Acts: Go & Be Chapters 10-18نموونە

What is this passage saying?

Paul and Silas now go to Thessalonica, as was their custom the disciples went to the Jewish synagogue to share the Gospel of Jesus Christ. Some Jews followed, many Greeks followed, and some prominent women believed in the message of Jesus Christ. Once again Jealous Jewish men rise up to silence the disciples. They create an uproar in the city, with a mob of wicked men. The mob goes to where the disciples were staying, Jason’s house. When they couldn’t find the disciples, they took Jason and some of the brothers and dragged them to the city authorities. The authorities in Thessalonica responded differently than the authorities in Philippi- the Bible says there were disturbed by the crowd. The rulers took money from Jason and sent him on his way. In reaction to this Paul and Silas were sent away in the night to Berea. Paul and Silas repeat their same tradition in Berea, they go to the Jewish Synagogue to share the Gospel. The Bible notes that these Jews were more noble than those of Thessalonica. They were excited by the words of Paul, and they examined the Scriptures daily to make sure what Paul and Silas were saying was true. Many Jews and Greeks in Berea believed in the Lord. We get a reminder in verse 13 of chapter 14, when the Jews in Iconium followed Paul and Barnabas to Lystra to persecute the disciples. Similarly, the Jews from Thessalonica followed Paul and Silas to Berea to rally another crowd to persecute the disciples. The brothers then sent Paul away, but Timothy and Silas stayed. The Jews were being controlled by their sinful jealousy and they were enslaved by it. They created mayhem wherever they went. The disciples were surrendered to the directing of the God of the universe, and they brought life wherever they went.

What is this passage teaching?

The eyewitness account of Acts is amazing. Believers in 2023 can see the ministry habits of some of the first missionaries in the early Church. We get to read about the responses that different people had to the Gospel. Tony Evans writes this about the new believers in Berea. “How a person receives the Word of God will determine the effect the Word has on him. God will not hide the truth form the one who seeks it. All believers, then, should seek to be like the Bereans, welcoming God’s Word with anticipation and regularly mining it for God’s truth in order to be transformed by it through obedience.” We also get to see the consistent themes throughout the books and the Bible as a whole. Some consistencies convict us and point us to Jesus, others reveal the disappointing tendencies of fallen me. The world is against the ways of the Lord. Unfortunately, some of the Jews in Paul and Barnabas’ time had the same response to the Gospel of Jesus as the Jews in Jesus’ time. There will be opposition against the ways of the Lord until our God ends evil forever. You will experience opposition as you strive to live for the Lord, yet we are thankful for the Bible, and the encouragement we receive from the Christians who were before us.

How do I respond?

May we always be thankful for the complete Bible that we have unlimited access to. What a miracle the way God preserved these men’s writing and used man to compile His ordained words that He knew would encourage believers for generations. He put in the hearts of certain men to write these books that would be for future generations. Now we get to benefit from it. Praise the Lord for His Word.