People really find God when they seek him with an open heart through the truth he has revealed in Scripture and in Jesus. In Acts 17, Paul shares the gospel in three cities. In Thessalonica, some believed but jealous religious leaders started a riot. In Athens, sophisticated philosophers mostly sneered. But in Berea, people examined the Scriptures every day to see if Paul was right, and many believed. Culture can help or hinder our search for God, but wholehearted seekers find him.
Setting the Scene in Acts 17:1-34
In Acts 16, we saw how households create an environment for faith (Acts 16:1-40). Acts 17 zooms out from the family to the culture. Cities, nations, and even religious traditions also make it easier or harder for people to find God.
After being beaten and released in Philippi, Paul, Silas, and Timothy traveled west along the Via Egnatia, the great Roman road that crossed Macedonia. They passed through Amphipolis and Apollonia and arrived in Thessalonica, the capital of the province and a busy port city. Paul later wrote two letters to the church planted during this short visit.
Thessalonica: When Religion Gets in the Way
As usual, Paul started at the synagogue.
Acts 17:2-4 As was his custom, Paul went into the synagogue, and on three Sabbath days he reasoned with them from the Scriptures, explaining and proving that the Messiah had to suffer and rise from the dead. “This Jesus I am proclaiming to you is the Messiah,” he said. Some of the Jews were persuaded and joined Paul and Silas, as did a large number of God-fearing Greeks and quite a few prominent women.
For three Sabbaths, Paul reasoned from the Hebrew Scriptures that the Messiah had to suffer and rise from the dead. Some Jews, many God-fearing Greeks, and a number of prominent women believed. But others were jealous. They recruited troublemakers from the marketplace, formed a mob, and attacked the house of Jason, where Paul was staying. When they couldn’t find Paul, they dragged Jason before the city officials, shouting that these men had “caused trouble all over the world” (Acts 17:6) and were defying Caesar by proclaiming another king named Jesus.
Luke calls those officials politarchs, a title that doesn’t appear in other ancient literature. For years critics doubted it. Then inscriptions were found in Thessalonica using exactly that title, confirming Luke’s accuracy as a historian.
The irony is thick. The rioters accused the missionaries of causing trouble while they themselves started the riot. Religious people can twist the truth when it threatens their position. This is what we might call dead religion: any belief system that leads people away from Jesus, no matter how sincere or devoted it looks. People can be very religious and still miss God.
Berea: Searching the Scriptures
That night the believers sent Paul and Silas about 50 miles west to Berea, where the response was very different.
Acts 17:10-12 As soon as it was night, the believers sent Paul and Silas away to Berea. On arriving there, they went to the Jewish synagogue. Now the Berean Jews were of more noble character than those in Thessalonica, for they received the message with great eagerness and examined the Scriptures every day to see if what Paul said was true. As a result, many of them believed, as did also a number of prominent Greek women and many Greek men.
The NIV says the Bereans were “of more noble character” than those in Thessalonica. The Greek word originally described people of noble birth, but here it describes a noble attitude. They were open-minded, but not in the modern sense that anything goes. They were willing to let God’s Word challenge their traditions. They received the message eagerly, and then they checked it against Scripture day after day.
That’s the model for every seeker. Eagerness without examination leads to gullibility, and examination without eagerness leads to cynicism. The Bereans had both. When opponents from Thessalonica followed Paul and stirred up trouble, the believers sent him on to Athens, while Silas and Timothy stayed behind.
Athens: The Center of Popular Culture
Athens was the intellectual capital of the ancient world, the city of Socrates, Plato, and Aristotle. By Paul’s day its political power had faded, but its reputation for philosophy and learning remained. Paul was deeply distressed to see the city full of idols. He reasoned in the synagogue and in the marketplace every day, where he met Epicurean and Stoic philosophers.
These two schools represented very different worldviews. Epicureans believed that the gods, if they existed, were distant and uninvolved, and that the soul ceased to exist at death. They pursued a tranquil life free from pain and fear. Stoics believed a divine reason ran through the universe and taught that people should live in harmony with it, accepting what they couldn’t control. Some of them called Paul a “babbler,” a word that literally meant a bird pecking at seeds, someone who picked up scraps of ideas.
They brought him to the Areopagus, which means “Hill of Ares” (the Greek god of war). The name referred both to a rocky hill near the Acropolis and to the city’s ancient council. Luke adds that the Athenians spent their time doing nothing but talking about the latest ideas. Today we might call it social media.
The Unknown God Made Known
Paul didn’t start by quoting the Old Testament, which his audience didn’t know. He started where they were.
Acts 17:22-23 Paul then stood up in the meeting of the Areopagus and said: “People of Athens! I see that in every way you are very religious. For as I walked around and looked carefully at your objects of worship, I even found an altar with this inscription: to an unknown god. So you are ignorant of the very thing you worship—and this is what I am going to proclaim to you.”
Ancient writers such as Pausanias mention altars in Athens dedicated to unknown gods, built just in case some deity had been overlooked. Paul used that admission of ignorance as an open door. Then he explained the God of the Bible in terms his audience could follow, tracing a storyline that sounds like the opening chapters of Genesis.
Acts 17:24-27 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 human hands. And he is not served by human hands, as if he needed anything. Rather, he himself gives everyone life and breath and everything else. From one man he made all the nations, that they should inhabit the whole earth; and he marked out their appointed times in history and the boundaries of their lands. God did this so that they would seek him and perhaps reach out for him and find him, though he is not far from any one of us.
God is the Creator. He doesn’t live in temples or need anything from us. He made every nation from one man, and he arranged history so that people would seek him and perhaps “reach out for him.” The Greek word pictures someone groping in the dark. Without God’s revelation, people feel their way toward him. Paul even quoted Greek poets: “In him we live and move and have our being,” often attributed to Epimenides, and “We are his offspring,” from the poet Aratus.
Then Paul brought it home. God now commands everyone everywhere to repent, because he has set a day to judge the world by a man he raised from the dead (Acts 17:30-31). At the mention of resurrection, some sneered. Others wanted to hear more. A few believed, including Dionysius, a member of the council, and a woman named Damaris.
What This Means for Us
Every one of us is shaped by a culture. For some, it’s a religious culture that values rules and tradition over a real relationship with Jesus. For others, it’s a popular culture that treats faith as one more opinion to scroll past. Both can keep us from God. Paul’s example also shows us how to engage culture: know what people believe, look for open doors, and explain the gospel clearly without watering it down.
The way to find God hasn’t changed. Be a Berean. Read the Bible eagerly, test what you hear against it, and submit to what it says. God has promised that sincere seekers will not be disappointed.
Jeremiah 29:13 You will seek me and find me when you seek me with all your heart.
God is not far from any one of us. The question is whether we will seek him on his terms.
The Takeaway
How can people really find God? By seeking him wholeheartedly through his Word and his Son. Religious Thessalonica rejected the truth, and philosophical Athens mostly mocked it, but the Bereans searched the Scriptures every day and believed. God is not far from any of us, and those who seek him with all their heart will find him.
