Acts 17:1-15 - Upside Down and Suspicious

Podcast Transcript (Auto-Transcribed by Apple Podcasts)

We are in Acts 17, and over the past couple of days, we've seen Paul and Silas as they have journeyed from Jerusalem and then Antioch, and as they are making their way towards the European continent.

And a couple of days ago, we heard about how God directed them that way, as opposed to into Asia, like their initial aim had been. But God called them into Macedonia.

They went into there, eventually came to the city of Philippi, which is where our church has been, and where we've been in Tabernacle Talk for the past couple of days.

And then yesterday, they left Philippi, and now they are going a little bit more into Greece itself. And we're going to see that here in Acts 17 and verse number one.

It says this, after they passed through Amphipolis and Apollonia, they came to Thessalonica, where there was a Jewish synagogue.

As usual, Paul went into the synagogue, and on three Sabbath days reasoned with them from the scriptures, explaining and proving that it was necessary for the Messiah to suffer and rise from the dead.

And he says, This Jesus, I am proclaiming to you, is the Messiah. Some of them were persuaded and joined Paul and Silas, including a large number of God-fearing Greeks, as well as a number of the leading women.

This is an incredible thing that's happening in Thessalonica, and you can see that Paul is there. He's there almost a month before some of the events of the next verses happen, and he's reasoning with them from the scriptures.

Faith is not an abandonment of reason. We believe what we believe because God has said it, because He is trustworthy, because we can see in the areas that are empirical that God is always correct.

And because God is correct in what we can see, we choose to believe Him in what we can't. It's not simply a blind faith that says, jump off of a cliff. We believe in Him because it is reasonable.

It is a good thing. It is something that does not require the loss of your intellect in order to believe. It is something that you can do with full faculties, that God has given you your mind and He has given it to you for a reason.

And if there's ever a time where there's maybe a difference between what you can see or what you think and what God says, I'd like to encourage you, dive into it, find out why there might be some of that dissonance.

Is it maybe that we don't understand something as much as maybe God understands something and we eventually get to that point where we understand?

I can think even of several scientific discoveries that people had through superstition or through whatever amount of things over the course of centuries had thought, okay, we think the earth is the center of the universe and everything else goes

around the sun. Or we believe that the earth is kind of like a dome thing and maybe the bottom is a circle, but the top part of it is flat. And they didn't realize verses like where it says that God sits on the circle of the earth.

Some people thought that maybe there was a grounding, something that tethered the earth, there was some great connection.

And they didn't realize the verse that says that God hangs the earth on nothing, that the fact that we're floating in space, those were all mentioned by God.

I can think of even our ever-expanding universe, where there's the verse that says that God stretches out the heavens, the space, like a curtain.

Many of these things that the life of the flesh is in the blood, that occasionally even as recently as George Washington, where they thought, okay, we've got to get all the sickness out of him, so we're going to put a bunch of leeches on, and all the

leeches are going to take away all of the bad blood, and then he'll be healthy. And didn't realize that even God himself had said, hey, blood is how you are alive as humans, and that's all there for you.

So don't abandon reason in order to have faith. We don't have faith because it's blind. We don't have faith even strictly just because there are words written on a page.

What is written on the pages can be verified. You can go to each of these locations. You can discover the things that the Bible talks about and find out, okay, this is factual.

These people really did exist. We can go and find early writings. You can find pottery and clay inscriptions in ancient Israel, many of these things.

This isn't something that we believe and there is no proof for it. It is factual. It's real.

So we can see that Paul from the scriptures reasoned with them. He says this is factual. This is what the scriptures said would happen with Jesus.

This is what would happen to the Messiah. And this is exactly what happened with Jesus. This is who I'm proclaiming.

Bunch of people got saved. It's wonderful. Verse number five, but the Jews became jealous and they brought together some wicked men from the marketplace.

They formed a mob and started a riot in the city. City riot sounds like a pretty cool band name. If someone doesn't have that trademarked yet, I would encourage you.

Or maybe if city riot is Thessalonica mob riot sounds like a really, really cool band name. The verse number five continues, attacking Jason's house, the mob searched for Paul and Silas to bring them out to the public assembly.

When they did not find them, they dragged Jason and some of the brothers before the city officials. Shouting, these men who have turned the world upside down have come here too, and Jason has welcomed them.

They are all acting contrary to Caesar's decrees, saying that there is another king, Jesus. The crowd and city officials who hurt these things were upset. After taking a security bond from Jason and the others, they released them.

I think that those verses six and seven are very true. The men that have turned the world upside down.

That's the impact that declaring Jesus had on the early world, that those that were wrapped up in their citizenship, those that were wrapped up in slavery, those that were wrapped up in rebellion or in business or in idolatry, everything changed when

Jesus came into the picture, that there was a unity, there was a leveling that came as a result of Jesus, so that you didn't have all of these different stations of land-owning men were the best people, and then you have land-owning women, and then

you have land-working men, and then land-working women and children and male slaves were on one category, and then you have female slaves that are on a different category. It was this tiered, layered system, this hierarchy of who was important, and

all of it was destroyed when Jesus came into the picture, because he says, all of you need salvation. It only comes through me, and it doesn't matter how much money you have. It doesn't matter how much land you have.

It doesn't matter what your job is or what your not job is. All of you are in need of salvation, and I am the only way. I think verse number seven is very accurate.

There is another king, King Jesus, and all of this world's kingdoms want you to pledge undying allegiance to their rulers, to their kings, to their constitutions and congresses and kings and all of those things.

The kingdoms of this earth want you to pledge your undying allegiance to them. Jesus commands your undying allegiance because he is the one that died for you, that rose again.

He is God incarnate, he is the one who is worthy of your worship, who is worthy of your obedience, who is worthy of your devotion, everything that we can give.

So even though here they're trying to bring some clauses against them, Christianity really did turn the world upside down. The eventual full abolition of slavery in most of the world occurred as a result of Christians working very, very hard.

You can look at William Wilberforce in England.

And sadly in America, there were many churches that strictly for financial gain and for subjugation and for things of racism, that they rejected slavery being repealed up until obviously the Civil War caused many of those things to take place.

But in England, it happened because of the work of Christian believers.

You can think of John Newton and William Wilberforce, who together worked in incredible ways to see England and its economic place turned upside down by the work of Jesus and the Gospel that declares that all of us are equal at the foot of the cross.

Even the sexual ethic of the early, you know, those first couple of centuries AD, were completely changed around by Christianity, that instead of it being something that was primarily done for domination of others, whether that was same sex

interactions or whether it was men and women or men and slaves, all sorts of terrible things took place with the ethic of intimacy back in those times. And Christianity brought it into a whole new space where it was primarily intended to be between a

husband and wife. And while all of the world didn't practice that and all of Christendom didn't live up to that ideal, that was the call of scripture. And so that's what the Christians did. And it completely changed how people interacted with sex.

So it's true here that these apostles turned the world upside down through teaching about Jesus and teaching God's Word.

But God wants that to be true in your world, that God wants to turn your world upside down through the teaching of Jesus, through the teaching of the apostles, and seeing that take place.

And there is one king who deserves our full undying allegiance. It is King Jesus. It's not King Trump.

It's not King Biden. Not King DeSantis, King Newsome, or whoever else might one day rule from the presidency of the United States. God has one king for you to whom you owe all allegiance.

Verse number 10. I must hasten on. As soon as it was night, the brothers and sisters sent Paul and Silas away to Berea.

So there was a mob that came. They're looking for Paul and Silas. So as soon as it was night, they send Paul and Silas away to Berea.

Upon arrival, they went into the synagogue of the Jews. Verse 11. The people here were of more noble character than those in Thessalonica, since they received the word with eagerness and examined the scriptures daily to see if these things were so.

The heart of the Bereans was, I'm going to go. That's really amazing what you're telling me. My spirit goes, I think it's true, but I got to look at God's word to make sure that it's true.

And that should be all of our posture.

When we come to scripture, that we go, we will listen to what God says, maybe listen to what God says through a teacher or through a preacher or a pastor, an evangelist, something that we will listen to the word of God, we would receive it.

But then not only would we receive it, it says with eagerness, but then examine the scripture to see if those things are so. Saying, yes, I eagerly want to hear from God, and I'm going to make sure from God's word that it is accurate.

It's not a suspicion of, okay, it doesn't say they receive the word with suspicion and examine the scripture. It was with eagerness and then examine the scriptures to see if those things were so.

Verse number 12, consequently, because of their eagerness and their examining of the scriptures, consequently, many of them believed, including a number of the prominent Greek women as well as men.

But when the Jews from Thessalonica found out that the word of God had been proclaimed by Paul at Berea, they came there too, agitating and upsetting the crowds.

Then the brothers and sisters immediately sent Paul away to go to the coast, but Silas and Timothy stayed on there in Berea.

Those who escorted Paul brought him as far as Athens, and after receiving instructions for Silas and Timothy to come to him as quickly as possible, they departed.

You can see here, Paul gets chased out of most places that he goes, especially on this trip. There's so many interesting things that are taking place. He's been beaten.

There are riots. He's getting rushed from one town to the next, and yet he's still continuing to be faithful to the Lord and to preach the Gospel.

I want to encourage you, no matter what difficulties you're encountering as you're trying to talk about Jesus with your loved ones, with your family members, maybe with a friend or a neighbor or a coworker, no matter what difficulties you go through,

it is always worth it. That's what we can see in Paul's life, that 2,000 years later, we're still remarking about what God did through Paul, about the churches that were planted, about the books of Scripture that were written through the inspiration

of the Holy Spirit working in the life of Paul and of his companions. All of that is taking place because Paul didn't call it quits. He could have called it quits many times. I want to encourage you, don't call it quits.

Continue preaching the Gospel. And then from the example that we see here of those that are rejecting the Gospel, wherever you go, are you making people increasingly more mad and more upset at others?

What's the result of you hanging around other people? What's the interaction like? Is it causing them to look at the world with more hate and with more suspicion and more despair?

Or are you like Paul where wherever he goes, whether it's Jews, whether it's prominent Greek women, if it's slaves, if it's anyone in between, wherever Paul goes, people are trusting in Christ that even people that are just recently saved, like in

verse number five, Jason and some of the others, those were new Christians, new believers that underwent persecution and were kidnapped by a mob because of their faith in Christ. Is that the result of when you're around other people?

Do they feel like they could take on the world for Jesus out of love and sharing the gospel? Or are they just mad about the world being as it is?

I'd like to encourage you, don't be like the Jews in this chapter and constantly stirring up trouble, stirring up hate, stirring up anger, and all of those things against people. Be like Paul and stir up the gospel.

Stir up courage to stand for the Lord and to love him and to speak the Word of God to everyone that were around. Tomorrow, we go to Athens with one of the coolest sections of the Book of Acts. I'm really looking forward to diving into it with you.

See you tomorrow. Bye-bye.