Acts 17 - Why You Should Examine the Scriptures!


Click Here to Read Acts 17

In Berea

10 As soon as it was night, the believers sent Paul and Silas away to Berea. On arriving there, they went to the Jewish synagogue. 11 Now the Berean Jews were of more noble character than those in Thessalonica, for they received the message with great eagerness and examined the Scriptures every day to see if what Paul said was true. 12 As a result, many of them believed, as did also a number of prominent Greek women and many Greek men.
What was different between the Berean Jews and most of the other Jews Paul had preached to in the synagogues? They were eager to receive the message, and then examined it on their own to see if it was true.  They didn't assume just because Paul was a respected teacher everything he said would be true.  They were students of the Old Testament to see if what he was teaching was in alignment with the God inspired scriptures.  Notice also they searched daily.  
You might say they were hungry for the message. They wanted to see if what Paul was saying really was true.  They had heard about the Messiah but now they were testing Paul's message about Jesus.  Many of the other Jews, especially the Pharisees, were not at all interested in examining the scriptures.  Note a number of prominent Greek women and men believed as well. 
What might this mean for us today? One of the most precious freedoms we have as Christians today is the ability to read the bible for ourselves.  When Luther started the Reformation one of the most important issues for him is that each person should be able to read the bible for themselves in their own language.  The bible was not just for the religious elite, who could read Latin. The Church claimed the Pope was infallible when he taught, meaning nothing he said could be debated by anyone in the Catholic church.  He spoke with the same authority of the bible.  
One of the problems today is people don't read their bibles enough to be able to test whether what they are hearing is biblical.  For instance, there are a large number of preachers out there today who preach what we call the "prosperity gospel".  In short this gospel teaches, if you believe in Jesus and have faith he will bless you with material riches.  Recently one of these prosperity preachers told his TV audience that he was trying to raise money for a 45 million dollar lear jet.  In his pitch to his followers he reasoned, "If Jesus were alive today he wouldn't be going around on a donkey."  
You don't need to be a heavyweight theologian to see the error in this man's teaching, which is anything but biblical.  The only thing Jesus promised his disciples was that by taking up their cross they would have to lose their lives to gain it.  Jesus taught us to use our treasures here on earth to store up eternal treasure in heaven.  But obviously many people believe in these prosperity preachers because many of them have net worth in the hundreds of millions.  Not sure if those followers are examining the scriptures like the Bereans, but we sure should.  

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