Although Paul was the apostle to the Gentiles, he actually preached quite often in the synagogues. Some people wonder why a missionary tasked with reaching Gentiles would go to Jews in almost every city, inevitably rousing their ire and making the evangelism process more difficult, but I think Paul had good reason. Although he was called to evangelize primarily Gentiles, he was not called to ignore Jews in evangelism. Following the pattern of Jesus and the other apostles, Paul took the gospel to the Jews first and then to the Gentiles. Preaching in the synagogues was an effective means for reaching Gentiles as almost every synagogue had proselytes, Gentile “God-seekers”. Sergius Paulus and Lydia were such. These Gentile “God-seekers” were already looking for salvation from a Jewish Messiah and had some knowledge of the Old Testament. They needed less instruction than raw pagans, so they were potential church leaders after their conversion. However, Paul’s ministry to the synagogues would come to a gradual slow-down due to growing Jewish opposition.

“Now when they had traveled through Amphipolis and Apollonia, they came to Thessalonica, where there was a synagogue of the Jews. And according to Paul’s custom, he went to them, and for three Sabbaths reasoned with them from the Scriptures, explaining and giving evidence that the Christ had to suffer and rise again from the dead, and saying, “This Jesus whom I am proclaiming to you is the Christ.” And some of them were persuaded and joined Paul and Silas, along with a great multitude of the God-fearing Greeks and a number of the leading women. But the Jews, becoming jealous and taking along some wicked men from the market place, formed a mob and set the city in an uproar; and coming upon the house of Jason, they were seeking to bring them out to the people. And when they did not find them, they began dragging Jason and some brethren before the city authorities, shouting, “These men who have upset the world have come here also; and Jason has welcomed them, and they all act contrary to the decrees of Caesar, saying that there is another king, Jesus.” And they stirred up the crowd and the city authorities who heard these things. And when they had received a pledge from Jason and the others, they released them. And the brethren immediately sent Paul and Silas away by night to Berea; and when they arrived, they went into the synagogue of the Jews.” Acts 17:1-10a

Paul and the others were invited to speak in the Thessalonian synagogue and Paul’s message was Jesus as Israel’s Messiah, spoken of by the Old Testament prophets, rejected by His people and put to death for the sins of men, crucified and risen from the dead. To receive Him was to obtain forgiveness of sins and the assurance of eternal life. Of course, Paul’s message netted mixed results. Some believed, especially among the Gentiles. Some of the Jews were deeply angered by the Gentile reception of this gospel message. They sought to “overpower” Paul and the other missionaries, manipulating the crowds and the political system. The “peace” was deliberately “disturbed,” with the city being set into an uproar. The angry mob stormed the house of Jason (verse 5), who apparently was a believer providing food and lodging for the missionary party, arresting Jason, though they were unable to find Paul and his party.

These Jewish opponents of Paul and the gospel accused them of upsetting the world, of inciting men to acts of violence and insurrection by advocating a King other than Caesar. Jason was guilty of “aiding and abetting” these men and their revolutionary movement. Their arguments worked. Jason was apparently forced to agree to send Paul out of town and Paul and Silas left that night for Berea. From a human standpoint, the ministry at Thessalonica was cut short, forcing Paul to minister by letter. Here we see the sovereign hand of God once more because the first and second letters to Thessalonica were probably the first letters Paul wrote in the ministry. Their impact has been profound, stretching far beyond Thessalonica in the 1^st Century.

“And the brethren immediately sent Paul and Silas away by night to Berea; and when they arrived, they went into the synagogue of the Jews. Now 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. Many of them therefore believed, along with a number of prominent Greek women and men. But when the Jews of Thessalonica found out that the word of God had been proclaimed by Paul in Berea also, they came there likewise, agitating and stirring up the crowds. And then immediately the brethren sent Paul out to go as far as the sea; and Silas and Timothy remained there. Now those who conducted Paul brought him as far as Athens; and receiving a command for Silas and Timothy to come to him as soon as possible, they departed.” Acts 16:10b-15

Luke seems to want us to contrast rather than compare Berea to Thessalonica. There were differences in size. Thessalonica was a large, major city; Berea, apparently, was a small, “sleepy town,” an “out of the way place”. Amphipolis and Apollonia, also mentioned in the text, but Paul didn’t stop there, seem to have had no synagogue (explaining, perhaps, why Paul didn’t stop); Berea did. Luke also contrasted between the “more noble-mindedness” of the Jews in Berea than those in Thessalonica.

Luke really emphasized the noble-mindedness of these Berean Jews, so what in particular set them apart? What made these people “noble-minded”? It appears to have been a community trait that the Bereans possessed as unbelievers. They were the exception among Jews, not the rule, but they approached the ideal for Jews. They were looking for the Messiah and didn’t need a lot of convincing that they had found Him in Jesus.

The Thessalonian Jews were reluctant to be stirred by Paul’s preaching – it took them three Sabbaths to respond and then they primarily responded to the influx of heathen Gentiles, not Paul’s message. I would submit they were disinterested in spiritual matters before Paul arrived. The Bereans were Jews waiting for the Messiah and delighted to hear He had come. It appears the Bereans were Bible readers. Many Hellenistic Jews had the Septuagint available to them through their synagogue libraries and all Jewish males were taught to read, at least Hebrew, so they could study the Scriptures. The Bereans didn’t act upon men’s words, but upon God’s revealed Word. Paul spoke from Scripture and this delighted them. They didn’t let Paul do their thinking for them. They held themselves individually responsible to search out Paul’s teachings in Scripture and to check it for consistency with Biblical revelation. These were people of the Word, who eagerly received what was consistent with the Word once they confirmed it from the Word for themselves. This predisposed them to Paul’s teachings which aligned with Scripture.

This passage from Acts challenges us to be “Berean” Christians. Yes, this is an ideal that few will ever attain, but we could learn a lot from the characteristics of the Bereans.

The Berean attitude was confidence in the Word of God as God’s authoritative source of revelation and as a standard for all teaching and conduct. They had confidence in their own ability to understand and interpret the Bible. The second characteristic of the Berean attitude was that of distrust. While God’s Word is perfect, men are not. Thus, the Bereans did not assume that the teaching of the Bible was what some man said it taught. Paul, though he was clearly a great teacher, was not assumed to be “right” because he sounded authoritative. Every man’s teaching must be tested by the Word of God. No one’s teaching or viewpoint was to be accepted on the basis of his confidence, his methodology, his claims, his academic pedigree, or his reputation. The only final basis of authority is God’s Word, pure and simple.

Let us, then, seek to be Berean 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. Let us see ourselves as responsible for discerning what the Bible teaches and not let others do our thinking for us. Let us listen to faithful men carefully, and then do our own homework, daily studying the Word as the only authoritative source of doctrine and practice.

An earthquake will play prominently in today’s lesson. If you’ve never been in one, you’ve missed out. Alaskans are sort of connoisseurs of earthquakes. We try to guess what they were on the Richter scale. Some of us are pretty accurate. Some of us have been known to make bets with one another while the ground was still shaking. Don’t we sound blasé?

I’ve been in a lot of earthquakes. Our homes and buildings are built for it, so after a while, we get used to them. Most of the ones in Interior Alaska are somewhere less than 7 on the Richter scale and I can just barely remember the 9.2 that hit Anchorage and rocked the Interior as well, so normally, I don’t get really excited. The last earthquake I was in, however, was a 7.9 on the Denali fault, which is just a couple hundred miles south of my home.  I was making lunch, frying burgers on the stove when I heard all the dogs in the neighborhood suddenly start howling. Then our Lab-Husky mix, who usually has little to say even during a major howl-fest, began yodeling, so I looked out the kitchen window to see what Black Dog was singing about. No sooner than I looked, she cut off her serenade to dive into her dog house. Then the ground began to shake. Most quakes last a few seconds; barely enough time to even notice it. This one just felt like a train coming down the track, getting closer. I actually had time to react. I turned off the stove – no, I don’t know why (it’s electric)– and I walked to the doorway between the kitchen and the living room to shout to the family room, “Hey, kids, get in the doorway. I think this one’s a rattler.” About the time, the house began to buck like a fast-moving train.

We had just moved into that house a few months before, so I wasn’t absolutely sure how well it might hold up against another Anchorage quake and it hadn’t been built back in 1964, so was untested. My daughter was playing a video game that features a moon that falls and a rumble pack that shakes, so she hadn’t even realized we were having a quake. My son had been sitting beside her thinking “this game is so awesome it’s making the room shake!”, but now he came tearing up the stairs to join me, just as I realized that our hurricane lanterns (full of flammable lamp oil) were walking off the fireplace mantle. I peeled him off me to put them down on the hearth, then realized I was now in the fall zone for the masonry block chimney. I stepped back into the doorway as my daughter came tearing up the stairs to join us, screaming “Is it ever going to stop?!” Then abruptly, it did!

A minute and a half of actual fault movement and another half-minute of reactionary jiggling. It wasn’t the biggest quake I’d ever been in, but it was the longest and the one I will remember my whole life. There was no damage in our house and almost none in my town (we build for quakes), but the village of Mentasta which sits right on the fault line experienced houses slipping off their foundations and a trucker friend of mine blew two tires and jackknifed his rig trying to keep it on the pavement outside of Delta, where the fault line crosses the road. My brother was under his car at the time and just barely rolled free before the car slipped off the jack stands. My husband felt the quake in Washington State and saw a mini-tidal wave in Lake Union. Had this quake happened anywhere but the state devastated by the largest recorded earthquake in the northern hemisphere (Anchorage, 1964) there would have been widespread destruction. So now you know what an earthquake is like.

Two missionary teams departed Antioch for two missionary fields. Barnabas took Mark along, giving him a chance to grow in the Lord and get his feet wet in ministry, apparently eventually redeeming his earlier failure. They went to previously established churches, to work in edifying and encouraging these growing ventures.

Paul took Silas, already a mature Christian, to the more dangerous Asia Minor. While in Lystra, where Paul had previously been stoned, Paul made the decision to take Timothy with for the remainder of the journey.

I don’t think we should think of this as Paul “discipling” Timothy as Barnabas was discipling Mark. Timothy was already a disciple and he had already been proven. He was well-respected by the brethren in Lystra and Iconium (Acts 16:2). Timothy was ready to join the missionary team as a colleague, exercising similar gifts to his mentor.

Traveling north and being stalled in preaching the word at several venues, the missionaries weren’t sure of their next move, but the “Macedonian vision” made the answer clear. Paul alone, apparently, had the vision of a Macedonian man, pleading for him to “come over to Macedonia and help us” (16:9). The meaning of the vision was apparent; God wanted them to go immediately to Macedonia.

“Therefore putting out to sea from Troas, we ran a straight course to Samothrace, and on the day following to Neapolis; and from there to Philippi, which is a leading city of the district of Macedonia, a Roman colony; and we were staying in this city for some days. And on the Sabbath day we went outside the gate to a riverside, where we were supposing that there would be a place of prayer; and we sat down and began speaking to the women who had assembled. And a certain woman named Lydia, from the city of Thyatira, a seller of purple fabrics, a worshiper of God, was listening; and the Lord opened her heart to respond to the things spoken by Paul. And when she and her household had been baptized, she urged us, saying, “If you have judged me to be faithful to the Lord, come into my house and stay.” And she prevailed upon us.” Acts 16:11-15

Philippi was a Roman outpost (it’s where Caesar Augustus fought the battle that secured his empire) and fairly good-sized city that did not have a synagogue. The missionary group preached the gospel down by the riverside where the Jews and God-fearing Gentiles met for worship and a small group of people were saved. Lydia, a well-to-do merchant, accepted Christ along with her entire family and hosted the missionaries in her own home. While preaching, a demon-possessed slave-girl with a talent for fortune-telling annoyed Paul into binding the spirits from her. The loss of her profit-potential angered her owners, who had Paul and Silas thrown in jail.

“But when her masters saw that their hope of profit was gone, they seized Paul and Silas and dragged them into the market place before the authorities, and when they had brought them to the chief magistrates, they said, “These men are throwing our city into confusion, being Jews, and are proclaiming customs which it is not lawful for us to accept or to observe, being Romans.” And the crowd rose up together against them, and the chief magistrates tore their robes off them, and proceeded to order them to be beaten with rods. And when they had inflicted many blows upon them, they threw them into prison, commanding the jailer to guard them securely; and he, having received such a command, threw them into the inner prison, and fastened their feet in the stocks. But about midnight Paul and Silas were praying and singing hymns of praise to God, and the prisoners were listening to them; and suddenly there came a great earthquake, so that the foundations of the prison house were shaken; and immediately all the doors were opened, and everyone’s chains were unfastened. And when the jailer had been roused out of sleep and had seen the prison doors opened, he drew his sword and was about to kill himself, supposing that the prisoners had escaped. But Paul cried out with a loud voice, saying, “Do yourself no harm, for we are all here!” And he called for lights and rushed in and, trembling with fear, he fell down before Paul and Silas, and after he brought them out, he said, “Sirs, what must I do to be saved?” And they said, “Believe in the Lord Jesus, and you shall be saved, you and your household.” And they spoke the word of the Lord to him together with all who were in his house. And he took them that very hour of the night and washed their wounds, and immediately he was baptized, he and all his household. And he brought them into his house and set food before them, and rejoiced greatly, having believed in God with his whole household.” Acts 16:19-34

While in jail, rather than protesting that they were Roman citizens and shouldn’t be treated this way, Paul and Silas began to sing hymns of praise. We don’t know if the jailer heard the songs, but Paul’s fellow prisoners did. There is no Biblical evidence that the jailer had spoken to Paul or Silas about their beliefs or that he had overheard the gospel in any fashion. It was late at night and all the lamps were out, but Paul and Silas were singing of hope in a dark place. The song was shattered by an earthquake. As the building rocked and the stone walls groaned and bucked, the prisoners were released from their shackled and the doors were set ajar. Escape had never been easier.

But God’s purpose was not escape. It may be that the prisoners stayed behind to hear more of what Paul and Silas had to say or the darkness of that place hid that the doors were open. The earthquake shook the jailer out of bed, so he rushed to the main gate of the prison (his house was probably on the grounds) and, seeing an open door, assumed the prisoners had escape.

I don’t know how Paul knew that the jailer was about to kill himself. I suspect it was divine revelation, although this was also a Roman garrison town, so the jailer and Paul may well have known the penalty the Romans exacted for allowing prisoners to escape. Death by one’s own hand might have been quicker. Loosing an entire prison population is a grave professional error for a jailer. When Paul called out to him, the jailer recognized that he had authority beyond the usual. When they spoke, men listened. When they praised God, things happened. The prisoners were still in their cells mainly because of the authority which these men had. The jailer trusted Paul when he said all was well, even before he inspected the building by lamp light.

In an act of reverence, the jailer fell at the feet of the missionaries. He knew that these men possessed power and that they had come to proclaim the way of salvation. We don’t know where he heard this from. I suspect a lot of people heard the slave-girl babbling on about it. Nevertheless, the jailer led these two outside the prison and asked them what he must do to be saved. They told him and his family, and all believed, were saved, and were baptized.

The changes in that jailer, a crusty and cruel man no doubt, began immediately. The one who had at least played a part in the beating of these men now cleansed and dressed their wounds, his cruelty converted to compassion. From the darkest hole of that prison, he took them into his own home and fed them a good meal. 

“Now when day came, the chief magistrates sent their policemen, saying, “Release those men.” And the jailer reported these words to Paul, saying, “The chief magistrates have sent to release you. Now therefore come out and go in peace.” But Paul said to them, “They have beaten us in public without trial, men who are Romans, and have thrown us into prison; and now are they sending us away secretly? No indeed! But let them come themselves and bring us out.” And the policemen reported these words to the chief magistrates. And they were afraid when they heard that they were Romans, and they came and appealed to them, and when they had brought them out, they kept begging them to leave the city. And they went out of the prison and entered the house of Lydia, and when they saw the brethren, they encouraged them and departed.” Acts 16:35-40

Dressed, doctored and fed, with perhaps some time of fellowship and prayer with their new brothers, it would appear Paul and Silas returned to the jail. Why? As well ask why the magistrates decided to order the release of Paul and Silas. Maybe Lydia pressured them. Maybe the earthquake scared them. Paul’s response wasn’t what they expected. Instead of gratefully accepting his release and slipping out of town never to return, Paul refused to leave his cell until those responsible for his illegal treatment acknowledged their wrong and made a somewhat public apology.

Why was Paul so indignant? The laws of Rome, which Paul had wrongly been accused of breaking, were the very laws which the magistrates had violated. The Christian who looks forward to the coming of Messiah and for the establishment of justice on the earth (Matthew 6:10), is one who also desires to see justice done now. Paul’s continued freedom to preach the gospel was somewhat on the line, as was the freedom of the church in Philippi to conduct its worship and ministry. What Paul did, he did for the cause of justice, and for the sake of the gospel of Jesus Christ. By demanding justice from the magistrates, he was also providing some protection for the new Philippian church. It would be a while before they risked Paul’s report of their actions by persecuting Christians in their town.

With great chagrin, the magistrates complied with Paul’s demands, and pled with he and Silas to go quietly. They did leave Philippi, though they first visited at Lydia’s home and encouraged the church. Apparently there had been a good number of people saved in addition to the jailer and Lydia. Philippi would never be the same and it goes down in history as one of the great Christian centers.

God can speak through a myriad of ways. Was it a still small voice that told Paul he couldn’t share the gospel in Asia? He had a vision in Troas. The natural occurrence of an earthquake certainly spoke to the jailer.  God moves in many ways and His messages are available for Christians to understand with the guidance of the Holy Spirit. We should be open for God to speak as much through mundane activities as miraculous events because He is everywhere and can speak to us at anytime. Knowing this, do we have our ears open for His guidance?