Bible Study on Acts 17, verses 32 to 34, some mocked

 

Acts 17:32 ¶  And when they heard of the resurrection of the dead, some mocked: and others said, We will hear thee again of this matter. 33  So Paul departed from among them. 34  Howbeit certain men clave unto him, and believed: among the which was Dionysius the Areopagite, and a woman named Damaris, and others with them.

 

Resurrection from the dead was not unheard of in Greek mythology. In fact, there are many instances of heroes being resurrected from the dead and made immortal. There is no need to go into a list here. But, of course, the Epicureans would find such a belief to be pure fantasy but it would not be impossible for the Stoics to consider a proposition such as this that was not unheard of in Greek mythology. The only two converts here mentioned by name are a man and a woman as representative of those Greeks who came to believe on Christ and were saved.

 

Bible Study on Exodus 22, verses 1 through 15, laws of property

 

Exodus 22:1 ¶  If a man shall steal an ox, or a sheep, and kill it, or sell it; he shall restore five oxen for an ox, and four sheep for a sheep. 2  If a thief be found breaking up, and be smitten that he die, there shall no blood be shed for him. 3  If the sun be risen upon him, there shall be blood shed for him; for he should make full restitution; if he have nothing, then he shall be sold for his theft. 4  If the theft be certainly found in his hand alive, whether it be ox, or ass, or sheep; he shall restore double. 5  If a man shall cause a field or vineyard to be eaten, and shall put in his beast, and shall feed in another man’s field; of the best of his own field, and of the best of his own vineyard, shall he make restitution. 6  If fire break out, and catch in thorns, so that the stacks of corn, or the standing corn, or the field, be consumed therewith; he that kindled the fire shall surely make restitution.

Laws regarding theft, including theft of growing food and damage to property are covered here. Again, this was to be the law that governed the Hebrew people. This can be thought of in the context of God’s standard set forth in the Ten Commandments, further defined and illuminated by Christ and by the apostle, Paul. This is part of the law for governance of these people on a day to day basis, but it does further illuminate God’s standard in the Ten Commandments of not stealing, on a practical level.

Exodus 22:7 ¶  If a man shall deliver unto his neighbour money or stuff to keep, and it be stolen out of the man’s house; if the thief be found, let him pay double. 8  If the thief be not found, then the master of the house shall be brought unto the judges, to see whether he have put his hand unto his neighbour’s goods. 9  For all manner of trespass, whether it be for ox, for ass, for sheep, for raiment, or for any manner of lost thing, which another challengeth to be his, the cause of both parties shall come before the judges; and whom the judges shall condemn, he shall pay double unto his neighbour. 10  If a man deliver unto his neighbour an ass, or an ox, or a sheep, or any beast, to keep; and it die, or be hurt, or driven away, no man seeing it: 11  Then shall an oath of the LORD be between them both, that he hath not put his hand unto his neighbour’s goods; and the owner of it shall accept thereof, and he shall not make it good. 12  And if it be stolen from him, he shall make restitution unto the owner thereof. 13  If it be torn in pieces, then let him bring it for witness, and he shall not make good that which was torn. 14  And if a man borrow ought of his neighbour, and it be hurt, or die, the owner thereof being not with it, he shall surely make it good. 15  But if the owner thereof be with it, he shall not make it good: if it be an hired thing, it came for his hire.

Here are laws of responsibility and accountability for using the property of others.

Bible Study on Acts 17, verses 22 to 31, Paul preaches to Greeks on Mars Hill

 

Acts 17:22 ¶  Then Paul stood in the midst of Mars’ hill, and said, Ye men of Athens, I perceive that in all things ye are too superstitious. 23  For as I passed by, and beheld your devotions, I found an altar with this inscription, TO THE UNKNOWN GOD. Whom therefore ye ignorantly worship, him declare I unto you. 24  God that made the world and all things therein, seeing that he is Lord of heaven and earth, dwelleth not in temples made with hands; 25  Neither is worshipped with men’s hands, as though he needed any thing, seeing he giveth to all life, and breath, and all things; 26  And hath made of one blood all nations of men for to dwell on all the face of the earth, and hath determined the times before appointed, and the bounds of their habitation; 27  That they should seek the Lord, if haply they might feel after him, and find him, though he be not far from every one of us: 28  For in him we live, and move, and have our being; as certain also of your own poets have said, For we are also his offspring. 29  Forasmuch then as we are the offspring of God, we ought not to think that the Godhead is like unto gold, or silver, or stone, graven by art and man’s device. 30  And the times of this ignorance God winked at; but now commandeth all men every where to repent: 31  Because he hath appointed a day, in the which he will judge the world in righteousness by that man whom he hath ordained; whereof he hath given assurance unto all men, in that he hath raised him from the dead.

 

In many locations in the ancient Roman world there were altars and monuments to an unknown god or goddess. Christian writers like to say that Epimenides, a pagan poet and philosopher that Paul will quote in his argument, told the Athenians that the way to end a plague centuries before was to build an altar to a god they had not offered sacrifices to although this is a legend which the writer Pausanias said was a different person in a different city. What I can verify, though, is that the Greeks worshipped a dozen main gods and many lesser gods. The Unknown God was sometimes sworn to by the Greeks and even had a temple dedicated to him. Just think of it, that there was a god and the Greeks didn’t know what his name was. Paul tells them that this is the God who created all things who they did not know.

 

Fundamentalist Christians insist that Allah is a devil and that the Muslims offer worship to this devil. However, Muslims and Arab Christians say Allah to mean the God who created everything and none of them imagine they are worshipping a devil and we shut off all conversation when we say something like that. Paul, if alive today, would not only argue with them that Allah was the same God as the God of the Bible but he would go on to explain who Jesus is, the visible image of that invisible God. I daresay that Paul would probably be able be able to quote from the Koran in his arguments if it happened today using their own words against their argument like a good lawyer. We are going to see that Paul had no problem using a nonbeliever’s system of belief against that nonbelievers own argument.

 

Paul declares that the true God does not reside in a temple like the pagan gods. His glory filled the Hebrew temple but God’s abode is in Heaven and yet He is omnipresent or everywhere. Paul explains who the real God is. He explains that all men, and that would include everyone from the pygmy in Central Africa to the Scottish Highlander are made of one blood and that their dispersal around the world was by His will. The American racist who strangely uses this verse about God setting the bounds of their habitations in wanting to relocate American Blacks to Africa would not even consider that first, most Black people’s ancestors were kidnapped and brought here by immoral and violent means and secondly, that by that argument he should return to the Europe his ancestors left.

 

The Greeks considered Zeus, their highest god, to be the creator of heaven and earth. Apart from the myths about him and other gods mating with human women, an obviously contrived cultural reference to actual history when the sons of God came to earth to mate with human women in Genesis Zeus was considered an ideal. According to one source; “Zeus is understood to be the absolute good; he is ungenerated, everlasting, the father of himself, the father and pre-eminent creator of all other things.”[1]

 

But Zeus has a problem in that he is confined by his all too human passions. Still, Paul will use him as representing the true God in type, and we all know that types fall apart at some point.

 

Paul quotes two pagan poets here. In verse 28 he quotes from a poem by the Greek philosopher Epimenides, and his poem Cretica spoken to Zeus, which Paul also quotes in Titus 1:12.

 

 

They fashioned a tomb for you, holy and high one,
Cretans, always liars, evil beasts, idle bellies.
But you are not dead: you live and abide forever,
For in you we live and move and have our being.[2]

 

For we are also his offspring is said to be a quote of a line from the Greek poet, Aratus, in his poem, Phenomena. Remember that they thought of Zeus as the greatest god.

 

From Zeus let us begin; him do we mortals never leave unnamed;

full of Zeus are all the streets and all the market-places of men;

full is the sea and the havens thereof; always we all have need of Zeus.

For we are also his offspring; ...[3]

 

Please do not make the mistake of some liberal Christians who say that because Paul quoted these pagan poets that they were inspired by God. The text doesn’t say that and Paul is merely using their own words in his argument, not imparting divine inspiration to a pagan. Even a broken clock is right twice a day. The heathen world on a regular basis emerges accidentally with the truth.

 

Paul makes His point, a very important point, that God has been relatively patient with mankind and his fantasies until now but that it is time for mankind to repent or change their minds, turn from their idolatry, and turn to the true God through Christ the Messiah, that man whom he hath ordained.

 

1Timothy 2:5  For there is one God, and one mediator between God and men, the man Christ Jesus;

---

[1] Judith Herrin, Byzantium: The Surprising Life of a Medieval Empire (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press) Kindle Edition. P.295.

 

[2] Harris, J. Rendel, (Oct 1906). "The Cretans always liars", The Expositor, Seventh series. 2: 305–17 as referenced by www.wikipedia.com at  https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Epimenides (accessed on 12 July 2020).

 

[3] Aratus, Callimachus, Hymns and Epigrams. Lycophron, Translated by Mair, A. W. & G. R. Loeb Classical Library Volume 129 (London: William Heinemann, 1921), https://www.theoi.com/Text/AratusPhaenomena.html. (accessed on 12 July 2020).

Bible Study on Exodus 21, verses 22 to 36, causing a miscarriage by accident

 

Exodus 21:22 ¶  If men strive, and hurt a woman with child, so that her fruit depart from her, and yet no mischief follow: he shall be surely punished, according as the woman’s husband will lay upon him; and he shall pay as the judges determine. 23  And if any mischief follow, then thou shalt give life for life, 24  Eye for eye, tooth for tooth, hand for hand, foot for foot, 25  Burning for burning, wound for wound, stripe for stripe. 26  And if a man smite the eye of his servant, or the eye of his maid, that it perish; he shall let him go free for his eye’s sake. 27  And if he smite out his manservant’s tooth, or his maidservant’s tooth; he shall let him go free for his tooth’s sake. 28  If an ox gore a man or a woman, that they die: then the ox shall be surely stoned, and his flesh shall not be eaten; but the owner of the ox shall be quit. 29  But if the ox were wont to push with his horn in time past, and it hath been testified to his owner, and he hath not kept him in, but that he hath killed a man or a woman; the ox shall be stoned, and his owner also shall be put to death. 30  If there be laid on him a sum of money, then he shall give for the ransom of his life whatsoever is laid upon him. 31  Whether he have gored a son, or have gored a daughter, according to this judgment shall it be done unto him. 32  If the ox shall push a manservant or a maidservant; he shall give unto their master thirty shekels of silver, and the ox shall be stoned. 33  And if a man shall open a pit, or if a man shall dig a pit, and not cover it, and an ox or an ass fall therein; 34  The owner of the pit shall make it good, and give money unto the owner of them; and the dead beast shall be his. 35  And if one man’s ox hurt another’s, that he die; then they shall sell the live ox, and divide the money of it; and the dead ox also they shall divide. 36  Or if it be known that the ox hath used to push in time past, and his owner hath not kept him in; he shall surely pay ox for ox; and the dead shall be his own.

Verse 22 shows that accidentally causing a miscarriage of a pregnancy that does not also result in the death of the mother is not punishable by death. It also underscores, under ancient custom, the fact that women had few rights on their own but that their treatment was an extension of their husband’s rights. We saw how Dinah’s rape in Genesis was avenged because of the disgrace it brought on the family, not because it was a crime against Dinah. The woman had few rights apart from her relationship with her father or her husband. In a tribal society, the sense of self-identity and self-worth of many people is swallowed up in the identity and worth of the group.

Punishment was to be equal among Hebrews of any rank; an eye for an eye. However, disturbingly, the exception was that if a servant was injured they must be set free, extended even to knocking out a tooth. There is nothing here about a servant being treated on an equal footing with a master.

A domestic animal that killed a person was to be killed itself. However, if the owner knew the animal was dangerous the owner is also put to death although he could ransom his way out of the sentence. It did not matter if the victim was male or female, an equal value was placed on a woman’s life. If his animal injured another man’s servant he had to pay restitution.

If an animal fell into a pit a man dug he had to pay the owner for it if it died. If one man’s animal killed another man’s animal the living animal must be sold and the money divided between the two as well as the carcass of the dead animal. But, if he knew the animal was dangerous he was required to pay for the dead animal.

Laws of responsibility, blame, guilt, and punishment are controlled vengeance. It would not be hard to imagine this wandering group of ex-slaves descending into nothing but vendettas and anarchy without order or any future. God providing standards, modifying existing customs, and making the Hebrews accountable to His law could provide a stable base for society.

I’m going to avoid the many sermons that this passage brings to mind in order not to slow down the narrative but just think of parallels in the world of the spirit. Do ordinances and commandments for this world reflect anything that is going on in the spiritual world, do you ever wonder?

Bible Study on Acts 17, verses 10 to 21, search the scriptures daily

 

Acts 17:10 ¶  And the brethren immediately sent away Paul and Silas by night unto Berea: who coming thither went into the synagogue of the Jews. 11  These were more noble than those in Thessalonica, in that they received the word with all readiness of mind, and searched the scriptures daily, whether those things were so. 12  Therefore many of them believed; also of honourable women which were Greeks, and of men, not a few. 13  But when the Jews of Thessalonica had knowledge that the word of God was preached of Paul at Berea, they came thither also, and stirred up the people. 14  And then immediately the brethren sent away Paul to go as it were to the sea: but Silas and Timotheus abode there still. 15  And they that conducted Paul brought him unto Athens: and receiving a commandment unto Silas and Timotheus for to come to him with all speed, they departed.

 

Here are mentioned the Bereans who are an example of to all of us. They not only received the word but searched the scriptures every day to make sure they were being told the truth as opposed to just hearing their favorite celebrity preacher and taking his word for it. We would do well to do what they did if we were not so lazy spiritually. And we are commanded to do so.

 

1John 4:1 ¶  Beloved, believe not every spirit, but try the spirits whether they are of God: because many false prophets are gone out into the world. 2  Hereby know ye the Spirit of God: Every spirit that confesseth that Jesus Christ is come in the flesh is of God: 3  And every spirit that confesseth not that Jesus Christ is come in the flesh is not of God: and this is that spirit of antichrist, whereof ye have heard that it should come; and even now already is it in the world.

 

There are many warnings given about false teaching and false prophets and teachers in the New Testament.

 

Again, women play an important part in moving God’s plan of reconciliation of mankind forward.

   

Acts 17:16 ¶  Now while Paul waited for them at Athens, his spirit was stirred in him, when he saw the city wholly given to idolatry. 17  Therefore disputed he in the synagogue with the Jews, and with the devout persons, and in the market daily with them that met with him. 18  Then certain philosophers of the Epicureans, and of the Stoicks, encountered him. And some said, What will this babbler say? other some, He seemeth to be a setter forth of strange gods: because he preached unto them Jesus, and the resurrection. 19  And they took him, and brought him unto Areopagus, saying, May we know what this new doctrine, whereof thou speakest, is? 20  For thou bringest certain strange things to our ears: we would know therefore what these things mean. 21  (For all the Athenians and strangers which were there spent their time in nothing else, but either to tell, or to hear some new thing.)

 

Epicureanism was a philosophy of ancient Greece and Rome based on the writings of a philosopher name Epicurus who lived after 300BC. It was a challenge to the philosophy of Plato and then by Paul’s time was a challenge to Stoicism. Epicurus taught atheistic materialism so today he would have been one of those people who insist that the greatest good in life is to seek to be happy, to enjoy oneself, and also that there is nothing outside of the material world so any god is a physical being only. As Carl Sagan and Neil deGrasse Tyson would say in the TV series, Cosmos, that it, the cosmos or universe, “is all that is or was or ever will be..”

 

The Stoics, on the other hand, are often mistaken for Christians in that noted Stoics believed that virtue was real happiness, along with self-control and fortitude in the face of pain and suffering. Stoicism was founded a little later than Epicurus’ time by Zeno of Citium. Make no mistake about it, though, Stoics were far from Christian. Like Epicureans and most so-called intellectuals today they were humanist who valued human will and the ability to conquer negative and damaging emotions as the greatest good. To the Stoic the universe and nature were god but they could consider non-physical entities as being real so they were not purely limited by the physical. We use Stoic today for someone who endures pain and misfortune well. Understand that for both of these philosophies as for all philosophies and religions there would be wide variations in belief.

Bible Study on Psalm 78, verses 40 to 72, They remembered not His hand

 

Psalm 78:40 ¶  How oft did they provoke him in the wilderness, and grieve him in the desert! 41  Yea, they turned back and tempted God, and limited the Holy One of Israel. 42  They remembered not his hand, nor the day when he delivered them from the enemy. 43  How he had wrought his signs in Egypt, and his wonders in the field of Zoan: 44  And had turned their rivers into blood; and their floods, that they could not drink. 45  He sent divers sorts of flies among them, which devoured them; and frogs, which destroyed them. 46  He gave also their increase unto the caterpiller, and their labour unto the locust. 47  He destroyed their vines with hail, and their sycomore trees with frost. 48  He gave up their cattle also to the hail, and their flocks to hot thunderbolts. 49  He cast upon them the fierceness of his anger, wrath, and indignation, and trouble, by sending evil angels among them. 50  He made a way to his anger; he spared not their soul from death, but gave their life over to the pestilence; 51  And smote all the firstborn in Egypt; the chief of their strength in the tabernacles of Ham: 52  But made his own people to go forth like sheep, and guided them in the wilderness like a flock. 53  And he led them on safely, so that they feared not: but the sea overwhelmed their enemies. 54  And he brought them to the border of his sanctuary, even to this mountain, which his right hand had purchased. 55  He cast out the heathen also before them, and divided them an inheritance by line, and made the tribes of Israel to dwell in their tents. 56  Yet they tempted and provoked the most high God, and kept not his testimonies: 57  But turned back, and dealt unfaithfully like their fathers: they were turned aside like a deceitful bow. 58  For they provoked him to anger with their high places, and moved him to jealousy with their graven images. 59  When God heard this, he was wroth, and greatly abhorred Israel: 60  So that he forsook the tabernacle of Shiloh, the tent which he placed among men; 61  And delivered his strength into captivity, and his glory into the enemy’s hand. 62  He gave his people over also unto the sword; and was wroth with his inheritance. 63  The fire consumed their young men; and their maidens were not given to marriage. 64  Their priests fell by the sword; and their widows made no lamentation. 65  Then the Lord awaked as one out of sleep, and like a mighty man that shouteth by reason of wine. 66  And he smote his enemies in the hinder parts: he put them to a perpetual reproach. 67  Moreover he refused the tabernacle of Joseph, and chose not the tribe of Ephraim: 68  But chose the tribe of Judah, the mount Zion which he loved. 69  And he built his sanctuary like high palaces, like the earth which he hath established for ever. 70  He chose David also his servant, and took him from the sheepfolds: 71  From following the ewes great with young he brought him to feed Jacob his people, and Israel his inheritance. 72  So he fed them according to the integrity of his heart; and guided them by the skilfulness of his hands.

 

The religious history of Israel continues with the Psalmist recounting Israel’s faithlessness in remembering the great deliverance that God performed for them against Egypt. Notice in verse 49 the mention of evil angels, spirit beings, disembodied minds, intent on malice. These are messengers of destruction, one way God has of interacting with our reality.

 

Here, the judgment that God visited on Israel many times is told again. A mention in verse 68 how the tribe of Judah, from whence would come the Messiah, is chosen and it is in this territory that of Judah that God chose His temple to be built, on Mount Zion, which is an area that includes Mount Moriah where Abraham was almost called to sacrifice Isaac and where the temple was built, although at different times in history scholars say it has designated the fortress of the Jebusites only and then the larger area including Mount Moriah as evidenced by Isaiah below.

 

Genesis 22:2  And he said, Take now thy son, thine only son Isaac, whom thou lovest, and get thee into the land of Moriah; and offer him there for a burnt offering upon one of the mountains which I will tell thee of.

 

2Chronicles 3:1  Then Solomon began to build the house of the LORD at Jerusalem in mount Moriah, where the LORD appeared unto David his father, in the place that David had prepared in the threshingfloor of Ornan the Jebusite.

 

Isaiah 8:18  Behold, I and the children whom the LORD hath given me are for signs and for wonders in Israel from the LORD of hosts, which dwelleth in mount Zion.

 

Isaiah 24:23  Then the moon shall be confounded, and the sun ashamed, when the LORD of hosts shall reign in mount Zion, and in Jerusalem, and before his ancients gloriously.

 

David’s anointing is also mentioned here although a great deal of this is covered in Exodus.

 

Shall we not remember when God has delivered us? Shall we not follow Him in gratitude and acknowledgment of who He is? Shall we not be ashamed at our apostasy and our turning back to the ways of the world when we should be ever faithful and thankful for His mercy? I know many of us can relate a time of great deliverance and how after the heat was off we turned away again to our own way, the way of the wicked, and came close to perishing were it not for God’s mercy. We are all, us Christians, in type on an individual basis like the children of Israel and studying what they did and didn’t do and how God treated them gives us a lesson in our own lives.

 

Bible Study on Acts 17, verses 1 to 9, Paul preaches Christ

 

Acts 17:1 ¶  Now when they had passed through Amphipolis and Apollonia, they came to Thessalonica, where was a synagogue of the Jews: 2  And Paul, as his manner was, went in unto them, and three sabbath days reasoned with them out of the scriptures, 3  Opening and alleging, that Christ must needs have suffered, and risen again from the dead; and that this Jesus, whom I preach unto you, is Christ. 4  And some of them believed, and consorted with Paul and Silas; and of the devout Greeks a great multitude, and of the chief women not a few. 5  But the Jews which believed not, moved with envy, took unto them certain lewd fellows of the baser sort, and gathered a company, and set all the city on an uproar, and assaulted the house of Jason, and sought to bring them out to the people. 6  And when they found them not, they drew Jason and certain brethren unto the rulers of the city, crying, These that have turned the world upside down are come hither also; 7  Whom Jason hath received: and these all do contrary to the decrees of Caesar, saying that there is another king, one Jesus. 8  And they troubled the people and the rulers of the city, when they heard these things. 9  And when they had taken security of Jason, and of the other, they let them go.

 

Paul and Silas travel from Amphipolis to Thessalonica and passed through Apollonia. Paul, the way he usually did, went into the synagogue there to witness to the Jews on three different Sabbath days. I have already discussed how the Jews of Christ’s time had no understanding of the Crucifixion or the Resurrection. This shows how the Fundamentalist doctrine that in the Old Testament the Jews were looking forward to the Cross is wrong. Actually, they did not understand Isaiah 53. Their confusion persisted until an eleventh century rabbi nicknamed Rashi developed the idea that rather than being about a singular man the chapters in Isaiah about the Messiah were actually about the suffering Jewish people as a group thereby totally confusing the Jews with regard to Christ.

 

Jesus’ Jewish followers literally had no clue what He was talking about when He referred to His impending agony on the Cross or understood anything about His Resurrection.

Matthew 16:21 ¶  From that time forth began Jesus to shew unto his disciples, how that he must go unto Jerusalem, and suffer many things of the elders and chief priests and scribes, and be killed, and be raised again the third day. 22  Then Peter took him, and began to rebuke him, saying, Be it far from thee, Lord: this shall not be unto thee. 23  But he turned, and said unto Peter, Get thee behind me, Satan: thou art an offence unto me: for thou savourest not the things that be of God, but those that be of men.

 

Mark 9:9  And as they came down from the mountain, he charged them that they should tell no man what things they had seen, till the Son of man were risen from the dead. 10  And they kept that saying with themselves, questioning one with another what the rising from the dead should mean…31  For he taught his disciples, and said unto them, The Son of man is delivered into the hands of men, and they shall kill him; and after that he is killed, he shall rise the third day. 32 

But they understood not that saying, and were afraid to ask him.

 

Luke 18:31 ¶  Then he took unto him the twelve, and said unto them, Behold, we go up to Jerusalem, and all things that are written by the prophets concerning the Son of man shall be accomplished. 32  For he shall be delivered unto the Gentiles, and shall be mocked, and spitefully entreated, and spitted on: 33  And they shall scourge him, and put him to death: and the third day he shall rise again. 34  And they understood none of these things: and this saying was hid from them, neither knew they the things which were spoken.

 

John 20:9  For as yet they knew not the scripture, that he must rise again from the dead.

 

So, Paul probably taught out of Isaiah from where I just referred to.

 

Isaiah 52:13 ¶  Behold, my servant shall deal prudently, he shall be exalted and extolled, and be very high. 14  As many were astonied at thee; his visage was so marred more than any man, and his form more than the sons of men: 15  So shall he sprinkle many nations; the kings shall shut their mouths at him: for that which had not been told them shall they see; and that which they had not heard shall they consider.

 

Isaiah 53:1 ¶  Who hath believed our report? and to whom is the arm of the LORD revealed? 2  For he shall grow up before him as a tender plant, and as a root out of a dry ground: he hath no form nor comeliness; and when we shall see him, there is no beauty that we should desire him. 3  He is despised and rejected of men; a man of sorrows, and acquainted with grief: and we hid as it were our faces from him; he was despised, and we esteemed him not.

 

    4 ¶  Surely he hath borne our griefs, and carried our sorrows: yet we did esteem him stricken, smitten of God, and afflicted. 5  But he was wounded for our transgressions, he was bruised for our iniquities: the chastisement of our peace was upon him; and with his stripes we are healed. 6  All we like sheep have gone astray; we have turned every one to his own way; and the LORD hath laid on him the iniquity of us all. 7  He was oppressed, and he was afflicted, yet he opened not his mouth: he is brought as a lamb to the slaughter, and as a sheep before her shearers is dumb, so he openeth not his mouth. 8  He was taken from prison and from judgment: and who shall declare his generation? for he was cut off out of the land of the living: for the transgression of my people was he stricken. 9  And he made his grave with the wicked, and with the rich in his death; because he had done no violence, neither was any deceit in his mouth.

 

    10 ¶  Yet it pleased the LORD to bruise him; he hath put him to grief: when thou shalt make his soul an offering for sin, he shall see his seed, he shall prolong his days, and the pleasure of the LORD shall prosper in his hand. 11  He shall see of the travail of his soul, and shall be satisfied: by his knowledge shall my righteous servant justify many; for he shall bear their iniquities. 12  Therefore will I divide him a portion with the great, and he shall divide the spoil with the strong; because he hath poured out his soul unto death: and he was numbered with the transgressors; and he bare the sin of many, and made intercession for the transgressors.

 

They had some success among the Greek proselytes to Judaism, the devout Greeks and the important women (think of Lydia from earlier). But, the Jews who did not believe and opposed them broke out in a riot and got the city officials involved and accused them not only of heresy but treason. Notice this declaration at the time of the Crucifixion.

 

Joh 19:15  But they cried out, Away with him, away with him, crucify him. Pilate saith unto them, Shall I crucify your King? The chief priests answered, We have no king but Caesar.