Acts 17 Bible study: To an unknown God

"Now when they had passed through Amphipolis and Apollonia, they came to Thessalonica, where there was a Jewish synagogue." (17:1). "Paul, as was his custom, went in to them; and for three Sabbath days reasoned with them from the Scriptures" (17:2) (tap reasoned). The next verse says what he did there, "explaining and demonstrating that the Christ had to suffer and rise again from the dead, and saying, “This Jesus, whom I proclaim to you, is the Christ.”" (17:3) (tap explaining and proclaim). Here is what almost everyone misses: 17:3 holds two things, in this order. First, about the Christ: that he "had to suffer and rise again from the dead". Then, in Paul's own words, who he is: "This Jesus, whom I proclaim to you, is the Christ." The chapter doesn't name which Scriptures he reasoned from. "Some of them were persuaded and joined Paul and Silas" (17:4).

Psalms 9:8→leads toActs 17:31

Psalm 9 says of the LORD, "He will judge the world in righteousness" (Psalm 9:8). In Athens Paul, who "preached Jesus and the resurrection" (Acts 17:18), stood in the middle of the Areopagus (Acts 17:22) and said that God "has appointed a day in which he will judge the world in righteousness by the man whom he has ordained; of which he has given assurance to all men, in that he has raised him from the dead" (Acts 17:31). In the WEB, "judge the world in righteousness" is 9:8's wording, and no other Old Testament verse has it. But Paul names no Scripture, and in Hebrew the same words stand in two other psalms, where the WEB has "He will judge the world with righteousness" (Psalm 96:13, 98:9). So setting Acts 17:31 beside this psalm is a reading. One reading hears Paul announcing, in the psalm's words, by whom the LORD will judge the world: the man he raised from the dead. Another reads Paul speaking to the Athenians in words the psalms share, pointing to no one psalm, and reads 9:8 as the psalmist's praise of the LORD who judges. The psalm itself names no man by whom the LORD judges, and this line doesn't make the psalmist Jesus.

καταγγέλλωkatangellosay kat-ang-GEL-lo

Strong's: "to proclaim, promulgate". Thayer: "to announce, declare, promulgate, make known; to proclaim publicly, publish". This chapter has the verb three times (counted in RP2018): Paul at Thessalonica, "This Jesus, whom I proclaim to you, is the Christ." (17:3); "the word of God was proclaimed by Paul at Beroea also" (17:13); and Paul at Athens, "What therefore you worship in ignorance, I announce to you." (17:23). Between them, some at Athens say, "He seems to be advocating foreign deities" (17:18). Behind advocating is a noun the New Testament has only there (counted in RP2018), which Strong's gives as "from G2605; a proclaimer". Acts has the verb 11 times (counted in RP2018), and Favor's Acts 16 studies it too.