Acts 17:10-15 And the brothers immediately sent away Paul and Silas by night to Berea: who coming thither went into the synagogue of the Jews.… The self-evidencing power of Christian truth depends on the moral condition of the man. A flash of lightning reveals nothing to him whose eyes are closed. Two classes of people, both Jews, hear the same gospel, from the same lips, under the same circumstances; and they reach opposite results. For every kind of truth a special capacity is needed. The eye sees only what it brings with it the power of seeing. We shall see how this faculty was trained in the Bereans. Note — I. THE TEACHING, THE RECOGNITION OF WHICH THE WRITER COMMENDS. 1. The "Word" is more fully expounded in ver. 3. The Messiah of ancient promise had come. The great photographic shadows thrown forward upon the sensitive page of prophecy had taken substance. This was a position which he only would take who was sure of his ground; for it was an arraignment of the verdict of both the Jewish and Roman tribunals. "This Jesus is neither a blasphemer nor a seditious intriguer, but the Son, and the Sent of God." And not only so. If this Jesus were the Messiah, then the death knell of their national, religious preeminence had been sounded. "The sceptre shall not depart...until Shiloh come" — then it was to depart. And then, in his insistence on the mission of Christ, the apostle drew two conclusions, both of which warred against the prejudices of his hearers — the one against the creed of the Jew, who believed his race exclusively the people of God, and the other against the pride of the Greek, to whom the doctrine of the Cross was an intolerable offence. 2. Having taken up his main position, the apostle proceeds to establish it by an appeal to the highest authority. "He reasoned with them out of the Scriptures."(1) There were prophecies announcing the coming, character, and work of the Messiah. "To Him gave all the prophets witness."(2) There were supernatural occurrences in the birth and ministry of Christ, each connecting His appearance and Person with these prophetic foreshadowings — particularly the resurrection. But he is not satisfied with demonstrating the historical validity of this latter fact. "If Christ be not raised ye are yet in your sins." It requires for its doctrinal antecedent a sacrificial death, which postulates a Divine Person. II. THE SPIRIT IN WHICH THIS TEACHING WAS RECEIVED. "They received the Word with all readiness of mind." Here is — 1. The docility of temper which belongs to a right conception of the truth. They were in that balanced equipoise of mind which, equally removed from listless indifference and haughty presumption, left them at liberty to listen to the apostle's reasoning, to think dispassionately on it, and to draw their own conclusions. They did not surrender their honest convictions at the bidding of any man, however important his message or high his authority. That is a poor faith which neither asks nor requires a reason for its believing; and it is an equally poor scepticism which contents itself with thoughtlessly denying. The Thessalonian Jews rejected the Word, because they refused to examine its evidences. The Bereans more wisely received the Word, and then examined its evidences. The open eye went in quest of the teaching light. And as the healthy body through its myriad open pores drinks in the air and sunshine, and turns them into a ministry of life, so did the ingenuous candour of these Bereans. The one question was, What is the truth? not What do we wish to be true? 2. The course of inquiry marks — (1) Their fearless honesty. They were not afraid to examine either their old opinions or the new. The great question was whether Paul's statements were founded on fact and accessible to the ordinary methods of moral conviction. To test this question they searched the Scriptures to which the apostle had appealed as justifying the departure he had sought to establish between Judaism and Christianity. They searched them, not the apostle's argument, but the great spring and reason of all that he had affirmed. They searched with keen, inquisitive eye, looking beneath, and over, and all around. The question was too grave for delay, too personal to be honestly evaded. They were bound to face the crisis. So they "searched the Scriptures."(2) Their manly independence of spirit. The child has safeguard from perplexity in its ignorance. Where it does not know, it as careless to inquire. With no sense of danger there is no fear. But the man must interrogate. To know the truth and to build upon it, whether it throw up a basement of rock or open into abysses of despair, that is the only satisfaction for a man. (3) Their rationality. The argument for Christianity, if it be true, must be in its facts. The "reason for the hope that is in us" implies a reasonableness of the evidences without us. The realism of Christianity asks to be examined with the keenest critical research, whether as to its documents, authorship, spirit, or effects. (4) Their reverence. They went directly to the "Scriptures." The problem was outside the schools: why then go to these? It was a supernatural question; why then go to nature? If I want to map out a diagram of the stars, I do not go to geology. 3. What followed on this procedure. (1) Note the logical consequence. "Therefore many of them believed." Faith waiting on the light of evidence is met by the evidence of light, and following that is led into the liberty of truth. "If any man will do His will, he shall know," etc. Obedience is the spirit in which to seek, knowledge its after product. The old philosophy sought first to construct a science of nature, and then to bend nature to its science, and it failed. Now, we begin with what is known and advance to the unknown, and end with a science of things. It is just so in dealing with the secrets of revelation. A childlike docility, putting the mind into sympathy with the truth, will get into fellowship with God. "Then shall we know, if we follow on to know the Lord"; but a self-constructed scheme of interpretation, which assumes the negative of revelation, or makes its teachings follow its own sceptical preconceptions, is sure to flounder into confusion and hopeless doubt. To the man whose senses are all that, Omnipotence itself is a waste of power. Now what the telescope does for our knowledge of the stars, revelation does for our knowledge of God; it manifests what before was unknown, and in both cases the value of the instrument is in its use. If a man will reverently use the one as he does the other, "he shall know." If he will not, he "cannot know the things of God, for they are spiritually discerned."(2) The word "therefore" is a marked one. There was, first, a clear presentation of the truth to the mind; then the actual contact of the mind with the truth, and reflection upon it. There was a readiness to surrender old convictions to the authority of evidence, and then the light came: "they believed." And this belief was not a solitary or a miraculous act; it was an ordinary result. It was something more than a vague conviction, a mere sentiment of wonder. The foundation of their religious beliefs had been torn away; but they were no longer adrift on a sea of doubt. "They believed"; and faith is trust, calmness, certainty. It is the eye of the soul looking through and with the eye of reason, and resting on the reality of things. And this effect will, in all ordinary cases, be produced wherever the same process of inquiry is pursued. (3) Besides this satisfying conviction that comes from conscious experience of the power of truth, there are the facts without. (a) There are the Jews — a standing witness of the fulfilment of prophetic Scripture. (b) The existence, history, and standing of the Christian Church. (c) The Christ of Christianity — the miracle of miracles.Conclusion: 1. The fitness of the gospel to deal with dissimilar classes of men. Jews, Greeks, "honourable" men and women. 2. The great impediment in the way of any man's salvation is not in the gospel, nor in the ministration of the gospel, but in the indifference or pride with which men deal with its transcendent statements. (John Burton.) Parallel Verses KJV: And the brethren immediately sent away Paul and Silas by night unto Berea: who coming thither went into the synagogue of the Jews. |
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