THE LIVING CHURCH
Meditations in the Acts of the Apostles
Acts 17:1-4

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PAUL HAS reached Thessalonica, and he starts his work of preaching the Gospel by going to the synagogue to speak to the Jews. The first thing to notice is that Paul spends time. He does not necessarily expect the communication of the Gospel to be quick or easy. We are told that Paul reasoned with the Jews for three Sabbath days. In the ministry we must be prepared to give time to reason with people, and be prepared to be patient. But let us specially notice that Paul's preaching and reasoning always concerned Jesus Christ and the proclamation that he is the Christ and the Saviour of the world.

Next let us notice that Paul used reasoning in his approach to the Jews. Paul also used his reason in the approach he adopted in this reasoning. He knew that the Jews would be prejudiced against Jesus if he started here, so he started where the Jews were. He spoke to them of their Messiah as the Messiah was proclaimed and promised in the Old Testament Scriptures. Paul reasoned from the Scriptures the truth that the Messiah came to suffer, to die and to rise again from the dead. When this truth was established, he then told the Jews that all this Old Testament teaching was fulfilled by Jesus Christ in every regard. There is great wisdom here for all who would witness to Christ. We commence where people are, and then progress to where we want them to be, that is to believe the Gospel of Jesus Christ.

It is wonderful to notice that Jesus is the subject of the whole Bible. Jesus is the golden thread of all the revelation of God. The Bible is concerned about God's gracious redemption of sinners and that redemption is in the Lord Jesus Christ and in his death and resurrection.

The Gospel is not unreasonable. For all honest unprejudiced and unbiased listeners and thinkers, the Gospel is reasonable and satisfies the mind. It is wrong to suppose the Gospel is intellectually untenable. It is a fact that all down history, people of high intellect have embraced Gospel truth, and found it reasonable and intellectually viable and satisfying, as well as rest for their souls.

This leads us to understand that people must be given time to understand, and there must be patient explanation and exposition of the Gospel. Faith does not involve leaping into the dark, or bypassing our reason. The Gospel would have no real credibility if this were so.

We need to appreciate what it is that holds people back from faith. It is illustrated in some measure here. We are told that a few Jews believed, but most were not persuaded by the truth, even though Paul spent time and clearly and reasonably explained it. What was the reason for this unbelief and rejection. Surely it was the fact that the Jews were prejudiced against the true understanding of their own Scriptures. Over a long period of time there had grown up in the Jewish community an understanding of the Scripture teaching concerning the Messiah that was a perversion of the truth. The Jews had been taught this erroneous view, and it had become for them the truth in the cultural heritage they had been nurtured in. When Paul spoke to them of the real meaning of their own Scriptures, they could not accept it. Their conditioned prejudice prevented them.

This is how Satan works. Patiently and over a period of time he adds to and distorts bits of the truth, so that people come to believe the distortion to be the truth. This is true in the church today, in every branch of it, even amongst those who claim to hold to Biblical truth unwaveringly. When the truth is presented, the prejudice that has grown up causes antagonism against the truth. So Satan infiltrates the church and causes havoc.

More Greeks believed than Jews. The reason is plain. They came to the Scriptures with minds uncluttered by the conditioning which plagued the Jews. They had not got the in-built prejudice against the truth which the Jews had, and so it was easier for them to accept the Gospel. Not all believed because there are other factors which hinder belief, mainly the corruption and spiritual deadness we all inherit from Adam.

What do we learn for ourselves in this fact of the Jews mainly rejecting the Gospel. It teaches us to be humble as we come to God's truth in the Bible, and understand and accept that we do not know all the truth, and to accept that in what we do know, we may be wrong in some part of our understanding. The example of the Bereans is one we should adopt. They searched the scriptures to see if the things they were preached were really the truth (v.11 in the next but one section we will study). If we are not humble in this way, and do not search the scriptures, we endanger our spiritual growth, and some may make shipwreck of their souls. Searching the scriptures is not only reading, but reading with an open mind. It means reading prayerfully, and seeking diligently, by the Holy Ghost, to understand what God is saying in his word.