THE BEREAN BELIEVERS: A PATTERN FOR VICTORIOUS LIVING
Study Text: Acts 17: 10-12
Introduction:
- Whatsoever is written in the Bible is for our learning, in which we can receive instructions in righteousness, godly examples or patterns to emulate, and ungodly or bad examples to avoid.
- The Holy Spirit, who inspired Luke to write the book of Acts, recorded for us some key lessons we can learn from the Bereans. These lessons have to do with:
i. Our attitude towards God’s word and His ministers
ii. Our discipline in the reading of God’s word
iii. Our willingness to acknowledge the truth when shown from the word of God
iv. Our willingness to be a discerning Christian, and
v. Our willingness to share the truth of God with others in order that they might be saved.
- So the question we need to ask ourselves is; how can I follow the example of the Berean Christians? That is: What can I learn from this account of the Bereans that clearly demonstrates the mark a true follower of the Lord Jesus Christ?
- There would be less deception in the church and less manipulations of the believers through excellency of speech, if everyone who names the name of Christ would follow the examples of the Berean Christians.
- There would be more converts to the faith if more people would examine the truth of the Holy Bible with an open heart.
- As Believers, if we are going to know the God of the Bible, we must read the Bible. We have to spend time in it to learn of our God. Don't just believe everything that you hear, examine the Scripture to see that what you hear is the truth of the word of God.
- We shall discuss the topic under three subheadings:
1. An Interesting Subject for our Learning
2. An Important Secret for our Lifting
3. An Indispensable Standard for our Living
1. An Interesting Subject for our Learning
- As any Biblical student knows, it is the Berean's approach to the Scripture and their response to it that makes them an interesting study. There is nothing spectacular about the city, but about the inhabitant of the city.
- We can definitely sense the power of godly influence in the city. A man or group of individuals would have influenced almost everyone in the city to follow a godly example.
- In life, we all have tendencies to be influenced positively or negatively whether we are conscious of it or not. It is our responsibility to identify these influences, to maximise the benefit of godly influence and to avoid or reject ungodly influence. Psalm 1:1.
- Paul and Silas had been in Thessalonica preaching the gospel. They were met with great hostility there because of the message of Jesus.
- In fact, Paul was teaching the people that there was a loftier and exalted King than Caesar – and that King is Jesus. This teaching fuelled a fire first with the Jewish community, and then spread to the city authorities.
- They formed a mob and went searching for Paul claiming that “These men who have turned the world upside down have come here also” (Acts 17:6). After they searched Jason’s house, they took money from him, and then let him go because Paul was not with him.
- Meanwhile Paul and Silas slipped out of town and went to Berea. Upon their arrival, as was the pattern of Paul when entering a new city, they went to the local synagogue.
- When Paul stood and preached Jesus as the Christ to those in the synagogue, they listened intently. In fact, the Scripture says, “Now these Jews were more noble than those in Thessalonica; they received the word with all eagerness, examining the Scriptures daily to see if these things were so” (Acts 17:11).
- Rather than simply throwing stones at Paul, dragging him to prison for blasphemy, or running him out of town, they simply examined the Scriptures to see if what Paul said was the truth.
- As a result, many of these Jews came to faith in Jesus as the Christ and the church was born in Berea.
- In the life of the church, we need people with attitudes like the Bereans who will study the Scripture with eagerness – examining the Word to learn and grow in the Lord.
- Unfortunately, the church today seems to be plagued with a large population of people with the attitude of the “Thessalonians” rather than Bereans.
- The healthiest church as a whole, and for individual family units, will be the church that is populated with people who are eager to receive the word of God and search the scripture daily to confirm the truth about what they hear.
- When presented with a doctrine or view of Christ that doesn’t seem “mainstream” – the Bereans will search the Scriptures and hold on to only the confirmed truth rather than resulting to any form of physical violence.
- In the “Berean” church context, you will have men, women, boys, and girls examining the Scriptures to see the grand truths of Christ.
2. An Important Secret for our Lifting
- The virtue of the Bereans was the opposite of the vice of the Thessalonians in that the Bereans "received the word with great eagerness," unlike some of the Jews at Thessalonica, the Bereans did not doubt or resist the Gospel message, and they did not persecute the preachers or give them a hard time.
- The Bereans were noble in character, not because they were suspicious or hard to convince, but because they were teachable and receptive to the Gospel.
- The noble-minded Jews of Berea were looking for Messiah and did not need to be convinced of anything other than the fact that Jesus was the promised Messiah.
- These Jews "received the word with great eagerness." They obviously loved the Word of God and sought to live by it.
- They thought about the word, meditated on it, and openly embraced the truth of God's Word. Receiving the Word then and now means a willingness and an eagerness to hear what God says on any topic. James 1:21
- Think about this: the Bereans were taught by the most famous apostle and theologian of the early church, and the human author of at least 13 New Testament books.
- They may have heard about him casting the demon out of the slave girl, and the prison being destroyed as they sang praises to God. Yet, they searched the Scriptures when Paul taught, to see if his teaching was truly Biblical!
- They would not accept Paul's word at face value, but wanted to know if these things were so. When they heard Paul teach, they wanted to know, "Are these things so? Is this man teaching us the truth? Let's search the Scriptures daily to find out whether these things are so."
- There are great preachers and great men of God all around us that have been of great blessings to us in expounding the truth of the word of God to us, and have contributed greatly to our spiritual growth and maturity. Such men need to be highly honoured and esteemed for their great work.
- However, we should not just receive any message as the truth just only because it is preached by a great man of God, we must have convincing scriptural evidence of the truth. We should be free to ask questions in a polite ways whenever there is confusion or un-clarity between what was written in the Bible and what was preached in the message.
- No man should be accepted as the final authority on the truth of God, but the scripture, and no man can be our perfect example in the Christian living and service, even amongst the apostles in the Bible days, but Christ.
- Was it right for the Bereans to check up on Paul? Were the Bereans out of line to go to the Scripture to check up on the message that Paul was preaching? No, they were not. Some great preachers wanted people to blindly believe whatever they said. This is a form of psychological manipulation.
- Notice that the Bereans response to this strange teaching was to examine the Scriptures. It doesn't say they asked their rabbi, or discussed it with their friend who is an expert on the Messiah. They went to the Bible, which is the only inspired document there is.
- They searched the Scriptures, i.e. of the First Testament, to see whether these thing were so; to see whether the promises and types corresponded with the alleged fulfilment in the person, works, and sufferings of Jesus Christ.
- We do not know that a man's teaching is correct just because he is on the radio or television, or because of where and how much he has studied, or because of how great the crowd he preaches to is, or any other factor, until he has spoken, and we have examined the Scriptures for ourselves to see if his teaching squares with the Word of God as a whole.
- It is the Scripture, and Scripture alone, that is the final judge of all teaching. This is the idea that the Scriptures are the only authority for sinful man in seeking truth about God. Whatever is asserted without the Scriptures may be held as an opinion, but need not be believed.
- The Bereans were characterized by a great confidence in the Word of God, as God's authoritative source of revelation and as the standard by which all teaching and conduct should be appraised.
- Today, many people believed so much in their spiritual leaders today that they pray in the name of their God, just like Elisha prayed: “Where is the God of Elijah”. It is not a sin to do so, but the truth is that we have no advantage for praying so, because God will not answer us because of any man but because of Jesus.
- It is preferable to avoid such mode of prayers for some obvious reasons:
i. Some men only appeared that they belong to God, when they know that they are satanic agents. A lot of people are being deceived by the miraculous deeds they perform. An example was the magician in Samaria who the people believed to be a great man of God before the arrival and the message of Philip.
ii. Even some men that actually started with God might at a particular point be separated from God by issues in their lives that are not known to us. An example is Samson, who rose to operate in the power of God like he was doing before, but unknown to him that God had left him.
iii. It was not demonstrated at any time in the New Testament by anyone to pray like that, even though many people have great mentors and preachers the same way we have today.
iv. In the pattern of prayer given by Jesus to His disciple, He said we should call Him our heavenly father, He did not say the God of our fathers. This implies that every born again child of God has a relationship with God and has the authority of God. The God and Father of our spiritual fathers, preachers and mentors is also our God and our Father.
3. An Indispensable Standard for our Living
- There are some things we can learn from the life and attitudes of the Berean Christian which can serve as standard for us today and a godly example we can follow either as individual believers or as a congregation of believers.
i. They receive the word of God with all readiness of mind.
- Readiness of mind means, zeal, earnest, alacrity. If we choose to be a victorious Christian, we must approach the word of God in the correct attitude of heart.
- We should approach the Bible with a ready mind to understand what is in the scriptures, and pray that the Holy Spirit would grant us understanding of the word of God.
ii. They receive the Preachers of the word with honour 1 Timothy 5:17.
- The Bereans didn’t turn Paul and Silas away, but received them and were eager to hear them concerning the gospel. We too must be eager to hear the word of God from those that preach to us, and to put it into practice.
- When we come to church, we should expect to hear the word of the Lord preached. We should desire and hunger for the sincere milk of the word, and the meat of the word to grow thereby.
- We should receive our ministers as God’s servant who have been chosen to minister the word of life unto us. But we must always let the word of God be true, and every man (including ourselves) become the liars.
iii. They search the scriptures daily. Joshua 1: 8
- We must be dedicated students of the scriptures. We must recognize that the source of the truth is the word of God and the word of God alone.
- And as students of the word, we must try by the word whether the things preached and taught are true. Notice how the Bereans did not accept what Paul and Silas preached because they were great preachers or well-known.
- If we choose to be victorious Christians we must subject all that is taught or spoken to the authority of God’s holy word. The Christian must not establish truth on what he senses on the emotional level, or on his personal opinions but strictly on the bases of the scriptures. Matthew 4:4.
- The faithful Christian preacher should demand that his hearers make recourse to the word of God to make sure that what was preached, or taught was correct, and must be willing at all times to produce convincing evidence from the scriptures whenever the need arises.
iv. They have a heart of discernment:
- Just as the Bereans searched the scriptures to try what was being preached of Paul and Silas, we too must have a heart of discernment; especially since these are the last days. Hebrews 5: 14, 1 John 4: 1.
- There is great danger of being deceived and lead astray into destruction. The Bible warns us that Satan transforms himself into a messenger of light, and therefore it is no marvel that his ministers appear as ministers of righteousness.
- Satan has ministers in the Church today who preach another Jesus, another gospel, by the power of another spirit.
- Exercising good discernment was one of the things Jesus commended the Church of Ephesus for. They tried them that called themselves apostles, and found them to be liars.
- The discernment of a Berean Christian depends solely on “it is written” and not on signs, wonders, and miracles. Miracles are no sure way of discerning whether someone is of God or not.
v. They believed the truth for their salvation and sanctification.
- Notice in verse twelve of our text: “Therefore many of them believed. . .” that is, they repented of their sins when they were called to salvation. If we choose to be like the Berean Christians, we must be concern about sin, and be willing to repent and turn from our sins as revealed to us in the scriptures.
- As a Christian, we must be willing to forgive others their trespasses against us or our sins will not be forgiven by God. We should be willing to forgive even if the offender asks for no forgiveness.
- Just because the offender refuses to acknowledge their offense doesn’t give us a scriptural right to hold bitterness, and unforgiveness against that person, especially a brother or a sister in the Lord.
vi. They continued to grow in their faith.
- After Paul’s departure, they continued to grow in the faith. This was because their faith was not based on the wisdom of men but on the truth of the scriptures.
- Besides, they have developed themselves in the attitude of searching the scriptures, so even while the Gospel Preachers are away from them, their faith in God and in His words continued to wax strong.
- Later in the book of Acts, we are given further insight into the faithfulness of at least one Berean man. When Paul decides to return for additional ministry in Macedonia despite the tremendous persecution he had recently faced, one of the men who chose to accompany him was from Berea: (Acts 20:3-4).
- Sopater, likely a Gentile Christian, continued to assist Paul (and Timothy) in ministry long after Paul’s first visit to Berea.
Conclusion:
- We all need to seek to follow the pattern of the Bereans in our handling of the Word of God. Let us ask God to give us the love and eagerness to study God's Word and to test the teachings of all men.
- Most Christians today don't know their Bibles, they don't examine them daily or even weekly. They hear things taught, and they believe them without ever searching the Scriptures.
- This message challenges us all to be like the “Bereans." The noble-mindedness of the Berean Jews is surely set before us an ideal and as a goal for every Christian. And remember the Christians in Berea only had the First Testament. We, on the other hand, have the whole Bible. What are we doing with it?
- Everybody wants a shortcut to Bible knowledge. They want a gimmick. They want a formula. They want three easy lessons to master the Bible. There is no shortcut. It takes time and work to understand the Scriptures.
- It may be a good idea to compare our conversion to that of the Bereans. Did we approach God's truth with their zeal and fair-mindedness? Do we do that even now? Do we yearn to know God and his truth in a greater, more personal way? Are we willing to take the time to investigate, examine and scrutinize the Scripture to find the truth?
- Like the Bereans, we live in a world that is corrupt, but we can remain clean by bathing in the truth that God continues to reveal to his chosen people. All we must do is to partake of the daily diet of the food (God's Word) and water (His Holy Spirit) that God so richly provides in our search for the guidelines to following His will.
