1Now when they had passed through Amphipolis and Apollonia, they came to Thessalonica, where there was a Jewish synagogue. 2Paul, as was his custom, went in to them; and for three Sabbath days reasoned with them from the Scriptures, 3explaining 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.”
4Some of them were persuaded and joined Paul and Silas: of the devout Greeks a great multitude, and not a few of the chief women. 5But the unpersuaded Jews took along some wicked men from the marketplace and gathering a crowd, set the city in an uproar. Assaulting the house of Jason, they sought to bring them out to the people. 6When they didn’t find them, they dragged Jason and certain brothers before the rulers of the city, crying, “These who have turned the world upside down have come here also, 7whom Jason has received. These all act contrary to the decrees of Caesar, saying that there is another king, Jesus!” 8The multitude and the rulers of the city were troubled when they heard these things. 9When they had taken security from Jason and the rest, they let them go.
10The brothers immediately sent Paul and Silas away by night to Beroea. When they arrived, they went into the Jewish synagogue.
11Now these were more noble than those in Thessalonica, in that they received the word with all readiness of mind, examining the Scriptures daily to see whether these things were so. 12Many of them therefore believed; also of the prominent Greek women, and not a few men. 13But when the Jews of Thessalonica had knowledge that the word of God was proclaimed by Paul at Beroea also, they came there likewise, agitating the multitudes. 14Then the brothers immediately sent out Paul to go as far as to the sea, and Silas and Timothy still stayed there. 15But those who escorted Paul brought him as far as Athens. Receiving a commandment to Silas and Timothy that they should come to him very quickly, they departed.
16Now while Paul waited for them at Athens, his spirit was provoked within him as he saw the city full of idols. 17So he reasoned in the synagogue with the Jews and the devout persons, and in the marketplace every day with those who met him. 18Some of the Epicurean and Stoic philosophers also were conversing with him. Some said, “What does this babbler want to say?”
Others said, “He seems to be advocating foreign deities,” because he preached Jesus and the resurrection.
19They took hold of him and brought him to the Areopagus, saying, “May we know what this new teaching is, which you are speaking about? 20For you bring certain strange things to our ears. We want to know therefore what these things mean.” 21Now all the Athenians and the strangers living there spent their time in nothing else, but either to tell or to hear some new thing.
22Paul stood in the middle of the Areopagus and said, “You men of Athens, I perceive that you are very religious in all things. 23For as I passed along and observed the objects of your worship, I also found an altar with this inscription: ‘TO AN UNKNOWN GOD.’ What therefore you worship in ignorance, I announce to you. 24The God who made the world and all things in it, he, being Lord of heaven and earth, doesn’t dwell in temples made with hands. 25He isn’t served by men’s hands, as though he needed anything, seeing he himself gives to all life and breath and all things. 26He made from one blood every nation of men to dwell on all the surface of the earth, having determined appointed seasons and the boundaries of their dwellings, 27that they should seek the Lord, if perhaps they might reach out for him and find him, though he is not far from each one of us. 28‘For in him we live, move, and have our being.’ As some of your own poets have said, ‘For we are also his offspring.’ 29Being then the offspring of God, we ought not to think that the Divine Nature is like gold, or silver, or stone, engraved by art and design of man. 30The times of ignorance therefore God overlooked. But now he commands that all people everywhere should repent, 31because he 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.”
32Now when they heard of the resurrection of the dead, some mocked; but others said, “We want to hear you again concerning this.”
33Thus Paul went out from among them. 34But certain men joined with him and believed, including Dionysius the Areopagite, and a woman named Damaris, and others with them.
When Paul came to Thessalonica and preached the Gospel in the synagogue he was met with both acceptance and resistance. Some of the Jews who rejected the Gospel incited a mob and led them to the house of a friend of Paul's, named Jason. Although Paul was not there, the crowd “dragged” Jason before the city authorities, whom Luke calls “πολιτάρχας” (politarchs, poli = city, arches = ruler), translated as “rulers of the city” (KJV, NKJV), “city officials” (NIV, HCSB, NET), “city authorities” (NASB95), or “leaders of the city” (NCV). Although doubted in the past, Luke's use of the term has been completely vindicated by archaeological evidence.
From ancient sources, we know Thessalonica was usually administered by five or six “politarchs,” who were led by a “presiding Politarch.”[1] These politarchs were “non-Roman chief civil magistrates” who performed administrative and law enforcement duties of “various Macedonian cities,”[2] and were charged with maintaining order by performing “surveillance, control and eventual prosecution of trouble-makers.”[3] These duties are vividly exemplified by Luke's account of Jason and the Thessalonican mob. The mob claims, “These who have turned the world upside down have come here too. Jason has harbored them, and these are all acting contrary to the decrees of Caesar, saying there is another king—Jesus” (Acts 17:6-7 NKJV). The politarchs hand down their judgment, levying a fine against Jason and the other Christians, and let them go. Politarchs were usually from the wealthy classes and appointed annually (although they often served more than one term) and could hold other offices at the same time.[4] Interestingly, no evidence has been found of politarchs in Roman colonies, even in Macedonia. Politarchs seem to be a uniquely Greek office.[5]”
Although before the twentieth century the term was “curious and rare”[6] (a fact which radical textual critical scholars of the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries used to doubt both the historical accuracy and Lukan authorship of Acts), to date, sixty-four inscriptions have been found mentioning the term “πολιτάρχας”, mostly in Macedonia (half from Thessalonica alone).[7] In Thessalonica specifically, a part of a gateway arch was discovered in 1835, dated to between A.D. 69-79, which begins, “πολειταρχούντων…”, then lists several politarchs by name. Some have even speculated that one or more on the list were present during Paul's time in Thessalonica,[8] however modern scholarship has generally doubted the connection.[9]
[1] Harry W. Tarja, The Trial of St. Paul: A Juridicial Exegesis of the Second Half of Acts, (Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck, 1988) 34.
[2] Ibid.
[3] Ibid.
[4] Ibid.
[5] Carl Schuler, "Macedonian Politarchs", Classical Philology, Vol 55, No. 2 (April 1960): 90-100, 90.
[6] The word "politarch" does not survive in any extant Greek manuscript. See Mark Wilson, "Politarchs." Page 183 in William M. Ramsay, St. Paul: The Traveler and Roman Citizen, edited by Mark Wilson, (Grand Rapids, MI: Kregel, 2001) 183. However, it is found in inscriptions several places in the Greek world.
[7] Mark Wilson, "Politarchs." Page 183 in William M. Ramsay, St. Paul: The Traveler and Roman Citizen, edited by Mark Wilson, (Grand Rapids, MI: Kregel, 2001) 183.
[8] A.T. Robertson, Luke the Historian, in Light of Research, (New York: Charles Scribner's Sons, 1920) 188.
[9]See G.H.R. Horsely, "The Politarchs" Pages 419-431 in The Book of Acts in Its First Century Setting, Vol. 2: Graeco-Roman Setting (Grand Rapids, MI: Eerdmans, 1994).