Kisah Para Rasul 4:10

4:10 let it be known to all of you and to all the people of Israel that by the name of Jesus Christ ¹  the Nazarene whom you crucified, whom God raised from the dead, this man stands before you healthy.

Kisah Para Rasul 15:7

15:7 After there had been much debate, ²  Peter stood up and said to them, “Brothers, you know that some time ago ³  God chose ⁴  me to preach to the Gentiles so they would hear the message ⁵  of the gospel ⁶  and believe. ⁷ 

Kisah Para Rasul 17:18

17:18 Also some of the Epicurean ⁸  and Stoic ⁹  philosophers were conversing ¹⁰  with him, and some were asking, ¹¹  “What does this foolish babbler ¹²  want to say?” Others said, “He seems to be a proclaimer of foreign gods.” ¹³  (They said this because he was proclaiming the good news about Jesus and the resurrection.) ¹⁴ 

[4:10]  ¹ tn Or “Messiah”; both “Christ” (Greek) and “Messiah” (Hebrew and Aramaic) mean “one who has been anointed.”

[15:7]  ² tn Or “discussion.” This term is repeated from v. 2.

[15:7]  ³ tn Or “long ago” (an idiom, literally “from ancient days”). According to L&N 67.26, “this reference to Peter having been chosen by God sometime before to bring the gospel to the Gentiles can hardly be regarded as a reference to ancient times, though some persons understand this to mean that God’s decision was made at the beginning of time. The usage of ἀφ᾿ ἡμερῶν ἀρχαίων is probably designed to emphasize the established nature of God’s decision for Peter to take the gospel to the Gentiles beginning with the centurion Cornelius. The fact that this was relatively early in the development of the church may also serve to explain the use of the idiom.”

[15:7]  ⁴ sn God chose. The theme of God’s sovereign choice is an important point, because 1st century Jews believed Israel’s unique position and customs were a reflection of God’s choice.

[15:7]  ⁵ tn Or “word.”

[15:7]  ⁶ tn Or “of the good news.”

[15:7]  ⁷ tn Grk “God chose among you from my mouth the Gentiles to hear the message of the gospel and to believe.” The sense of this sentence in Greek is difficult to render in English. The Greek verb ἐκλέγομαι (eklegomai, “choose”) normally takes a person or thing as a direct object; in this verse the verb has neither clearly stated. The translation understands the phrase “from my mouth,” referring to Peter, as a description of both who God chose and the task to be done. This coupled with the following statement about Gentiles hearing the message of the gospel leads to the more dynamic rendering in the translation.

[17:18]  ⁸ sn An Epicurean was a follower of the philosophy of Epicurus, who founded a school in Athens about 300 b.c. Although the Epicureans saw the aim of life as pleasure, they were not strictly hedonists, because they defined pleasure as the absence of pain. Along with this, they desired the avoidance of trouble and freedom from annoyances. They saw organized religion as evil, especially the belief that the gods punished evildoers in an afterlife. In keeping with this, they were unable to accept Paul’s teaching about the resurrection.

[17:18]  ⁹ sn A Stoic was a follower of the philosophy founded by Zeno (342-270 b.c.), a Phoenician who came to Athens and modified the philosophical system of the Cynics he found there. The Stoics rejected the Epicurean ideal of pleasure, stressing virtue instead. The Stoics emphasized responsibility for voluntary actions and believed risks were worth taking, but thought the actual attainment of virtue was difficult. They also believed in providence.

[17:18]  ¹⁰ tn BDAG 956 s.v. συμβάλλω 1 has “converse, confer” here.

[17:18]  ¹¹ tn Grk “saying.”

[17:18]  ¹² tn Or “ignorant show-off.” The traditional English translation of σπερμολόγος (spermologo") is given in L&N 33.381 as “foolish babbler.” However, an alternate view is presented in L&N 27.19, “(a figurative extension of meaning of a term based on the practice of birds in picking up seeds) one who acquires bits and pieces of relatively extraneous information and proceeds to pass them off with pretense and show – ‘ignorant show-off, charlatan.’” A similar view is given in BDAG 937 s.v. σπερμολόγος: “in pejorative imagery of persons whose communication lacks sophistication and seems to pick up scraps of information here and there scrapmonger, scavenger…Engl. synonyms include ‘gossip’, ‘babbler’, chatterer’; but these terms miss the imagery of unsystematic gathering.”

[17:18]  ¹³ tn The meaning of this phrase is not clear. Literally it reads “strange deities” (see BDAG 210 s.v. δαιμόνιον 1). The note of not being customary is important. In the ancient world what was new was suspicious. The plural δαιμονίων (daimoniwn, “deities”) shows the audience grappling with Paul’s teaching that God was working through Jesus.

[17:18]  ¹⁴ sn This is a parenthetical note by the author.