ACTS "A Tale of Three Cities"- Acts 17 - Part 1

Brett Meador: Athens was the Hellenistic epicenter of academia and philosophy. This is where Socrates and Plato and Pythagoras, all these different thinkers and philosophers, were doing their thing over the centuries right here in Athens.
Guest (Male): Pastor Brett Meador notes the apostle Paul boldly seizing the opportunity to proclaim the Word of God to the wisdom of man.
Brett Meador: Paul makes his way up to Mars Hill and gets ready to preach the sermon of his life.
Guest (Male): The second missionary journey of Paul continued, extending the gospel into Europe for the first time. And though the gospel message was often received, it was also met with resistance and ridicule. Yet Pastor Brett Meador provides for us a verse-by-verse account of Acts chapter 17 in Today’s Word, demonstrating Paul’s readiness to spread God’s word to all with ears to hear.
Brett Meador: We looked at chapter 16 of Acts, and we’ve begun Paul’s second missionary journey. This time without Barnabas, but Paul and Silas, and then Luke and Timothy are going to join them along the way. We’ve been tracking where they’ve been going on the map of the known world at the time, the Roman Empire. They start over in Jerusalem on the eastern side of the Mediterranean Sea. They had the council there in Jerusalem in Acts chapter 15. But they ended up going to a place called Philippi. That’s where we ended up. It was a beautiful story of Lydia, the seller of purple, this lady that got baptized there in the stream, and some other ladies as well. Then eventually, Paul and Silas were thrown into jail where they sang praises to the Lord. As they get ready to leave Philippi, we have three cities here in Acts chapter 17 that they’re going to visit. Really, it’s a tale of three cities. One of the things that I want you to notice is the different responses to the gospel of Jesus Christ that Paul and Silas would see. It was very different one city to another, just like it'll be very different to the way you're received when you share the gospel. Some people will love it and they'll be saved. Other people will hate you and they'll want to kill you. It just depends on who they are. Each city had a different response, and we’re going to explore that. Learning to deal with rejection is part of being a person who shares the gospel. Remember when Jesus taught the sower of the seeds? One-fourth of the seeds actually brought forth fruit. The other three-quarters of the seed either were plucked up by the birds of the air, stomped down by the wayside, scorched by the sun, or choked out by thorns. But there was only one-fourth of the seed that took root, and that’s important to remember. I've had that over the years. I was a youth pastor, and I remember I had two speaking engagements on one day. In the morning, I was speaking at a Christian high school, and in the afternoon, I was speaking at a secular high school in a class that had been teaching evolution. A couple of the students in the class asked their teacher, "You've given us the evolution side of the argument. What do you say we have our youth pastor come in and talk about the creation version?" So the teacher invited me to that class. I was a little nervous about that one. I wasn't so nervous about the Christian school engagement. That morning, I went and spoke at the chapel at the Christian high school. It was brutal. The kids had bad attitudes, were apathetic, and slouching. It was like they were saying, "Who is this telling us something we haven't heard?" Not only that, the reception I got from some of the staff at the school was not even that nice. It was unfriendly. You do have to watch that; a Christian kid can get jaded in a Christian school. That made me a little more nervous for the public school. I went into the science class, the biology class, and started sharing about the idea of intelligent design. Behind intelligence, there has to be a thinker, which is a creator. I shared the whole argument that it’s not by chance; there’s nothing that is this intricate. I moved from that into the gospel of Jesus Christ. What was amazing is not only the class but even the teacher was welcoming and encouraging. They had great questions. We were engaging. The bell rang, and the teacher said it was okay to go over. The class was there for 20 minutes over the bell ring time. A couple of kids accepted the Lord, and several kids came to the youth group the next week. The teacher stayed in contact with me about the idea of intelligent design. It was really encouraging, and I walked away thinking, "Wow, the gospel was heard and people were saved." It just showed the difference of two different receptions that I got. I've noticed over history, some of the greatest have had good, bad, and ugly. Have you ever heard of G. Campbell Morgan? When he was a young guy, almost every pastor who's preached a sermon has looked up G. Campbell Morgan and read some of his stuff. In 1888, he was trying to get into the Wesleyan school of ministry. You had to go through all kinds of stuff; you had to pass the doctrinal examination. There would be only a few selected for this elite school. The last candidates had to preach in front of 75 critics in a room that seated a thousand people, but it would be empty except for those critics. G. Campbell Morgan prepared and prayed through his sermon and preached it with all of his heart. Two weeks later, the Wesleyan school sent him a telegram. The telegram had one word: "rejected." What a bummer. He was so bummed; he wrote in his diary, "Very dark everything seems, still God knows what's best." After he received this rejected telegram, he got another telegram the next day from his father. It said, "Rejected on earth, accepted in heaven. Dad." Don't you love that? Nothing like a dad coming through. In later years, Morgan wrote that God really revealed in that dark time of his life, in the loneliness and darkness of the times, the Lord told him, "I want you to cease making plans for yourself and let me plan your life." G. Campbell Morgan became one of the most influential pastors and preachers; many study and learn from his teachings and his commentaries to this very day. In the same way, Paul and Silas are going to be accepted sometimes but also rejected. When I talk about rejection, Paul gets deadly rejection; riots happen, and they get run out of town. This is where we pick it up in chapter 17, verse 1. "Now when they had passed through Amphipolis and Apollonia, they came to Thessalonica, where was a synagogue of the Jews: And Paul, as his manner was, went in unto them, and three sabbath days reasoned with them out of the scriptures." From Philippi, we go over to Thessalonica. That’s about a 75-mile journey that Paul made. He goes straight to the synagogue, and I love how he opens the Word of God. That was Paul's emphasis, always out of the scriptures. Thessalonica, verse 3: "Opening and alleging, that Christ must needs have suffered, and risen again from the dead; and that this Jesus, whom I preach unto you, is Christ. And some of them believed, and consorted with Paul and Silas; and of the devout Greeks a great multitude, and of the chief women not a few. But the Jews which believed not, moved with envy, took unto them certain lewd fellows of the baser sort, and gathered a company, and set all the city on an uproar, and assaulted the house of Jason, and sought to bring them out to the people. And when they found them not, they drew Jason and certain brethren unto the rulers of the city, crying, 'These that have turned the world upside down are come hither also; Whom Jason hath received: and these all do contrary to the decrees of Caesar, saying that there is another king, one Jesus.' And they troubled the people and the rulers of the city, when they heard these things. And when they had taken security of Jason, and of the other, they let them go." Here we have the response of the Jews in Thessalonica, and the Jews soundly rejected and resisted the good news of the gospel message. Some of the Gentiles—almost wherever Paul goes, the Gentiles are going to receive the good news. But it’s the Jews that really resist. Thessalonica is the first city we’re going to call the city that resisted the Word. The whole city got up into an uproar. Paul and Silas were staying with this guy, Jason. They came and arrested Jason and threw him in jail. At the end, it says when they had taken security of Jason, that means they paid his bail and let him go. But the city's in an uproar, and they don't want to hear it. This reasoning from the scripture that Paul's doing in the synagogue is the way to go. If you're going to preach the gospel, use the scriptures. Don't just use your own logic or your own knowledge, but lean on the Word of God because the Bible's powerful. Hebrews 4:12 says the Word of God is living and powerful, sharper than any two-edged sword. There’s actually a supernatural power behind the Word. That’s why when you’re preaching or teaching or sharing with people at work or friends at school, you’ve got to speak the scriptures. There's a current trend in Christian movements where I heard a podcast where a leading pastor said we need to stop using the words "the Bible says." That’s ridiculous. Billy Graham said, "the Bible says" or "Jesus said." That’s what you’ve got to say; the Bible is where the power is. People think it’s irrelevant; it’s such an old book, and they try to dismiss the Bible. What a huge goof that is. So use the scriptures; that’s where the power is. What was Paul reasoning with them about? Verse 3 says he opened and alleged that Christ must needs have suffered and risen from the dead and that Jesus Christ whom I preach to you is the Christ. A lot of Christians think Jesus's last name was Christ, Mr. Christ, Jesus Christ. But that’s not it; it’s Jesus the Messiah. The Greek word for Christ is Christos, which means the anointed one or the Messiah, and the Hebrew version of the same word is Mashiach. Yeshua HaMashiach is the Hebrew "Jesus the Messiah." The word Messiah is king in the Old Testament, so they would have called any king the Messiah. But the prophets spoke of the Messiah, the one that would be the ultimate Messiah, and that’s Jesus himself. The word "alleging" there that Paul employs—our word "allege" in modern English means you’re making a claim, but it may or may not be true. The old English word has nothing to do with that. The King James uses "alleging," but that’s not really what Paul is doing. The word for "alleging" in the original Greek is paratithemi, which means to set food out on a table and make a presentation. It’s like when you lay out a beautiful meal and you want to present it beautifully. That’s what Paul’s doing; he’s laying out the gospel of Jesus Christ, that he is the Messiah. In doing that, some of the Gentiles get saved, but the Jews resist. That’s why we see this as the city that largely resisted the Word with the Jewish population. There’s a funny phrase in the King James. You can just hear the British guys in here. In verse 5, it says the Jews which believed not, moved with envy, took unto themselves certain lewd fellows of a baser sort. Lewd fellows—have you ever called someone a lewd fellow of a baser sort? The ESV says "wicked men of the rabble" or NIV "bad characters from the marketplace." But these are bad dudes that came against Saul. Then it basically says there in the text that they’ve turned the world upside down. That Paul and Silas had turned their world upside down, which means they’re turning it right side up because the Thessalonian culture was upside down. They were messed up, and Paul in preaching is turning it right side up. So that’s the first city, Thessalonica, the city that resisted the Word. But then he’s going to go from Thessalonica and make a hop, skip, and a jump to 35 miles away to a little town called Berea. Paul and Silas are getting out of Dodge or getting out of Thessalonica because it’s a riot. They go over to Berea, and that’s our second city. Verse 10: "And the brethren immediately sent away Paul and Silas by night"—because of the rioting, they had to sneak out—"unto Berea: who coming thither went into the synagogue of the Jews." Just like he did at Thessalonica. Verse 11: "These [the Bereans] 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." In Berea, he gets a much different response. We’re going to call Berea point number two today. While the Thessalonians resisted the Word, the Bereans is the city that received the Word. I love the word that’s used there; they received the word with readiness of mind. A lot of people saved. Why point out that women are being saved, too? It seems a little weird. Why not just say a lot of people got saved? You have to understand, nobody in this culture would care about women in those days. Women’s lib hadn’t kicked into gear, but one thing the Bible really does is it gives women a place of honor. We don't even recognize that in this text, but it’s here. For Paul to even mention, or Luke the writer of Acts to say, "and many women accepted the Lord, too"—and he said that both in Thessalonica and in Berea—that’s unusual. In ancient writings at this time, they could care less about women and what they were doing or not doing. That’s just the way it was. One of the things I love about the New Testament gospel story is the important role that women played from the very beginning. From Christ, his death, his burial, his resurrection, women played a key role. In fact, I wonder if the disciples ever would have figured it out if it wasn't for the ladies in the story. It’s an amazing part of Christianity that was very uncharacteristic of the culture of that day. I think it’s cool that he brings up how many women were saved as well. It just really lines up with what Paul wrote in the Galatian church in Galatians 3:28. He said there is neither Jew nor Greek, there is neither bond nor free, there is neither male nor female, for you are all one in Christ Jesus. And if you be Christ's, then you’re Abraham's seed, heirs according to his promise. That’s a cool part of the scriptures. But Berea was a city that received the Word, and they were called more noble. These were more noble than the men of Thessalonica. What’s the biggest difference between the men of Thessalonica and the men of Berea? Verse 11 sums it up: there was a nobility in that they received what was spoken, but then they also reviewed and tested what Paul and Silas were preaching against the scripture. I’ve quoted Acts 17:11 perhaps hundreds of times. The reason is that’s one of the things we’re supposed to be like, the Bereans who search the scriptures daily to see if what that guy is saying up on the stage, or behind the pulpit, or on the podcast, or writing the book—you’ve got to see if it measures out with scripture. Oh, how we need that today in the Christian church. I fear that there’s too many books and too many podcasts and too many people speaking and not enough people searching the scriptures to see if what’s being said is true or false. But Brett, he’s got an eloquent speaking voice and he talks with such power and authority, or it sounds so good, it makes my heart feel all warm and fuzzy inside. That’s not the way you check it. You check it against the scripture. Does the Bible line up? You’ve got to love the Bereans for that. One of the things I want to say about that: I say that hundreds of times and quote "be like the Bereans, search the scriptures daily and see if what I'm saying is even true or false." You’ve got to line it up with scripture yourself. But there’s always those people that take it a little too far. For example, I'll be speaking and I'll get the wrong scripture address, or instead of saying Berea, I'll say Thessalonica or switch words accidentally. That’s not what you’re supposed to go around correcting. If you’re ever a public speaker, welcome to the club; you’re going to say things, you’re going to mix up your words. It’s just part of the deal. Over the years, I've developed very thick skin, so you can come and say probably whatever you want to, and I’m actually pretty good about that. But that’s not really what’s being talked about here. The idea here is not did he make a little error in his date or just some little mistake? It’s did he go doctrinally in a wrong direction? Are you teaching wrong doctrine, wrong notions that are not in line with the Bible? That’s the thing that’s being talked about: staying in line with doctrine, the teaching of the Bible. I'm not just making this up myself. Notice there wasn't this sanctimonious "we're going to check you, Paul, and we're going to watch you, Silas." It wasn't like that. Check out the attitude here in verse 11: these men were noble than the men in Thessalonica in that they received the word with all readiness of mind. Don't you love that? The Bereans were like, "Man, bring it on, preach the word, teach us." And they were soaking it up like a sponge with all readiness of mind. Then they searched the scriptures to see if it was true. That’s the right heart. You come with a readiness to receive, and then you search the scriptures to confirm if it’s of the Lord. I love that. So that’s Berea, city number two. Now let's just read verse 13 here for a second. "But when the Jews of Thessalonica"—remember the ones that all started the riots in Thessalonica—"had knowledge that the word of God was preached of Paul at Berea, they came thither also, and stirred up the people there." Verse 14: "And then immediately the brethren sent away Paul to go as it were to the sea: but Silas and Timotheus abode there still. And they 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." Paul gets in a boat and goes down to Athens. Paul goes by himself; Silas and Timothy are coming a little later. But he makes the big trip down to Athens. The distance between Berea and Athens is 180 miles—a bit of a journey, especially in Bible times. Athens is an amazing place. You need to understand, this is not like the other cities. Athens was the Hellenistic epicenter of academia and philosophy and thinkers and gods and goddesses and marble. It would have taken your breath away. This is where Socrates and Pythagoras, Plato, Aristotle, all these different thinkers and philosophers were doing their thing right here in Athens. Well, we pick it up there in Acts chapter 17, verse 16. "Now while Paul waited for them at Athens, his spirit was stirred in him, when he saw the city wholly given to idolatry. Therefore disputed he in the synagogue with the Jews, and with the devout persons, and in the market daily with them that met him. Then certain philosophers of the Epicureans, and of the Stoics, encountered him. And some said, 'What will this babbler say?' other some, 'He seemeth to be a setter forth of strange gods:' because he preached unto them Jesus, and the resurrection. And they took him, and brought him unto Areopagus, saying, 'May we know what this new doctrine, whereof thou speakest, is? For thou bringest certain strange things to our ears: we would know therefore what these things mean.' For all the Athenians and strangers which were there spent their time in nothing else, but either to tell, or to hear some new thing." But what happens? Paul ends up by himself because Timothy and Silas are several days behind him in the journey. Paul gets there and instead of just standing around, he thinks, "Man, look at all these gods." So he goes and starts preaching in the market. Paul saw the glory and the grandeur, but he was not impressed. So Paul starts preaching, and the Epicureans and the Stoics came up to him and said, "What are you talking about, this Jesus who rose from the dead? We want you to go up to Areopagus." What's that? Mars Hill is literally where Socrates, Pythagoras, Plato, Aristotle talked about philosophy and stuff like that, all before Paul. So Paul is coming after Socrates, after all these guys. But they say, "You need to go up to Mars Hill and talk to the heavyweights, the philosophers." So Paul makes his way up to the Areopagus, Mars Hill, and gets ready to preach the sermon of his life.
Guest (Male): Pastor Brett Meador pausing in our verse-by-verse account of Acts chapter 17, just as Paul prepares to preach in Athens during his remarkable second missionary journey as our study from Today's Word continues. I invite you to stay right there as Pastor Brett will join me here in a moment. But first, Today's Word is the radio ministry of Athey Creek Church, just south of Portland, Oregon, where Pastor Brett Meador is the senior pastor. We invite you to find out more by going to todayswordradio.com. If you've missed any portion of this study, you'll find all of Pastor Brett's messages online at todayswordradio.com. I have Pastor Brett with me. There are times when I might wake up in the middle of the night suddenly and all the stresses hit me almost like nothing is right in the world. Brett, what advice would you give to someone who experiences times like that?
Brett Meador: That’s a great question, and I’ve been there. I’ve had those nights where you just can’t get your brain to shut down, and it just mulls over the trouble that you’re going through. In the middle of the night, things can look pretty bad and worse as the night rolls along. There’ve been times where I just sat in bed with my eyes open, trying to not think about the things that were troubling, and that doesn’t really work very well. For me, I’ve got to learn to say, "I’m just going to get up. I’m going to go into another room in my house where it’s quiet and just maybe make some tea and just pray and say, 'Lord, these things are troubling my heart.'" Cast your cares upon the Lord, the scriptures say, and he will sustain you. Be anxious for nothing, but in everything in prayer with supplication, with thanksgiving. This is the way we do battle against those troubling thoughts: if you put your trust in the Lord, he’ll take that trouble and switch it out for that peace that passes understanding. So you really have to tap into the Lord and the comfort that comes from seeking the Lord. That would be my advice for you.
Guest (Male): Thank you, Pastor Brett. That really is good advice the next time any of us have sleepless nights. Well, if you’d like more information about Today's Word or Pastor Brett Meador, just go to todayswordradio.com. That’s todayswordradio.com. Well, that’s all the time we have. Next time, Pastor Brett will look at three critically different responses to Paul sharing the gospel to the people of Thessalonica, Berea, and Athens. Today's Word with Pastor Brett Meador is an outreach of Athey Creek Church in West Linn, Oregon.