Acts 17:1-15 - Be Like the Bereans!

You need to be MORE judgmental - but just do it correctly!

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SINCE WE LAST LEFT OFF... Luke has been telling the story of Paul's second missionary journey, which landed him in a Philippian prison. Luke tells of how Paul and Silas were praying and singing hymns at midnight with their feet in stocks, a violent earthquake toppled the prison, freeing them. Their jailer comes to faith as a result, and he and his family were baptized.

After leaving Philippi, the missionary team ended up in Thessalonica, where jealous Jews incited a riot against them, forcing them to leave.

Acts 17:10–15 (NASB95)

¹⁰ The brethren [in Philippi] immediately sent Paul and Silas away by night to Berea, and when they arrived, they went into the synagogue of the Jews. ¹¹ Now these were more noble-minded than those in Thessalonica, for they received the word with great eagerness, examining the Scriptures daily to see whether these things were so. ¹² Therefore many of them believed, along with a number of prominent Greek women and men.

¹³ But when the Jews of Thessalonica found out that the word of God had been proclaimed by Paul in Berea also, they came there as well, agitating and stirring up the crowds. ¹⁴ Then immediately the brethren sent Paul out to go as far as the sea; and Silas and Timothy remained there. ¹⁵ Now those who escorted Paul brought him as far as Athens; and receiving a command for Silas and Timothy to come to him as soon as possible, they left.

Belgic Confession

Article 29: The Marks of the True Church

The true church can be recognized

if it has the following marks:

The church engages in the pure preaching

of the gospel;

it makes use of the pure administration of the sacraments

as Christ instituted them;

it practices church discipline

for correcting faults.

In short, it governs itself

according to the pure Word of God,

rejecting all things contrary to it

and holding Jesus Christ as the only Head.

By these marks one can be assured

of recognizing the true church—

and no one ought to be separated from it.

Summary

After escaping the clutches of the cranked up Thessalonian crowd in the dark of night, Paul and Silas immediately fall back into the same pattern they'd repeated in so many other cities: when they arrived in Berea, they went into the synagogue of the Jews. Even though angry and jealous Jews have caused so much hardship for them in the past, synagogues are so often where Paul begins his preaching, because it's there that they find people familiar with the Scriptures.

It's important to note that prior Biblical knowledge is not a necessary prerequisite for faith and salvation in Jesus Christ. There's lots of people, even in the book of Acts, who came to believe without knowing a thing about the Bible before their conversion, not the least of which is the Philippian jailer and his family recorded in the previous chapter.

But Paul's custom of beginning in each new city with Biblically literate people and reasoning with them from the Scriptures, explaining and giving evidence that the Christ had to suffer and rise again from the dead (Acts 17:2-3) shows the value in training our people - especially our children - in the Word of the Lord.

We're not making them Christians by doing so - that's the work of the Holy Spirit. But we are instilling in them one of the ordinary means that the Spirit so often uses to bring people to know Christ as we teach of God's covenant faithfulness throughout history as it's told of in the Old Testament.

  Dig Deeper  

The people in Berea were different than what Paul encountered in so many other cities. Luke puts it quite bluntly: they were more noble-minded, especially compared to those in Thessalonica. One Greek lexicon defines the adjective Luke used here as having "a willingness to learn and evaluate something fairly—‘willingness to learn, to be open-minded."

So they're described as having received the word with great eagerness. Now that eagerness to receive something new - being 'open minded', as the lexicon put it - isn't meant to promote an uncritical acceptance of every novel idea that comes your way. That's the attitude of the fallen world we live in, in which 'open mindedness' is equivocated to mean 'non-judgmental'. That's not at all what these Bereans were, and neither should you be.

Rather, having heard this wonderful good news of Jesus Christ, they examined the Scriptures daily to see whether these things were so. In other words, they evaluated the truthfulness of Paul's claims. You could even say they judged them - but not by their own arbitrary standards or how what Paul preached made them feel. They judged what they heard by how well it conformed to the one and only absolute standard of truth: Scripture.

This is just one more reason for you to increasingly know more and more about what the Bible says, so that you can properly evaluate - judge, even - the dozens of competing truth claims that come at you each day. Be like the Bereans: examine the Scriptures daily!

AAA Prayer (About)

• ACKNOWLEDGE WHO GOD IS: Our Father, who through His Holy Spirit opens the minds of His people to see the truth in His Word;

• ALIGN YOUR LIFE WITH GOD'S WILL: Pray that every day you come to know the Scriptures more so that you can wisely and properly discern truth;

• ASK GOD FOR WHAT YOU NEED:

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