Discerning the Truth - Berea Church - Acts 17

¹⁰ As soon as it was night, the believers sent Paul and Silas away to Berea. On arriving there, they went to the Jewish synagogue. ¹¹ Now the Berean Jews were of more noble character than those in Thessalonica, for they received the message with great eagerness and examined the Scriptures every day to see if what Paul said was true. ¹² As a result, many of them believed, as did also a number of prominent Greek women and many Greek men.

For the first time, a Jewish church digs into the actual Scriptures to see if what Paul says is true.  I find it amazing that this sentence isn’t repeated every time we are told that Paul preaches at a synagogue.  But this is the only one.  They wanted to know if it was true or not.  Because of their study, many of the Jews believe, not just a few as usually happened and a multitude of Gentiles believe. 

This is a great example for us today.  We should be knowledgeable of God’s Word so we can discern truth from non-truth.  Satan mis-quoted Scripture even to Jesus, if we do not know what God has said to us how are we prepared for the untruths that sound so nearly to the truth?  We must be continually learning and willing to study to examine what we are told by society and even our own church leaders.

¹³ But when the Jews in Thessalonica learned that Paul was preaching the word of God at Berea, some of them went there too, agitating the crowds and stirring them up. ¹⁴ The believers immediately sent Paul to the coast, but Silas and Timothy stayed at Berea. ¹⁵ Those who escorted Paul brought him to Athens and then left with instructions for Silas and Timothy to join him as soon as possible.

Sounds a lot like Lystra on their first missionary journey.  The Jews in one town going to another town to stir them up and run them out of the area.  Here we see that they are really against Paul, seeing him as their primary threat, and not pursuing Silas and Timothy with the same zeal.  They obviously feared Paul and his ability to overcome them in study of Scriptures (knowledge) and preaching (enthusiasm).

I also wonder if God didn’t do this intentionally.  Maybe God wanted Paul in Athens by himself.