Acts 17:17 - Ellicott's Commentary On The Whole Bible

Bible Comments

And in the market daily. — To teach in the synagogue, and to gather the devout persons, i.e., the proselytes to whom the Law had been a schoolmaster, leading them to Christ, was after the usual pattern of St. Paul’s work. The third mode of action, disputing in the market-place, the agora, which in every Greek city was the centre of its life, was a new experiment. He saw, we may believe, others so disputing; teachers of this or that school of philosophy, with listeners round them, debating glibly of the “highest good,” and the “chief end” of life, and man’s relation to the One and the All. Why should not he take part in the discussion, and lead those who were apparently in earnest in their inquiries to the truth which they were vainly seeking?

Acts 17:17

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.