.”
2This brought Paul and Barnabas into sharp dispute and debate with them. So Paul and Barnabas were appointed, along with some other believers, to go up to Jerusalem to see the apostles and elders about this question.
3The church sent them on their way, and as they traveled through Phoenicia and Samaria, they told how the Gentiles had been converted. This news made all the brothers very glad.
4When they came to Jerusalem, they were welcomed by the church and the apostles and elders, to whom they reported everything God had done through them.
5Then some of the believers who belonged to the party of the Pharisees stood up and said, “The Gentiles must be circumcised and required to obey the law of Moses.”
6The apostles and elders met to consider this question.
7After much discussion, Peter got up and addressed them: “Brothers, you know that some time ago God made a choice among you that the Gentiles might hear from my lips the message of the gospel and believe.
8God, who knows the heart, showed that he accepted them by giving the Holy Spirit to them, just as he did to us.
9He made no distinction between us and them, for he purified their hearts by faith.
10Now then, why do you try to test God by putting on the necks of the disciples a yoke that neither we nor our fathers have been able to bear?
11No! We believe it is through the grace of our Lord Jesus that we are saved, just as they are.”
12The whole assembly became silent as they listened to Barnabas and Paul telling about the miraculous signs and wonders God had done among the Gentiles through them.
13When they finished, James spoke up: “Brothers, listen to me.
14SimonGreek Simeon, a variant of Simon; that is, Peter has described to us how God at first showed his concern by taking from the Gentiles a people for himself.
15The words of the prophets are in agreement with this, as it is written:
16”‘After this I will return
and rebuild David's fallen tent.
Its ruins I will rebuild,
and I will restore it,
17that the remnant of men may seek the Lord,
and all the Gentiles who bear my name,
says the Lord, who does these things’Amos 9:11,12
18that have been known for ages.Some manuscripts things'– / 18 known to the Lord for ages is his work
19“It is my judgment, therefore, that we should not make it difficult for the Gentiles who are turning to God.
20Instead we should write to them, telling them to abstain from food polluted by idols, from sexual immorality, from the meat of strangled animals and from blood.
21For Moses has been preached in every city from the earliest times and is read in the synagogues on every Sabbath.”
The Council's Letter to Gentile Believers
22Then the apostles and elders, with the whole church, decided to choose some of their own men and send them to Antioch with Paul and Barnabas. They chose Judas (called Barsabbas) and Silas, two men who were leaders among the brothers.
23With them they sent the following letter:
The apostles and elders, your brothers,
To the Gentile believers in Antioch, Syria and Cilicia:
Greetings.
24We have heard that some went out from us without our authorization and disturbed you, troubling your minds by what they said.
25So we all agreed to choose some men and send them to you with our dear friends Barnabas and Paul–
26men who have risked their lives for the name of our Lord Jesus Christ.
27Therefore we are sending Judas and Silas to confirm by word of mouth what we are writing.
28It seemed good to the Holy Spirit and to us not to burden you with anything beyond the following requirements:
29You are to abstain from food sacrificed to idols, from blood, from the meat of strangled animals and from sexual immorality. You will do well to avoid these things.
Farewell.
30The men were sent off and went down to Antioch, where they gathered the church together and delivered the letter.
31The people read it and were glad for its encouraging message.
32Judas and Silas, who themselves were prophets, said much to encourage and strengthen the brothers.
33After spending some time there, they were sent off by the brothers with the blessing of peace to return to those who had sent them.Some manuscripts them, 34 but Silas decided to remain there
34
35But Paul and Barnabas remained in Antioch, where they and many others taught and preached the word of the Lord.
Disagreement Between Paul and Barnabas
36Some time later Paul said to Barnabas, “Let us go back and visit the brothers in all the towns where we preached the word of the Lord and see how they are doing.”
37Barnabas wanted to take John, also called Mark, with them,
38but Paul did not think it wise to take him, because he had deserted them in Pamphylia and had not continued with them in the work.
39They had such a sharp disagreement that they parted company. Barnabas took Mark and sailed for Cyprus,
40but Paul chose Silas and left, commended by the brothers to the grace of the Lord.
41He went through Syria and Cilicia, strengthening the churches.
Chapter 16
Timothy Joins Paul and Silas
1He came to Derbe and then to Lystra, where a disciple named Timothy lived, whose mother was a Jewess and a believer, but whose father was a Greek.
2The brothers at Lystra and Iconium spoke well of him.
3Paul wanted to take him along on the journey, so he circumcised him because of the Jews who lived in that area, for they all knew that his father was a Greek.
4As they traveled from town to town, they delivered the decisions reached by the apostles and elders in Jerusalem for the people to obey.
5So the churches were strengthened in the faith and grew daily in numbers.
Paul's Vision of the Man of Macedonia
6Paul and his companions traveled throughout the region of Phrygia and Galatia, having been kept by the Holy Spirit from preaching the word in the province of Asia.
7When they came to the border of Mysia, they tried to enter Bithynia, but the Spirit of Jesus would not allow them to.
8So they passed by Mysia and went down to Troas.
9During the night Paul had a vision of a man of Macedonia standing and begging him, “Come over to Macedonia and help us.”
10After Paul had seen the vision, we got ready at once to leave for Macedonia, concluding that God had called us to preach the gospel to them.
Lydia's Conversion in Philippi
11From Troas we put out to sea and sailed straight for Samothrace, and the next day on to Neapolis.
12From there we traveled to Philippi, a Roman colony and the leading city of that district of Macedonia. And we stayed there several days.
13On the Sabbath we went outside the city gate to the river, where we expected to find a place of prayer. We sat down and began to speak to the women who had gathered there.
14One of those listening was a woman named Lydia, a dealer in purple cloth from the city of Thyatira, who was a worshiper of God. The Lord opened her heart to respond to Paul's message.
15When she and the members of her household were baptized, she invited us to her home. “If you consider me a believer in the Lord,” she said, “come and stay at my house.” And she persuaded us.
Paul and Silas in Prison
16Once when we were going to the place of prayer, we were met by a slave girl who had a spirit by which she predicted the future. She earned a great deal of money for her owners by fortune–telling.
17This girl followed Paul and the rest of us, shouting, “These men are servants of the Most High God, who are telling you the way to be saved.”
18She kept this up for many days. Finally Paul became so troubled that he turned around and said to the spirit, “In the name of Jesus Christ I command you to come out of her!” At that moment the spirit left her.
19When the owners of the slave girl realized that their hope of making money was gone, they seized Paul and Silas and dragged them into the marketplace to face the authorities.
20They brought them before the magistrates and said, “These men are Jews, and are throwing our city into an uproar
21by advocating customs unlawful for us Romans to accept or practice.”
22The crowd joined in the attack against Paul and Silas, and the magistrates ordered them to be stripped and beaten.
23After they had been severely flogged, they were thrown into prison, and the jailer was commanded to guard them carefully.
24Upon receiving such orders, he put them in the inner cell and fastened their feet in the stocks.
25About midnight Paul and Silas were praying and singing hymns to God, and the other prisoners were listening to them.
26Suddenly there was such a violent earthquake that the foundations of the prison were shaken. At once all the prison doors flew open, and everybody's chains came loose.
27The jailer woke up, and when he saw the prison doors open, he drew his sword and was about to kill himself because he thought the prisoners had escaped.
28But Paul shouted, “Don't harm yourself! We are all here!”
29The jailer called for lights, rushed in and fell trembling before Paul and Silas.
30He then brought them out and asked, “Sirs, what must I do to be saved?”
31They replied, “Believe in the Lord Jesus, and you will be saved–you and your household.”
32Then they spoke the word of the Lord to him and to all the others in his house.
33At that hour of the night the jailer took them and washed their wounds; then immediately he and all his family were baptized.
34The jailer brought them into his house and set a meal before them; he was filled with joy because he had come to believe in God–he and his whole family.
35When it was daylight, the magistrates sent their officers to the jailer with the order: “Release those men.”
36The jailer told Paul, “The magistrates have ordered that you and Silas be released. Now you can leave. Go in peace.”
37But Paul said to the officers: “They beat us publicly without a trial, even though we are Roman citizens, and threw us into prison. And now do they want to get rid of us quietly? No! Let them come themselves and escort us out.”
38The officers reported this to the magistrates, and when they heard that Paul and Silas were Roman citizens, they were alarmed.
39They came to appease them and escorted them from the prison, requesting them to leave the city.
40After Paul and Silas came out of the prison, they went to Lydia's house, where they met with the brothers and encouraged them. Then they left.
Chapter 17
In Thessalonica
1When they had passed through Amphipolis and Apollonia, they came to Thessalonica, where there was a Jewish synagogue.
2As his custom was, Paul went into the synagogue, and on three Sabbath days he reasoned with them from the Scriptures,
3explaining and proving that the ChristOr Messiah had to suffer and rise from the dead. “This Jesus I am proclaiming to you is the Christ,Or Messiah” he said.
4Some of the Jews were persuaded and joined Paul and Silas, as did a large number of God–fearing Greeks and not a few prominent women.
5But the Jews were jealous; so they rounded up some bad characters from the marketplace, formed a mob and started a riot in the city. They rushed to Jason's house in search of Paul and Silas in order to bring them out to the crowd.Or the assembly of the people
6But when they did not find them, they dragged Jason and some other brothers before the city officials, shouting: “These men who have caused trouble all over the world have now come here,
7and Jason has welcomed them into his house. They are all defying Caesar's decrees, saying that there is another king, one called Jesus.”
8When they heard this, the crowd and the city officials were thrown into turmoil.
9Then they made Jason and the others post bond and let them go.
In Berea
10As soon as it was night, the brothers sent Paul and Silas away to Berea. On arriving there, they went to the Jewish synagogue.
11Now 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.
12Many of the Jews believed, as did also a number of prominent Greek women and many Greek men.
13When the Jews in Thessalonica learned that Paul was preaching the word of God at Berea, they went there too, agitating the crowds and stirring them up.
14The brothers immediately sent Paul to the coast, but Silas and Timothy stayed at Berea.
15The men who escorted Paul brought him to Athens and then left with instructions for Silas and Timothy to join him as soon as possible.
In Athens
16While Paul was waiting for them in Athens, he was greatly distressed to see that the city was full of idols.
17So 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. Some of them asked, “What is this babbler trying to say?” Others remarked, “He seems to be advocating foreign gods.” They said this because Paul was preaching the good news about Jesus and the resurrection.
19Then they took him and brought him to a meeting of the Areopagus, where they said to him, “May we know what this new teaching is that you are presenting?
20You are bringing some strange ideas to our ears, and we want to know what they mean.”
21(All the Athenians and the foreigners who lived there spent their time doing nothing but talking about and listening to the latest ideas.)
22Paul then stood up in the meeting of the Areopagus and said: “Men of Athens! I see that in every way you are very religious.
23For as I walked around and looked carefully at your objects of worship, I even found an altar with this inscription: To an Unknown God. Now what you worship as something unknown I am going to proclaim to you.
24“The God who made the world and everything in it is the Lord of heaven and earth and does not live in temples built by hands.
25And he is not served by human hands, as if he needed anything, because he himself gives all men life and breath and everything else.
26From one man he made every nation of men, that they should inhabit the whole earth; and he determined the times set for them and the exact places where they should live.
27God did this so that men would seek him and perhaps reach out for him and find him, though he is not far from each one of us.
28‘For in him we live and move and have our being.’ As some of your own poets have said, ‘We are his offspring.’
29“Therefore since we are God's offspring, we should not think that the divine being is like gold or silver or stone–an image made by man's design and skill.
30In the past God overlooked such ignorance, but now he commands all people everywhere to repent.
31For he has set a day when he will judge the world with justice by the man he has appointed. He has given proof of this to all men by raising him from the dead.”
32When they heard about the resurrection of the dead, some of them sneered, but others said, “We want to hear you again on this subject.”
33At that, Paul left the Council.
34A few men became followers of Paul and believed. Among them was Dionysius, a member of the Areopagus, also a woman named Damaris, and a number of others.
 
 

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