Participants: Jim & Mark Howard
Series Code: ABOTB
Program Code: ABOTB00019A
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00:22 Welcome to Books of the Book. I hope you have been joining us
00:25 in our study of the book of Acts here as we've been studying 00:28 along. My name is Pastor Mark Howard and I'm here with my 00:31 co-host, my brother, Jim Howard, who is also a pastor by the way. 00:35 We have been going through the book of Acts. In our last time 00:40 together we were studying the book of Acts chapter 16 and the 00:45 Macedonian call and how the Holy Spirit had actually said no. 00:49 I think that was the title that we used in When the Holy Spirit 00:53 Says No. Because the Holy Spirit said no to Paul when he wanted 00:57 to go in certain other places and we found out why because 01:02 there was a need in Macedonia. When Paul took the call to 01:05 Macedonia, he and his team, the Lord really blessed them by 01:09 establishing a Christian church at Philippi. So we're coming 01:14 through that into Acts. In fact, we're going to start in verse 40 01:18 of chapter 16 and we're going to carry right through to chapter 01:21 17. But before we do we're going to ask God to bless our time in 01:24 his word. So I'd invite you to bow your heads with me. 01:28 Father in heaven, we thank you for the privilege we have of 01:31 studying your word. We thank you for the Spirit of Truth that you 01:35 have given us to lead us into all truth and, Lord, to bring 01:38 conviction and to bring power into our lives to follow through 01:42 in our Christian endeavors. Now we ask, Lord, as we study that 01:46 you would continue to guide us today. In Jesus' name we pray. 01:50 Amen. Now in Acts, as I said, 16 and 01:54 verse 40, we're finishing up with the previous chapter. 01:58 It says, They went out of the prison and entered the house of 02:01 Lydia, who was this convert there. Her whole household 02:05 in Philippi, and when they had seen the brethren, they 02:08 encouraged them and they departed. Now they came on to 02:12 Thessalonica. We find in chapter 17, They passed through, verse 1 02:17 Now when they had passed through Amphipolis and Apollonia, they 02:22 came to Thessalonica where there was a synagogue of the 02:26 Jews. Then Paul, as his custom was, went into them and for 02:29 three Sabbaths reasoned with them from the scriptures 02:32 explaining and demonstrating that the Christ had to suffer 02:36 and rise again from the dead and saying this Jesus whom I preach 02:41 to you is the Christ. And some of them were persuaded and a 02:44 great multitude of the devout Greeks and not a few of the 02:48 leading women joined Paul and Silas. Now there are a few 02:52 things, Jim, here that really are important to us. First of 02:56 all, we've touched on this before, Paul, as his custom was, 03:00 went into the synagogue on the Sabbath day and reasoned with 03:04 them out of the scriptures. The first thing that grabs my 03:08 attention again is that we find that it was Paul's custom to 03:12 worship on the Sabbath, whether in the synagogue, whether by the 03:15 riverside, this was a custom that he followed. Secondly, it 03:21 was a custom of his to reason out of the scriptures about 03:26 Christ. This may come as a surprise to some of our viewers 03:31 who maybe haven't given thought to this yet, but there are many 03:35 people who look at Christ and the gospel as a New Testament 03:39 thing and don't realize that the only scripture the apostle had 03:43 here was the Old Testament. It was not the New Testament that 03:46 he was preaching Christ from. But it was the Old Testament 03:50 scriptures that he customarily, on a regular basis, preached 03:54 Christ from. We need to remember and realize and recognize that 03:58 the Old Testament scriptures are full of gospel imagery. But we 04:02 need to have the Holy Spirit open our understanding so that 04:06 we can see that gospel imagery. 04:08 And we know that Jesus opened the understanding of the early 04:12 apostles and that was a big part of... Of course, Paul was 04:16 trained and he understood those Old Testament scriptures, but 04:20 when he connected with the early church there was also the 04:23 blessing of getting all that benefit from when Jesus, in Luke 04:27 24, opened to their understanding all the things 04:29 about him in Law and in the prophets and in the Psalms. 04:32 That's right. We would do well to continue to study the 04:35 scripture, Old and New Testaments, and continually ask 04:39 God for new revelations of Christ in the word. Now it's 04:42 interesting. Again in verse 4 it says, Some of them were 04:45 persuaded, that is in the synagogue, but the great 04:48 multitude of devout Greeks and not a few of the leading women 04:52 joined Paul and Silas. So we see that he preaches Christ from the 04:56 word and the church grows. 04:58 That's right. Now if you look at verse 5 it picks up with a 05:02 common theme that we've seen before. It says, But the Jews, 05:07 but the Jews, who were not persuaded, in another place it 05:11 says the unbelieving Jews, becoming envious... 05:15 So it's important for us to note again for our viewers a lot of 05:18 times the New Testament uses this language about the Jews and 05:21 their anger. But we know that it wasn't all the Jews. Paul was a 05:24 Jew, many of his colleagues were Jews and many of the Jews did 05:28 believe. Of course, Jesus is a Jew in his humanity. So it's not 05:33 (we're not disparaging the Jews) but it's commenting here that 05:37 because of their preconceived ideas as a people, as a nation, 05:42 we find them fighting against the gospel of Christ. 05:45 That's right. And not accepting him as their Messiah. So these 05:49 Jews were ones who were not persuaded that Jesus was the 05:52 Messiah. And it says, Becoming envious, took some of the evil 05:57 men from the market place and gathering a mob set all the city 06:00 in an uproar and attacked the house of Jason and sought to 06:04 bring them out to the people. Now I'm going to stop there for 06:08 just a moment. Fascinating, a couple of things. First of all 06:11 it says, Took some of the evil men from the market place. 06:15 Well I suppose that that's from the perspective of Luke, the 06:18 divinely inspired author. If they were to say they would 06:21 probably say they were well- esteemed men. But these were 06:25 evil men if the truth be known and we also see into the heart 06:28 of these Jews who were not persuaded where he reveals once 06:31 again, we've seen this before as well, that they were envious. 06:34 That was really at the heart of what they were doing. They 06:39 were seeing these people listening and giving heed and 06:43 accepting the words of Paul and his team. So we see that there 06:48 was a sense of reputation that was in the way here for these 06:53 Jews who didn't believe. They were upset about what was 06:56 happening. But you'll notice that that's not how they 06:59 portray it as we continue. But I want to point out too... 07:02 Yeah, we don't find them saying hey we're mad because he's 07:05 getting more attention than we are. 07:06 They're not going to say that. We'll find out what they say. 07:10 But it's notable too that they again gather these evil men from 07:14 the market place to create this uproar. I mean, envy will lead 07:19 you to do a lot of awful things. And they may have been 07:22 justifying themselves, rationalizing that it wasn't 07:24 envy, but at the end of the day they were joining forces with 07:28 people that they knew very well were not in harmony with the 07:32 will of God as expressed to them and as they knew it from the 07:35 oracles of God. Anyway, in verse 6 it says, But when they did not 07:38 find them, they dragged Jason and some brethren to the rulers 07:42 of the city crying out, These who have turned the world 07:45 upside down have come here too. Jason has harbored them and 07:49 these are all acting contrary to the decrees of Caesar saying 07:53 there is another king, Jesus, and it troubled the crowd and 07:57 the rulers of the city when they heard these things. So when they 08:00 had taken security from Jason and the rest they let them go. 08:04 So here's the picture. They say these men who have turned the 08:08 world upside down. Can you think of a better compliment 08:12 than that they turned the world upside down. Praise the Lord. 08:16 That shows the effectiveness that was happening and the way 08:19 the word was spreading from city to city even in these 08:22 Gentile cities. And then it says they are acting contrary to the 08:27 decrees of Caesar. Now comes out their facade. That's right. 08:31 Their concern for Caesar and the fact that there was not enough 08:35 respect. Nothing about envy. Only their lack of respect for 08:38 Caesar was their reason, but the Bible reveals that it was 08:42 actually envy. So then they can't really do much more so 08:46 take... That's not the first time we've 08:48 heard about concern for Caesar. 08:49 That's right. You go back to the trial of Jesus and they said we 08:54 have no king but Caesar and certainly made it appear that 09:00 Jesus was an enemy of Caesar. 09:01 Yeah. Pilate, if you go through with this you're not Caesar's 09:03 friend. Exactly. So we recognize that 09:07 when really someone who's driven by envy and greed wants to 09:12 accomplish something they will often times resort to things 09:18 that lower their dignity and their honesty and maybe they 09:24 rationalized that what they were doing was really true but the 09:27 truth is there was envy lurking in the heart and that can 09:29 produce some pretty wicked things and that's what we see 09:32 here. Well we go on in verse 10 to 09:34 find out of course they found Jason but they couldn't find 09:36 the apostles. Verse 10 says, The brethren immediately sent Paul 09:40 and Silas away by night to Berea so they're trying to whisk them 09:43 away and protect them. When they arrived they went into the 09:46 synagogue of the Jews. Now in verse 11 there's something 09:49 interesting. These were more fair-minded than those of 09:52 Thessalonica in that they received the word with all 09:56 readiness and searched the scriptures daily to find out 10:00 whether these things were so. Therefore many of them believed 10:04 and also not a few of the Greeks prominent women as well as men. 10:08 Now a couple of things here that are important. First of all, 10:11 it says that they were more fair-minded in that they 10:16 received the word and searched the scriptures. These were the 10:19 people of Berea and even today in Christianity, in fact I think 10:22 there's a whole chain of Christian book stores called 10:24 Berean book stores. There's a publisher called Berean Books. 10:27 Berean is a word that's used in Christianity today as people 10:31 who study. They don't just take what they hear. They were good 10:35 Bereans, they searched the scriptures. But what's 10:39 interesting to me is this, Jim. I've run into a number of people 10:42 that think they're good Bereans because they're skeptics. When 10:45 you try to share something ah it's like well I don't know 10:48 about that and they question and they're skeptical about 10:52 everything. That's not how these people were because they 10:55 received the word with readiness of mind. In other words, they 10:59 were open to it. They weren't hesitant and skeptical. Now they 11:03 were still going to go and search the scriptures to confirm 11:07 it, but they had an openness about them. Sometimes I've 11:12 seen people who cover their skepticism in this air of I'm 11:16 just going to study it out and be faithful to God but often 11:20 times it's not an attempt or desire to be faithful to God but 11:23 to hold onto their own views and so they're going to be skeptical 11:26 of anything that they don't think. 11:27 That's not being a good Berean. 11:29 That's not being a good Berean. That is not what we're finding 11:31 here. Because they were fair- minded and open-minded and 11:34 received the word with readiness. They still searched 11:37 searched the scriptures to find out whether these things were 11:39 so. I get the sense when they say 11:42 readiness that it's like giving somebody the benefit of the 11:46 benefit of the doubt. Instead of starting from the premise that 11:50 I'm going to critically examine this and point out what's wrong 11:54 you give someone the benefit of the doubt and listen with an 11:57 open mind and then after receiving then you can go back 12:01 and confirm or deny. But I agree with you. There are many people 12:05 who take that approach where they have a critical view of 12:07 things and then pride themselves in that because they don't take 12:11 any man's say so and they only take the word but the reality is 12:15 that they're not really being like the Bereans. 12:16 No they're not taking the word. So it's interesting that you 12:20 bring that up about being, how did you say that? Giving the 12:23 benefit of the doubt. Because where mine says in the New King 12:27 James, these were more fair- minded, my marginal reading, 12:29 and some translations word it this way, They were more noble. 12:32 You think of that, being noble, being fair to people and that's 12:35 where the fair-minded... giving people the benefit of the doubt. 12:39 So we go on here, There were many who believe but, verse 13 12:43 gives us a picture we've seen before, But when the Jews from 12:47 Thessalonica learned that the word of God was preached by Paul 12:51 at Berea, they came there also and refuted him from the 12:54 scriptures. Nope, never. They stirred up the crowd. You know, 12:58 they never go to scripture. They stirred up the crowds and then 13:01 immediately the brethren sent Paul away to go to the sea, but 13:05 both Silas and Timothy remained there. So those who conducted 13:08 Paul brought him to Athens and received a command for Silas and 13:11 Timothy to come to him with all speed, and they departed. So he 13:15 moves on again to another place. Why? Because they stirred up the 13:18 crowds against him. So we're going to move on to Athens but 13:21 first we need to take a break. So we're going to break and I 13:24 hope you stick with us and come back in just a few moments as 13:27 we see Paul as he goes on to Athens and what mighty things 13:29 God does there. |
Revised 2014-12-17