October 15, 2025 • 31 mins
Open-mindedness is a celebrated virtue today, but what does it really mean? Many people are open to anything—cosmic energy, horoscopes, or personal feelings as ultimate truth—while closing their minds to Scripture. Acts 17 introduces us to the Bereans, a community that provides a timeless model of how to be truly open-minded.
In this episode of The Wisdom Journey, Stephen Davey explains how the Bereans received the Word with eagerness, examined the Scriptures daily, and allowed truth to shape their lives. Their approach wasn’t gullibility; it was discernment. They tested every claim by God’s Word and adapted their lives to what they found there—even when it caused conflict or personal cost.
This study challenges us to anchor our faith in Scripture, not in shifting feelings, cultural fads, or popular opinions. Discover why biblical truth provides clarity when emotions or society suggest otherwise, and how daily time in God’s Word equips us for wisdom, conviction, and courage.
If you want to learn how to discern truth in an age of confusion, this episode will encourage you to embrace the Berean model: open to God’s Word, eager for truth, and ready to live it out.
Stephen's latest book, The Disciples Prayer, is available now. https://www.wisdomonline.org/store/view/the-disciples-prayer-hardback
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SPEAKER_01 (00:05):
All of these early believers are not only charged
with breaking up the status quo,they're accused of committing
the crime of treason.
Look at verse 7.
They all act contrary to thedecrees of Caesar, saying there
is another king, Jesus.
I love that.
This is treason.
(00:27):
Jesus is not only the Messiah,that gives us enough problems,
but he's king.
In fact, the word used in theGreek New Testament by this mob
can be translated monarch.
SPEAKER_00 (00:53):
When you share your convictions, do they ever
disrupt the status quo?
In Acts 17, Paul's preachingabout Jesus did exactly that.
He caused a stir inThessalonica.
His bold claim that Jesus is thetrue king challenged religious
traditions, political power, andcultural comfort zones.
(01:17):
And the city responded withriots and accusations of
treason.
Today on Wisdom for the Heart,Stephen Davies shows you what
happens when the gospel collideswith culture.
Keep listening to learn whyChristianity turns the world
right side up and how believerstoday can live with that same
(01:39):
clarity.
SPEAKER_01 (02:04):
This picture was taken right outside the state
capitol building in OklahomaCity.
And obviously the idea ofaccountability, you know, this
is the Ten Commandments, theidea of a divinely inspired,
divinely given law, the idea ofabsolute truth from a supreme
(02:28):
being is a bit unnerving.
And of course, we're watchingour own culture, which is still
just to me a wonderfulopportunity.
And I don't tell you this stuffbecause I'm I'm you know crying
in my soup.
It's a wonderful opportunity toremind ourselves that we're
living in a culture that iscontinually becoming like the
texts that we're preaching andwhat we're studying.
(02:50):
And frankly, that our brothersand sisters around the world
have delivered the gospel to.
And we're in a culture that isuh enamored over the ability to
believe whatever you want tobelieve.
And the the issue for us in inour world is whatever you want
to believe in, you just gothrough the buffet line and and
(03:11):
you pick it out and findsomething comfortable.
Uh there are some interestinginsights that came out of a
series I read about it, didn'twatch it, but uh I read about
it.
It was aired on cable, oneparticular cable station, that
uh was simply called belief.
And uh it aired not too longago, and it was it was sort of a
(03:34):
survey, and it did go around theworld, by the way, in a number
of different countries,surveying what people believe in
as it relates to some kind ofsupernatural being or some
divine essence, or it might evenbe some kind of universal force
or power.
And uh it was supposed towitness some of the world's most
fascinating, they called it,spiritual journeys where cameras
(03:58):
have rarely been.
So I, you know, read a littlebit uh about it.
They were searching for originsof diverse faith and the heart
of what really matters, whetherit's the belief of millions who
flock to the sacred Ganges forcleansing, a free climber on the
side of a mountain without anysecurity ropes, who believes
(04:21):
that his will to climb is thegreatest power on earth, a woman
engaged in ancient ceremonialcleansing, a search of one
nation through ancientastrological systems to find
meaning in the stars and ofcourse more.
You know, our world is incurablyhungry, isn't it?
(04:42):
I found it interesting inreading some of the promotional
material, just as I suspected,that the idea would eventually
surface, and it did, and Iquote, that a monarch like God
is fading.
A monarch like God is fading,and people are now seeking the
(05:03):
divine in nature and in theirneighborhoods like never before.
And the series continuallypresents this question.
What do you believe?
What do you, emphasis you, whatdo you believe?
Frankly, what you and I believeisn't really a very good place
(05:25):
to start because we are allfinite creatures and we have
blind spots, the size of our ownbiases.
We're prone to believe whateverwe feel fits and uh and is
comfortable with our perceptionsand lifestyles.
And the gospel collides,frankly, with what we believe.
(05:48):
And the truth of who God is doesas well.
A.W.
Toza wrote in his work entitledThe Knowledge of the Holy, this
left to ourselves, we tend toreduce God to manageable terms.
We by nature want to get Godwhere we can use him, or at
(06:11):
least know where he is if weneed him.
We want a God we can in somemeasure control, making even the
Christian God only slightlysuperior to the gods of Greece
and Rome.
See, the question to begin withis not, what do you believe
(06:32):
about God and the universe andsome spirit being or world out
there?
The question is, what has Godrevealed about himself and the
universe he created?
And frankly, the only place tobegin to answer a question like
that in specific terms is thisbook we call the Bible.
(06:57):
And by the way, in the openingline of the Bible, God is not
explained, his existence is notsupported, he is not proven, he
is not defended, he is simplyintroduced with the statement,
in the beginning, what?
God, in the beginning, God.
(07:18):
Here he is, here he is.
And now our search begins.
And for us, it begins here, noton a mountainside, not through a
telescope, not in the pollutedwaters of the Ganges.
It begins here with what Godclaims to be his very breath,
(07:39):
the inspired scripture.
Here's what Creator Goddiscloses about himself.
What I want to do in our sessiontoday is begin to study one of
the most loaded chapters in theBible that reveals who God is
and what God is like.
(08:00):
What I want to show you is theself-disclosure of God, and it's
going to take some time to workthrough this chapter, and you're
probably wondering what chaptermight that be.
We'll turn to Acts chapter 17.
What I want to do is I want usto travel back 1,967 years ago,
(08:25):
this very month, the month ofJanuary, to a moment when the
Apostle Paul arrives at a citycalled Thessalonica.
What happened in January 49 AD?
And we're going to use this tojust sort of begin to not only
capture our thoughts and whatwe're going to discover about
(08:45):
God through the revelation ofGod by means of his servant.
But we're also going to try toanswer the question along the
way (08:53):
how do we communicate to our culture that really doesn't
want anything to do with amonarch like God?
Who is so dogmatic as to suggestthere might be something called
a commandment rather than asuggestion.
(09:15):
So we're going to also explorewhat it's like to communicate to
our world in this pre-Christianday who God is.
So for this session, let's justgo to verse, let's go to verse
1, where Paul arrives inThessalonica.
There's a synagogue there of theJews, and according to Paul's
(09:37):
custom, verse 2, he went to themand for three Sabbaths reasoned
with him.
And now what we're told is thathe's going to engage in at least
three activities as he goes intothe synagogue.
He's going to primarily beginwith Jews and proselytes.
He's going to deal withsympathizers to Judaism, those
(09:59):
that might sit on the fringeelements of this congregation.
But he's going to do threethings.
So let's start there.
First of all, he's going toreason or dialogue according to
the scriptures.
My translation reads, hereasoned with them.
The verb is dialegomai, fromwhich we get our English word,
dialogue.
(10:20):
And it's really important tounderstand what this is like.
So you can picture this in yourmind.
It isn't like Paul is standingup somewhere like here and the
audience is sitting out theresort of like you are.
This is more like a give andtake.
A dialogue in the Greek sense isa word that refers to teaching
(10:43):
or engaging people in a methodof question and answer in order
to stimulate their thinking.
That's the idea of dialoguing.
And so what Paul is doing hereis he's having these Jews and
these proselytes and theseGod-fearing Gentiles and he's
engaging them.
By the way, notice in the nextphrase, he's dialoguing with
(11:04):
them from the scriptures.
So what he's doing is he'ssaying, Have you ever thought
about this verse?
And he might have them, youknow, recall it from memory.
Or he might quote it to them.
And then he's going to say, Haveyou ever thought about what that
might mean?
And then he's going to have somegive and take on the
implications of whatever thatparticular text might be.
(11:24):
And he's focusing, notice inverse 3, he's intentionally
driving them in the thoughts, inthe texts, in the question and
answers, to consider the truthsthat this God incarnate died and
rose again.
He is their Messiah.
So he's saying things like, haveyou ever thought about that
(11:47):
verse from the Torah, the law,the first five books of our Old
Testament?
And they might fire back theiranswers.
And he'd say, Yeah, but whatabout that passage where King
David describes some things?
What do you think about theprophets of the past?
And he'd lead them into somerather stunning implications of
(12:08):
their own scriptures tostimulate their thinking.
So this would have been ratherraucous.
That's what the word dialegamymeans.
I'll never forget my fathertelling me what happened in an
airport a number of years ago.
He's in Russia.
He leads missions to themilitary, and he's coming back
(12:29):
from the Black Sea area wherethey have expanded and they now
have built a ministry there withthe military, the Russian
military.
Very fruitful ministry.
And he's sitting there in theairport, and for those of you
that travel at certain times ofyear, you may have seen the same
thing he saw.
The terminal was filled withOrthodox Jewish men with the
(12:51):
curly sideburns and the hats andthe black garb.
And my dad was sitting there inthe terminal with his Bible
open, and you have to understandthat all he was doing was
baiting the hook, okay?
It was very intentional.
He's just opening it up just towait and see.
But he was reading, and sureenough, a young 25-year-old
Orthodox Jew came and sat downbeside him and uh quiet for a
(13:16):
moment, and then my my dadlooked at him and said, Can I
ask you a question?
Sure.
How will you know your Messiahis the true Messiah when he
comes?
The young man responded, Oh, wewill know.
We will know.
Well, how will you know?
(13:37):
Oh, he will be dynamic, he willbe a great leader, he will have
miraculous power.
That's how we will know.
And my father took his OldTestament and he said, I know
how you will know.
And he turned to severalpassages, like uh the prophet
Zechariah, who spoke of theirreturning king, and he turned
(13:59):
there and he said, Look here,and he had him read it, where it
said, They will look upon himwhom they have pierced.
And that young man said, That'snot in my scriptures.
And my dad said, Yes, it is.
And he said, Well, let me writethat reference down.
And so he got out a little pieceof paper and he wrote the
reference down.
(14:19):
My father then said, Well, letme show you another passage from
the great prophet Isaiah thatyou have never heard read in the
synagogue.
And he turned to Isaiah 53 andhe said, Here, read this verse.
He was wounded for ourtransgressions, he was crushed
for our iniquities, thechastening for our well-being
fell upon him.
The young man said, Let me writethat reference down.
(14:42):
And he wrote that down.
Then my father went to Genesis,to the great Torah, written by
Moses, and he turned to chapter49 and verse 10, where it talked
about the scepter not departingfrom the tribe of Judah when he
comes, and the messianicprophecy that said, And when he
comes, he will tie his youngcolt to a vine, which is exactly
(15:04):
what Jesus did when he enteredthe city.
The young man said, I've neverseen that verse before.
My father very kindly said, It'sin your Torah.
Then he turned to Zechariahagain in chapter 13, and he
showed him verse 6, where thenation Israel asks their
shepherd king, What are thesewounds in your hand?
(15:31):
And then he will answer, theseare the wounds with which I was
wounded in the house of myfriend.
And he wrote that referencedown.
And asks some questions.
So here they are in theterminal.
Dialogue.
This is the idea of the ApostlePaul doing the same thing here
(15:52):
in Thessalonica centuriesearlier.
And notice the text again, henot only dialogue with them.
Number two, he explained thescriptures to them.
Verse 3, for Paul is explaining.
See that word?
Explaining.
Again, the Greeks help us with alittle bit more color.
It means to be opened.
(16:13):
He is opening the scriptures tothem.
In other words, Paul is takingthe scriptures, as it were, and
opening them with clarity,shedding light on them.
And with that, opening heartsand eyes that only the Spirit,
through the truth of theScriptures, can do.
But he's sort of opening up theword of God to them, and their
(16:33):
hearts are open.
In fact, that word to open isthe same word used in those two
disciples that Jesus spoke withon the road to Emmaus, and their
eyes were clouded until they sawthe Lord give them the elements,
as it were, of what we callcommunion, and their eyes were
opened.
This is the idea here.
(16:54):
He is opening the scriptures.
Isn't it wonderful when you'rereading the Word of God and the
Spirit of God opens the meaningof a text to you?
Or maybe you're listening to asermon or a lesson, a Bible
teacher, a Bible study, or onthe radio or whatever.
I can remember as a senior highstudent, I'd given my life to
(17:16):
the Lord as a 17-year-old.
And I was told that J.
Vernon McGee was going to cometo a church in Virginia Beach.
You know, now as I tell thesestories, I realize how old I'm
getting.
But at any rate, he waspreaching every night for a week
in that church, and I was reallyhungry for the word, of course,
had come to life spiritually,and so I, as a 17-year-old,
(17:40):
drove to that church.
I can't remember if I was aloneor by myself.
I can't remember anybody beingwith me.
I just remember that I would siton the front row of the balcony
five nights a week and listen toJay Vernamy.
He took an entire week to gothrough the book of Ruth.
You think how it took a week.
(18:00):
Well, he talked slowly, butreally what he did was he went
into the history and the cultureand the meaning of the words and
everything.
And he he literally, I'll neverforget, sitting there with my
mouth open, he opened thescriptures to me.
This is Paul in the synagogue,and he's opening one passage and
(18:24):
he's saying, Let me tell youwhat that means.
Showing them how they tiedtogether to show who God was.
I want you to notice thirdly,Paul is not only dialoguing,
he's explaining, but notice he'sgiving evidence.
He's giving evidence forscriptural integrity.
The verb there in verse 3,giving evidence, means to lay
(18:45):
things alongside, if hetranslated it rather woodenly.
So Paul is taking the scripturesand he's then laying one passage
alongside another passage, whichis a wonderful way, by the way,
to study the scriptures,comparing scripture with
scripture.
So Paul then is perhaps taking aprophecy, and then he's laying
(19:06):
alongside of it a psalm, andthen he's delivering along with
it an eyewitness account fromperhaps one of the gospel
writers.
We don't know, I wish we hadbeen told, but we don't know
what he laid alongside.
That doesn't mean we can't useour imagination.
(19:27):
I can imagine that Paul couldhave started the dialogue and
then moved forward andeventually to the evidence by
asking the congregation, whatdid it mean for your great King
Solomon to say in his collectionof Proverbs, which we revere,
(19:51):
what we call chapter 30 andverse 4, who has ascended into
heaven and descended?
Who has gathered the wind in hisfists?
Who has wrapped the waters inhis garment?
Who has established all the endsof the earth?
Notice this.
(20:11):
What is his name and the name ofhis son?
I can imagine Paul, you know,just kind of throwing that out
there and stopping and saying,you know, Solomon is obviously
talking about God, the creator.
But he's asking, who is his son?
Do you know his name?
(20:32):
Maybe then Paul could have laidalongside that text the
eyewitness account of Matthewand that incredible moment where
Jesus meets up with the ministryof John the Baptizer and
acknowledges the truth of thatOld Testament prophet John and
goes into the water as a sign ofhis acknowledging the truth of
(20:56):
that message and going down andthen up and out of the water,
and then that voice speakingfrom heaven.
Paul said, you know, theeyewitnesses said, the voice
from heaven said, This is myson.
Then I can imagine Paul saying,you know, let me let me kind of
tie it together for you.
(21:18):
And the only way they can betied together, let me introduce
to you the Son of God, the sameman who was crucified and rose
from the dead, the Son of God,Solomon, centuries ago wondered
about.
He is the Son of God confirmedby eyewitness accounts, and his
(21:40):
name is Jesus.
He is the Christ.
Look at verse 3 again.
He's explaining and givingevidence that the Christ had to
suffer and rise again from thedead and saying, This Jesus,
whom I am proclaiming to you,whom I'm introducing to you, is
(22:04):
the Messiah.
It isn't long before the Jewsrecognize the threat that Paul
represents to their religion, totheir tradition, to their
customs.
Verse 4 tells us that some ofthem were persuaded and joined.
Paul and Tilas, that word joinedis actually much stronger.
It indicates to us that God isactually creating and forming a
(22:27):
community of believers.
What we would know thenobviously is the creation of a
local church.
But then again, all you have isthis departure then from the
synagogue.
You have numbers that aredisappearing.
You have well-respected women,you have a multitude of Greeks,
you have even Jews who've joinedthis community of followers, and
(22:50):
they're all naming Jesus astheir Messiah.
That's very, very troubling.
See, Paul has introduced God toa city that knew nothing of him,
and now the question is, what isthe city going to do about it?
Verse 5.
The middle part tells us theyformed a mob.
(23:10):
They became jealous, of course.
They took some wicked men fromthe marketplace, formed a mob,
set the city in an uproar, theycame upon the house of Jason.
They were seeking to bring themout to the people.
Evidently, the believers hadmoved from the synagogue, no
longer welcome, into the home ofthis man by the name of Jason.
(23:32):
Paul will greet him later in oneof his letters, a man who put
his life on the line for theApostle Paul and the gospel of
Christ.
And Jason opens up his home,evidently large enough, perhaps
a leading man of the city.
We don't know for sure.
But he's hosting Paul and Silasand the church.
And then you have this uproar.
(23:52):
They effectively are going todrag Jason, verse 6, out, and
they're going to make twocharges against these
Christians, specifically Jason.
Look at verse 6.
They began dragging Jason andsome brethren before the city
authorities, shouting, These menwho have upset the world have
come here also.
(24:12):
And I love that phrase, by theway.
Catch that, mark it down.
It's going to become more andmore the testimony of the church
in this culture.
And the first charge is that youare disturbing the status quo.
These men who upset the world,literally, these are they who
(24:34):
have turned the world upsidedown.
They're ruining everything.
By the way, if you disturb thestatus quo, if you swim against
the politically correct current,if you don't keep your opinions
of what's right and wrong toyourself, if you suggest that
(24:57):
Christianity is the only faith,and everything else is
speculation.
If you do that, you're going toinvite trouble into your life.
Why?
Because you're tampering, you'reimpugning, you are disagreeing,
you are claiming.
(25:20):
And you are turning the worldupside down.
Listen, beloved, you are not.
You are not.
You are turning the world rightside up.
It's already upside down.
You're introducing your world towho God really is and what he's
(25:40):
really like.
And the gospel actually returnsthe world to where it ought to
be.
Secondly, Paul and these earlybelievers are not only charged
with breaking up the status quo,they're accused of committing
the crime of treason.
Look at verse 7.
They all act, later on in theverse, they all act contrary to
the decrees of Caesar, sayingthere is another king, Jesus.
(26:07):
I love that.
They're saying there's anotherking.
This is treason.
Jesus is not only the Messiah,that gives us enough problems,
but he's king.
In fact, the word used in theGreek New Testament by this mob
can be translated emperor.
Or you can translate it, getready for this one, monarch.
(26:32):
He is emperor of all there is.
And they got it, by the way.
They got it.
The world might chisel thereminders of who he is and what
he said.
But there is a sovereign,monarch, the emperor, who is
Jesus.
Now look at verse 8.
They stirred up the crowd andthe city authorities who heard
(26:54):
these things, and when they hadreceived a pledge from Jason and
the others, they released him.
Receiving a pledge is uh is areference to posting Baal.
So what they got from Jason wasBaal, and he evidently bailed
everybody out.
Has it ever occurred to you thatwherever Paul went, a riot
followed?
A riot.
(27:15):
How's that for speaking for theglory of Christ?
Here's Jason posting Baal.
The city's infuriated over thegospel claims.
Can you imagine this in theaverage church in our culture
today?
Hey, you want to join ourchurch?
Go down the hallway there,second door on the right, pick
up your riot gear.
And then come out of thehallway, turn left, and get some
(27:37):
instructions on how to post bailbecause you're probably going to
jail.
By the way, we're starting a newseries of studies tonight called
Church Planting in a Town wherealmost everyone will hate you.
Great, you know, sign me up.
I want to belong to that church.
Our gospel should produce areaction.
(27:57):
Heartburn, offense, guilt,shame, repentance, forgiveness,
joy.
You know, it bothers me.
It bothers me that a politicianrunning for office, which is not
happening, will align themselveswith the Christians because it
(28:18):
will improve their hope.
I find that troubling.
Maybe in my lifetime, none willdare because it would ruin the
police.
But you can't chisel away thetruth.
Jesus Christ is revealed as asovereign God, the fulfillment
of Solomon's question, andDavid's and others.
(28:42):
He suffered and died, he rose.
He's gonna return to earth oneday as the emperor, the monarch
of all that is.
Pastor Ray Ortland, who's nowwith the Lord, Pastor Mosley in
(29:02):
California, once wrote these uhencouraging yet convicting words
with a cyclone.
Your heart and mine prefers tobe multi-divided.
And he's writing to Christians,by the way.
As if our heart were aboardroom.
Imagine, Portland wrote, a bigtable, leather chairs, coffee,
(29:26):
bottled water, and a whiteboard.
And there you have yourcommittee members of your life
all seated there at theboardroom of your heart.
There is your social self, yourprivate self, your work self,
your sexual self, yourrecreational self, your future
planning self, your religiousself, and others.
(29:46):
The committee constantly arguesand debates and eventually votes
its will and pleasure.
Rarely can they come to aunanimous decision.
We tell ourselves we're thisway.
Because we're so busy with somany responsibilities, but the
truth is we have divided loyaltyto Christ.
(30:09):
And we have two options daily.
We can invite the Lord onto thecommittee and into the boardroom
and give him a vote.
Give him a vote too.
But then it becomes just onemore complication and just one
more opinion equal to all theothers.
The second opinion is to invitethe Lord daily to come into the
boardroom of our hearts and fireall the members of the
(30:32):
committee, every last one ofthem.
And then we simply submit everypart of our hearts and our lives
to the single rule of JesusChrist.
Isn't that great?
By the way, that's the optionI'm encouraging.
Okay?
Fire the committee.
This is how you treat JesusChrist as the sovereign monarch
(30:55):
and the king.
And this was the gospel toThessalonica.
It brought about a riot, but italso brought about a community
of believers committed to therule of Jesus Christ.
SPEAKER_00 (31:18):
Thanks for being with us today, here on Wisdom
for the Heart.
This is the Bible teachingministry of Stephen Davey.
Stephen is the pastor of achurch in Carey, North Carolina.
He's currently working his waythrough a series called
Introducing God.
It comes from Acts 17.
Today's message from that seriesis entitled The Suffering King.
(31:43):
The Wisdom International app haseach day's broadcast, as well as
the archive of Stephen's fourdecades of Bible exposition.
You'll find the WisdomInternational app in the App
Store for your device.
Thanks for listening.
Join us next time for moreWisdom for the Heart.
All of these early believers are not only charged
with breaking up the status quo,they're accused of committing
the crime of treason.
Look at verse 7.
They all act contrary to thedecrees of Caesar, saying there
is another king, Jesus.
I love that.
This is treason.
(00:27):
Jesus is not only the Messiah,that gives us enough problems,
but he's king.
In fact, the word used in theGreek New Testament by this mob
can be translated monarch.
SPEAKER_00 (00:53):
When you share your convictions, do they ever
disrupt the status quo?
In Acts 17, Paul's preachingabout Jesus did exactly that.
He caused a stir inThessalonica.
His bold claim that Jesus is thetrue king challenged religious
traditions, political power, andcultural comfort zones.
(01:17):
And the city responded withriots and accusations of
treason.
Today on Wisdom for the Heart,Stephen Davies shows you what
happens when the gospel collideswith culture.
Keep listening to learn whyChristianity turns the world
right side up and how believerstoday can live with that same
(01:39):
clarity.
SPEAKER_01 (02:04):
This picture was taken right outside the state
capitol building in OklahomaCity.
And obviously the idea ofaccountability, you know, this
is the Ten Commandments, theidea of a divinely inspired,
divinely given law, the idea ofabsolute truth from a supreme
(02:28):
being is a bit unnerving.
And of course, we're watchingour own culture, which is still
just to me a wonderfulopportunity.
And I don't tell you this stuffbecause I'm I'm you know crying
in my soup.
It's a wonderful opportunity toremind ourselves that we're
living in a culture that iscontinually becoming like the
texts that we're preaching andwhat we're studying.
(02:50):
And frankly, that our brothersand sisters around the world
have delivered the gospel to.
And we're in a culture that isuh enamored over the ability to
believe whatever you want tobelieve.
And the the issue for us in inour world is whatever you want
to believe in, you just gothrough the buffet line and and
(03:11):
you pick it out and findsomething comfortable.
Uh there are some interestinginsights that came out of a
series I read about it, didn'twatch it, but uh I read about
it.
It was aired on cable, oneparticular cable station, that
uh was simply called belief.
And uh it aired not too longago, and it was it was sort of a
(03:34):
survey, and it did go around theworld, by the way, in a number
of different countries,surveying what people believe in
as it relates to some kind ofsupernatural being or some
divine essence, or it might evenbe some kind of universal force
or power.
And uh it was supposed towitness some of the world's most
fascinating, they called it,spiritual journeys where cameras
(03:58):
have rarely been.
So I, you know, read a littlebit uh about it.
They were searching for originsof diverse faith and the heart
of what really matters, whetherit's the belief of millions who
flock to the sacred Ganges forcleansing, a free climber on the
side of a mountain without anysecurity ropes, who believes
(04:21):
that his will to climb is thegreatest power on earth, a woman
engaged in ancient ceremonialcleansing, a search of one
nation through ancientastrological systems to find
meaning in the stars and ofcourse more.
You know, our world is incurablyhungry, isn't it?
(04:42):
I found it interesting inreading some of the promotional
material, just as I suspected,that the idea would eventually
surface, and it did, and Iquote, that a monarch like God
is fading.
A monarch like God is fading,and people are now seeking the
(05:03):
divine in nature and in theirneighborhoods like never before.
And the series continuallypresents this question.
What do you believe?
What do you, emphasis you, whatdo you believe?
Frankly, what you and I believeisn't really a very good place
(05:25):
to start because we are allfinite creatures and we have
blind spots, the size of our ownbiases.
We're prone to believe whateverwe feel fits and uh and is
comfortable with our perceptionsand lifestyles.
And the gospel collides,frankly, with what we believe.
(05:48):
And the truth of who God is doesas well.
A.W.
Toza wrote in his work entitledThe Knowledge of the Holy, this
left to ourselves, we tend toreduce God to manageable terms.
We by nature want to get Godwhere we can use him, or at
(06:11):
least know where he is if weneed him.
We want a God we can in somemeasure control, making even the
Christian God only slightlysuperior to the gods of Greece
and Rome.
See, the question to begin withis not, what do you believe
(06:32):
about God and the universe andsome spirit being or world out
there?
The question is, what has Godrevealed about himself and the
universe he created?
And frankly, the only place tobegin to answer a question like
that in specific terms is thisbook we call the Bible.
(06:57):
And by the way, in the openingline of the Bible, God is not
explained, his existence is notsupported, he is not proven, he
is not defended, he is simplyintroduced with the statement,
in the beginning, what?
God, in the beginning, God.
(07:18):
Here he is, here he is.
And now our search begins.
And for us, it begins here, noton a mountainside, not through a
telescope, not in the pollutedwaters of the Ganges.
It begins here with what Godclaims to be his very breath,
(07:39):
the inspired scripture.
Here's what Creator Goddiscloses about himself.
What I want to do in our sessiontoday is begin to study one of
the most loaded chapters in theBible that reveals who God is
and what God is like.
(08:00):
What I want to show you is theself-disclosure of God, and it's
going to take some time to workthrough this chapter, and you're
probably wondering what chaptermight that be.
We'll turn to Acts chapter 17.
What I want to do is I want usto travel back 1,967 years ago,
(08:25):
this very month, the month ofJanuary, to a moment when the
Apostle Paul arrives at a citycalled Thessalonica.
What happened in January 49 AD?
And we're going to use this tojust sort of begin to not only
capture our thoughts and whatwe're going to discover about
(08:45):
God through the revelation ofGod by means of his servant.
But we're also going to try toanswer the question along the
way (08:53):
how do we communicate to our culture that really doesn't
want anything to do with amonarch like God?
Who is so dogmatic as to suggestthere might be something called
a commandment rather than asuggestion.
(09:15):
So we're going to also explorewhat it's like to communicate to
our world in this pre-Christianday who God is.
So for this session, let's justgo to verse, let's go to verse
1, where Paul arrives inThessalonica.
There's a synagogue there of theJews, and according to Paul's
(09:37):
custom, verse 2, he went to themand for three Sabbaths reasoned
with him.
And now what we're told is thathe's going to engage in at least
three activities as he goes intothe synagogue.
He's going to primarily beginwith Jews and proselytes.
He's going to deal withsympathizers to Judaism, those
(09:59):
that might sit on the fringeelements of this congregation.
But he's going to do threethings.
So let's start there.
First of all, he's going toreason or dialogue according to
the scriptures.
My translation reads, hereasoned with them.
The verb is dialegomai, fromwhich we get our English word,
dialogue.
(10:20):
And it's really important tounderstand what this is like.
So you can picture this in yourmind.
It isn't like Paul is standingup somewhere like here and the
audience is sitting out theresort of like you are.
This is more like a give andtake.
A dialogue in the Greek sense isa word that refers to teaching
(10:43):
or engaging people in a methodof question and answer in order
to stimulate their thinking.
That's the idea of dialoguing.
And so what Paul is doing hereis he's having these Jews and
these proselytes and theseGod-fearing Gentiles and he's
engaging them.
By the way, notice in the nextphrase, he's dialoguing with
(11:04):
them from the scriptures.
So what he's doing is he'ssaying, Have you ever thought
about this verse?
And he might have them, youknow, recall it from memory.
Or he might quote it to them.
And then he's going to say, Haveyou ever thought about what that
might mean?
And then he's going to have somegive and take on the
implications of whatever thatparticular text might be.
(11:24):
And he's focusing, notice inverse 3, he's intentionally
driving them in the thoughts, inthe texts, in the question and
answers, to consider the truthsthat this God incarnate died and
rose again.
He is their Messiah.
So he's saying things like, haveyou ever thought about that
(11:47):
verse from the Torah, the law,the first five books of our Old
Testament?
And they might fire back theiranswers.
And he'd say, Yeah, but whatabout that passage where King
David describes some things?
What do you think about theprophets of the past?
And he'd lead them into somerather stunning implications of
(12:08):
their own scriptures tostimulate their thinking.
So this would have been ratherraucous.
That's what the word dialegamymeans.
I'll never forget my fathertelling me what happened in an
airport a number of years ago.
He's in Russia.
He leads missions to themilitary, and he's coming back
(12:29):
from the Black Sea area wherethey have expanded and they now
have built a ministry there withthe military, the Russian
military.
Very fruitful ministry.
And he's sitting there in theairport, and for those of you
that travel at certain times ofyear, you may have seen the same
thing he saw.
The terminal was filled withOrthodox Jewish men with the
(12:51):
curly sideburns and the hats andthe black garb.
And my dad was sitting there inthe terminal with his Bible
open, and you have to understandthat all he was doing was
baiting the hook, okay?
It was very intentional.
He's just opening it up just towait and see.
But he was reading, and sureenough, a young 25-year-old
Orthodox Jew came and sat downbeside him and uh quiet for a
(13:16):
moment, and then my my dadlooked at him and said, Can I
ask you a question?
Sure.
How will you know your Messiahis the true Messiah when he
comes?
The young man responded, Oh, wewill know.
We will know.
Well, how will you know?
(13:37):
Oh, he will be dynamic, he willbe a great leader, he will have
miraculous power.
That's how we will know.
And my father took his OldTestament and he said, I know
how you will know.
And he turned to severalpassages, like uh the prophet
Zechariah, who spoke of theirreturning king, and he turned
(13:59):
there and he said, Look here,and he had him read it, where it
said, They will look upon himwhom they have pierced.
And that young man said, That'snot in my scriptures.
And my dad said, Yes, it is.
And he said, Well, let me writethat reference down.
And so he got out a little pieceof paper and he wrote the
reference down.
(14:19):
My father then said, Well, letme show you another passage from
the great prophet Isaiah thatyou have never heard read in the
synagogue.
And he turned to Isaiah 53 andhe said, Here, read this verse.
He was wounded for ourtransgressions, he was crushed
for our iniquities, thechastening for our well-being
fell upon him.
The young man said, Let me writethat reference down.
(14:42):
And he wrote that down.
Then my father went to Genesis,to the great Torah, written by
Moses, and he turned to chapter49 and verse 10, where it talked
about the scepter not departingfrom the tribe of Judah when he
comes, and the messianicprophecy that said, And when he
comes, he will tie his youngcolt to a vine, which is exactly
(15:04):
what Jesus did when he enteredthe city.
The young man said, I've neverseen that verse before.
My father very kindly said, It'sin your Torah.
Then he turned to Zechariahagain in chapter 13, and he
showed him verse 6, where thenation Israel asks their
shepherd king, What are thesewounds in your hand?
(15:31):
And then he will answer, theseare the wounds with which I was
wounded in the house of myfriend.
And he wrote that referencedown.
And asks some questions.
So here they are in theterminal.
Dialogue.
This is the idea of the ApostlePaul doing the same thing here
(15:52):
in Thessalonica centuriesearlier.
And notice the text again, henot only dialogue with them.
Number two, he explained thescriptures to them.
Verse 3, for Paul is explaining.
See that word?
Explaining.
Again, the Greeks help us with alittle bit more color.
It means to be opened.
(16:13):
He is opening the scriptures tothem.
In other words, Paul is takingthe scriptures, as it were, and
opening them with clarity,shedding light on them.
And with that, opening heartsand eyes that only the Spirit,
through the truth of theScriptures, can do.
But he's sort of opening up theword of God to them, and their
(16:33):
hearts are open.
In fact, that word to open isthe same word used in those two
disciples that Jesus spoke withon the road to Emmaus, and their
eyes were clouded until they sawthe Lord give them the elements,
as it were, of what we callcommunion, and their eyes were
opened.
This is the idea here.
(16:54):
He is opening the scriptures.
Isn't it wonderful when you'rereading the Word of God and the
Spirit of God opens the meaningof a text to you?
Or maybe you're listening to asermon or a lesson, a Bible
teacher, a Bible study, or onthe radio or whatever.
I can remember as a senior highstudent, I'd given my life to
(17:16):
the Lord as a 17-year-old.
And I was told that J.
Vernon McGee was going to cometo a church in Virginia Beach.
You know, now as I tell thesestories, I realize how old I'm
getting.
But at any rate, he waspreaching every night for a week
in that church, and I was reallyhungry for the word, of course,
had come to life spiritually,and so I, as a 17-year-old,
(17:40):
drove to that church.
I can't remember if I was aloneor by myself.
I can't remember anybody beingwith me.
I just remember that I would siton the front row of the balcony
five nights a week and listen toJay Vernamy.
He took an entire week to gothrough the book of Ruth.
You think how it took a week.
(18:00):
Well, he talked slowly, butreally what he did was he went
into the history and the cultureand the meaning of the words and
everything.
And he he literally, I'll neverforget, sitting there with my
mouth open, he opened thescriptures to me.
This is Paul in the synagogue,and he's opening one passage and
(18:24):
he's saying, Let me tell youwhat that means.
Showing them how they tiedtogether to show who God was.
I want you to notice thirdly,Paul is not only dialoguing,
he's explaining, but notice he'sgiving evidence.
He's giving evidence forscriptural integrity.
The verb there in verse 3,giving evidence, means to lay
(18:45):
things alongside, if hetranslated it rather woodenly.
So Paul is taking the scripturesand he's then laying one passage
alongside another passage, whichis a wonderful way, by the way,
to study the scriptures,comparing scripture with
scripture.
So Paul then is perhaps taking aprophecy, and then he's laying
(19:06):
alongside of it a psalm, andthen he's delivering along with
it an eyewitness account fromperhaps one of the gospel
writers.
We don't know, I wish we hadbeen told, but we don't know
what he laid alongside.
That doesn't mean we can't useour imagination.
(19:27):
I can imagine that Paul couldhave started the dialogue and
then moved forward andeventually to the evidence by
asking the congregation, whatdid it mean for your great King
Solomon to say in his collectionof Proverbs, which we revere,
(19:51):
what we call chapter 30 andverse 4, who has ascended into
heaven and descended?
Who has gathered the wind in hisfists?
Who has wrapped the waters inhis garment?
Who has established all the endsof the earth?
Notice this.
(20:11):
What is his name and the name ofhis son?
I can imagine Paul, you know,just kind of throwing that out
there and stopping and saying,you know, Solomon is obviously
talking about God, the creator.
But he's asking, who is his son?
Do you know his name?
(20:32):
Maybe then Paul could have laidalongside that text the
eyewitness account of Matthewand that incredible moment where
Jesus meets up with the ministryof John the Baptizer and
acknowledges the truth of thatOld Testament prophet John and
goes into the water as a sign ofhis acknowledging the truth of
(20:56):
that message and going down andthen up and out of the water,
and then that voice speakingfrom heaven.
Paul said, you know, theeyewitnesses said, the voice
from heaven said, This is myson.
Then I can imagine Paul saying,you know, let me let me kind of
tie it together for you.
(21:18):
And the only way they can betied together, let me introduce
to you the Son of God, the sameman who was crucified and rose
from the dead, the Son of God,Solomon, centuries ago wondered
about.
He is the Son of God confirmedby eyewitness accounts, and his
(21:40):
name is Jesus.
He is the Christ.
Look at verse 3 again.
He's explaining and givingevidence that the Christ had to
suffer and rise again from thedead and saying, This Jesus,
whom I am proclaiming to you,whom I'm introducing to you, is
(22:04):
the Messiah.
It isn't long before the Jewsrecognize the threat that Paul
represents to their religion, totheir tradition, to their
customs.
Verse 4 tells us that some ofthem were persuaded and joined.
Paul and Tilas, that word joinedis actually much stronger.
It indicates to us that God isactually creating and forming a
(22:27):
community of believers.
What we would know thenobviously is the creation of a
local church.
But then again, all you have isthis departure then from the
synagogue.
You have numbers that aredisappearing.
You have well-respected women,you have a multitude of Greeks,
you have even Jews who've joinedthis community of followers, and
(22:50):
they're all naming Jesus astheir Messiah.
That's very, very troubling.
See, Paul has introduced God toa city that knew nothing of him,
and now the question is, what isthe city going to do about it?
Verse 5.
The middle part tells us theyformed a mob.
(23:10):
They became jealous, of course.
They took some wicked men fromthe marketplace, formed a mob,
set the city in an uproar, theycame upon the house of Jason.
They were seeking to bring themout to the people.
Evidently, the believers hadmoved from the synagogue, no
longer welcome, into the home ofthis man by the name of Jason.
(23:32):
Paul will greet him later in oneof his letters, a man who put
his life on the line for theApostle Paul and the gospel of
Christ.
And Jason opens up his home,evidently large enough, perhaps
a leading man of the city.
We don't know for sure.
But he's hosting Paul and Silasand the church.
And then you have this uproar.
(23:52):
They effectively are going todrag Jason, verse 6, out, and
they're going to make twocharges against these
Christians, specifically Jason.
Look at verse 6.
They began dragging Jason andsome brethren before the city
authorities, shouting, These menwho have upset the world have
come here also.
(24:12):
And I love that phrase, by theway.
Catch that, mark it down.
It's going to become more andmore the testimony of the church
in this culture.
And the first charge is that youare disturbing the status quo.
These men who upset the world,literally, these are they who
(24:34):
have turned the world upsidedown.
They're ruining everything.
By the way, if you disturb thestatus quo, if you swim against
the politically correct current,if you don't keep your opinions
of what's right and wrong toyourself, if you suggest that
(24:57):
Christianity is the only faith,and everything else is
speculation.
If you do that, you're going toinvite trouble into your life.
Why?
Because you're tampering, you'reimpugning, you are disagreeing,
you are claiming.
(25:20):
And you are turning the worldupside down.
Listen, beloved, you are not.
You are not.
You are turning the world rightside up.
It's already upside down.
You're introducing your world towho God really is and what he's
(25:40):
really like.
And the gospel actually returnsthe world to where it ought to
be.
Secondly, Paul and these earlybelievers are not only charged
with breaking up the status quo,they're accused of committing
the crime of treason.
Look at verse 7.
They all act, later on in theverse, they all act contrary to
the decrees of Caesar, sayingthere is another king, Jesus.
(26:07):
I love that.
They're saying there's anotherking.
This is treason.
Jesus is not only the Messiah,that gives us enough problems,
but he's king.
In fact, the word used in theGreek New Testament by this mob
can be translated emperor.
Or you can translate it, getready for this one, monarch.
(26:32):
He is emperor of all there is.
And they got it, by the way.
They got it.
The world might chisel thereminders of who he is and what
he said.
But there is a sovereign,monarch, the emperor, who is
Jesus.
Now look at verse 8.
They stirred up the crowd andthe city authorities who heard
(26:54):
these things, and when they hadreceived a pledge from Jason and
the others, they released him.
Receiving a pledge is uh is areference to posting Baal.
So what they got from Jason wasBaal, and he evidently bailed
everybody out.
Has it ever occurred to you thatwherever Paul went, a riot
followed?
A riot.
(27:15):
How's that for speaking for theglory of Christ?
Here's Jason posting Baal.
The city's infuriated over thegospel claims.
Can you imagine this in theaverage church in our culture
today?
Hey, you want to join ourchurch?
Go down the hallway there,second door on the right, pick
up your riot gear.
And then come out of thehallway, turn left, and get some
(27:37):
instructions on how to post bailbecause you're probably going to
jail.
By the way, we're starting a newseries of studies tonight called
Church Planting in a Town wherealmost everyone will hate you.
Great, you know, sign me up.
I want to belong to that church.
Our gospel should produce areaction.
(27:57):
Heartburn, offense, guilt,shame, repentance, forgiveness,
joy.
You know, it bothers me.
It bothers me that a politicianrunning for office, which is not
happening, will align themselveswith the Christians because it
(28:18):
will improve their hope.
I find that troubling.
Maybe in my lifetime, none willdare because it would ruin the
police.
But you can't chisel away thetruth.
Jesus Christ is revealed as asovereign God, the fulfillment
of Solomon's question, andDavid's and others.
(28:42):
He suffered and died, he rose.
He's gonna return to earth oneday as the emperor, the monarch
of all that is.
Pastor Ray Ortland, who's nowwith the Lord, Pastor Mosley in
(29:02):
California, once wrote these uhencouraging yet convicting words
with a cyclone.
Your heart and mine prefers tobe multi-divided.
And he's writing to Christians,by the way.
As if our heart were aboardroom.
Imagine, Portland wrote, a bigtable, leather chairs, coffee,
(29:26):
bottled water, and a whiteboard.
And there you have yourcommittee members of your life
all seated there at theboardroom of your heart.
There is your social self, yourprivate self, your work self,
your sexual self, yourrecreational self, your future
planning self, your religiousself, and others.
(29:46):
The committee constantly arguesand debates and eventually votes
its will and pleasure.
Rarely can they come to aunanimous decision.
We tell ourselves we're thisway.
Because we're so busy with somany responsibilities, but the
truth is we have divided loyaltyto Christ.
(30:09):
And we have two options daily.
We can invite the Lord onto thecommittee and into the boardroom
and give him a vote.
Give him a vote too.
But then it becomes just onemore complication and just one
more opinion equal to all theothers.
The second opinion is to invitethe Lord daily to come into the
boardroom of our hearts and fireall the members of the
(30:32):
committee, every last one ofthem.
And then we simply submit everypart of our hearts and our lives
to the single rule of JesusChrist.
Isn't that great?
By the way, that's the optionI'm encouraging.
Okay?
Fire the committee.
This is how you treat JesusChrist as the sovereign monarch
(30:55):
and the king.
And this was the gospel toThessalonica.
It brought about a riot, but italso brought about a community
of believers committed to therule of Jesus Christ.
SPEAKER_00 (31:18):
Thanks for being with us today, here on Wisdom
for the Heart.
This is the Bible teachingministry of Stephen Davey.
Stephen is the pastor of achurch in Carey, North Carolina.
He's currently working his waythrough a series called
Introducing God.
It comes from Acts 17.
Today's message from that seriesis entitled The Suffering King.
(31:43):
The Wisdom International app haseach day's broadcast, as well as
the archive of Stephen's fourdecades of Bible exposition.
You'll find the WisdomInternational app in the App
Store for your device.
Thanks for listening.
Join us next time for moreWisdom for the Heart.
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