Immediately by night ( ). Paul’s work had not been in vain in Thessalonica (1Thess 1:7; 1Thess 2:13; 1Thess 2:20). Paul loved the church here. Two of them, Aristarchus and Secundus, will accompany him to Jerusalem (Ac 20:4) and Aristarchus will go on with him to Rome (27:2). Plainly Paul and Silas had been in hiding in Thessalonica and in real danger. After his departure severe persecution came to the Christians in Thessalonica (1Thess 2:14; 1Thess 3:1-5; 2Thess 1:6). It is possible that there was an escort of Gentile converts with Paul and Silas on this night journey to Beroea which was about fifty miles southwest from Thessalonica near Pella in another district of Macedonia (Emathia). There is a modern town there of some 6,000 people.

Went (). Imperfect third plural active of , old verb to go away, here alone in the N.T. A literary, almost Atticistic, form instead of .

Into the synagogue of the Jews ( ). Paul’s usual custom and he lost no time about it. Enough Jews here to have a synagogue.

Fuente: Robertson’s Word Pictures in the New Testament

PAUL AND SILAS AT BEREA ALSO HOUNDED BY UNBELIEVING JEWS V. 10-14

1) “And the brethren immediately,” (hoi de adelphoi eutheos) “Then the brethren (of the church in Thessalonica) immediately,” or at once, because of the hostile attitude of the Jews there in Thessalonica, Act 17:5.

2) “Sent away Paul and SiIas by night unto Berea: (dia nuktos eksepempsan ton te kai ton Silan eis Beroian) “During that very night sent both Paul and Silas forth to Berea,” for it would have been both rash and useless to attempt further preaching, under the circumstances at that time. Berea is located some fifty miles southwest of Thessalonica, toward Athens. Their stay in Thessalonica was some three weeks to three months by best of estimates.

3) “Who coming thither,” (oitines paragenomenoi) “Who as soon as they arrived,” in Berea.

4) “Went into the Synagogue of the Jews,” (eis ten sunagogue ton loudaion apeesan) “Went directly into the synagogue of the Jews,” the first thing after their arrival, a move that showed the strong faith and unswerving courage of Paul, Php_3:13-14.

Fuente: Garner-Howes Baptist Commentary

−

10. They sent them out to Berea. Hereby it appeareth that Paul’s labor brought forth fruit in a small time; for though the brethren send forth him and Silas, yet they adjoin themselves as voluntary companions to their danger and cross by this duty. But the constancy of Paul is incredible, because, having had such experience of their stubbornness and malice of his nation, he doth never cease to try whether he can bring any to Christ, namely, seeing he knew that he was bound both to Jews and Gentiles, no injury of men could lead him away from his calling. So all the servants of Christ must so wrestle with the malice of the world, that they shake not off Christ’s yoke with what injuries soever they be provoked.

Fuente: Calvin’s Complete Commentary

AN APOSTLE IN PIONEER WORK

Act 17:10-34.

CHURCH history is the record of Christianity incarnate. It is not the study of a movement so much as the history of efficient men.

In the New Testament history of the church, Paul holds conspicuous place; in fact, he is the colossal figure. Peter is prominent; the fame of John is forever fixed, but Paul looms far larger than either of them. Over half of the Book of Acts is simply a record of his efficiency, and over half of the Epistles came to us by the way of his pen. As an Apostle, he left large tracts behind him, and in tracing this early church history, we are studying his footprints.

The verses of this studyten to thirty-fourof the seventeenth chapter, are, like other sections of the Apostles history, exceedingly suggestive. But you will note that this study does not open with a direct reference to Paul, but rather with the conduct of the brethren. And the brethren immediately sent away Paul and Silas by night unto Berea. In the fourteenth verse we read again, And then immediately the brethren sent away Paul to go as it were to the sea. This leads us to the study of the

DISCIPLES OF PEACE

There are always beautiful brethren in every assembly; sweet brethren!

There are men who have a natural indisposition to disturbance. They like an Apostle; they believe in an Apostle; personally, they are with an Apostle; but they are sorry if he stirs up ought. They are like the turtles that sun themselves on the logs of the quiet pond. They enjoy it perfectly if the waters are not disturbed, but the moment they are, they are nervous and want to hide themselves in the serene depths where the waves are not felt and the winds are not heard.

The phrase here, Immediately sent away Paul and Silas by night unto Berea, is suggestive. They didnt wait to see how it would work out. They didnt propose to take any risk. Peace was preferable to them to any amount of progress, and calm more desirable than the knowledge of the Christ.

The brethren of this text are not without their successors. There are always men in every church who cant brook trouble, and who feel that Christianity is a synonym for a dead calm. Such men have their own method, and without exception, they employ the same.

The men who wont be silenced they send away. It was useless to take Paul aside and counsel him. He was not a man who was open to convictions; his convictions were fixed, and they could not be changed. He believed that he had brought them from above, and it was not the business of men, born from beneath, to readjust them, and already that fact was so clearly revealed that the brethren at Thessalonica knew the futility of any attempt to seal Pauls lips. The next natural move, then, was to send him away. If some town must be disturbed, let it be Berea, not our city. If a fuss must be carried on, the farther from our homes the better we like it.

There are a multitude of people like that. That accounts for the removal of many a pastor. He hasnt preached to suit everybody. He has said something to which some important man does not consent. In fact, he may have offended even the scholarly, and so come nigh to an unpardonable sin. The solution of such a problem is to get rid of the pastor. It may be admitted that he is an Apostle of Christ. It may be admitted that he preaches in the power of the Spirit. It may be admitted that in personal life and character he is both wholesome and sweet. But since he is a disturber of the peace, he must be passed on. The peace-lovers must get the presiding elder to open a new field for him, and if he doesnt do it straight away, they will go over his head and make their judgment known to the Bishop. There is many a parish that has sent to it a pastor whose particular reason for arrival on that field is that he might be removed from another. At the old place they couldnt silence him, and so they quietly, diplomatically, and even with a show of sanctimoniousness, sent him away.

It is sometimes easier to send a good man away than to stand by him. There may be prominent people opposed to him. His message, though from God, may not be acceptable to very important men. It takes a hero to stand by such an one. The truest friends that a preacher ever had will sometimes fail him here. They dont mean to be cowardly. They have no intention of giving a wrong counsel. They actually convince themselves that they are working in the Apostles behalf. There can be little doubt that these brethren that sent Paul and Silas by night to Berea went back and went to bed, well pleased with themselves, and doubtless went to sleep with a self-congratulatory thought. It was a fine work that we did to-night. We ended the trouble, and without opposing the Apostle at any point, or taking issue with him on any matter of doctrine, or even suggesting to him that he should be more moderate and careful, we got him away. The disturbed people left behind will bless our names, and we gave the Apostle such a royal send-off that he will not suspect our motives, and after all, Berea may be a better place for them and they may get bigger results there than if they had remained with us. It is a great work!

How many men have reasoned after the same manner, and have thereby escaped a real knowledge of the Divine judgment, and have gone about the business of next day not knowing that they had behaved like cowards and moral truants and spiritual derelicts!

But we turn from the conduct of the brethren to the study of Paul, for in him we have

A PROGRESSIVE APOSTLE

He knew how to husband his time. He employed the night hours in which to make his journey to the next preaching point. At the present time the average business man who must do much traveling conserves his days by traveling at night, and the average preacher and professional man economizes time after the same manner. But we go on board a train, into a perfectly comfortable bed and to a sound sleep. Paul doubtless set out on foot instead, and yet it is fairly certain that even in so far away a time the Apostle was striving to redeem his days. Time is, after all, the true investment. The man who conserves that conserves all the interests of which time is the mint.

In his going, the Apostle might have had also in mind the cover of darkness, making his travel the more safe, and yet, this must not be accepted as a sign of his cowardice.

The brethren who sent him away could hardly claim a Divine command for their conduct, but the Apostle in going could justly make that exact claim, for Jesus had said,

And ye shall he hated of all men for My Names sake: but he that endureth to the end shall be saved.

But when they persecute you in this city, flee ye into another; for verily I say unto you, Ye shall not have gone over the cities of Israel, till the Son of man be come (Mat 10:22-23).

The minister who goes from one city to another is often far more justifiable and has a far higher claim upon the favor of the Lord than the man who compelled, or even those who only advised his going. The truth is that no one city has an absolute claim upon a mans ministry. We are not commissioned to London, New York, or Chicago, or Philadelphia, or Minneapolis, but we are sent into all the world. Preaching in Berea may be just as essential as giving the Gospel to the Thessalonians. There is no indication in the text that Paul was at all conscious of either cowardice or disobedience to the Divine command.

He left no city without a witness to the Word. In Thessalonica there were some persuaded and consorted with Paul and Silas; and of the devout Greeks a great multitude, and of the chief women not a few (Act 17:4). These remained behind to carry on when Paul had passed to Berea. In Berea, many received the Word with all readiness of mind * *. Therefore many of them believed; also of honourable women which were Greeks, and of men, not a few (Act 17:11-12). These were left behind to carry on the work. At Athens, certain men clave unto him, and believed: among the which was Dionysius the Areopagite, and a woman named Damaris, and others with them (Act 17:34).

The truest evangelists of the Word are those who do not leave cities without a witness. The preacher, who is willing to enter a town, conduct a big meeting, secure a fine collection, and depart from it without concern for its future, is unfit to have ever preached at all. It is not an unusual thing for this writer to receive from an evangelist a letter, saying, I have concluded a meeting here, and there have been many converts. The people are without a shepherd. Could you send a man to this city to conserve the fruits of this revival? One instinctively feels that such an evangelist is a sincere and godly man.

Paul planned adequate leadership for those left behind. We do not know which of the devout Greeks took over the work in Thessalonica, but probably Jason, but we do know that when Berea was left, Paul even temporarily parted with his dearest co-laborers, Silas and Timotheus, that they should stay to strengthen the new believers. He only called them away when a spiritual exigency arose demanding their presence (Act 17:15).

He visited no city for which his Gospel was insufficient. Athens was not only the center of culture but also the center of gross idolatry. The city was full of idols (Act 17:16). In the synagogues and in the market place, to the rooms of philosophers, Epicureans and Stoics, Paul carried his message. There is not the slightest hint that he either sought to make a show of learning or to curry favor with the scientists or philosophers, but he trusted the Gospel of a risen Christ to conquer, and as a true warrior of the Cross, he made battle against their very citadel of falsehood.

This he found located in Mars hill, and expressed in the multiplication of gods and voiced in a great central inscription, To the Unknown God. Agnosticism roused his spirit, and over against their lack of knowledge, he sets the revelation Divine. He began where the Bible begins with the God who made the world and all things therein, and who is Lord of heaven and earth, and dwelleth not in temples made with hands; neither is worshipped with mens hands, as though He needed any thing, seeing He giveth to all life, and breath, and all things; the God who hath made of one blood all nations of men for to dwell on all the face of the earth, and hath determined the times before appointed, and the bounds of their habitation. This God he preached as the One who might be found if felt after, and who, in fact, is not far from every one of us: For in Him we live, and move, and have our being. As a scholar, he was familiar with their poets and quoted them, and taking advantage of their concessions, he carried forth his argument to convince of the true God, not made of gold, or silver, or stone, graven by art and mans device (Act 17:16-29), but Himself the author of all things; and here he comes to the true point of every sermon.

HE PLED FOR REPENTANCE

And the times of this ignorance God winked at; but now commandeth all men every where to repent (Act 17:30).

He rested that repentance in three circumstances: First, it was the necessity of sin; second, it was the only escape from judgment, and third, it was the preliminary step to saving faith.

It was the necessity of sin! At Athens Paul did not so much condemn their immorality, though doubtless that was great. History records the fact that the Greek world, in spite of its matchless physical and mental attainments, rotted morally. But Paul never dealt with surface affairs. He struck at foundation principles. He never gave primary attention to the outcroppings in conduct. He went to the basal convictions. He never talked of the fruits of life only, but rather of the roots. Sin is not a cause; it is an effect. Men cant turn from the true God, worship falsely, and escape the effect. They cant enthrone idols and retain morals. They cant adopt a false, bestial philosophy of life such as the evolutionary hypothesis and find the fruits of Christian morality in the upper branches. The gods that men worship determine not only their characters but also their conduct. Pauls course in Athens is a perfect illustration of his convictions to that effect. Most men are foolish in their attempted reforms. They seek a sober nation by cutting off the supply of liquor. They strive to make people clean by denouncing lust; and an upright citizenship they hope to attain by legislation against gambling. But all the laws of the land cant restrain the sinners of the same. That is not to say that the law is not good and just and true, nor yet even that it is not desirable, but it is to be reminded of a fundamental truth, namely, that we have to go deeper than the outward conduct of men. We must reach their consciences by the Gospel, accomplish a change of heart by the regeneration of the Holy Ghost and turn them from false faiths to a trust in the true and living One, thereby effecting a real repentance.

It was the only escape from judgment.

Because He hath appointed a day, in the which He will judge the world in righteousness by that Man whom He hath ordained; whereof He hath given assurance unto all men, in that He hath raised Him from the dead (Act 17:31).

If there is one thing that man hates more than another, it is the thought of judgment. There never was a worshiper of false gods who wanted to believe in it or even would believe in it. Darwinism will not admit a coming judgment. Unitarianism and Universalism will fly at you in anger if you so much as mention the subject. The same man who denies a coming judgment will deny a risen Christ. Some of them will mock. Others will politely dismiss you with, We will hear thee again of this matter. But some will heed.

It was the preliminary step to saving faith.

Howbeit certain men clave unto him, and believed: among the which was Dionysius the Areopagite, and a woman named Damaris, and others with them (Act 17:34).

The Gospel is never presented in vain. We have a sure promise:

As the rain cometh down, and the snow from heaven, and returneth not thither, but watereth the earth, and maketh it bring forth and bud, that it may give seed to the sower, and bread to the eater:

So shall My Word be that goeth forth out of My mouth: it shall not return unto Me void, but it shall accomplish that which I please, and it shall prosper in the thing whereto I sent it (Isa 55:10-11).

A great commentator said that Paul failed at Athens; that that cultured city rejected his Christ. No, Paul never failed, either at Athens or elsewhere. There were converts made there. There can be converts made anywhere. The young men candidates for the ministry ought to be impressed with this thought. They do not need to be called to churches. The city and the country placethey constitute a call. The great commission didnt say, Go ye into a first-class church, but rather, Go ye into all the world. It didnt say, Preach from a pulpit, but it did say, Preach the Gospel. There isnt even a hint in that commission that church-houses would be essential to ministerial success. Paul utilized synagogues, and we are justified in using sanctuaries. If Paul was not limited to the first, we should not be limited to the second.

I came but yesterday from a city and a community in which some time since there were several churches and no Gospel. Four years ago a young man happened to visit the town and had an opportunity to study the same, and the Spirit spake to him saying, These people perish from faminenot a famine of bread nor of thirst for water, but of hearing the Word of the Lord. He waited no call to a church. He asked no appointment from a Bishop or Superintendent. He walked into that city, commenced his work, and to-day has the best church in it and a large country territory for his parish. Paul was a pioneer. We need such Apostles now.

Fuente: The Bible of the Expositor and the Evangelist by Riley

CRITICAL REMARKS

Act. 17:10. Brea.Presently Pheria, south-west of Thessalonica, and fifty-one miles distant.

Act. 17:12. Many of them believed.Codex Bez adds, And some disbelieved. The adjective Greek qualifies men as well as women.

Act. 17:13. They came thither also and stirred up the people should be they came, stirring up and troubling (and troubling being inserted in accordance with the best authorities) the people there also.

Act. 17:14. As it were to the sea. with may signify intention, actual or pretended (Winers Grammar of the New Testament Diction, p. 640), and some (Grotius, Bongel, Olshausen) suppose, in accordance with this reading, that Pauls companions only made a feint of sending him off by sea, while in reality they conducted him off by the overland route to Athensa distance of 251 Roman miles; but the oldest codices ( A B E) read as far as to the sea, and this avoids even the suggestion of pretending to go one way and taking another.

Act. 17:15. A commandment unto Silas and Timothy that they should come to him with all speed.According to Act. 18:5 they came from Macedonia to him in Corinth; according to 1 Thessalonians 3 :1 Timothy was sent back from Athens to Macedonia. The statements are not inconsistent. Silas and Timothy may have followed Paul at once to Athens, (so Ramsay) from which Timothy may have been recommissioned to the Thessalonians, and Silas to some other church in Macedonia, both again returning to him in Corinth.

HOMILETICAL ANALYSIS.Act. 17:10-15

Paul and Silas among the Berans; or, Another Good Work interrupted

I. The Beran Jews commended.

1. Their noble disposition. Though Bera, now Karra-Verria, to which secluded town the three missionaries repaired on quitting the Macedonian capital, lay only forty-five miles towards the south, yet the character of its Jewish colony compared favourably with that of the larger city. Indeed, the members of its synagogue were less obstinate, less sophisticated, than any Paul had elsewhere found. Their minds were less contracted by prejudice, and their hearts less inspired by malice. Ready to receive the word the moment it was proved to be true, they likewise showed themselves to be profoundly interested in what the apostle preached. The nobler conduct of the Beran Jews consisted in their freedom from that jealousy, which made the Jews in Thessalonica and many other places, enraged when the offer of salvation was made as freely to others as to themselves (Ramsay, St. Paul, etc., p. 232).

2. Their ingenuous conduct. Instead of angrily rejecting what was submitted to their judgment, they dealt with it as upright and honest men.

(1) They accorded it a candid hearing, which is more than many nominal Christians do; they shut it not out from their understandings by preliminary prejudice against or indifference towards it, as is the habit of many moderns, but frankly and openly allowed it to fill their minds in such a way that at least they accurately comprehended its import.
(2) They searched the Scriptures daily whether the doctrines propounded by Paul could be found therein, or were by fair and legitimate argument deducible therefrom. Instead of sitting in judgment on Pauls preaching, and determining incredibility by priori considerations suggested by the natural reason, they humbly and respectfully accepted the Old Testament Scriptures as the ultimate court of appeal. If Pauls ideas concerning Jesus Christ could be sustained before this tribunal then all controversy concerning them was at an end; if they could not, just as decidedly and promptly must they be rejected. It was a clear and a fair issue which was thus raised. Probably Paul had the Berans in his mind when he afterwards exhorted the Thessalonians to prove all things and hold fast that which is good (1Th. 5:21).

(3) They in large numbers believed, their example being followed by not a few Greek women and men, both of honourable estatei.e., belonging to the first families in the town. Sopater of Bera (Act. 20:4), it may be presumed, was at this time won for Christianity. In all respects the Berans afforded a worthy pattern for gospel hearers.

II. The Thessalonian Jews discommended.

1. Their persons distinguished. The parties referred to are expressly stated to have been the unbelieving Jews, who had stirred up the Thessalonian populace against Paul and Silas (Act. 17:5), and to whom, through some secret channel, intelligence had been conveyed of the extraordinary success of these evangelists at Bera.

2. Their motive specified. This was, on the one hand, to hinder the progress of the gospel which they had learnt was being preached with acceptance among the Berans, and on the other hand to overwhelm the apostate from the law of Moses (Lewin). Their proper ancestors were the Pharisees of Christs day, who would neither enter into the kingdom of heaven themselves, nor suffer those who were entering to go in (Mat. 23:13), and who ultimately crucified the Prince of Life and Lord of Glory.

3. Their behaviour described. Having come to Bera they stirred up and troubled the people there as at Thessalonica (Act. 17:8), by circulating the same calumnies and organising the same lewd fellows of the baser sort against the missionaries. Their hatred of both Paul and his gospel unsleepingly pursued him henceforth from city to city.

4. Their success recorded. Not directly, but indirectly, by the circumstance narrated that Pauls friends deemed it prudent to hasten his departure from the city, as the brethren in Thessalonica had counselled his withdrawal from that city (Act. 17:10), and as formerly other friends had hurried him from Jerusalem (Act. 9:30). He had been anxious to return to his converts in Thessalonica (1Th. 2:18), but Satan in the person of these persecuting Jews from Thessalonica had hindered. The path of providence for him lay southwards to Athens. Immediately therefore the brethren conveyed him as far as the seaport of Dium, sixteen miles from Bera, and shipped him for the Greek metropolis. Some of them even accompanied him all the way to the Achaian capital, because Silas and Timotheus were left behind in Bera to continue the work which he had so auspiciously begun, to preach the gospel and to organise the Church, while he, the apostle, owing either to his weak eyesight or to some other bodily infirmity, was not fit to travel alone.

Learn.

1. The duty of hearing the gospel with an open mind.
2. The propriety of proving all things and holding fast that which is good.
3. The suitability of the gospel for persons of the highest estate.
4. The inveterate hostility of the carnal heart against what is good.
5. The fickleness of crowds.
6. The wisdom of attempting to preserve useful lives.
7. The dependence of most men upon the services of others.

HINTS AND SUGGESTIONS

Act. 17:11. True Nobility of Mind. Evinced in three things.

I. Readiness to receive the word.
II. Diligence in searching the Scriptures.
III. Faith in the person of Jesus of whom the word speaks.

Act. 17:11. The Elements of a Truly Noble Spirit.

1. Attention to religion. It is the highest kind of truth and the grandest object of pursuit.
2. Candour in religious inquiry. Prejudices are bars to fair dealing. Idols. Cobwebs.
3. The exercise of the right of private judgment. It is mean to surrender this right to a Pope or a priest. It is not less mean to surrender it to great thinkers and great dreamers.
4. Deference to the authority of Scripture. Man never occupies a more noble position than when, like a little child, he submits his own feeble faculties to the guidance of the oracles of Him that cannot lie. It is not worship of the Book, but of the infallible Author of the Book.G. Brooks.

Searching the Scriptures.

I. A blessed right.

1. Conferred by God.
2. Due to man.
3. Not to be withheld by either State or Church.

II. A holy duty.

1. Commanded by God.
2. To be faithfully performed.
3. Not to be neglected without sin.

III. An inestimable privilege.Considering,

1. Whose word the scriptures is.
2. The benefit resulting therefrom.
3. The unworthiness of its recipients.

IV. A rare art.To be practised

1. Daily.
2. With intelligence.
3. In faith.
4. Diligently.
5. With prayer.

Act. 17:11-12. The Noble Berans.

I. Heard the gospel.

1. With devout attention.
2. With impartial candour.
3. With careful investigation.

II. Experienced its effects.

1. They believed its statements.
2. They enjoyed its privileges.
3. They obeyed its precepts.

III. Exhibited their own nobility.

1. Adopted a noble conduct.
2. Displayed a noble spirit.
3. Presented a noble example.

Docility of Temper in Relation to the Truth.

I. The teaching, the recognition of which the writer commends.

1. The word, more fully expounded in the opening verses of the chapter, contained two propositionsviz.,

(1) that the Messiah, when He appeared in accordance with the Scriptures, was to appear as a suffering Messiah; and
(2) that the Jesus whose history and crucifixion Paul was then recounting, was, in fact, that Messiah. This a position which he only would take, who was sure of his ground, and who felt that he could make it good by the most indubitable proofs.
2. The truth of this word the apostle established by an appeal to the highest authorityviz., the Scriptures, the Old Testament documents in whose inspiration he and his Jewish hearers equally believed. By a careful comparison of your inspired Scriptures with the veritable facts of which our whole nation is cognisant, he practically said, we have found, beyond all doubtful disputation, that all that was foreshown, typified, and promised, concerning the Messiah of our ancient hope, has met its fulfilment in the person and history of this Jesus whom I preach unto you.

II. The spirit in which this teaching was received.With all readiness of mind. Here is

1. The docility of temper which belongs to the right reception of truth. The Berans were in that balanced equipoise of mind which, equally removed from a listless indifference on the one hand and a self-complete and haughty presumption on the other, left them at liberty to listen with attention to the apostles reasoning, to think dispassionately on it, and, finally, to draw logically their own conclusions from it.

2. The fearless honesty and manly independence of spirit which ought to mark inquirers after the truth. The great question with which the Berans charged themselves was, whether those things were true as the apostle put them, whether they were founded on fact, and were therefore accessible to the ordinary methods of moral conviction. It was not whether they were agreeable or in harmony with their preconceptions, or with their beliefs and customs; whether they were ably reasoned by the apostle or ill; but whether they were true.

III. The result which followed on this procedureTherefore many of them believed. This result was

1. The logical consequence of the antecedent procedure. Faith, waiting on the light of evidence, is met by the evidence of light, and following that, is led into the liberty of truth; as it always will be in the things of God. If any man will do His will, he shall know of the doctrine whether it be of God. Will to do first; know afterwards. Obedience is the spirit in which to seek. Knowledge its after product.

2. The outcome of a mental process in which several things were combined. There was, in the case of these Berans, first of all a clear presentation of the truth to the mind; there was then the actual personal contact of the mind, of the individual thought of the hearer, with the truth, and a process of reflection upon it. There was a readiness to surrender all old convictions to the authority of evidence, at whatever cost of personal state or attainment, and following directly in the course of this ingenuousness of intent and act, the light came, and they believed.

Learn.

1. The fitness of the gospel to deal with dissimilar classes of men.
2. The great impediment in the way of a mans salvationwhich is not in the gospel or in the ministration of the gospel, but in the indifference of the human heart to religion.John Burton.

Act. 17:13. Stirring up the Multitudes.

I. Of a true sort.

1. By the gospel.
2. Of noble minds.
3. To the exercise of faith.
4. For the warfare of the Spirit.

II. Of a false sort.

1. By wicked men.
2. Of lewd fellows.
3. To resist the truth.
4. For the persecution of the saints.

Act. 17:14. Silas and Timothy in Bera.The question naturally occurs, Why did Paul go on from Bera alone, leaving Silas and Timothy behind, and yet send orders immediately on reaching Athens that they were to join him with all speed? There seems at first sight some inconsistency here. But again comparison between Acts and Thessalonians solves the difficulty: Paul was eager once and again to return to Thessalonica, and was waiting for news that the impediment placed in his way was removed. Silas and Timothy remained to receive the news (perhaps about the attitude of the new magistrates) and to bring it on to Paul. But they could not bring it on to him until they received his message from Athens.Ramsay, St. Paul, etc., p. 234.

Fuente: The Preacher’s Complete Homiletical Commentary Edited by Joseph S. Exell

14.

AT BEREA. Act. 17:10 b Act. 17:14 a.

Act. 17:10 b

unto Beroea: who when they were come thither went into the synagogues of the Jews.

Act. 17:11

Now these were more noble than those in Thessalonica, in that they received the word with all readiness of mind, examining the scriptures daily, whether these things were so.

Act. 17:12

Many of them therefore believed; also of the Greek women of honorable estate, and of men, not a few.

Act. 17:13

But when the Jews of Thessalonica had knowledge that the word of God was proclaimed of Paul at Beroea also, they came thither likewise, stirring up and troubling the multitudes.

Act. 17:14

And then immediately the brethren sent forth Paul to go as far as to the sea:

Act. 17:10 b As usual, we notice how lightly Luke passes over the difficulties and dangers which drove Paul from place to place. The night journey of fifty or sixty miles is passed over without a word. Even though there were several rivers to cross and many other dangers on this mountain road not a sentence is given in allusion to it. The town of Berea is off the Egnatian Way in a southerly direction. It is suggested by some that Paul resorted to this out-of-the-way town in order to escape the pursuit of the Jews.

We must not conclude as we read these accounts of preaching and persecutions that Paul had no feelings on these matters, for we read in I Thessalonians that the apostle considered the Thessalonians as receiving the word in much affliction and in this same letter he alludes to his being shamefully treated at Philippi.

Act. 17:11 But if the life of the Christian missionary has its own breaths of gloom, it also has its lights, and after all the storms which they had encountered they were cheered in their heaviness by a most encouraging reception.

Here in Berea they found a group of Jews who actually acted like civilized beings. Maybe it was because they were away from the city and its conceits, or because they had better leaders, or for many other supposed reasons. At any cause, instead of prejudice and bitterness Paul and Silas received interest and consideration. The interpretation placed upon the Old Testament prophecies by Paul were daily taken home to be compared with the scripture text. They read anew and with a new meaning these treasured words. There could only be one result to this type of procedure. Many of them therefore believed.

Act. 17:12 The stay in Berea must have run into two or three months, as it was late fall or early winter when they arrived. This is learned by a knowledge of when travel was possible in these parts. Sir William Ramsey suggests that Paul preached in the town of Berea in some kind of public place for the hearing of the Greeks and in this way the women of honorable estate, and of the men, not a few came to believe. Others would place the Greeks as interested listeners in the synagogue services. Be that as it may, there were a substantial number of Greek converts, and among them some men and women of influence.

Act. 17:13-14 a From Berea once and again Paul had a great desire to revisit Thessalonica and see how the Kingdom fared in that place. But for some unknown reason he was hindered from doing so. Somehow, although Paul did not reach Thessalonica, word of his preaching did. The Jews in Thessalonica were like Saul of old yet breathing threatenings and slaughter against the disciples of the Lord, and as Saul had pursued them to foreign cities, they pursued Paul to Berea.

The method of opposition was very similar to that at Thessalonica and it was equally as successful. Almost identical words used by Luke in discussing the departure from the two towns. Timothy and Silas were to stay in Berea and carry on the work of Christ. It seems that the hatred of the Jews was centered in Paul and his preaching and not with these other two. We might also say that word was being expected daily from the brethren in Thessalonica and Paul was very anxious to hear of their state. Timothy remained in Berea to receive this word.
Why was it that others accompanied the apostle wherever he went? Some say it was because of the weakness of his body, and to go alone would constitute a real danger. This surely cannot be unquestionably verified. It could have been that they were blessed by his company. I know I would have been. At any rate, he was taken to the seaport near Berea and there a ship was secured to Athens. The brethren from Berea sailed with him all the way to Athens. (Sopater could have been among them.)

630.

How does the statement all things are lawful; but not all things are expedient apply here?

631.

Who was left behind?

632.

How far was the night journey to Beroea?

633.

How did the apostle say they received the word in Thessalonica?

634.

What encouragement did they receive in Beroea?

635.

How long were they in Beroea? How do you know?

636.

According to Ramsey how were the Greek converts made?

637.

What great desire did Paul have while here?

638.

Of what do you think the pursuit of these Jews reminded Paul?

639.

How could Timothy and Silas stay in the town and be free of persecution?

640.

What was being expected daily as they were in Beroea?

641.

Why did Paul have someone with him wherever he went?

642.

Who was Sopater?

Fuente: College Press Bible Study Textbook Series

(10) Sent away Paul and Silas by night unto Berea.Timotheus apparently remained behind, partly to help the Thessalonian converts under their present trials, partly to be able to bring word to St. Paul as to their condition. At Bera Paul and Silas were alone. The city lay to the south of Thessalonica, not far from Pella, on the banks of the Astrus, and still retains its name in the modern Kara Feria, or Verria. It has now a population of 20,000. Here also there was a Jewish population, but the city was a far less important place commercially than Thessalonica.

Fuente: Ellicott’s Commentary for English Readers (Old and New Testaments)

The Third Church in Europe Berea , Act 17:10-14 .

10. Paul and Silas Timothy, as the youngest and least obnoxious, seems to have briefly remained at Thessalonica; but he soon reappears and remains at Berea, Act 17:14.

Berea Paul forsakes the Egnatian Road, retiring southwest-ward and seaward to the beautiful village of Berea, about forty-two miles distant, named from its abundance of water streams. It is still a fine town of eighteen or twenty thousand inhabitants under Turkish rule. He finds a Jewish synagogue, and, what he had never found before, save at the single town of Lystra, a body of Jews who would examine the ward of God to see if it predicted the Jesus-Messiah.

Fuente: Whedon’s Commentary on the Old and New Testaments

‘And the brethren immediately sent away Paul and Silas by night to Berea, who when they were come there went into the synagogue of the Jews.’

Recognising the unpleasant nature of some of the people who were at the root of the trouble, who were no doubt types of gang leaders, the believers recognised that it would be best to get Paul and Silas out of town discreetly. They could square the authorities, but dealing with the gangs was something different. So they arranged for them to leave by night and take refuge in Berea, a more out of the way town, sixty miles away and off the main highway, where they would be comparatively safe, and yet could be reached. It may well be that this was at the house of a sympathiser or willing relative.

This was not, however, to be the end of problems for Jason and his fellow-believers, for Paul later refers admiringly to the way that they faced up to and gladly endured persecution (1Th 2:14). But he thanked God for the fact that they not only triumphed over it, but also continued to ensure the spread of the word in all the areas round about (1Th 1:8). They had not left a church to die, they had left one which was full of vibrant life.

Meanwhile the irrepressible Paul and Silas could not be held down. For as soon as possible after their arrival in Berea they were back in the synagogue. They no doubt had in mind the Lord’s words which were a part of the tradition of ‘the Testimony of Jesus’, and which we now have recorded in Mat 10:23, ‘when they persecute you in this city, flee to the next, for truly I say to you, you will not have gone through the cities of Israel until the Son of Man is come’. Each synagogue represented a ‘city of Israel’, and what a different experience Berea was going to be.

Fuente: Commentary Series on the Bible by Peter Pett

Paul in Berea Act 17:10-15 gives us the account of Paul the apostle’s ministry in the city of Berea during his second missionary journey, where he evangelized Macedonia.

Act 17:13 Comments – Note that the Jews were the ones causing the trouble, not the Romans.

Act 17:14 Comments – Paul was the one in most danger, so he was sent away. Leaders seem to suffer the most during times of persecution, since they are usually the targets.

Act 17:16-34 Paul in Athens Act 17:16-34 gives us the account of Paul ministering the Gospel of Jesus Christ in Athens.

Secular Support for Luke’s Description of Athens – Philip Schaff notes that ancient classical writers have confirmed many of the details that Luke gives of Athens: “the descriptions of Athens, the Areopagus, the schools of philosophy, the idle curiosity and inquisitiveness of the Athenians (mentioned also by Demosthenes), the altar of an unknown God, and the quotation from Aratus, or Cleanthes” in this chapter, all have support from secular writers. [221]

[221] Philip Schaff, History of the Christian Church, vol. 1: Apostolic Christianity A.D. 1-100 (Grand Rapids, Michigan: Wm. B. Eerdmans Publishing Company, 1955), 735-736.

Paul’s Method of Evangelism in Athens We have no record of Paul working miracles in the city of Athens; for he will later explain to the Corinthians that, “the Jews require a sign, and the Greeks seek after wisdom. (1Co 1:22) Thus, Paul met the Athenians at their point of faith and reasoned with them by referring to some common points between their philosophy and the Gospel. He referred to their altar inscriptions to unknown gods; thus, identifying with the fact that they believed in a god. His message progressed from the fact that God existed into the revelation of the resurrection of Jesus Christ. This is an effective method of witnessing. But despite Paul’s inspiration and skill, the Athenians rejected his message. In addition, Paul wrought no miracles among these heathen Athenians because they sought the truth from wisdom, rather than displays of power, as the Jews sought.

The examples of Act 17:1-9, in which Paul evangelized the Jews of Thessalonians and Act 17:16-34, in which he spoke to the Greek philosophers on Mars Hill, provides an excellent example of how to speak to different people groups. When speaking to the Jews, he testified from their Scriptures, that is, the Old Testament, in order to lead them to Christ (Act 17:2). However, when speaking on Mars Hill Paul began by acknowledging their religious inclinations by referring to their altars dedicated to the unknown god; so in this statement he found a point of agreement with his hearers (Act 17:23). He then appeals to general revelation of God as testified in creation (Act 17:24), and explained the divine nature of God from this testimony of creation (Act 17:24-28). He then quotes one of their Greek poets who also testified of God (Act 17:28). Finally, Paul appeals to man’s sense of sin-conscience by mentioning divine judgment and the historical event of the resurrection of Jesus Christ (Act 17:29-31). However, on this issue of sin and the resurrection many of these Athenians stumbled (Act 17:32). At no time did Paul quote the Jewish Scriptures to the Greeks, who would have rejected it as a valid testimony. So, Paul finished his speech on the hill and met with those few who did embrace the Gospel of Jesus Christ (Act 17:33-34).

Fuente: Everett’s Study Notes on the Holy Scriptures

Preaching in Berea:

v. 10. And the brethren immediately sent away Paul and Silas by night unto Berea, who, coming thither, went into the synagogue of the Jews.

v. 11. These 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.

v. 12. Therefore many of them believed; also of honorable women which were Greeks, and of men, not a few.

v. 13. But when the Jews of Thessalonica had knowledge that the Word of God was preached of Paul at Berea, they came thither also and stirred up the people.

v. 14. and then immediately the brethren sent away Paul to go, as it were, to the sea; but Silas and Timotheus abode there still.

If Paul and Silas had continued their work in Thessalonica after the events of that day, they would not only have risked personal violence to themselves, but would also have caused Jason and the other disciples to forfeit their bond. And so they suffered it that the brethren quickly, that very night, sent them off to Berea, a small city in a mountainous district, almost fifty miles southwest of Thessalonica. The reception of the Gospel in this city differed very radically from that which had been accorded to it in the metropolis of the province; for when the apostles arrived there, they went in, they betook themselves to the synagogue of the Jews, the Jewish population being strong enough to support such an institution. And here the people, both Jews and Greeks, were more generous of mind than in Thessalonica; they were not possessed of the strife and envy of the Thessalonian Jews, they entertained nobler sentiments, they made use of greater tact and fairness. This fact they showed not only by their cheerful, unconditional willingness to accept the Word which Paul brought, but also by the earnestness and zeal with which they carefully searched the Scriptures every day, comparing prophecy and fulfillment and satisfying their own minds that the doctrine, as represented by Paul, agreed with the revelation of God. As a result of this conscientious examination, under the Lord’s guidance, many of them came to faith in Jesus the Savior, together with a considerable number of prominent Greeks, both women and men. Note: The fault which must be deplored more than any other in our days is the refusal of unbelievers and critics to examine the claims of the Gospel patiently and candidly. Their ignorance, therefore, will not be accepted as an excuse, but will prove all the more damaging in their final condemnation. And for those that profess to be disciples of Christ it affords the greatest joy to search the Scriptures and find the manifold evidences of God’s truth and power.

But this pleasant and profitable relationship in Berea was soon disturbed. The news of Paul’s activity came to the attention of the Thessalonian Jews that had created the uproar in that city. The fact that Paul was proclaiming the Word of God in Berea was evidently a crime of the first magnitude in their estimation, just as it is in the eyes of many enemies of the Gospel today. They therefore made a special trip to Berea in order to agitate the crowds, to create uproar and disturbance. Down to the present day, as recent events have shown, this method seems to enjoy great favor with such as would stamp out the pure preaching of the Gospel. Before the riots, however, were actually incited, before any serious outbreaks of mob-rule took place, the brethren, the members of the little congregation that had been formed, quickly sent Paul off on his journey to the sea. It was against him that the attacks were chiefly directed, and he must be spared for further work in the Lord’s vineyard. It was some consolation to Paul, then, to have Silas and Timothy remain in Berea and do further work in establishing the young congregation.

Fuente: The Popular Commentary on the Bible by Kretzmann

Act 17:10-11. Berea Was another city of Macedonia, not far from Pella, the birth-place of Alexander the Great. There is a peculiar spirit and propriety in the expression, These were more noble, &c. As the Jews boasted that they were free and noble by virtue of their descent from Abraham and the other patriarchs, these Bereans, imitating the rationalfaith of their great progenitor, were , his more genuine offspring. The word literally signifies more nobly born; and in a secondary sense implies candour, impartiality, good disposition, and elevated ideas, or noble conceptions, when applied to the mind. The word , tendered readiness, signifies avidity or alacrity; and the original of the next clause implies, “a careful, anxious, and minute examination or research into the scriptures.” They did not this from any suspicion of the veracity of Paul and Silas, but that, by comparing their assertions with the scriptures, they might build their faith on rational grounds, and, at the same time that they convinced themselves under the blessing and grace of God, might be enabled also to convince others.

Fuente: Commentary on the Holy Bible by Thomas Coke

Act 17:10-12 . . .] As in Act 16:9 .

Beroea , a city in the third district of Macedonia, Liv. xvi. 30, to the south-west of Thessalonica. See Forbiger, Geogr . III. p. 1061. Now Verria .

] , so frequent in Greek writers, only here in the N.T. Comp. 4Ma 7:8 ; 2Ma 12:1 . They separated, after their arrival, from their companions, and went away to the synagogue.

] of a nobler character; Plat. Def . p. 413 B, Polit . p. 310 A; Soph. Aj . 475; 4Ma 6:5 ; 4Ma 9:27 . Theophyl. after Chrys.: . An arbitrary limitation; tolerance is comprehended in the general nobleness of disposition.

.] than the Jews in Thessalonica.

] daily . Comp. Luk 11:3 ; Luk 19:47 ; Bernhardy, p. 329.

.] searching the Scriptures (Joh 5:39 ), namely, to prove: (which Paul and Silas stated) (as they taught). “Character verae religionis, quod se dijudicari patitur,” Bengel.

.] see on Act 13:50 .

The Hellenic women and men are to be considered partly as proselytes of the gate who had heard the preaching of Christ in the synagogue, and partly as actual Gentiles who were gained in private conversations. Comp. on Act 11:20 .

] construed with , but also to be referred to . See Matthaei, 441.

That the church of Beroea soon withered again, is quite as arbitrarily assumed by Baumgarten, as that it was the only one founded by Paul to which no letter of the apostle has come down to us. How many churches may Paul have founded of which we know nothing whatever!

Fuente: Heinrich August Wilhelm Meyer’s New Testament Commentary

And the brethren immediately sent away Paul and Silas by night unto Berea: who coming thither went into the synagogue of the Jews. (11) These 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. (12) Therefore many of them believed; also of honorable women which were Greeks, and of men, not a few. (13) But when the Jews of Thessalonica had knowledge that the word of God was preached of Paul at Berea, they came thither also, and stirred up the people. (14) And then immediately the brethren sent away Paul to go as it were to the sea: but Silas and Timothy abode there still. (15) And they that conducted Paul brought him unto Athens: and receiving a commandment unto Silas and Timothy for to come to him with all speed, they departed.

I admire the scripture sense of nobility, in the account here given of the people of Berea. The word of God defines what it is to be truly noble, in both receiving with all readiness of mind the scriptures, and searching them daily. Reader! behold an honorable testimony the Holy Ghost hath himself given to those who do receive, and daily search his sacred word. He saith elsewhere, them that honor me, I will honor: and they that despise me, shall be lightly esteemed, 1Sa 2:30 . Oh! how will the word of God arise in judgment at the last day, to silence in everlasting confusion thousands, in whose houses the Bible indeed may be found, but so little used by them, that their condemnation may be written in letters upon the dust which covers it? Yea, strange to say, but by a contradiction in terms peculiarly known in the present hour, numbers profess great earnestness to send the Bible abroad to others, while thrown aside and never studied by themselves! Oh! ye noble Bereans! I bless God the Holy Ghost for the high honor the Lord of hosts himself hath here conferred upon you, in thus recording your true nobility in the word of his grace, and transmitting it to endless generations of the Church to be noticed by his people!

It may be proper for the Reader to observe, that when the Apostle speaks of the Bereans, as more noble than the people of Thessalonica, is meant the Jews of that place. And the commendation given the one, to the reproach of the other, is wholly in that; while the one searched the scriptures daily, and examined concerning what Paul and his companions said, whether those things were so; the other made no enquiry in the word of God, but condemned their doctrine without seeking any proof. But that this comparison did not refer to the Gentiles in Thessalonica is very certain, for before Paul and Silas left the Thessalonians to go to Berea, we are told, that among the devout Greeks which were believers, there was a great multitude, and of the chief women not a few, Act 17:4 . Indeed the Church planted in Thessalonica before Paul left it, and the two blessed Epistles afterwards sent to it by him, very plainly shew how God the Holy Ghost had opened a door among them for their ministry, and given testimony to their labors by the word of his grace.

Fuente: Hawker’s Poor Man’s Commentary (Old and New Testaments)

Chapter 60

Prayer

Almighty God, this is resurrection-day; a time of upspringing and coming clear out into the light; a widening of the sky; a driving away of all rain-clouds from our joy; and the banner is full out upon the wind, and all the heaven and the earth are glad. Jesus Christ is risen today; he has consecrated the time; it is the Lord’s day; day of light, day of victory, day of heaven; the day of the Son of man upon the earth, which makes all other days sacred by its holy fire. We have come to see the place where the Lord lay. He is not there. He is risen; but the place is dear to us; we love it because he who is our Lord once lay there. He has made all graves sacred; he has made every grave a door into heaven. So now we say to Death: “Where is thy sting?” and to the grave: “Where is thy victory?” and to all fear we address the challenge of almightiness. We are glad today. The church-gates are not wide enough for our entrance, and their opening is long delayed, for our hearts are in the haste of eager love to speak well of the name of the Lord, and to laud the Most High with noble psalm and anthem. We worship thee, O Son of God! Thou art Alpha and Omega the First and the Last. Thou didst die, but thou hast risen again, and thou wilt die no more. Jesus Christ ever liveth to make intercession for us. In thy death we die; in thy life we live; in thy prayer we pray. We are crucified with Christ: nevertheless we live; yet not we, but Christ liveth in us: and the life we now live in the flesh we live by faith of the Son of God, who loved us, and gave himself for us. Old things are passed away, all things have become new. No longer is there darkness or possibility of death. Life has sprung up and death is dead. These are thy great sweet words to us in Christ. They are words of strength and beauty; they fall upon us like the dew, yet sometimes they ring in our ears like trumpets telling of triumph wondrous words! beautiful syllables! messages from the hills of light! May we receive them every one and answer them with love. May our faith prove itself by our obedience, and may the joy of our heart lighten the toil of our life. We are come together again for sweet, bright Eastertide. The flowers are around about us; the earth is just forgetting winter and putting on its youth again for one more struggle, one more adorning, one more bright summer day. Help the earth, thou clement Heaven! shine upon her. She is guilty in very deed, and she has given herself up to be dug into graves and pits of death. Shame be on her! But thou dost love the earth, O Christ, and thou hast redeemed it; the earth is precious to thee amid the whole estate of the stars. May the families now before thee feel the joy of reunion; with the boys at home and the girls back again; with the old voices in the house and the old gladnesses all around about the buzz of gladness, the excitement of gratitude, the uproar that is harmonious. The Lord look upon our houses and make them dwelling-places of light, homes, indeed, where love lights every room, and where security binds every door in fastness. As for those who are heavy-laden still, whose hearts are being eaten by hungry care, and whose lives are being driven by unsleeping anxiety, surely for them also there is comfort this resurrection-day. The bereaved have forgotten their bereavement in the conscious immortality of those whom they have loved and lost. The graves are gardens today; there is a sound from heaven that tells of immortality, but the feast is waiting for the prodigal; we are all delayed because he has not arrived. O bring him swiftly home! The old man is here, and the white-haired mother, and all the children but one, and he is in a far country. Would God he might come home just now, quite suddenly, and break in upon us and take the vacant seat and make the circle of gladness whole. Lord, if thou canst not bring him, it is not in us to win a victory where thou dost sustain defeat. Be with the dear sick ones yonder in the great house and in the little cottage on the lonely hill-side and everywhere. Be with the widow and the orphan and the sad, with the sailor on the sea and the soldier, with the traveller, with our loved ones far away, and give us to feel that though separate in the body, we are one in the soul, bound together in the eternal union of common love to a common Saviour. Amen.

Act 17:10-15

10. And [G. “but,” or “now”] the brethren immediately sent away Paul and Silas by night unto Bera [27 miles west again along the Egnatian road to Pella, capital of the third Macedonian district; then south by branch route to Bera]: who, when they were come thither, went into the synagogue of the Jews.

11. Now [as Act 17:10 ] these were more noble than those in Thessalonica, in that they received the word with all readiness of mind, examining the Scriptures [O. T., Isa. 5:39] daily, whether these things were so.

12. Many of them [Jews], therefore, believed: also of the Greek women of honourable estate, and of men [Greeks] not a few.

13. But [as Act 17:10 ] when the Jews of Thessalonica had knowledge that the word of God was proclaimed [announced] of Paul at Bera also, they came thither likewise, stirring up and troubling the multitudes [this the right word here. Bera was not a “free city,” having no demos ].

14. And then immediately the brethren sent forth Paul to go as far as to [G. “as (where he could embark) upon” ] the sea; and Silas and Timothy abode there still.

15. But they that conducted Paul brought him as far as Athens; and receiving a commandment unto Silas and Timothy that they should come to him with all speed [see Act 18:5 and 1Th 3:1 . Luke seems not to have been aware of Paul’s change of plan mentioned in this second text. Paul may have sent a second message from Athens, or may even now have instructed Timothy to revisit Thessalonica and then rejoin him “with all speed.” Or, Paul may have sent Timothy back by sea to Thessalonica from Athens. For Luke’s seven years at Philippi, see Act 18:1 and Act 20:5 ], they departed.

From Thessalonica to Berea

PAUL and Silas were sent away “by night.” That is the way to make the most of time. Travel by night and preach by day if you would live industriously and make the best of your opportunities. We sleep by night, and hardly get over the slumber all day. The Apostles found that there were four-and-twenty hours in a day, and he would have been a vigilant critic who noticed the neglect of any one of them by the zealous messengers of the Cross. It was a fifty miles’ journey. Last week we saw the Apostles taking two journeys of about thirty miles each today we see Paul taking a fifty-mile walk, to get out of the road of the fury which had been excited in the lady metropolis. The enemy would say they had driven Paul off the ground Paul himself would say that he was going to make new ground, and that he would certainly come back again to the old place. There is a going away that means a coming back again with a stronger force than ev. Christ and his Apostles never left a place with the intention of visiting it no more. We have seen the tide go out, but we have seen it also return, and in the returning it seems to play at going back again; but the refluent wave increases in volume, and returns with enhanced force and grandeur. Paul will come back again personally, or by letter to Thessalonica, and we shall have, in c6nnection with his personal or written ministry, some of the boldest of his speculations and some of the noblest and tenderest of his pastoral appeals. He is fifty miles away, and yet he is not one inch off. He has taken with him in his heart all that he won at Thessalonica. To the Philippians he wrote: “I have you in my heart.” Paul kept his friends in that safe house. When they are there they are no burden; the heart is omnipotent in strength. If our Christianity were in our heart, rather than in our head, we should be as bushes that burn and are not consumed.

When Paul came to Berea, he went into the synagogue of the Jews. How irrepressible he was! He seemed to look about eagerly for the synagogue. There are men who have a genius for closing their eyes when they come within visible distance of the church. If I rightly follow in my imagination the course of the Apostle Paul, I think I see him, weak-eyed, as he was, looking around anxiously for the synagogue. How was that? Surely he had suffered enough in connection with synagogues? Yet wherever he goes he looks out for the synagogue as a man might look out for home. It is one of two things with us all: either the inward conquers, or the outward the soul or the body, love of God or love of ease. Which is the greater quantity in your nature, your faith or your self-indulgence, your love or your fear? Human life is a continual battle between two forces, which we may term the Inward and the Outward. Man holds a dialogue with himself. In every one of us there are two. So it is not a monologue, but a dialogue converse between two speakers running thus: “Shall I go to the synagogue today and risk my life amongst those vagabonds? I think I will not go today; I will rest a while and get my breath again.” Second speaker: “Go; time is short; this may be the last opportunity. Follow the Captain of thy salvation, O soul; he was made perfect through suffering, and if any man will not take up his cross and follow Christ, he is not worthy of him. Up, thou coward, and fear not!” First speaker: “I do not fear, I only rest; I will go to-morrow; I have no idea of abandoning the work. Give me forty-eight hours’ rest, and you will find me back again.” “No; in forty-eight hours you may be half-way across the universe. You cannot tell what will occur in two days’ time NOW, instantly! ‘Faint, yet pursuing’ be that thy motto; start at once.” “Well, I I will go!” The Inward has won; the soul has mastered the body. Had the dialogue gone otherwise, then the body would have been master; the soul would have been snubbed and humbled; the mind, which ought to be the regnant force in every nature, would have been ordered off; the body would have been at the front with its meanness, its self-seek-ing, and its self-idolatry. That is a fight which every man must fight out for himself.

“These were more noble than those in Thessalonica.” The word “noble” means well-born in Paul’s Epistle to the Corinthians; but in this verse it has a wider meaning. No reference is here made to mere birth or ancestry. The paraphrase might read: “These were nobler-natured people; freer from prejudice; more willing to receive new impressions; much more prepared to hear what men have to say upon difficult and perplexing subjects.” How could they be more noble than those in Thessalonica? Thessalonica was a capital, a metropolis not of Macedonia prima, but of Macedonia secunda; still it was a capital; and Berea was an out-of-the-way place. It was not Pella, the beautiful city where was gaiety, where was well-dressed fashion, where was continual rioting and noise and self-glorying. Paul might have been taken to Pella, but they were wise men in apostolic days, so they took Paul to Berea, an out-of-the-way place; and of the Bereans we read, that they were “more noble” than metropolitans. That often happens. London is the largest place in England; it is not, therefore, the greatest. It is quite possible that there may be more reading of a solid and instructive kind in a little country town a western Berea than in the immeasurable Babylon. The metropolitan of course feels that he is entitled by some subtle and inexpressible authority to sneer at people who live in the “country.” He has a gift of small sneering. But the Bereans were “more noble” than the metropolitans. When men do give themselves to reading in the country they have more time for it; their minds are not distracted and vexed by competing claims. They have not to get over the initial difficulty of being supremely proud of a city which is unaware of their existence. There can, however, be great ignorance even in Berea. Probably there is hardly a more ignorant man to be found on the face of the earth than an agricultural labourer who is determined not to read. You ought to turn your obscurity into an ally of your education. Coming from a little village or an obscure town where you say with a tone that has in it a good deal of dissatisfaction, “There is nothing to do” why, you ought to make such a town a very school of the prophets; no noise, no uproar, no call-off from prolonged and arduous inquiry into profound and useful subjects! Every locality has its advantage. In the metropolis we. have friction, continual motion, man sharpening man by daily collision, and in the country we have the opportunity of profound cultivation, because of the time which is at our disposal. Let us not complain of our circumstances, but rule them, sanctify them; and every sphere of life will afford an opportunity for intellectual and spiritual advancement.

What is the test of “nobleness” according to the eleventh verse? Good listening is one trait of nobleness. The Bereans wanted to hear. The hearer makes the preacher. When congregations fasten their attention on the preacher he must preach. Expectation becomes inspiration. The Bereans drew out of the Apostle all that was in him, and thus gave him more. Such was the double action in continual process as between great Paul and the listening Bereans. They heard every word who does that now? They wanted to hear every syllable; they were hushed in silence till the last cadence died upon the air. Paul calls that nobleness loyalty to truth, freedom from prejudice, mental excellence, spiritual aristocracy.

To good listening was added patient examination. The Bereans “searched the Scriptures daily, whether those things were so.” What is the model congregation? A congregation well provided with Bibles; with large-print Bibles; with Bibles with ample margins; with Bibles that open easily; a congregation that has the text before it, and that looks from the sermon to the text; from the text to the sermon; from the text to the context; and that binds the speaking man to keep within the sacred brief which God has given to him. That would be a congregation that would compel sublime preaching! The Bereans “searched the Scriptures.” Paul was not talking about something which he had himself cunningly invented. Paul did not say: “I have had a dream, and I will relate it to you, and you can pass your opinion upon it.” Paul only told the Bereans what God had told him. You must not look upon the preacher as a man who has found out something, made a wonderful discovery, or performed a juggler’s trick with his mother tongue. The preacher preaches what he has been told to preach “Go, stand and preach the preaching that I bid thee.” You have lost your status as hearers! Where are your Bibles? The preacher could quote fifty things that are not in the Bible, and if he quoted them in old English, he could make many people believe that they really were in the Bible. If he said “saith” instead of “says,” there is hardly a man in the congregation that would be able to affirm that what he said was not in the Bible. There is a Bible-tone, an old-English way of uttering words, and if words so uttered are uttered as if they were in the Bible, the Bible is not at hand whereby either to confirm or contradict the amazing statement How much Bible did you read last week? Some can answer that they read a great deal to them I am not addressing my inquiry; but to others I think I may fairly say, How much Bible did you read? How much Bible can you quote? Do not shirk the question; do not suppose that you could quote a good deal if you had time to collect your wits. Do not let yourself easily off; always be terrifically hard upon yourself, and then you will be gentle to other people. I will therefore probe myself with the inquiry, “How much of Paul’s writing could you replace if the Pauline Epistles were lost?” If we would be “noble” in the estimation of Heaven, we must acquaint ourselves deeply and accurately with Heaven’s own Word. One thing would follow from the Biblical examination we should destroy the priest. The priest is a curse wherever he is. The priest is a magician who lives upon the credulity of the simple. The priest is at the bottom of nearly all the unrest of nations. He can dry his lips and say, “Behold, I knew it not”; but the priest is a liar. How is his influence to be broken? By the Bible; by the people knowing the Bible; by the people committing it to memory not the memory of the intellect, but the memory of the heart, and letting the word of Christ dwell in them richly. It is not by wit, by genius, by skill, or learning, but by deep and sympathetic acquaintance with the Word of God, that all priestism is to be put down and destroyed. The sermon ought only to be a paraphrase of the text. If it is not a collection of Bible phrases, it ought to be a poem instinct with the Bible spirit. Call for Bible preaching; value most the preaching that has most Bible in it, and you, as hearers, will revolutionize the whole scheme of human preaching.

There is a logical term in the twelfth verse “Therefore.” With that logical form comes the happy announcement, “Many of them believed.” That is the true rationalism. Why did you believe? “Because the speaker fascinated me; because he laid a spell upon my imagination; because he charmed me with subtle music; because he got around about me in a completely overmastering manner.” You will one day escape from those poor chains they are not chains of iron, they are little bands of straw. Why did you believe? “Because it was shown to me by the Living Word that this is the only conclusion that can be established; because beginning at Moses and the prophets and the Psalms, I was shown in all the Scriptures the things concerning Christ, and I found that if I accepted any one page in the Bible, I must accept the whole volume. I wanted to be an eclectic, and to take a page here and a page there; but I was shown that the Book was one, and that if I accepted the first chapter of Genesis and the first verse, I was bound to accept the entire apocalypse away to its last grand Amen!” You will stand like a rock amid troubled waves!

Fuente: The People’s Bible by Joseph Parker

10 And the brethren immediately sent away Paul and Silas by night unto Berea: who coming thither went into the synagogue of the Jews.

Ver. 10. Went into the synagogue ] As he had done before at Thessalonica, and had sped so ill. Heroic spirits are no wit dismayed with difficulties; but rather whetted on thereby to more diligence in duty. And the servant of the Lord must not despond or desist, but be apt to teach, “patient, in meekness instructing those that oppose themselves, if peradventure God will at any time give them repentance,” &c., 2Ti 2:24-25 .

Fuente: John Trapp’s Complete Commentary (Old and New Testaments)

10. ] It does not follow, because Timotheus is not mentioned here, that therefore he did not accompany, or at all events follow, Paul and Silas to Bera. He has never been mentioned since he joined Paul’s company at Lystra. The very intermitted and occasional notices of Paul’s companions in this journey should be a caution against rash hypotheses. The general character of the narrative seems to be, that where Paul, or Paul and Silas, are alone or principally concerned, all mention of the rest is suspended, and sometimes so completely as to make it appear as if they were absent: then, at some turn of events they appear again, having in some cases been really present all the time. I believe Timotheus to have been with them at Thessalonica the first time, because it does not seem probable that Paul would have sent to them one to confirm and exhort them concerning their faith ( 1Th 3:2 ) who had not known them before, especially as he then had Silas with him. And this is confirmed by both the Epistles to the Thessalonians, which are from Paul, Silvanus, and Timotheus. From these Epistles we learn that, during his residence among them, Paul worked with his own hands ( 1Th 2:9 ; 2Th 3:8 ) to maintain himself: and from Phi 4:15-16 , that the Philippians sent supplies more than once towards his maintenance. Both these facts, especially the last, seeing that the distance from Philippi was 100 Roman miles, make it very improbable that his stay was so short as from three to four weeks: nor is this implied in the text: much time may have elapsed while the of Act 17:4 were joining Paul and Silas. See further in Prolegg. to 1 Thess., Vol. III. ii. 2 ff.

] According to the Antonine Itinerary 61, according to the Peutinger Table 57 Roman miles (S.W.) from Thessalonica.

Bera was not far from Pella, in Macedonia Tertia, Liv. xlv. 30, at the foot of Mt. Bermius. It was afterwards called Irenopolis, and now Kara Feria, or Verria, and is a city of the second rank in European Turkey, containing from 15,000 to 20,000 souls. (Winer, Realw. C. and H. i. 399 f.) Wetstein quotes a remarkable illustration from Cicero in Pisonem, c. 26: ‘Thessalonicam omnibus inscientibus noctuque venisti, qui cum concentum plorantium et tempestatem querelarum ferre non posses, in oppidum devium Beram profugisti.’

Fuente: Henry Alford’s Greek Testament

Act 17:10 . .: there was need of immediate action, either in obedience to the direct charge of the magistrates that Paul should not come again to Thessalonica, or from danger of a revival of the tumult. That St. Paul left Thessalonica with grief and pain is evident from 1Th 2:17-20 , but he felt that the separation was necessary at least for a time. But still he looked back upon Thessalonica and his work with an ungrudging affection, and his converts were his glory and joy. In the opening words of his First Epistle, Act 1:7 ( cf. 2Th 1:4 , 2Co 8:1 ), he speaks in a way which not only implies that his own work extended further in and from Thessalonica than the Acts alone enables us to learn, but that the furtherance of the Gospel was due to the Thessalonians themselves. See McGiffert, p. 255, on St. Paul’s quiet hand-to-hand work at Thessalonica. For it was not only in the synagogue that St. Paul laboured, as in the message of the Gospel was formal and official, but amongst them who were working like himself for their daily bread, 1Th 2:9 , 2Th 3:8 , see Ramsay’s note, Church in the Roman Empire , p. 85, on St. Paul’s work at Thessalonica. The phrase “night and day,” 1Th 2:9 , need not imply, as the Speaker’s Commentary , that Paul had only the Sundays for preaching, because his other days were so fully occupied; but the phrase means that he started work before dawn, and thus was able to devote some of the later part of the day to preaching. On the striking parallel between the characteristics of the Thessalonians of St. Paul’s Epistles and the Acts and the characteristics which were marked by St. Jerome in his day, see Speaker’s Commentary , iii., 701. (or ): in the district of Macedonia called Emathia, Ptol., iii., 12, originally perhaps Phera, from Pheres, its founder (see Wetstein): about fifty miles southwest of Thessalonica. It was smaller and less important than the latter, but still possessing a considerable population and commerce, owing to its natural advantages, now Verria or Kara Feria , see B.D. 2 and Hastings’ B.D., Renan, St. Paul , p. 162, and C. and H., small edition, p. 261. According to the Itineraries, two roads led from Thessalonica to Bera, Wetstein quotes a curious passage from Cicero, In Pisonem , xxvi., which may possibly indicate that Paul and Silas went to Bera on account of its comparative seclusion (so Alford, Farrar, Felten): Cicero calls it “oppidum devium”. . The Jewish population was at least considerable enough to have a synagogue, and thither Paul, according to his custom, went first. : only here in N.T., cf. 2Ma 12:1 , 4Ma 4:8 ; here it may imply that on their arrival Paul and Silas left their escort, and went into the synagogue.

Fuente: The Expositors Greek Testament by Robertson

NASB (UPDATED) TEXT: Act 17:10-15

10The brethren immediately sent Paul and Silas away by night to Berea, and when they arrived, they went into the synagogue of the Jews. 11Now these were more noble-minded than those in Thessalonica, for they received the word with great eagerness, examining the Scriptures daily to see whether these things were so. 12Therefore many of them believed, along with a number of prominent Greek women and men. 13But when the Jews of Thessalonica found out that the word of God had been proclaimed by Paul in Berea also, they came there as well, agitating and stirring up the crowds. 14Then immediately the brethren sent Paul out to go as far as the sea; and Silas and Timothy remained there. 15Now those who escorted Paul brought him as far as Athens; and receiving a command for Silas and Timothy to come to him as soon as possible, they left.

Act 17:10 “Berea” This was a large city in Paul’s day about 60 miles west, very close to the Ignatian Highway. It also had a Jewish community, one that was open to listening to Paul and checking his theology from the texts he cited from the OT.

“They went into the synagogue of the Jews” The text implies that soon after they arrived, even after an all-night journey, they immediately went to the synagogue. Maybe it just happened to be the Sabbath or maybe they knew they would be followed by the agitators. Time was of the essence. Modern western believers have lost the urgency and priority of evangelism!

Act 17:11 “these were more noble-minded” This term was used for wealthy, educated, upper class people (cf. LXX Job 1:3; Luk 19:12). This literal definition does not fit the Jews of Berea; therefore, it is metaphorical for someone more willing to hear new ideas and evaluate them. This open attitude may have been characteristic of the leading citizens of the city who worshiped at the synagogue (cf. Act 17:12).

“examining the Scriptures daily to see whether these things were so” This is the way to determine truth. Paul’s preaching method was to quote the OT and then show how it applied to Jesus.

The phrase (“whether these things were so”) contains a fourth class conditional sentence (i.e., ei with the optative mood, cf. Act 17:27; Act 20:16; Act 24:19; Act 27:12), which denotes that which is farthest removed from reality (less likely). Some responded; some did not (the mystery of the gospel).

Act 17:12 “many of them believed” This implies that many of the Jews of the synagogue and many of the “God-fearers” responded. See Special Topics at Act 3:16; Act 2:40.

“prominent” This term is a compound from “good” and “form” or “appearance.” It was used of honorable, reputable, and influential people (cf. Act 13:50 and Joseph of Arimathea, Mar 15:43).

Act 17:13 This shows the purposeful opposition of Paul’s Jewish antagonists. Many of these were sincere Jews acting out of religious motives (as Saul had). However, their methods reveal their spiritual status.

Act 17:14 “as far as the sea” This may mean

1. Paul traveled to Athens by coastal boat

2. Paul took the coastal road to Athens

Fuente: You Can Understand the Bible: Study Guide Commentary Series by Bob Utley

immediately. Greek. eutheos.

sent away. Greek. ekpempo. App-174. Only here and Act 13:4.

by night = through (Greek. dia. App-104. Act 17:1) the night.

Berea. About thirty miles to the W. Now Verria.

went. Gr apeimi. Only here. They were not deterred by their treatment at Thessalonica.

Fuente: Companion Bible Notes, Appendices and Graphics

10.] It does not follow, because Timotheus is not mentioned here, that therefore he did not accompany, or at all events follow, Paul and Silas to Bera. He has never been mentioned since he joined Pauls company at Lystra. The very intermitted and occasional notices of Pauls companions in this journey should be a caution against rash hypotheses. The general character of the narrative seems to be, that where Paul, or Paul and Silas, are alone or principally concerned, all mention of the rest is suspended, and sometimes so completely as to make it appear as if they were absent: then, at some turn of events they appear again, having in some cases been really present all the time. I believe Timotheus to have been with them at Thessalonica the first time, because it does not seem probable that Paul would have sent to them one to confirm and exhort them concerning their faith (1Th 3:2) who had not known them before, especially as he then had Silas with him. And this is confirmed by both the Epistles to the Thessalonians, which are from Paul, Silvanus, and Timotheus. From these Epistles we learn that, during his residence among them, Paul worked with his own hands (1Th 2:9; 2Th 3:8) to maintain himself: and from Php 4:15-16, that the Philippians sent supplies more than once towards his maintenance. Both these facts, especially the last, seeing that the distance from Philippi was 100 Roman miles, make it very improbable that his stay was so short as from three to four weeks: nor is this implied in the text: much time may have elapsed while the of Act 17:4 were joining Paul and Silas. See further in Prolegg. to 1 Thess., Vol. III. ii. 2 ff.

] According to the Antonine Itinerary 61, according to the Peutinger Table 57 Roman miles (S.W.) from Thessalonica.

Bera was not far from Pella, in Macedonia Tertia, Liv. xlv. 30, at the foot of Mt. Bermius. It was afterwards called Irenopolis, and now Kara Feria, or Verria, and is a city of the second rank in European Turkey, containing from 15,000 to 20,000 souls. (Winer, Realw. C. and H. i. 399 f.) Wetstein quotes a remarkable illustration from Cicero in Pisonem, c. 26:-Thessalonicam omnibus inscientibus noctuque venisti, qui cum concentum plorantium et tempestatem querelarum ferre non posses, in oppidum devium Beram profugisti.

Fuente: The Greek Testament

Act 17:10. ) They sent him forth from Thessalonica, and sent him to Berea.-) went away into the synagogue, boldly braving a new danger.

Fuente: Gnomon of the New Testament

Act 17:10-14

AT BEREA

Act 17:10-14

10 And the brethren immediately sent away Paul and Silas-Berea was about fifty miles southwest of Thessalonica. Pauls labors had not been in vain in Thessalonica; he had established a church there. (1Th 1:7 f 1Th 2:13 1Th 2:20.) Two of the brethren, Aristarchus and Secundus, later accompanied Paul to Jerusalem (Act 20:4), and Aristarchus finally went with him to Rome (Act 27:2). The brethren immediately sent Paul and Silas from Thessalonica. They left at night, and Timothy either left with them or soon followed them, for we find him at Berea. (Verse 14.) Paul was not able to return to Thessalonica, but later sent Timothy back to the church there. (1Th 3:2.) Paul found a synagogue at Berea and immediately began preaching there. We are not told how long they were on the way coming to Berea.

11 Now these were more noble than those in Thessalonica,-This is a great commendation of the Jews at Berea. More noble is applied first to nobility of birth, but here it applies to character. They received Pauls preaching with all readiness of mind, but they examined the scriptures daily to ascertain whether he was preaching the truth. Evidently Paul had used the Old Testament scriptures, and they were examining these to verify what Paul preached. It does not appear how long they continued searching the scriptures, but evidently long enough to satisfy their own minds as to the truth. It is refreshing to find that the people of Berea exercised greater candor, more openness of mind, and intelligence than those at Thessalonica. Paul expounded the scriptures daily in Thessalonica, but the Bereans, instead of resenting his interpretation, examined the scriptures for themselves.

12 Many of them therefore believed;-As a result of their fair-mindedness, their honesty of heart, and their faithful searching of the scriptures, many believed. Among the number that believed were some Greek women of honorable estate. These were women of rank; they were influential, and may have been the wives of the chief citizens. The work of the apostles here as elsewhere extended beyond the synagogue.

13 But when the Jews of Thessalonica-The persecution that had begun at Thessalonica was now carried fifty miles away to Berea. When the Jews in Thessalonica heard that Paul and Silas had gone to Berea and had proclaimed the gospel there, they came thither likewise, stirring up and troubling the multitudes. Paul and Silas had left Thessalonica by night, which implies that they secretly left Thessalonica, and the Jews did not know where they had gone; but as soon as they learned, they became active and went to Berea and caused trouble there. They stirred, shaking the crowds like an earthquake, and troubled the multitude like a disturbing tornado. The Jews had been successful in Thessalonica, and this gave them courage to go to Berea and oppose Paul there. We do not know how long Paul had been in Berea when they came; he had been there long enough to establish a church. Progress was being made until these Jews came from Thessalonica; then a whirl of excitement disturbed the labors of Paul and Silas.

14 And then immediately the brethren sent forth Paul-They acted with haste and sent Paul away, while Silas and Timothy remained in Berea. We are not told what charges were preferred against Paul, but probably the same ones that were made at Thessalonica. Paul was to go as far as to the sea, which means the Aegean Sea. This gives the impression that the movement was a feint in order to baffle the pursuers, while Paul went in another direction. Silas and Timothy were not exposed to the danger that Paul was; hence, they could abide in Berea. Paul was the leader and was in the greater danger; Silas and Timothy could bring the news to Paul when they left Berea to go to Paul.

Fuente: Old and New Testaments Restoration Commentary

50. THOSE NOBLE BEREANS

Act 17:10-15

Unlike so many at Thessalonica, when the people at Berea heard Paul preach the gospel they profited from the Word. The Bereans did not go to church half asleep, or with their minds wandering in a thousand directions. When they went to the house of worship, they went seeking a word from God for their souls. They listened attentively, turned to the passages cited, compared scripture with scripture, and received that which was taught from the Word of God with readiness of mind. The Bereans were determined to know the truth of God. It appears that everyone of them came to church with pencil and paper in hand. As Paul preached they took down the notes needed to fix his doctrine in their minds. When they went home, they searched the Scriptures.

The Holy Spirit holds these Bereans before us as examples to follow. If you would receive spiritual good for your soul by the preaching of the gospel, you would be wise to hear the Word attentively, as the Bereans did.

PAUL AND SILAS WERE SENT BY GOD TO BEREA WITH A MESSAGE TO DECLARE (Act 17:10). By one means or another God always brings the messenger of mercy and the object of mercy together at the appointed time. Paul was sent to Philippi by a supernatural vision in the night because the time had come for the Lord to open Lydia’s heart. The apostle was beaten and imprisoned at Philippi because the time had come for the jailor and his household to be saved. The officials at Philippi pleaded with Paul and Silas to leave their town because the time had come when God would save some elect Thessalonians. Paul was driven from Thessalonica to Berea by persecution because there were many at Berea to whom God was determined to be gracious. The eye of faith sees the overruling hand of divine providence using the wicked deeds of men to move God’s servant to the place where God wanted him (Psa 76:10). “The devil was out shot in his own bow,” Matthew Henry wrote. “He thought by persecuting the apostles to stop the progress of the gospel, but it was so overruled as to be made to further it.”

Paul and Silas came to Berea as messengers commissioned by God. Knowing that God had sent him to preach the gospel at Berea, as soon as he got in town Paul found the local synagogue and began preaching! He was God’s ambassador and he knew it (Mat 10:40; 2Co 5:18-20). As such, he had a message from God and boldly delivered it (2Co 5:21; 1Co 2:2). God’s ambassadors all faithfully deliver the message God has given them, the message of free and gracious salvation through the obedience and death of the sinners’ Substitute, the Lord Jesus Christ. He will not alter or trim his message for any reason. God sent Paul and Silas to Berea at the appointed time of mercy for the calling of chosen sinners. As we shall see in Act 17:11, grace had gone before them and had prepared the way for grace, for there were some chosen sinners at Berea seeking the Lord. These three things are certain: (1) Wherever there is a sinner seeking the Savior, there is the Savior seeking a sinner. (2) Wherever there is a sinner seeking light, there will be a gospel preacher bringing light. (3) Wherever there is a sinner seeking grace, grace has begun its work. No sinner will ever seek the Lord until grace causes him to do so (Rom 3:11).

When Paul and Silas came preaching the gospel THE BEREANS RECEIVED THE WORD OF GOD WITH ALL READINESS OF MIND(Act 17:11). There is nothing more delightful to a preacher than the privilege of preaching the gospel of Christ to people who are ready and anxious to hear it (Act 10:33). Like Cornelius and his household, the Bereans had been prepared by God to receive his Word. Luke was inspired by the Holy Spirit to tell us three things about them.

1. The Bereans were more noble than the Jews of Thessalonica. This was not a reference to their social status! Luke’s reference is to their attitude toward the Word of God and the preaching of the gospel. The Bereans reverenced the Old Testament Scriptures as the Word of God and that as the only source of Divine truth (Isa 8:20). Their minds were not hardened against the Word by their religious customs, doctrinal traditions, and philosophical opinions. They were open to anything taught in the Scriptures. Our minds must always be open to “Thus saith the Lord,” and completely closed to all else. When the Bereans came to church, they came with the hope of hearing from God. They reverenced the worship of God and the ministry of the Word as God’s ordained means of doing their souls eternal good (Ecc 5:1-2; 1Co 1:21; Eph 4:11-14; Jas 1:17-19).

2. The Bereans received the Word of God with all readiness of mind. “This more noble disposition of mind and conduct was owing to the grace of God bestowed upon them” (John Gill). Blessed is the soul God causes to hunger, for he shall be filled. Blessed are those God causes to thirst, for they shall be satisfied. Blessed is the sinner God causes to seek, for he shall find. Notice, “They received the Word!” They did not ignore the Word. They did not find fault with the preacher. They did not argue with the Word. “They received the Word!”

3. They searched the Scriptures. As Paul reasoned with them out of the Scriptures the Bereans followed along, taking notes. When they got home, they searched the Scriptures daily, to see if Paul’s doctrine was according to the Word of God. All who care for their souls should do the same (Joh 5:39; 1Jn 4:1). The gospel of Christ will bear scrutiny and examination. God’s servants want their hearers to examine what they preach and teach by the Scriptures.

“THEREFORE MANY OF THEM BELIEVED”(Act 17:12). The word “therefore” is important. It refers back to Act 17:11. As a direct result of the diligent use of the means at their disposal, God gave the Bereans faith and salvation in Christ. It is written, “Seek and ye shall find!” God promises to be found by all who seek him (Jer 29:13; Lam 3:25). No one ever yet sought the Lord in vain! Many of the Jews believed. Many of the Gentile women believed. And they, as faithful witnesses, persuaded their husbands to believe (1Co 7:16). Grace prepared the way! Grace brought the word of grace. And grace gave faith.

Yet, in Act 17:13-15, we are reminded that THE OFFENSE OF THE CROSS HAS NOT CEASED OR EVEN DIMINISHED. Though many believed, (the many who were chosen, redeemed, and called by the grace of God), many were offended. Persecution again broke out, forcing Paul to leave Berea too. Learn these four things from this brief history of the gospel at Berea.

1. To them who are called, to God’s elect, the gospel is the power of God unto salvation (Rom 1:15-16; 1Co 1:21-23). There is no need for compromise. The message we preach is God’s means of grace to his people. To compromise the message is to destroy the means.

2. To the unbeliever the gospel of Christ is a stone of stumbling and a rock of offence (1Pe 2:7-8). It is not possible to make Divine truth palatable to natural men. The only way God’s ambassador can deal with his enemies is to confront them and demand surrender on God’s terms.

3. Any preacher, or any church, that faithfully preaches the gospel of God’s free and sovereign grace in Christ will suffer for it (Mat 10:16-34). The world will never embrace those who faithfully declare the truth of God.

4. However, our God, the God we trust and serve, is still on his throne. Nothing should deter us in serving our God. He will arrange even the persecutions of our most implacable foes to do us good, to further his cause, and to increase his kingdom (Rom 8:28).

Fuente: Discovering Christ In Selected Books of the Bible

the brethren: Act 17:14, Act 9:25, Act 23:23, Act 23:24, Jos 2:15, Jos 2:16, 1Sa 19:12-17, 1Sa 20:42

Berea: Act 17:13, Act 20:4

went: Act 17:2, Act 14:6, Act 14:7, 1Th 2:2

Reciprocal: Mat 10:23 – when Mar 3:7 – Jesus Luk 4:31 – taught Act 9:24 – their Act 9:30 – when Act 15:22 – Silas Act 20:2 – those Act 21:5 – and they Act 26:17 – Delivering Rom 15:19 – so that 1Co 14:36 – came 1Th 2:17 – in presence

Fuente: The Treasury of Scripture Knowledge

0

Act 17:10. When Paul was chased from one city to another he continued his work for Christ. Berea was another city of Macedonia and contained a synagogue.

Fuente: Combined Bible Commentary

Act 17:10. And the brethren immediately sent away Paul and Silas by night. All parties in the city were evidently uneasy, although quiet had been restored. The magistrates, dreading a fresh outbreak on the part of these suspected Orientals, and the Christian community knowing the bitter and sleepless hostility of the Jews, determined it was best for the peace and wellbeing of the growing community of believers in Jesus that the great and hated teacher should, for a time at least, absent himself.

Berea. A city of no great fame in history, about sixty miles from Thessalonica. It was a favourite dwelling-place for the Jews. Its modern name is Verria, or Kara-Verria, a corruption of the old appellation, and contains still about 18,000 inhabitants. Paul seems to have had marked success there among the Jewish population; but, strange to say, the name of Berea is never mentioned by him in any of his epistles.

Fuente: A Popular Commentary on the New Testament

Observe here, 1. The pious and prudential care which the brethern took of the holy apostles, and the means which they used for their preservation: They presently sent them away unto Berea. The devil seeks nothing so industriously as the lives of the ministers of the gospel; (they making the greatest opposition to him and his kingdom;) but God finds out ways and means for their preservation, to reserve them for further work and future service: The apostles came by night unto Berea.

Observe, 2. St. Paul makes again the Jews’ synagogue his preaching place here at Berea, as he had done before at Thessalonica, ver. 2 and did afterwards at Athens, ver. 17.

O how close did the apostle keep to his commission, to preach Jesus Christ first to the Jews, and to wait upon them with the repeated tender of the gospel, till they put it far from them, and judged themselves unworthy of eternal life, before he turned to the Gentiles.

Observe, 3. The honourable character which the Holy Ghost here gives of these Bereans: They were more noble than those of Thessalonica; that is, of a more ingenuous, mild, and pliable temper of mind; they were not so possessed with prejudice and obstinacy against the gospel; they did not meet it with rage, but thought it worthy their search and serious enquiry; for which they are styled more noble.

Thence learn, That to be of a teachable temper, and tractable towards the gospel of Jesus Christ, is the best sort of gentility and nobleness. The Bereans were better bred, and better descended than the Thessalonians, yet not by civil human dignity, but by spiritual and divine dignation; God gave them this preparation of their heart, and made them differ from their neighbours: These were more noble than those of Thessalonica.

Observe, 4. What it is these Bereans are so highly commended for; namely, for searching the scriptures.

Where note, 1. That the scriptures then were in the vulgar tongue.

2. That as they were in their own tongue, so the laity had them in their own hands.

3. That the common people did read them, and heard them read, searched, and examined them; and yet were so far from censure and blame, that they met with commendation for it from God himself.

From the whole note, That a diligent reading of, and daily searching into, the holy scriptures, is a duty incumbent upon all those in whose hands the scriptures are or may be found. These Christians at Berea searching the scriptures, were a noble pattern for all succeeding Christians to imitate and follow.

Observe, lastly, How the inveterate malice of the unbelieving Jews at Thessalonica pursues the apostles as far as Berea, ver. 13. When the Jews at Thessalonica had knowledge that the word of God was preached of Paul at Berea, they came thither also, and stirred up the people.

As Christ sends his ministers, so the devil sends his messengers from place to place; and as the ministers of Christ are never weary of his service for the good of souls, so persecutors are restless, they will compass sea and land to harass and drive the faithful ambassadors of Christ from city to city, and if it were in their power, to banish them out of the world.

Lord! help all thy faithful ministers to execute this piece of holy revenge upon Satan, that we may be even with him for all his malice and spite against us. O let us endeavour to do all the possible service, and the utmost good we can, wherever we come.

Fuente: Expository Notes with Practical Observations on the New Testament

Preaching in Berea

Paul and Silas immediately entered the synagogue to teach. Rather than base their decisions on the traditional teachings of man, the Bereans carefully examined the word of God to determine the truthfulness of the teachings they heard. The result was that many Jews believed the gospel along with honorable Greek women and not a few men. Unfortunately, this once again stirred jealousy among the unbelieving Jews of Thessalonica who journeyed to Berea and stirred up the multitudes. Some brethren escorted Paul safely to the sea while Silas and Timothy continued at Berea. The brethren journeyed on to Athens with Paul and were asked by the apostle to send Silas and Timothy as soon as possible ( Act 17:10 b-15).

Fuente: Gary Hampton Commentary on Selected Books

10. Such was the state of feeling in the city that Paul and Silas saw no prospect of accomplishing good by further efforts, while the attempt would have been hazardous to the lives of brethren. (10) “Then the brethren immediately sent away Paul and Silas by night, to Berea; who, when they arrived, went into the synagogue of the Jews.”

This city lies about sixty miles south-west of Thessalonica. It contains, at the present day, a population of fifteen or twenty thousand, and was, doubtless, still more populous then. Here again the apostles find a synagogue, and make it the starting point of their labors.

Fuente: McGarvey and Pendleton Commentaries (New Testament)

10-13. Now leaving Timothy at Thessalonica to continue the meeting, Paul, Silas and Luke continue their journey southward, fifty-seven miles to Berea, also a prominent city, where there is a synagogue of the Jews. Paul invariably began his labors in the Jewish synagogues, always succeeding in the conversion of some of the members to the Christhood of Jesus, and thus dividing the church unless, by the grace of God, he succeeded in capturing it all, as in case of the large synagogue at Berea and the small one at Philippi. They have a glorious time at Berea, where the church unanimously fall in with Paul, receiving with delight his powerful preaching and irresistible prophetical proofs of the Christhood of Jesus. We hear a universal hue and cry against the holiness people for dividing the churches. That has been the case in all ages and will continue till Satan is cast out and the millennium ushers in. Jesus said: I came not to send peace on earth, but division. When Satan has a church [and he has many], there is no chance to save the people without separating them from the devil, and thus creating division. The hackneyed clamor, no division, just simply means for the devil to have them all. When we can do like Paul at Berea and Philippi, get all to receive our Christ in conversion and sanctification, then of course there is no division; but if we can not save all, let us do our best and save some, not letting the devil have all to avoid division, but rescuing every one we can. A wealthy Methodist congregation in a Southern city, early in the holiness movement, having erected a very costly church edifice, secured your humble servant to hold the first protracted meeting in it, having arranged with Sam Jones to immediately precede me with a number of lectures for the financial relief of the building. Brother Jones finished his work one evening and I began the next. Before the departure of Brother Jones, the official magnates wait on him, interviewing him with reference to the coming evangelist. Brother Jones, tell us what you know about that man Godbey? Is he not one of those holiness fellows? We are awfully afraid he will split the church. Brother Jones responds, Brethren, if you have any idea he can split it, by all means have him come, stand by him and help him. Surely, the only hope for this old dead church is to split a piece off of it and take it to heaven; otherwise the devil will get it all. My great fear is that it is too far gone already, the devils gum-log, and Godbey cant split it. The devil is the god of this world (2Co 4:4), with all of its fallen churches. Precisely as the apostles went about splitting the fallen Jewish churches; Luther, the Catholic churches; and Wesley, the Episcopal churches, so have the true preachers of the gospel in all ages been enabled, by the grace of God, to divide savable souls from the dead, worldly churches, get them saved and take them to heaven. It is only Satans dead-beats that produce no divisions. The only hope of the world consists in plucking people out of the devils black grip, whether in the wicked rabble or the fallen churches, thus producing divisions, separating them from the devil to God, and taking them to heaven. Though Paul got the whole Jewish church at Berea, leaving none for the devil to stir up a row, yet he sent them from Thessalonica to run them away from Berea.

Fuente: William Godbey’s Commentary on the New Testament

Act 17:10-15. Through Bera to Athens.Bera was a populous place but off the main route. Paul and Silas at once go to the synagogue; by this time we should think they could scarcely look to the synagogue with hopeful eyes. The Beran Jews, however, were more noble, i.e. better-behaved, than their brethren at Thessalonica; they did not close their minds to the message, but applied themselves with interest to testing it by Scripture. The new church at Bera is composed, like that at Thessalonica, of Jews, Greek ladies of position, and men, i.e. Greeks. We hear of Sopater of Bera in Act 20:4. The Jews of Thessalonica follow Paul with their hostility and he has to leave Bera also. As to Silas and Timothy there is a little difficulty. In Act 18:5 they do not join Paul at Athens as he expected, but at Corinth. But in 1 Thessalonians 3 we read of Timothy having been with Paul at Athens, and having been sent by him from there to Thessalonica. According to 2Co 1:19 Silas and Timothy acted along with Paul in the early days of the Corinthian church. We are not fully informed as to these movements.

Fuente: Peake’s Commentary on the Bible

17:10 {4} And the brethren immediately sent away Paul and Silas by night unto Berea: who coming [thither] went into the synagogue of the Jews.

(4) That is indeed the wisdom of the Spirit which always sets the glory of God before itself as a mark with which it directs itself, and never wavers from it.

Fuente: Geneva Bible Notes

Ministry in Berea 17:10-15

Fuente: Expository Notes of Dr. Constable (Old and New Testaments)

For a second time Paul fled a city under cover of night (cf. Act 9:25; Mat 10:23). He and Silas left the Via Egnatia at Thessalonica and took the eastern coastal road toward Athens. They headed for Berea (modern Verria) about 45 miles west-southwest of Thessalonica. Berea was a very old Mecedonian city situated on the Astraeus River. In spite of continued Jewish antagonism Paul and Silas again launched their ministry in this town by visiting the synagogue.

Fuente: Expository Notes of Dr. Constable (Old and New Testaments)

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Chapter 12

ST. PAUL IN MACEDONIA.

Act 16:29-31; Act 17:1-2; Act 17:10

TROAS was at this time the termination of St. Pauls Asiatic travels. He had passed diagonally right through Asia Minor, following the great Roman roads which determined his line of march. From Troas he proceeded to Philippi, and for exactly the same reason. All the great roads formed under the emperors down to the time of Constantine the Great led to Rome. When the seat of empire was moved to Constantinople, all the Asiatic roads converged upon that city; but in St. Pauls day Rome was the worlds centre of attraction, and thither the highways all tended. This fact explains St. Pauls movements. The Egnatian road was one of the great channels of communication established for State purposes by Rome, and this road ran from Neapolis, where St. Paul landed, through Philippi on to Dyrrachium, a port on the Adriatic, whence the traveller took ship to Brundusium, the modern Brindisi, and thence reached Rome. What a striking commentary we find in this simple fact upon the words of St. Paul Gal 4:4 : “When the fulness of the time came God sent forth His Son.” Roman dominion involved much suffering and war and bloodshed, but it secured the network of communication, the internal peace, and the steady, regular government which now covered Europe as well as Asia, and thus for the first time in the worlds history rendered the diffusion of the Gospel possible, as St. Pauls example here shows. The voyage from Troas to Neapolis was taken by the Apostle after the usual fashion of the time. Neapolis was the port of Philippi, whence it is distant some eight miles. Travellers from the East to Rome always landed there, and then took the Egnatian Road which started from Neapolis. If they were official persons they could use the public postal service, post-houses being established at a distance of six miles from one another, where relays of horses were kept at the public expense, to carry persons travelling on the imperial service. Paul and Silas, Timothy and Luke, must, however, have travelled on foot along the Egnatian Road from Neapolis to Philippi, which was their first objective point, according to St. Pauls usual policy, of attacking large and important centres of population, and then leaving the sacred leaven to work out into the surrounding mass of paganism. Philippi amply rewarded the wisdom of his plan, and the Philippian Church became noted for its zeal, its faith, its activity, among the Churches which owed their origin to the Apostle, as we learn from the Epistles addressed to the Corinthians and to the Philippians themselves a short time after the foundation of the Philippian Church.

Now let us look at the circumstances under which that foundation was laid. To understand them we must go back upon the course of history. Philippi was a city built by King Philip, the father of Alexander the Great. After the conquest of Macedonia by the Romans, it became famous as the scene of the great battle between Brutus and Cassius on the one hand, and Mark Antony and Augustus on the other, which decided the fate of the empire and influenced the course of the worlds history as few other battles have done. At the time of St. Pauls visit the memory of that battle was fresh, and the outward and visible signs thereof were to be seen on every side, as indeed some of them are still to be seen, the triumphal arches, for instance, erected in memory of the victory and the mound or rampart of earth raised by Brutus to hinder the advance of the opposing forces. But these things had for the holy travellers a very slight interest, as their hearts were set upon a mightier conflict and a nobler war far than any ever before waged upon earths surface. There is no mention made in the sacred narrative of the memories connected with the place, and yet St. Luke, as an honest writer setting down facts of which he had formed an important part, lets slip some expressions which involve and throw us back upon the history of the place for an, explanation, showing how impossible it is to grasp the full force and meaning of the sacred writers unless we strive to read the Bible with the eyes of the people who lived at the time and for whom it was written. St. Luke calls Philippi “a city of Macedonia, the first of the district, a colony.” Now this means that in that time it was situated in the Roman province of Macedonia, that it was either the capital of the division of Macedonia, in which it was situated, Macedonia being subdivided into four distinct divisions which were kept perfectly separate, or else that it was the first city the traveller met upon entering Macedonia from Asia, and further that it was a Roman colony, and thus possessed peculiar privileges. When we read in the Bible of colonies we must not understand the word in our modern sense. Colonies were then simply transcripts of the original city whence they had come. Roman colonies were miniatures or copies of Rome itself transplanted into the provinces, and ruling as such amid the conquered races where they were placed. They served a twofold purpose. They acted as garrisons to restrain the turbulence of the neighbouring tribes; and if we study Roman geography carefully we shall find that they were always placed in neighbourhoods where their military importance is plainly manifest; and further still, they were used as convenient places to locate the veteran soldiers of Italy who had served their time, where they were rewarded with grants of land, and were utilising at the same time the skill and experience in military matters which they had gained, for the general benefit of the State.

Augustus made Philippi into a colony, erecting a triumphal arch to celebrate his victory over Brutus, and placing there a large settlement of his veterans who secured for him this important outpost. The colonies which were thus dispersed along the military frontier, as we should put it in modern language, were specially privileged. All the settlers were Roman citizens, and the government of the colony was like that of the mother city itself, in the hands of two magistrates, called in Greek Strategoi, or in Latin Praetors, who ruled according to the laws of the Twelve Tables and after Roman methods, though perhaps all the neighbouring cities were still using their ancient laws and customs handed down from times long prior to the Roman Conquest. The details given us by St. Luke are in the strictest accordance in all these respects with the facts which we know independently concerning the history and political status of Philippi.

St. Paul and his companions arrived in Philippi in the early part of the week. He was by this time a thoroughly experienced traveller. Five years later, when writing his Second Epistle to Corinth, he tells us that he had been already three times shipwrecked; so that, unless peculiarly unfortunate, he must have already made extended and repeated sea voyages, though up to the present we have only heard of the journeys from Antioch to Cyprus, from Cyprus to Perga, and from Attalia back to Antioch. A two days voyage across the fresh and rolling waters of the Mediterranean, followed by a steep climb over the mountain Pangaeus which intervenes between Philippi and its port Neapolis, made, however, a rest of a day or two very acceptable to the Apostle and his friends. St. Paul never expected too much from his own body, or from the bodies of his companions; and though he knew the work of a worlds salvation was pressing, yet he could take and enjoy a well-earned holiday from time to time. There was nothing in St. Paul of that eternal fussiness which we at times see in people of strong imaginations but weak self-control, who, realising the awful amount of woe and wickedness in the world, can never be at rest even for a little. The men of God remained quiet therefore {Act 16:12-13} till the Sabbath Day, when, after their usual custom, they sought out in the early morning the Jewish place of worship, where St. Paul always first proclaimed the gospel. The Jewish colony resident at Philippi must have been a very small one. The Rabbinical rule was that where ten wise men existed there a synagogue might be established. There cannot therefore have been ten learned, respectable, and substantial Jews in Philippi competent to act as a local sanhedrin or court. Where, however, the Jews could not establish a synagogue, they did not live without any external expression of religion. They knew how easily neglect of public worship is followed by practical atheism, as we often see. Men may say indeed that God can be realised, and can be worshipped anywhere, – a very great truth and a very precious one for those who are unavoidably cut off from the public worship of the Most High; but a truth which has no application to those who wilfully cut themselves off from that worship which has the covenanted promise of His presence. It is not a good sign for the young men of this generation that so many of them utterly neglect public worship; for as surely as men act so, then present neglect will be followed by a total forgetfulness of the Eternal, and by a disregard of the laws which He has established amongst men. The Jews at Philippi did not follow this example; when they could not establish a synagogue they set apart an oratory or Place of Prayer, whither they resorted on the Sabbath Day to honour the God of their fathers, and to keep alive in their childrens hearts the memory of His laws and doings.

The original name of Philippi was Crenides, or Place of Streams. Beside one of these streams the Jews had placed their oratory, and there St. Paul preached his first sermon in Europe and gained Lydia, his first European convert, a Jewess by blood, a woman of Thyatira in Asia Minor by birth, of Philippi in Macedonia by residence, and a dyer in purple by trade. The congregation of women assembled at that oratory must have been a very small one. When Philippi did not afford a sufficient Jewish population for the erection of a synagogue such as was found among the smaller towns of Asia Minor, and such as we shall in the course of the present tour find to have existed at towns and cities of no great size in Greece and Macedonia, then we may be sure that the female population, who assembled that Sabbath morning to pray and listen to the Scriptures, must have been a small one. But St. Paul and his companions had learned already one great secret of the true evangelists life. They never despised a congregation because of its smallness. I have read somewhere in the writings of St. Francis de Sales, Bishop of Geneva, a remark bearing on this point. De Sales was an extreme Roman Catholic, and his mind was injured and his mental views perverted in many respects by the peculiar training he thus received. But still he was in many respects a very saintly man, and his writings embody much that is good for every one. In one of his letters which I have read he deals with this very point, and speaks of the importance of small congregations, first, because they have no tendency to feed the preachers pride, but rather help to keep him humble; and secondly, because some of the most effective and fruitful sermons have been preached to extremely small congregations, two or three persons at most, some one of whom has afterwards turned out to be a most vigorous soldier of the Cross of Christ. The most effective sermon perhaps that ever was preached was that delivered to Saul of Tarsus when to him alone came the voice, “Saul, Saul, why persecutest thou Me?” And here again, in the Philippian Oratory, the congregation was but a small one, yet the Apostle despised it not. He and his companions bent all their powers to the work, threw their whole hearts into it, and as the result the Lord rewarded their earnest, thorough, faithful service as He rewards such service in every department of lifes action. The Lord opened the heart of Lydia so that she attended to the apostolic teaching, and she and all her household when duly instructed became baptised disciples of Jesus of Nazareth.

This was an important incident in the history of the Philippian Church, and was attended by far-reaching results. Lydia herself, like so many others of Gods most eminent saints, disappears at once and for ever from the scene. But her conversion was a fruitful one. St. Paul and his friends continued quietly but regularly working and teaching at the oratory. Lydia would seem to have been a widow, and must have been a woman of some position in the little community; for she was able to entertain the Apostle and his company as soon as she embraced the faith and felt its exceeding preciousness. When inviting them, too, she uses the language of a woman independent of all other control. “If ye have judged me to be faithful to the Lord, come into my house and abide there,” are words with the tone of one who as a widow owned no superior, and whose will was law within her own household; as well as the language of a woman who felt that the gospel she had embraced demanded and deserved the consecration to its service of all her worldly possessions. Previously to this conversion St. Paul had lived in hired lodgings, but now he moved to Lydias residence, abiding there, and thence regularly worshipping at the Jewish oratory. The presence of these Jewish strangers soon attracted attention. Their teaching too got noised abroad, exaggerated doubtless and distorted after the manner of popular reports. And the crowd were ready to be suspicious of all Eastern foreigners. The settlers in the colony of Philippi belonged to the rural population of Italy, who, after the manner of countrified folk of every generation, were a good way behind, for good or ill, their city brethren. The excavations made at Philippi have brought to light the fact that the colonists there were worshippers of the primitive Italian rustic gods, specially of the god Silvanus, eschewing the fashionable Greek deities, Jupiter, Juno, Venus, Diana, Apollo, and such like. A temple of Silvanus was erected at Philippi for the hardy Italian veterans, and numerous inscriptions have been found and have been duly described by the French Mission in Macedonia to which we have already referred, telling of the building of the temple and of the persons who contributed towards it. These simple Western soldiers were easily prejudiced against the Eastern strangers by reports spread concerning their doctrines, and specially concerning the Jewish King, of whose kingdom they were the heralds. Political considerations were at once raised. We can scarcely now realise the suspicions which must have been roused against the early preachers of Christianity by the very language they used. Their sacramental language concerning the body and blood of Christ, the language of Christian love and union which they used, designating themselves brethren and sisters, caused for more than two centuries the dissemination of the most frightful rumours concerning the horrible nature of Christian love-feasts. They were accused of cannibalism and of the most degraded and immoral practices; and when we take up the Apologists of the second century, Justin Martyr and such like, we shall find that the efforts of these men are largely directed to the refutation of such dreadful charges. And as it was in morals so was it too in politics. The sacred and religious language of the Christians caused them to be suspected of designs hostile to the Roman Government. The apostles preached about a King who ruled the kingdom of God. Now the Romans abhorred the very name and title of king, which they associated with the cruel acts of the early tyrants who reigned in the times of Romes fabulous antiquity. The hostility to the title was so great that, though the Roman people endured a despotism worse and more crushing at the hands of the Caesars, they never would allow them to assume the title of kings, but simply called them emperors, imperators or commanders of the army, a name which to their ears connoted nothing savouring of the kingly office, though for moderns the title of emperor expresses the kingly office and much more. The colonists in Philippi, being Italians, would feel these prejudices in their full force. Easterns indeed would have had no objection to the title of king, as we see from the cry raised by the mob of Jerusalem when they cried in reference to Christs claim, “We have no king but Caesar.” But the rough and rude Roman veterans, when they heard vague reports of St. Pauls teaching to the Jews who met at the oratory by the river-side, quite naturally mistook the nature of his doctrine, and thought that he was simply a political agitator organising a revolt against imperial authority. An incident which then occurred fanned the sleeping embers into a flame. There was a female slave the property of some crafty men who by her means traded on the simplicity of the colonists. She was possessed with a spirit of divination. What the nature of this spirit was we have not the means of now determining. Some would resolve it into mere epilepsy, but such an explanation is not consistent with St. Pauls action and words. He addressed the spirit, “I charge thee in the name of Jesus Christ to Come out of her.” And the spirit, we are told, came out that very hour. The simple fact is that psychology is at the best a very obscure science, and the mysteries of the soul a very puzzling region, even under the Christian dispensation and surrounded by the spiritual blessings of the kingdom of God. But paganism was the kingdom of Satan, where he ruled with a power and freedom he no longer enjoys, and we can form no conception of the frightful disturbances Satanic agency may have raised amid the dark places of the human spirit. Without attempting explanations therefore, which must be insufficient, I am content to accept the statement of the sacred writer, who was an eye-witness of the cure, that the spirit of divination, the spirit of Python, as the original puts it, yielded obedience to the invocation of the sacred Name which is above every name, leaving the damsels inner nature once more calm and at union within itself. This was the signal for a riot. The slave-owners recognised that their hopes of gain had fled. They were not willing to confess that these despised Jews possessed a power transcending far that which dwelt in the human instrument who had served their covetous purposes. They may have heard, it may be, of the tumults excited about this same time by the Jews at Rome and of their expulsion from the capital by the decree of the Emperor, so the owners of the slave-girl and the mob of the city dragged the Apostles before the local Duumvirs and accused them of like disturbances: “These men, being Jews, do exceedingly trouble our city, and set forth customs which it is not lawful for us to receive or to observe, being Romans.” The accusation was sufficient. No proof was demanded, no time for protest allowed. The magistrates with their own hands dragged the clothes off the backs of the Apostles, and they were flogged at once by the lictors or sergeants, as our translation calls them, in attendance upon the Duumvirs, who then despatched their victims to the common prison. Here a question may be raised, Why did not St. Paul save himself by protesting that he was a Roman citizen, as he did subsequently at Jerusalem when he was about to be similarly treated? Several explanations occur. The colonists were Italians and spoke Latin. St. Paul spoke Hebrew and Greek, and though he may have known Latin too, his Latin may not have been understood by these rough Roman soldiers: The mob again was excited, and when a mob gets excited it is but very little its members attend to an unfortunate prisoners words. We know too, not only from St. Pauls own words, but from the testimony of Cicero himself, in his celebrated oration against Verres, that in remote districts this claim was often disregarded, even when urged by Italians, and much more when made by despised Jews. St. Paul tells us in 2Co 11:25, that he received three Roman floggings notwithstanding his Roman citizenship, and though the Philippian magistrates were afraid when they heard next day of the illegal violence of which they had been guilty, the mob, who could not be held accountable, probably took right good care that St. Pauls protest never reached the official ears to which it was addressed. These considerations sufficiently account for the omission of any notice of a protest on the Apostles part. He simply had not the opportunity, and then when the tumultuous scene was over Paul and Silas were hurried off to the common dungeon, where they were secured in the stocks and thrust into the innermost prison as notorious and scandalous offenders.

No ill-treatment could, however, destroy that secret source of joy and peace which St. Paul possessed in his loved Masters conscious presence. “I take pleasure in weaknesses, in injuries, in necessities, in persecutions, in distresses for Christs sake,” is his own triumphant expression when looking back a few years later over the way by which the Lord had led him, and therefore at midnight the astonished prisoners heard the inner dungeon ringing with unwonted songs of praise raised by the Jewish strangers. An earthquake, too, lent its terrors to the strange scene, shaking the prison to its foundations and loosing the staples to which the prisoners chains were fastened. The jailer, roused from sleep, and seeing the prison doors opened wide, would have committed suicide were it not for Pauls restraining and authoritative voice; and then the astonished official, who must have heard the strange rumours to which the words of the demoniac alluded-“These men are the servants of the Most High God, which proclaim unto you the way of salvation”-rushed into the presence of the Apostles, crying out in words which have ever since been famous, “Sirs, what must I do to be Saved?” to which the equally famous answer was given, ” Believe on the Lord Jesus, and thou shalt be saved, thou and thy house.” The jailor then took the Apostles, bathed their bruised bodies, set food before them, gathered his household to listen to the glad tidings, which they received so rapidly and grasped so thoroughly that they were at once baptised and enabled to rejoice with that deep spiritual joy which an experimental knowledge of God always confers. The jailor, feeling for the first time in his life the peace which passeth all understanding, realised the truth which St. Augustine afterwards embodied in the immortal words: “Thou, O God, hast formed us for Thyself, and our hearts are restless till they find rest in Thee.”

Let us look for a little at the question of the jailer and the answer of the Apostle. They are words very often used, and very often misused. The jailer, when he rushed into St. Pauls presence crying out “What must I do to be saved?” was certainly not the type of a conscience-stricken sinner, convinced of his own sin and spiritual danger, as men sometimes regard him. He was simply in a state of fright and astonishment. He had heard that these Jewish prisoners committed to him were preaching about some salvation which they had to offer. The earthquake seemed to him the expression of some deitys wrath at their harsh treatment, and so in his terror he desires to know what he must do to be saved from this wrath. His words were notable, but they were not Christian words, for he had yet much to learn of the nature of sin and the nature of the salvation from it which the Apostles were preaching. The Philippian jailor was a specimen of those who are saved violently and by fear. Terror forced him into communion with the Apostles, broke down the barriers which hindered the approach of the Word, and then the power of the Holy Ghost, working through St. Paul, effected the remainder, opening his eyes to the true character of salvation and his own profound need of it. St. Pauls words have been misunderstood. I have heard them addressed to a Christian congregation and explained as meaning that the jailor had nothing to do but just realise Christ Jesus as his Saviour, whereupon he was perfect and complete so far as the spiritual life was concerned; and then they were applied to the congregation present as teaching that, as it was with the jailor, so was it with all Christians; they have simply to believe as he did, and then they have nothing more to do-a kind of teaching which infallibly produces antinomian results. Such an explanation ignores the fact that there is a great difference between the jailor, who was not a Christian in any sense and knew nothing about Christ when he flung himself at St. Pauls feet, and a Christian congregation, who know about Christ and believe in Him. But this explanation is still more erroneous. It misrepresents what St. Paul meant and what his hearers understood him to mean. What did any ordinary Jew or any ordinary pagan with whom St. Paul came in contact understand him to mean when he said, “Believe on the Lord Jesus, and thou shalt be saved”? They first had to ask him who Jesus Christ was, whence He had come, what He had taught, what were the obligations of His religion. St. Paul had to open out to them the nature of sin and salvation, and to explain the obligation and blessing of the sacrament of baptism as well as the necessity of bodily holiness and purity. The initial sacrament of baptism must have held a foremost place in that midnight colloquy or conference concerning Christian truth. St. Paul was not the man to perform a rite of which his converts understood nothing, and to which they could attach no meaning. “Believe on the Lord Jesus” involved repentance and contrition and submission to Christian truth, and these things involved the exposition of Christian truth, history, doctrines, and duties.

This text, “Believe on the Lord Jesus, and thou shalt be saved,” is often quoted in one-sided and narrow teaching to show that man has nothing to do to be saved. Of course in one sense this is perfectly true. We can do nothing meritoriously towards salvation; from first to last our salvation is all of Gods free grace; but then, viewing the matter from the human side, we have much to do to be saved. We have to repent, to seek God for ourselves, to realise Christ and His laws in our life, to seek after that holiness without which no man shall see the Lord. There were two different types of men who at different times addressed practically the same inquiry to the Apostles. They were both outside the Church, and they were both seekers blindly after God. The Jews on the day of Pentecost said, “Brethren, what shall we do?” and Peter replied, “Repent ye, and be baptised, every one of you, in the name of Jesus Christ, unto the remission of your sins, and ye shall receive the gift of the Holy Ghost.” Such was apostolic teaching to the Jews of Jerusalem. The jailor demanded, “What must I do to be saved?” and St. Paul replied, “Believe on the Lord Jesus, and thou shalt be saved.” Such was apostolic teaching to an ignorant pagan at Philippi; more concise than the Jerusalem answer, but meaning the same thing, and involving precisely the same doctrines in the hands of such a great master of the spiritual life as was the Apostle of the Gentiles.

The remainder of the story is soon told. When the morning came there came quiet reflection with it as far as the magistrates were concerned. They became conscious of their illegal conduct, and they sent their lictors to order the release of the Apostles. St. Paul now stood upon his rights. His protest had been disregarded by the mob. He now claimed his rights as a Roman citizen. “They have beaten us publicly, uncondemned men, that are Romans, and have cast us into prison; and do they now cast us out privily? Nay, verily; but let them come themselves and bring us out.” These are St. Pauls words, and they are brave, and at the same time wise words. They were brave words because it took a strong man to send back such an answer to magistrates who had treated him so outrageously only the day before. They were wise words, for they give us an apostles interpretation of our Lords language in the Sermon upon the Mount concerning the nonresistance of evil, and shows us that in St. Pauls estimation Christs law did not bind a man to tolerate foul injustice. Such toleration, in fact, is very wrong if it can be helped; because it is simply an encouragement to the wicked doers to treat others in the same scandalous manner. Toleration of outrage and injustice is unfair and uncharitable towards others, if they can be lawfully redressed or at least apologised for. It is a Christian mans duty to bring public evil-doers and tyrants, instruments of unrighteousness like these Duumvirs of Philippi, to their senses, not for his own sake, but in order that he may prevent the exercise of similar cruelties against he weaker brethren. We may be sure that the spirited action of St. Paul, compelling these provincial magnates to humble themselves before the despised strangers, must have had a very wholesome effect in restraining them from similar violence during the rest of their term of office.

Such was St. Pauls stay at Philippi. It lasted a considerable time, and made its mark, as a flourishing Church was established there, to which he addressed an Epistle when he lay the first time a captive at Rome. This Epistle naturally forms a most interesting commentary on the notices of the Philippian visit in the Acts of the Apostles, a point which is worked out at large in Bishop Lightfoots Commentary on Philippians and in Paleys “Horae Paulinae.” The careful student of Holy Writ will find that St. Pauls letter and St. Lukes narrative when compared illuminate one another in a wondrous manner. We cannot afford space to draw out this comparison in detail, and it is the less necessary to do so as Dr. Lightfoots writings are so generally accessible. Let us, however, notice one point in this Epistle to the Philippians, which was written about the same time (a few months previously, in fact) as the Acts of the Apostles. It corroborates the Acts as to the circumstances under which the Church of Philippi was founded. St. Paul in the Epistle refers again and again to the persecutions and afflictions of the Philippian Church, and implies that he was a fellow-sufferer with them. St. Paul dwells on this in the beginning of the Epistle in words whose force cannot be understood unless we grasp this fact. In the sixth verse of the first chapter he expresses himself as “Confident of this very thing, that He which began a good work in you will perfect it until the day of Jesus Christ: even as it is right for me to be thus minded on behalf of you all, because I have you in my heart, inasmuch as, both in my bonds and in the defence and confirmation, of the gospel, ye all are partakers with me of grace.” St. Paul speaks of the Philippians as personally acquainted with chains and sufferings and prison-houses for Christs sake, and regards these things as a proof of Gods grace vouchsafed not only to the Apostle, but also to the Philippians; for St. Paul was living at that high level when he could view bonds and trials and persecutions as marks of the Divine love. In the twenty-eighth verse of the same chapter he exhorts them to be in no wise “affrighted by the adversaries,” and in the next two describes them as persons to whom “it hath been granted in the behalf of Christ, not only to believe on Him, but also to suffer in His behalf: having the same conflict which ye saw in me, and now hear to be in me,” words which can only refer to the violence and afflictions which they witnessed as practised against himself, and which they were now themselves suffering in turn. While to complete St. Pauls references we notice that in an Epistle written some five years later than his first visit to Philippi he expressly refers to the persecutions which the Philippian Church in common with all the Macedonian Churches seems to have suffered from the Very beginning. In 2Co 8:1-2, he writes: “Moreover, brethren, we make known to you the grace of God which hath been given in the Churches of Macedonia; how that in much proof of affliction the abundance of their joy and their deep poverty abounded unto the riches of their liberality.” Now all these passages put together confirm for us what the Acts expressly affirms, that from the very outset of their Christian career the Philippian Church had endured the greatest trials, and experienced a fellowship in the Apostles sufferings. And surely we may see in the character of the Philippian Epistle something eminently characteristic of this experience! It has been remarked that the Philippian Epistle is the only Epistle addressed to a Church in which there is no trace of blame or reproof. Temptation and trial and chastisement had there worked their appointed purpose. The Philippian Church had been baptised in blood, and grounded in afflictions, and purified by the cleansing fires of persecution, and consequently the tried Church gathered itself closer to its Divine Lord, and was perfected above all others in His likeness, and profited above all others in the Divine life.

After the terrible experience of Philippi Paul and Silas passed on to other towns of the same province of Macedonia. The Apostle, however, when quitting Philippi to do the same evangelistic work, breaking up the ground in other towns after the manner of a pioneer, did not leave the Church of Philippi devoid of wisest pastoral care. It is most likely, as Dr. Lightfoot points out in the Introduction to his Commentary on Philippians, that St. Luke was left behind to consolidate the work which had been thus begun by such a noble company. Then Paul and Silas and Timotheus proceeded to Thessalonica, one hundred miles west, the capital of the province, where the proconsul resided, and where was a considerable Jewish population, as we see, not only from the fact that a synagogue is expressly said to have existed there, but also because the Jews were able to excite the city pagan mob against the Apostles and drag them before the local magistrates. St. Paul at Philippi had for the first time experienced a purely pagan persecution. He had indeed previously suffered at the hands of the heathen at Lystra, but they were urged on by the Jews. At Philippi he gained his first glimpse of that long vista of purely Gentile persecution through which the Church had to pass till Christianity seated itself in the person of Constantine on the throne of the Caesars. But as soon as he got to Thessalonica he again experienced the undying hostility of his Jewish fellow-country-men using for their wicked purposes the baser portion of the city rabble. St. Paul remained three weeks in Thessalonica teaching privately and publicly the gospel message, without experiencing any Jewish opposition. It is an interesting fact that to this day St. Pauls visit to Thessalonica is remembered, and in one of the local mosques, which was formerly the Church of Sancta Sophia, a marble pulpit is shown, said to have been the very one occupied by the Apostle, while in the surrounding plains trees and groves are pointed out as marking spots where he tarried for a time. The Jews were at last, however, roused to opposition, possibly because of St. Pauls success among the Gentiles, who received his doctrines with such avidity that there believed “of the devout Greeks a great multitude, and of the chief women not a few.” In Thessalonica, as elsewhere, the spirit of religions selfishness, desiring to have gospel promises and a Messiah all to themselves, was the ruin of the Jewish people. The Jews therefore, assisted by the pagans, assaulted the residence of Jason, with whom St. Paul and his friends were staying. They missed the Apostles themselves, but they seized Jason and some of the apostolic band, or at least some of their converts whom they found in Jasons house, and brought them before the town magistrates, who, acting under the eye of the resident proconsul, did not lend themselves to any irregular proceedings like the Philippian praetors. A charge of treason was formally brought against the prisoners: “These all act contrary to the decrees of Caesar, saying that there is another King, one Jesus”; in the words of which charge we get a glimpse of the leading topic upon which the Apostles insisted. Jesus Christ, the crucified, risen, glorified King and Head of His people, was the great subject of St. Pauls teaching as it struck the heathen. The Thessalonian magistrates acted very fairly. They. entered the charge, which was a serious one m the eye of Roman law. Bail was then taken for the accused and they were set free. The Apostles, however, escaped arrest, and the local brethren determined that they should incur no danger; so while the accused remained to stand their trial, Paul and Silas and Timotheus were despatched to Beroea, where they were for a time welcomed, and free discussion permitted in the synagogue concerning the truths taught by the Evangelists. After a time, however, tidings having reached Thessalonica, agents were despatched to Beroea, who stirring up the Jewish residents, St. Paul was despatched in charge of some trusty messengers, who guided the steps of the hunted servant of God to the city of Athens. We see the physical infirmities of St. Paul, the difficulties he had to contend with, hinted at in the fourteenth and fifteenth verses of the seventeenth chapter. “Then immediately the brethren sent forth Paul,” and “They that conducted Paul brought him to Athens,” words which give us a glimpse of his fearfully defective eyesight. His enemies might be pressing upon him and danger might be imminent, but he could make no unaided effort to save himself. He depended upon the kindly help of others that he might escape his untiring foes and find his way to a place of safety.

Thus ended St. Pauls first visit to Thessalonica so far as the Acts of the Apostles is concerned; but we have interesting light thrown upon it from an Epistle which St. Paul himself wrote to the Thessalonians soon after his departure from amongst them. A comparison of First Thessalonians with the text of the Acts will furnish the careful student with much information concerning the circumstances of that notable visit, just as we have seen that the text of the Philippian Epistle throws light upon his doings at Philippi. The Thessalonian Epistles are more helpful even than the Philippians in this respect, because they were written only a few months after St. Pauls visit to Thessalonica, while years elapsed, eight or ten at least, before the Philippian Epistle was indited. First Thessalonians shows us, for instance, that St. Pauls visit to Thessalonica lasted a considerable time. In the Acts we read of his discussing in the synagogue three Sabbath days, and then it would appear as if the riot was raised which drove him to Beroea and Athens. The impression left on our minds by St. Lukes narrative is that St. Pauls labours were almost entirely concentrated upon the Jews in Thessalonica, and that he bestowed very little attention indeed upon the pagans. The Epistle corrects this impression. When we read the first chapter of First Thessalonians we see that it was almost altogether a Church of converted idolaters, not of converted Jews. St. Paul speaks of the Thessalonians as having turned from idols to serve the living God; he refers to the instructions on various points like the resurrection, the ascension, the second coming of Christ, which he had imparted, and describes their faith and works as celebrated throughout all Macedonia and Achaia. A large and flourishing church like that, composed of former pagans, could not have been founded in the course of three weeks, during which time St. Pauls attention was principally bestowed on the Jewish residents. Then too, when we turn to Php 4:16, we find that St. Paul stayed long enough in Thessalonica to receive no less than two remittances of money from the brethren at Philippi to sustain himself and his brethren. His whole attention too was not bestowed upon mission work; he spent his days and nights in manual labour. In the ninth verse of the second chapter of First Thessalonians he reminds them of the fact that he supported himself in their city, “For ye remember, brethren, our labour and travail: working night and day, that we might not burden any of you, we preached unto you the Gospel of God.” When we realise these things we shall feel that the Apostle must have spent at least a couple of months in Thessalonica. It was perhaps his tremendous success among the heathen which so stirred up the passions of the town mob as enabled the Jews to instigate them to raise the riot, they themselves keeping all the while in the background. St. Paul, in First Thessalonians, describes the riots raised against the Christians as being the immediate work of the pagans: “Ye, brethren, became imitators of the Churches of God which are in Judaea in Christ Jesus. For ye also suffered the same things of your own countrymen as they did of the Jews”; a statement which is quite consistent with the theory that the persecution was originally inspired by the Jews. But we cannot further pursue this interesting line of inquiry which has been thoroughly worked out by Mr. Lewin in vol. 2Ch 11:1-23, by Conybeare and Howson in ch. 9, and by Archdeacon Farrar, as well as by Dr. Salmon in his “Introduction to the New Testament,” ch. 20. The careful student will find in all these works most interesting light reflected back upon the Acts from the apostolic letters, and will see how thoroughly the Epistles, which were much the earlier documents, confirm the independent account of St. Luke, writing at a subsequent period.

Before we terminate this chapter we desire to call attention to one other point where the investigations of modern travel have helped to illustrate the genuineness of the Acts of the Apostles. It has been the contention of the rationalistic party that the Acts was a composition of the second century, worked up by a clever forger out of the materials at his command. There are various lines of proof by which this theory can be refuted, but none appeal so forcibly to ordinary men as the minute accuracy which marks it when describing the towns of Asia Minor and Macedonia. Macedonia is a notable case. We have already pointed out how the Acts gives their proper title to the magistrates of Philippi and recognises its peculiar constitution as a colony. Thessalonica forms an interesting contrast to Philippi. Thessalonica was a free city like Antioch in Syria, Tarsus, and Athens, and therefore, though the residence of the proconsul who ruled the province of Macedonia, was governed by its own ancient magistrates and its own ancient laws without any interference on the part of the proconsul. St. Luke makes a marked distinction between Philippi and Thessalonica. At Philippi the Apostles were brought before the praetors, at Thessalonica they were brought before the politarchs, a title strange to classical antiquity, but which has been found upon a triumphal arch which existed till a few years ago across the main street of the modern city of Thessalonica. That arch has now disappeared; but the fragments containing the inscription were fortunately preserved and have been now placed in the British Museum, where they form a precious relic proving the genuineness of the sacred narrative.

Fuente: Expositors Bible Commentary