Acts 17

Bible Passage:  Acts 17

“As was his custom, Paul went into the synagogue, and on three Sabbath days he reasoned with them from the Scriptures, explaining and proving that the Messiah had to suffer and rise from the dead.” (Acts 17:2-3)

Whenever I read Acts, it daunts on me the courage of the believers and the work of the Holy Spirit. Not only had they courage, they had true wisdom from God and they courageously testified their faith in Jesus Christ in private and public spaces. Paul, who once was a persecutor of Christians, had a 180 degrees reversal of faith and now proclaims with conviction and patience the faith that he once opposed vehemently.

When Paul preached, his first priority was to the Jews and he preached to them mostly in their synagogues. Paul, being a Jew wanted desperately to save his kinsman. He strived to correct their incomplete and erroneous faith. Despite facing persecution, Paul continued to preach in the synagogues in these places. It is out of his great love of his people that he endured all this. Are we willing to brave all these persecutions to preach to our love ones? Talk about fellow Singaporeans? Sometimes, a simple negative remark from our friends or relatives can stop us from preaching. Paul on the other hand, in this passage reasoned for 3 Sabbaths in Thessalonica to a crowd that was hostile and not that keen to search the Scriptures.

There are three different groups of people in this passage. The first group is the religious Jews. The second is the idol worshipping Greeks and third is the philosophical Greeks. In our context today, the religious Jews could liken to other Christians who keep the traditions of Christendom and are not willing to open their hearts to understand the Bible. Traditions are like believing in trinity, observing Christmas, observing Sunday, observing Good Friday and not keeping the 10 commandments. The idol worshipping Greeks likewise can refer to the traditional idol worshipping believers in Chinese culture. The last group being the philosophical Greeks represents the growing number of ‘wise’ people who are learned in the ways of human understanding. This group pursues worldly knowledge and higher university degrees. They esteem the wisdom of man superior to the wisdom of God and do not humble themselves to the Word of God.

Paul demonstrates to us how he preached to the religious Jews. He “reasoned” “from the Scriptures” either on Sabbath or everyday. He focused on preaching Jesus is the Messiah and proved to the Jews the prophetic messages in the Scriptures. Some of the Jews who opened their hearts and wanted to seek to understand the scriptures believed in Jesus and were converted. Others who did not open their hearts and did not want to believe Jesus as the suffering Messiah opted to do what Paul did in the past; to prevent others from believing in Jesus the Messiah. What we can learn from this is that as believers of Christ, we need to have a certain amount of understanding of the Word of God. We need to be like Paul, able to use the Word of God that is the sword of the Spirit effectively.

Some people may feel that they do not understand the Bible well and hence cannot effectively preach the Truth. They feel that they are very inadequate and that it is only the preacher’s job to preach and explain the Truth to others. It is good to feel that we are inadequate as truthfully speaking though we are Christians; we are in fact still truth seekers of the Truth. However, in this example, Paul focused on preaching to the Jews from the scriptures regarding the events that happened to Him from the scriptures. Likewise, if we were to preach to other Christians today, we can be prepared to preach if we focus on what we want to preach. For example the common and most noticeable difference between us and other Christians is that we keep the Sabbath Day under Grace while they keep Sunday; this can be a topic in which we can discuss and reason with other Christians the importance of this holy day that God blessed and gave as an everlasting commandment. Does it require a preacher to preach this? I would think not, if we commit our time and effort to study the basic doctrines.

When Paul was in Athens, he preached to the second group of people whom were the idol worshippers. Paul using his observation, made use of what is common knowledge to them, to preach Christ to them. He rode on their piousness to idol gods to expound the “Unknown God”.  He even quoted from their poets to explain that the human race is the offspring from this One True God. In order for Paul to preach effectively, he had to know what the Athenians believed. Using this knowledge, he was able to preach to them at their level of knowledge and able to explain in a clearer way. Again likewise, preaching would require some knowledge of other people beliefs. In this way, we can be like Paul to preach effectively for he is able to preach from his audience perspective.

“For though I am free from all men, I have made myself a servant to all, that I might win the more; and to the Jews I became as a Jew, that I might win Jews; to those who are under the law, as under the law, that I might win those who are under the law; to those who are without law, as without law (not being without law toward God, but under law toward Christ), that I might win those who are without law; to the weak I became as weak, that I might win the weak. I have become all things to all men, that I might by all means save some.” (1 Cor 9:19-22)

May we emulate Paul and follow his footsteps in preaching the gospel of peace to our love ones. May we study the scriptures and wield the sword of the Spirit effectively. May we become all things to all men to save them in Jesus Christ.