Acts 17:19

So they took Paul to the place where the city council met. When they arrived there, they said to Paul, “ Please tell us, what is this new message that you (sg) are teaching people?

Translation for Translators

In The King James Version

And they took him, and brought him unto Areopagus, saying, May we know what this new doctrine, whereof thou speakest, is?

In Context

18Paul met some teachers who liked to talk about what people should believe. People called some of them Epicureans and they called others Stoics. They told Paul what they believed, and they asked him what he believed. Then some of them said to one another, “This ignorant person is just talking nonsense [RHQ]!” Others said, “ We(exc) think that he is teaching people about ◄foreign gods/ new gods that we (exc) have not heard about►.” They said that because Paul was telling them that Jesus had died and had become alive again afterwards. They had not heard that message before.

20You are teaching some things that startle us (exc), so we want to know what they mean.”

Read all of Acts 17

Cross References

Matthew 10:18And because you teach about me, you will be taken { the religious leaders will take you} to governors and kings in order that they may put you on trial and punish you. As a result, you will testify to those rulers and to other non-Jews about what I have done.

John 13:34Now I am giving you a new commandment: You must love each other. You must love each other in the way that I have loved you.

Acts 17:22Then Paul stood up before the men of the city council and said, “Citizens of Athens, I see that you ◄are very religious/think that it is very important to worship many gods►.

Acts 25:22Agrippa said to Festus, “I also would like to hear the man myself.”

1 John 2:7Dear friends, I am not writing a new additional command to you. Instead, I am writing to you a command which was given to you when you first [MTY] believed in Christ. That command is part of the message that you have always heard.

Matthew Henry on Acts 17:17-22

Paul at Athens. 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 Stoics, 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… Read the whole commentary →

This Verse In Other Editions

Study Acts 17:19