CRITICAL REMARKS
Acts 17:10. Bœrea.—Presently Pheria, south-west of Thessalonica, and fifty-one miles distant.
Acts 17:12. Many of them believed.—Codex Bezœ adds, “And some disbelieved.” The adjective Greek qualifies men as well as women.
Acts 17:13. They came thither also and stirred up the people should be they came, stirring up and troubling (“and troubling” being inserted in accordance with the best authorities) the people there also.
Acts 17:14. As it were to the sea.—ὡς with ἐπί may signify intention, actual or pretended (Winer’s Grammar of the New Testament Diction, p. 640), and some (Grotius, Bongel, Olshausen) suppose, in accordance with this reading, that Paul’s companions only made a feint of sending him off by sea, while in reality they conducted him off by the overland route to Athens—a distance of 251 Roman miles; but the oldest codices (א A B E) read ἕως as far as to the sea, and this avoids even the suggestion of pretending to go one way and taking another.
Acts 17:15. A commandment unto Silas and Timothy that they should come to him with all speed.—According to Acts 18:5 they came from Macedonia to him in Corinth; according to 1 Thessalonians 3:1 Timothy was sent back from Athens to Macedonia. The statements are not inconsistent. Silas and Timothy may have followed Paul at once to Athens, (so Ramsay) from which Timothy may have been recommissioned to the Thessalonians, and Silas to some other church in Macedonia, both again returning to him in Corinth.
HOMILETICAL ANALYSIS.—Acts 17:10-15
Paul and Silas among the Berœans; or, Another Good Work interrupted
I. The Berœan Jews commended.—
1. Their noble disposition. Though Berœa, now Karra-Verria, to which secluded town the three missionaries repaired on quitting the Macedonian capital, lay only forty-five miles towards the south, yet the character of its Jewish colony compared favourably with that of the larger city. Indeed, the members of its synagogue were “less obstinate, less sophisticated,” than any Paul had elsewhere found. Their minds were less contracted by prejudice, and their hearts less inspired by malice. Ready to receive the word the moment it was proved to be true, they likewise showed themselves to be profoundly interested in what the apostle preached. “The nobler conduct of the Berœan Jews consisted in their freedom from that jealousy, which made the Jews in Thessalonica and many other places, enraged when the offer of salvation was made as freely to others as to themselves” (Ramsay, St. Paul, etc., p. 232).
2. Their ingenuous conduct. Instead of angrily rejecting what was submitted to their judgment, they dealt with it as upright and honest men.
(1) They accorded it a candid hearing, which is more than many nominal Christians do; they shut it not out from their understandings by preliminary prejudice against or indifference towards it, as is the habit of many moderns, but frankly and openly allowed it to fill their minds in such a way that at least they accurately comprehended its import.
(2) They searched the Scriptures daily whether the doctrines propounded by Paul could be found therein, or were by fair and legitimate argument deducible therefrom. Instead of sitting in judgment on Paul’s preaching, and determining incredibility by à priori considerations suggested by the natural reason, they humbly and respectfully accepted the Old Testament Scriptures as the ultimate court of appeal. If Paul’s ideas concerning Jesus Christ could be sustained before this tribunal then all controversy concerning them was at an end; if they could not, just as decidedly and promptly must they be rejected. It was a clear and a fair issue which was thus raised. Probably Paul had the Berœans in his mind when he afterwards exhorted the Thessalonians to “prove all things and hold fast that which is good” (1 Thessalonians 5:21).
(3) They in large numbers believed, their example being followed by not a few Greek women and men, both of honourable estate—i.e., belonging to the first families in the town. Sopater of Berœa (Acts 20:4), it may be presumed, was at this time won for Christianity. In all respects the Berœans afforded a worthy pattern for gospel hearers.
II. The Thessalonian Jews discommended.—
1. Their persons distinguished. The parties referred to are expressly stated to have been the unbelieving Jews, who had stirred up the Thessalonian populace against Paul and Silas (Acts 17:5), and to whom, through some secret channel, intelligence had been conveyed of the extraordinary success of these evangelists at Berœa.
2. Their motive specified. This was, on the one hand, to hinder the progress of the gospel which they had learnt was being preached with acceptance among the Berœans, and on the other hand to “overwhelm the apostate from the law of Moses” (Lewin). Their proper ancestors were the Pharisees of Christ’s day, who would neither enter into the kingdom of heaven themselves, nor suffer those who were entering to go in (Matthew 23:13), and who ultimately crucified the Prince of Life and Lord of Glory.
3. Their behaviour described. Having come to Berœa they stirred up and troubled the people there as at Thessalonica (Acts 17:8), by circulating the same calumnies and organising the same lewd fellows of the baser sort against the missionaries. Their hatred of both Paul and his gospel unsleepingly pursued him henceforth from city to city.
4. Their success recorded. Not directly, but indirectly, by the circumstance narrated that Paul’s friends deemed it prudent to hasten his departure from the city, as the brethren in Thessalonica had counselled his withdrawal from that city (Acts 17:10), and as formerly other friends had hurried him from Jerusalem (Acts 9:30). He had been anxious to return to his converts in Thessalonica (1 Thessalonians 2:18), but Satan in the person of these persecuting Jews from Thessalonica had hindered. The path of providence for him lay southwards to Athens. Immediately therefore the brethren conveyed him as far as the seaport of Dium, sixteen miles from Berœa, and shipped him for the Greek metropolis. Some of them even accompanied him all the way to the Achaian capital, because Silas and Timotheus were left behind in Berœa to continue the work which he had so auspiciously begun, to preach the gospel and to organise the Church, while he, the apostle, owing either to his weak eyesight or to some other bodily infirmity, was not fit to travel alone.
Learn.—
1. The duty of hearing the gospel with an open mind.
2. The propriety of proving all things and holding fast that which is good.
3. The suitability of the gospel for persons of the highest estate.
4. The inveterate hostility of the carnal heart against what is good.
5. The fickleness of crowds.
6. The wisdom of attempting to preserve useful lives.
7. The dependence of most men upon the services of others.
HINTS AND SUGGESTIONS
Acts 17:11. True Nobility of Mind. Evinced in three things.
I. Readiness to receive the word.
II. Diligence in searching the Scriptures.
III. Faith in the person of Jesus of whom the word speaks.
Acts 17:11. The Elements of a Truly Noble Spirit.—
1. Attention to religion. It is the highest kind of truth and the grandest object of pursuit.
2. Candour in religious inquiry. Prejudices are bars to fair dealing. Idols. Cobwebs.
3. The exercise of the right of private judgment. It is mean to surrender this right to a Pope or a priest. It is not less mean to surrender it to great thinkers and great dreamers.
4. Deference to the authority of Scripture. Man never occupies a more noble position than when, like a little child, he submits his own feeble faculties to the guidance of the oracles of Him that cannot lie. It is not worship of the Book, but of the infallible Author of the Book.—G. Brooks.
Searching the Scriptures.
I. A blessed right.—
1. Conferred by God.
2. Due to man.
3. Not to be withheld by either State or Church.
II. A holy duty.—
1. Commanded by God.
2. To be faithfully performed.
3. Not to be neglected without sin.
III. An inestimable privilege.—Considering,
1. Whose word the scriptures is.
2. The benefit resulting therefrom.
3. The unworthiness of its recipients.
IV. A rare art.—To be practised—
1. Daily.
2. With intelligence.
3. In faith.
4. Diligently.
5. With prayer.
Acts 17:11-12. The Noble Berœans.
I. Heard the gospel.—
1. With devout attention.
2. With impartial candour.
3. With careful investigation.
II. Experienced its effects.—
1. They believed its statements.
2. They enjoyed its privileges.
3. They obeyed its precepts.
III. Exhibited their own nobility.—
1. Adopted a noble conduct.
2. Displayed a noble spirit.
3. Presented a noble example.
Docility of Temper in Relation to the Truth.
I. The teaching, the recognition of which the writer commends.—
1. The “word,” more fully expounded in the opening verses of the chapter, contained two propositions—viz.,
(1) that the Messiah, when He appeared in accordance with the Scriptures, was to appear as a suffering Messiah; and
(2) that the Jesus whose history and crucifixion Paul was then recounting, was, in fact, that Messiah. This a position which he only would take, who was sure of his ground, and who felt that he could make it good by the most indubitable proofs.
2. The truth of this word the apostle established by an appeal to the highest authority—viz., the Scriptures, “the Old Testament documents in whose inspiration he and his Jewish hearers equally believed.” “By a careful comparison of your inspired Scriptures with the veritable facts of which our whole nation is cognisant,” he practically said, “we have found, beyond all doubtful disputation, that all that was foreshown, typified, and promised, concerning the Messiah of our ancient hope, has met its fulfilment in the person and history of this Jesus whom I preach unto you.”
II. The spirit in which this teaching was received.—“With all readiness of mind.” Here is—
1. The docility of temper which belongs to the right reception of truth. “The Berœans were in that balanced equipoise of mind which, equally removed from a listless indifference on the one hand and a self-complete and haughty presumption on the other, left them at liberty to listen with attention to the apostle’s reasoning, to think dispassionately on it, and, finally, to draw logically their own conclusions from it.
2. The fearless honesty and manly independence of spirit which ought to mark inquirers after the truth. “The great question with which the Berœans charged themselves was, whether those things were true as the apostle put them, whether they were founded on fact, and were therefore accessible to the ordinary methods of moral conviction. It was not whether they were agreeable or in harmony with their preconceptions, or with their beliefs and customs; whether they were ably reasoned by the apostle or ill; but whether they were true.”
III. The result which followed on this procedure—“Therefore many of them believed.” This result was—
1. The logical consequence of the antecedent procedure. “Faith, waiting on the light of evidence, is met by the evidence of light, and following that, is led into the liberty of truth; as it always will be in the things of God. “If any man will do His will, he shall know of the doctrine whether it be of God.” Will to do first; know afterwards. Obedience is the spirit in which to seek. Knowledge its after product.
2. The outcome of a mental process in which several things were combined. “There was, in the case of these Berœans, first of all a clear presentation of the truth to the mind; there was then the actual personal contact of the mind, of the individual thought of the hearer, with the truth, and a process of reflection upon it. There was a readiness to surrender all old convictions to the authority of evidence, at whatever cost of personal state or attainment, and following directly in the course of this ingenuousness of intent and act, the light came, and they believed.”
Learn.—
1. The fitness of the gospel to deal with dissimilar classes of men.
2. The great impediment in the way of a man’s salvation—which is not in the gospel or in the ministration of the gospel, but in the indifference of the human heart to religion.—John Burton.
Acts 17:13. Stirring up the Multitudes.
I. Of a true sort.—
1. By the gospel.
2. Of noble minds.
3. To the exercise of faith.
4. For the warfare of the Spirit.
II. Of a false sort.—
1. By wicked men.
2. Of lewd fellows.
3. To resist the truth.
4. For the persecution of the saints.
Acts 17:14. Silas and Timothy in Berœa.—“The question naturally occurs, Why did Paul go on from Berœa alone, leaving Silas and Timothy behind, and yet send orders immediately on reaching Athens that they were to join him with all speed? There seems at first sight some inconsistency here. But again comparison between Acts and Thessalonians solves the difficulty: Paul was eager ‘once and again’ to return to Thessalonica, and was waiting for news that the impediment placed in his way was removed. Silas and Timothy remained to receive the news (perhaps about the attitude of the new magistrates) and to bring it on to Paul. But they could not bring it on to him until they received his message from Athens.”—Ramsay, St. Paul, etc., p. 234.