Acts 17: Reasoning with Others about Jesus

 

Scripture: Acts 17:7 These men are proclaiming the existence of another king by the name of Jesus, and that is contrary to the laws of Caesar.”

 

Title: Reasoning with Others about Jesus

 

Upon leaving Philippi, Paul and his traveling companions continued on their journey.

 

Acts 17:1 After visiting the towns of Amphipolis and Apollonia Paul and his companions arrived in Thessalonica and visited the synagogue. 2 It was his custom to start his teaching with the Jews in a local town and he stayed there for three weeks reasoning with them, referring to the Scriptures 3 and explaining how they told of the Messiah and His need to suffer and rise again from the dead. He told them, “Jesus, the One I am talking about, is the Messiah, the Anointed One.” 4 Some of the Jews believed in the message of Paul and Silas, as well as many from the Greek community and a group of the leading women of the city. 5 However, there were a number of Jews who gathered a few wicked men from the marketplace, and they formed a mob who stormed the home of Jason where Paul and Silas were staying. 6 When they did not find Paul and Silas, they brought Jason before the judges of the city, shouting, “These men have been bringing controversy and tension throughout the world and now they have come here. 7 Jason is the one who is protecting them. They are proclaiming the existence of another king by the name of Jesus, and that is contrary to the laws of Caesar.” 8. Needless to say, things began to get out of hand because the crowd and the authorities believed the accusations of the mob. 9 Finally, Jason agreed to their demands and he and the others were released.

 

It is important to note that an accusation is not necessarily the truth, yet it can stir up a crowd and produce the appearance of guilt. We need to be overly cautious when we hear someone make an accusation about another person or a particular organization. There is a need to check the facts and wait for the truth to come out before we either take up the cause or speak against the accusations. The best way to check the facts is to go to the person and talk with them about the things being said.

 

We have been trained by the news media in our society to take a small bit of truth, or even a lie, and then begin to speculate on the outcome. So, we as a society have become accustomed to believing everything we hear and read without questioning its validity. It is interesting that Paul in his second letter to the church in Corinth,  speaking about Spiritual Warfare, says, “we use the weapons of prayer and the gifts of the Holy Spirit, which have great power to destroy the strongholds of evil. One of these bastions of evil is speculation and other lofty ideas raised up against the knowledge of God.” (2 Corinthians 10: 4,5 EBV)

 

The accusation from the mob is this, “There are men who have been stirring things up all over the world and have now come here. They are breaking the law because they teach there is a king other than Caesar.” Just like satan when he tempted Adam and Eve in the garden, the words have a semblance of truth but are spoken with a goal to discredit the men who, in this case, are speaking the truth.

 

When we speak, we can either do our homework before we talk, and fact check our understanding thoroughly or we might wish to humbly state our opinion as being something we have heard or believe to be true, and acknowledge that we might be mistaken. Having the complete facts are needed before we can state something with complete certainty, otherwise, saying what we have to say with words of caution might find a better reception in our listeners.

 

If we are going to be accused of something we have done wrong, I would encourage us to make sure that people accuse us of talking too much about Jesus rather than our politics or our actions that might be invasive, judgmental, or disruptive.

 

 

Acts 17:10 The believers in Thessalonica arranged for Paul and Silas to leave town in the middle of the night. The next city on the way was Berea, and they sought out the synagogue. 11 The Bereans listened to what Paul had to say with attentiveness and they examined the actual Scriptures that Paul was talking about. They wanted to know whether what he said was true. 12 Many of the people including Greek men and women believed in Jesus based upon Paul’s teaching in this city.

 

What makes the Bereans more noble than the Thessalonians? They listened with eagerness, expecting to learn something they did not know, and then they examined the Scriptures to find the truth of what these men had to teach. They also seemed to have an open synagogue policy where their gathering contained both men and women, Jews and Gentiles. Together they were seeking to learn more deeply what God wanted to say to them from the Scriptures. How wonderful it would be for us to take their lead and seek to find the truth from the Scriptures through opportunities to share our mutual understandings with one another.

 

We believe, in our country in something we call “freedom of speech.” While the ideal is that every person who wants to say something should have the right to say it, the reality is that we do not have the tolerance needed to endure speech that is different from what we would like to hear. Hence, we have all sorts of misguided rules about who can say what and who cannot. When we enforce different standards on people differently because we like some things and do not like others, we discriminate. Discrimination is a curse of being human and something that we as followers of Jesus are called to avoid so that we do not improperly issue judgment on others before we understand their situation and have a chance to show them a glimpse of the love of Jesus.

 

Things were going well in Berea, until…

 

Acts 17:13 Word got back to Thessalonica that people in Berea were believing what Paul had to say, so, the mob came down to Berea to stir up the local crowds. 14 Paul left Silas and Timothy behind to teach the people 15 and he was escorted by some of the new believers down to Athens. From there Paul encouraged them to go back home and send Silas and Timothy to come meet him in Athens.

 

Paul preferred not to work alone. From the beginning it was Paul and Barnabas, and now Paul and Silas and Timothy. He just wanted others around him in the work he was doing. Even Jesus suggested we not work alone when He sent the disciples out by twos in the beginning of their ministry.

 

We each have a ministry for Jesus. We might not know what it is, but it is there. He has instilled in each of us a particular passion and equipped us with the gifts and personality necessary to carry out that passion. Having another believer to help us in this work can only be a benefit. We call this “work,” “ministry.” The ministry Jesus places on our heart is always some kind of service to other people whether they are in our church, our neighborhood, our community, or even some place in the world. Having another person working with us gives us the checks, balances, and prayer support we need to do the ministry with greater effectiveness.

 

At the moment, Paul finds himself alone in a new community. He does not sit around idle.

 

He uses the time to observe the people, the customs, the spirit of the community, and to get to know some of the people in this city. He uses the time to reason with men in the synagogue, i.e., to do his ministry, and even takes his sharing out into the marketplace.

 

This raises the question, what do we know about our community? What is the demographic in our neighborhood? How well do we know our neighbors or the people we passionately desire to help? What is their religious preference? What is the level of pain or pleasure? How can we see the love of Jesus impacting them? Or do we even think about such things? Are we too involved in our personal lives to spend much time caring for our neighbors? Our call from Jesus is to be people who spread the good news by our words and our actions.

 

I think it is important to note that Paul does not “proclaim” Jesus to others in the sense that he would stand on a street corner and preach. Preaching and teaching are usually methods reserved to what we say to fellow believers. When it comes to sharing with people who do not believe as we do, the role is one of reasoning or discussing, having an interchange of ideas. We ask them questions about their beliefs. We tell them what we believe. We discuss, calmly and unobtrusively, the differences we have. Our goal is not to convert them on the spot, although that is nice when it happens. We want to give them time to think about what we have said and time for the Holy Spirit to work on their thinking. When we treat them with love and as people who have an equal level of intelligence and critical thinking as we do, we interact with them as equals, each seeking to know the truth. Otherwise, we might be judging them and treating them as if they are less capable of reasoning about the things of God.

 

 

Acts 17:16 Paul did not sit still while he was waiting for them to come. The more he walked about the city the more he was disturbed by the many idols. 17 He spent a lot of time discussing with both Jews and Gentiles in the synagogue and also with anyone in the marketplace who would listen. 18 The town had a lot of philosophers, some Epicurean, and some Stoic, and he had many conversations with a variety of these thinkers. He encountered mixed reactions, some thinking he was just another babbler, but others observed he was preaching about a new god they had not heard of before. Of course, Paul was talking about Jesus having risen from the dead.

 

The philosophers Paul encountered in Athens were from two schools of thinking that both began almost three hundred years before he arrived at this city. Those who followed the teachings of Epicurious approached life with a desire to find peace with the world, modestly trying to enjoy what nature had to offer without overindulging. They saw no value in superstitions and in the role of a god in this world. They believed only what they could see. The Stoics on the other hand followed the teachings of Zeno and approached life from a cynical perspective, and we needed to find a middle of the road approach between pain and pleasure. So, virtue becomes the goal, to live a life of treating others fairly and justly. 

 

Neither of these philosophies had time for a god, at least not a god who would intervene in the affairs of daily life and have some influence of help for those who would call upon him. And we might see much of these philosophies in the general population of our world today. People living without any belief or reliance in a power outside of themselves. We seem to have accepted that we are the masters of our own destiny.

 

          Learning from Paul, we might do well to spend our lives pursuing two different avenues. First, learning everything we can about the life and teachings of Jesus, who we call our Lord. Second, seeking to become involved in serving people around us with the love of Jesus, employing the passion and the gifts He has given to us for that purpose. The more we understand the world from His perspective, the more effectively we can truly help others who have a need in their lives. I encourage you to step out boldly to learn and to serve in the name of Jesus. Blessings. 

Edd Breeden