Acts chapter 17, and we'll read
from verse 10. Perhaps you'll remember that
the apostle Paul and Silas and Timothy had been at Thessalonica,
and there had been some opposition to them in Thessalonica, and
the disciples there, the new church, the young church, decided
to let the apostles go by night out of the city for their protection
and preservation. And we read in verse 10, and
the brethren, that is the brethren in Thessalonica, immediately
sent away Paul and Silas by night unto Berea, who coming thither
went into the synagogue of the Jews. These were more noble than
those in Thessalonica, in that they received the word with all
readiness of mind and searched the scriptures daily whether
those things were so. Therefore many of them believed.
also of honourable women, which were Greeks, and of men, not
a few. But when the Jews of Thessalonica
had knowledge that the word of God was preached of Paul at Berea,
they came thither also and stirred up the people. And then immediately
the brethren sent away Paul to go as it were to the sea, but
Silas and Timotheus abode there still. day that conducted Paul
brought him unto Athens and receiving a commandment unto Silas and
Timotheus for to come to him with all speed they departed. Amen. May God bless this reading
to us. There's something very lovely
about this little city of Beria. If you still have those maps
that were left out last week, sitting on the chair beside you,
you'll see that Beria is still up there in the top left-hand
corner. It's under the heading Macedonia, which tells us that
we are still in Europe. We are still in that southern
part of Europe, what we now call Greece. And there, there's a
number of towns. Philippi is there, Thessalonica
is there. These are the two major towns
in the region before you get down to Athens at the bottom.
And this is Berea, which is just a little town to the side there
of Thessalonica. And it was here that the apostle
Paul, Timothy, and Silas went when it appeared Thessalonica
was becoming too violent or the people there too difficult for
the safety of the preaching. And this little city, Berea,
has come down to us as a place where there was a nobility. And that's what I mean by something
very lovely about the town. Not because of its location and
its scenery, although it seems to have been a very pretty place.
It was at the bottom of a mountain. It was in a flat, you know, it
reminded me a little bit of Shoto, actually. It was in a flat place
at the bottom of a mountain with several rivers. running past
it. It had been strategically located
in order to take the benefits of the local environment and
it was fertile and there was lots of fruit grown around there. But what made that place noble? was the attitude of the people
there in the synagogue when Paul arrived. He went straight to
the synagogue, as he often did, and he began to preach from the
Scriptures. Not the whole Bible as we currently
know it, but the Old Testament Scriptures, which was the Scriptures
available at that time, and the Scriptures from which the Jews
took their doctrine. And what Paul did, as he did
in other places, was he showed them that the Messiah spoken
of in the Old Testament had indeed to come. And he showed them the
kind of Messiah that he would be, what he would say, what he
would do, what he would suffer, and how he would die, as we were
thinking a little bit about that last week in Thessalonica also. But in Thessalonica there had
been a reaction by the Jews against this teaching. whereas in Berea,
they were more considerate. They wondered about this message.
And when the Apostle Paul then went on to show them that the
one whom the prophets were speaking of in the Old Testament was in
fact Jesus Christ of Nazareth, who had died and risen and ascended
into heaven, then we find that they seriously considered the
message that they were hearing. You know, this tells us something
about the importance of the Word of God. And when we're a little
bit younger, we might think there's lots and lots out there for me
to know, lots of things that I want to read. And that's true
when you get older as well. You know, some of us enjoy reading,
for example, the biographies of famous people. or that the
wisdom of educated men and women, or perhaps that the musings of
entertainers, and we enjoy reading and getting all of these good
things. Even sometimes when I'm standing
in the supermarket checkout lane, I get to realize that there's
a lot of people like to read about the excesses of celebrities. There's so many words in this
world. There's something for everyone.
But the noble Bereans studied the scriptures. And that's a
good example for us. Because whatever it is that we're
going to read, let us not forgo reading the Bible. Let us not
forget to come to the Word of God, because it doesn't matter
how good the author is, and you might be a famous writer, you
might be the wisest philosopher, you might be the most entertaining,
But when it comes to Scripture, we're talking about God's words. We're talking about the revelation
of Almighty God to men and women. And therefore, we come to the
Scriptures with a humility. We come to the Word of God with
a seriousness. We come with our eyes open and
our ears open and our mind engaged so that we might learn what God
is saying to us. These apostles, the little apostolic
band, had fled Thessalonica during the night, likely to escape these
violent Jews. And again, Paul goes straight
to the synagogue. And we're told that when he preached
and these people heard, Many of them believed, and I mentioned
last week about the frequency with which the Apostle mentions
that the women believed. And I think, again, here we see
that, that Luke, the writer, is directing us to see that amongst
those who heard the Word of God were the women. and that is important. You know so many ways in which
women even still today feel that they are being put down and not
being given proper place and that sometimes happens in churches
but Here we're told that it was the women who believed, and I
think that's lovely that the apostles were ready to note that
these women were faithful, these women were listening to the Word
of God. It is a good thing to hear the
Gospel preached, and even if you don't understand it all,
even if it doesn't all make sense to you, Nothing that you learn
in life makes sense to you the first time you read it. You always
have to study in order to learn something that is worthwhile
learning. And that's what we endeavor to
do when we come into church, to study the Word of God, to
keep listening, to ask God for wisdom, that he might teach us
how to understand the word of God. And of course, it's always
good to ask other people also who maybe have a little bit more
experience or have studied these things a little bit longer. So
don't be afraid to ask questions also. The Jews in Thessalonica
had proved their opposition to the gospel and it seems that
they weren't simply content to get Paul out of town. They wanted
to shut this man up entirely. And so they left their own town
and they travelled to Berea. and they heard that Paul was
preaching there so they tried to silence him in Berea as well. They stirred up the people there
in opposition to the gospel and that again reminds us that the
true gospel will always cause people to be offended. We shouldn't
be concerned if people take umbrage or in some way get disturbed
or distressed by the gospel when it is preached. If we try to
make the gospel acceptable to men and women, we will discover
that we draw the very essence out of the message. But if we
speak the truth and we leave the Lord to deal with the heart
of the hearer, then we will discover that either they will listen
or they will oppose. And that's what happened here. Some listened and some opposed. And men will always try to silence
the truth of God, but God will always protect and deliver and
overcome his opponents. So when these Thessalonians came
to Berea, we discover that Paul again was whisked away by the
new converts. They realized that the apostle's
life was in danger, and so this church here that had been established
in Berea, probably in a very short period of time, takes the
well-being of the apostles seriously and endeavours to get them away. And there was a little subterfuge.
I wonder if you noticed that. A little deviousness went on
here, which I think is enough to cause us to smile. You know
what these believers did? They headed for the coast. They
headed to the nearest port. as if they were going to put
Paul onto a boat to send him across the sea. And when they
got to the port, They didn't get on the boat. They took a
sharp right and they headed down the coast to Athens. And so they
kiddied on the enemies of the gospel. They made them think
that something was going to happen and then did something different. And I think it's interesting
to see the way in which they acted here. And the reason was,
of course, that Paul was not yet ready to leave Macedonia. God had called him to Macedonia. Remember the vision that he'd
had? Come over and help us. And he'd gone to Philippi and
then Thessalonica and now he'd spent some time in Berea. There
had been churches planted in these three towns and now he
was going to Athens. And when he got there, he would
preach the gospel as well. God's purpose is to call his
elect wherever they might be, and he uses preachers and he
uses the preaching of the gospel to do that. And we can but rejoice
at the faithfulness of these men in the past who put their
lives on the line, who laboured in the gospel, who were in danger
of them. from the enemies of the truth
and yet who pressed on in their task, in their responsibility,
taking no thought for their own well-being, but seeking the glory
of God and the well-being of the Church of Jesus Christ. May the Lord bless these thoughts
to us and as we leave Paul today, we'll be leaving him in Athens
and we'll pick up on another occasion, God willing, there.
Thank you for your attention.