In ‘The Case for Christ,’ former Chicago Tribune journalist Lee Strobel, writes:
For much of my life I was a skeptic. In fact, I considered myself an atheist. To me, there was far too much evidence that God was merely a product of wishful thinking, of ancient mythology, or primitive superstition. How could there be a loving God if he consigned people to hell just for not believing in him? How could miracles overcome the basic laws of nature? Didn’t evolution satisfactorily explain how life originated? Doesn’t scientific reasoning dispel belief in the supernatural?
As for Jesus, didn’t you know that he never claimed to be God? [By the way, Jesus did claim He was God many times and that’s why the religious leaders had Him killed. They accused Jesus of blasphemy.] He was a revolutionary, a sage, someone who attacked the traditional ideas, but certainly not God. No, that thought never occurred to him! I could point you to plenty of university professors who said so and certainly they could be trusted, couldn’t they?
Let’s face it: even a brief examination of the evidence demonstrates convincingly that Jesus had only been a human being just like you and me, although with unusual gifts of kindness and wisdom.
But that’s all I had ever really given the evidence: a brief look. I had read just enough philosophy and history to find support for my skepticism a fact here, a scientific theory there, a pithy quote, a clever argument. Sure, I could see some gaps and inconsistencies, but I had a strong motivation to ignore them: a self-serving and immoral lifestyle that I would be compelled to abandon if I were ever to change my views and become a follower of Jesus.
As far as I was concerned, the case was closed. There was enough proof for me to rest easy with the conclusion that the divinity of Jesus was nothing more than the fanciful invention of superstitious people. Or so I thought.[i]
Fortunately for Lee Strobel, his arrogant, ignorant, indifferent, and immoral lifestyle was confronted by his own little girl, and he was forced to face the truth about Christ and Himself. He came to discover that Jesus is more than just a man, but God who became flesh and came to set us free from our sins. Today, Lee Strobel, is a Pastor and author of some very insightful books on the truth and reality of Christ and the Christian message he once denied.
There are a lot of things in life where it doesn’t really matter how we respond. Some people love to watch massive trucks drive over each other. For others they thoroughly enjoy attending musical concerts. For another person, they would rather attend a sporting event. Each of us over time develops different tastes and interests. People will disagree as to the various values of different things, and often it’s only an expression of our personal preference.
‘Variety is the spice of life,’ but there are some things that are more important than others. Move away from entertainment, fashion, and style to things like health and spiritual issues and we are then forced to pay attention and when we don’t, it’s often at the expense of our lives or our souls.
That’s what happened to David Bloom, the journalist who died in Iraq in 2003.
Ironically, Bloom did not die from injuries sustained in conflict, but rather from a pulmonary embolism. A pulmonary embolism occurs among those who sit for long periods of time, and Bloom spent much of his time in a cramped Army vehicle.
When he began to experience pain, he consulted several doctors and described his symptoms over the phone to them. They suspected the problem and advised him to seek proper medical attention. However, he ignored their advice, swallowed more aspirin, and kept on working. He died as a result.
Though Bloom took several precautions to avoid being a casualty of war, he ignored the warnings of the doctors who insisted his life was in danger from a treatable condition. The tragedy was that he left behind a wife and three young daughters.[ii]
One of the most significant elements of life is relationships, and relationships are built on communication. We either communicate with each other or we grow apart. Communication is not just talking; it’s about listening, hearing and above everything else, it’s about responding with a touch, a hug, a prayer, a concerned look, or a thoughtful and understanding comment.
But when God talks, do we hear Him? Are we listening? Are we responding? Are we pursuing our relationship with God? Do we seek Him?
The antidotal story is told by a Jewish Rabbi, whose grandson was playing hide-and-seek with another child. He had been hiding and waiting for his friend to find him for a long time. Finally leaving his hiding place, he discovered that his friend was nowhere to be found. He realized that his friend had not even bothered to look for him. With tears in his eyes, he came running to his grandfather. The old Rabbi also began to weep and said, ‘That is the way God acts: When He hides, nobody is looking for Him.’”[iii]
How we respond to God is a matter of life and death. How we respond to His Word, the Scripture, is critical. The tragedy is that so many people, even believers, are not engaging God and His Word in such a way that it shapes and guides their lives.
In a 2003 article in ‘Christian Parenting Today’, the author writes:
A study was done of teenagers who attended church during childhood to find out what for them was a positive church experience. Over 9 out of 10 churched teens said their church experienced exposed them to the Bible stories (95%), they were taught the lives of the great people in the Bible (92%), and church was a fun experience (89%). But only half (53%) said their church experience helped them understand the Bible enough to help them make decisions based on biblical principles.[iv]
This isn’t just a young person’s problem. How much time do we devote to getting to know God? Do we read, pray and meditate on what God’s Word is saying, and how it applies to us personally? How can we expect to connect with God and grow in our relationship to Him if we neglect time with Him and time in His Word? That is the reason why so many believers do not have a rich and fulfilling spiritual life. Listen to God’s promise if we will just spend time in His Word, which is one of the most important keys to getting to know Him.
Keep this Book of the Law always on your lips; meditate on it day and night, so that you may be careful to do everything written in it. Then you will be prosperous and successful.[v]
What we need to understand is that our response to God’s word will help us live better and prepare us for eternity. This is certainly illustrated for us in our text today. In Acts 17, we find Paul and his team traveling to various Greek cities communicating God’s word, and as we shall see, they ran into various responses of which we’ll look at two. Our response to God’s word is critical to our spiritual health: it’s a matter of life and death. It will also help us to live better and prepare for eternity.
THE FIRST RESPONSE TO GOD’S WORD IS ONE SIMPLY ONE OF RESISTANCE
It is a reality that when something does not suit our lifestyle we reject it. In Acts 17, we find some at a city named Thessalonica who responded favorably, but for the most part we read of
great resistance and persecution that arose to the message and the messengers.
When Paul and his companions had passed through Amphipolis and Apollonia, they came to Thessalonica, where there was a Jewish synagogue.[vi]
Paul went where he anticipated the possibility of a positive response, but that is not the whole story. He also found incredible hostility. This is something that we will also experience at times when we share the good news about Jesus. We certainly see a growing hostility in our society toward God and His Word.
- Paul started where he expected to find the greatest response.
He went to the Jews first. He went to the synagogue. He went to God’s covenant people. God always sends His message first to His people, but one of the dangers is when we either neglect what is being said, or we allow sin to harden our hearts, and we stop hearing what is being said. We start playing games in our minds saying, “That’s not what the Bible means”. Or we think, God is so gracious that He won’t judge us for our sin.
In going to the synagogue, Paul’s method of reaching these Jewish people, and those who were uncircumcised, God-fearing Greeks was to preach the Word.
B. Paul focused on the Word of God.
One thing we need to understand if we are going to have an impact on other people’s lives is that we need to communicate the Scriptures. There is a movement today that in our desire to connect with our culture, we try to make church more entertaining. We are an entertainment driven culture. The focus is on us. The greatest need in our self-centered culture is to make the focus on God.
If there is one thing that has made the ministry of Billy Graham outstanding, it has been his incredible emphasis on the Word of God. What some may not know is the battle that was fought in his own mind and soul over this issue.
In the late 1940’s, Charles Templeton was a close friend and preaching associate of Billy Graham. He effectively preached the gospel to large crowds in major arenas. However, intellectual doubts began to nag at him. He questioned the truth of the Scripture and other Christian beliefs. He finally abandoned his faith and made an unsuccessful attempt to persuade Billy to do the same. He felt sorry for Graham and commented, ‘He committed intellectual suicide by closing his mind.’
While the battle for the mind and soul of Billy Graham was being waged, he was listening to the preaching of Edwin Orr and came to the deep conviction that the Scriptures were the Word of God. What followed was his crusade in Los Angeles where he preached with such authority from the Scriptures that it transformed his ministry. From that crusade in Los Angeles in 1949, Billy Graham became a household name.[vii]
Whenever we deviate from the Word of God, we lose our authority to speak to our generation. What I mean by communicating God’s Word is that we allow it to speak for itself, not what we want it to say. We are studying it and allowing the truths to come out rather than reading into it our own fanciful ideas.
There is no question that the apostles and the early church fathers communicated the Word of God in power, and that Word impacted the lives of their hearers, even as that Word will impact those who hear it today.
As his custom was, Paul went into the synagogue, and on three Sabbath days he reasoned with them from the Scriptures,[viii]
1. The word that is translated, he ‘reasoned with them’ literally means that Paul discussed the Scriptures. There was a dialogue, an exchange of questions and answers. They had the opportunity to gain an understanding by asking questions and getting answers. Today, following the message, we have a team of people who are prepared to dialogue with you if you have questions and I’ll give you that opportunity at the close of the service. Paul, however, didn’t stop at just with reasoning with them.
2. He went on to explain the Word of God to them so that they would come to a decision:
explaining and proving that the Messiah had to suffer and rise from the dead. ‘This Jesus I am proclaiming to you is the Messiah,’ he said.[ix]
Proclaiming means that he was preaching to them. The word used for explaining is the same word that Luke used on the road to Emmaus where it states that “their eyes were opened (Lk 24:31).” Paul was opening up the Scriptures to them. He was making it understandable to them.
Most people who reject the gospel have little knowledge of the Scriptures. Some of the Bible’s harshest critics over the centuries have displayed a shocking ignorance of its teaching.[x]
Ask the critic next time you are talking with them how much of the Bible have read. Do they really understand it? Have they even studied it? How many people have said that the Bible contradicts itself? Ask them where. Most people are not really intellectually honest.
3. And then the NIV translates Paul’s discourse as ‘proving’ or ‘giving evidence’.
The apostle Paul was looking for a decision or a verdict from his hearers. Luke tells us that some Jews believed along with a large number of God-fearing Greeks, and not a few prominent women. (Acts 17:4)
But this created an incredible problem for the apostle Paul. After preaching for three weeks in the synagogue, he moved on and probably set up headquarters in Jason’s house.
His total stay in the town, however, may have been longer, since we know that he received at least one gift from Philippi and that he had to work to keep himself.[xi]
4. Here we encounter the resistance and why it came about.
But other Jews were jealous; so they rounded up some bad characters from the marketplace, formed a mob and started a riot in the city. They rushed to Jason’s house in search of Paul and Silas in order to bring them out to the crowd. But when they did not find them, they dragged Jason and some other believers before the city officials, shouting: ‘These men who have caused trouble all over the world have now come here, and Jason has welcomed them into his house. They are all defying Caesar’s decrees, saying that there is another king, one called Jesus.’[xii]
The very thing that they were accusing Paul of; they were guilty of as they were creating a disturbance. The mob and riot that were formed were a result of these unbelieving Jews rounding up and agitating some bad characters from the marketplace.
It is true that whenever the gospel is preached, it will impact and affect the lives of people. It can trouble the hearts and consciences of people. That is the nature of true biblical preaching. It doesn’t leave people indifferent.
When they heard this, the crowd and the city officials were thrown into turmoil. Then they made Jason and the others post bond and let them go.[xiii]
THE SECOND RESPONSE TO GOD’S WORD IS ONE OF RECEPTIVITY
How eager are we to receive God’s Word? How honest and open-hearted are we? Here we find a contrast and a different approach from those unbelieving Jews in Thessalonica. Paul and Silas travel to the small community of Berea, where they incorporated their strategy and custom to preach in the synagogue. There the Jews responded in a better way. Instead of allowing their prejudices to overtake their reason, they listened, searched out the Scriptures to see if what Paul and Silas were teaching was, in fact, supported by the Scriptures.
As soon as it was night, the believers sent Paul and Silas away to Berea. On arriving there, they went to the Jewish synagogue. Now the Bereans were of more noble character than the Thessalonians, for they received the message with great eagerness and examined the Scriptures every day to see if what Paul said was true. As a result, many of them believed, as did also a number of prominent Greek women and many Greek men.[xiv]
What can we learn from the Bereans? God’s not impressed with our station in life or where we live, but rather the condition of our hearts and the openness that we have towards truth. They diligently studied the Scriptures and because of that, Luke describes them as being more noble.
Matthew Henry (1662-1714), writes about the Bereans:
This was true nobility. The Jews gloried much in their being Abraham’s seed, thought themselves well-born and that they could not be better born. But they are here told who among them were the most noble and the best-bred men–those that were most disposed to receive the gospel, and had the high and conceited thoughts in them subdued, and brought into obedience to Christ.[xv]
The Bereans were of more noble character than the Thessalonians, not because they all agreed with Paul and Silas, but because those who did not agree did not act out of jealousy, but examined the Scriptures to see if what Paul said was true. And as before, the word planted bore fruit.[xvi]
Yet even in Berea, Paul and his team ran into difficulties.
When the Jews in Thessalonica learned that Paul was preaching the Word of God at Berea, they went there too, agitating the crowds and stirring them up. The believers immediately sent Paul to the coast, but Silas and Timothy stayed at Berea. Those who escorted Paul brought him to Athens and then left with instructions for Silas and Timothy to join him as soon as possible.[xvii]
What do we learn from these texts? That our response to God’s Word matters. It is an issue of life and death. We can resist it, ignore it to our own peril, or we can search it out, and discover the author of the book. This is what happened to philosopher Emile Cailliet (1894-1981)
Cailliet was born in a small French village near the end of the 19th century. His early education was committed to naturalism, leaving no room for God or supernatural intervention in human affairs. But his naturalistic studies in philosophy proved of little help during his front-line experiences as a lad of 20 in World War I.
Confronted with the horrors of war, he asked: ‘What help was all my philosophy when your buddy who is speaking to you of his mother dies standing in front of you, a bullet in his chest. Was there a meaning to it all? A [person] can endure anything if only it appears meaningful. I, too, felt not with my reason, but with my whole being that I was naked and, war or no war, destined to perish miserably when the hour came.’
One night a bullet found Cailliet, too. An American field ambulance crew saved his life, and after a nine-month hospital stay, he was discharged and resumed his graduate studies. But he had to admit that the books no longer seemed like the same books, nor was his motivation the same. Reading at length in philosophy and literature, he found himself probing in depth for meaning. He testifies:
‘During long night watches in the foxholes I had in a strange way been longing for a book that would understand me. But I knew of no such book. Now I would in secret prepare one for my own private use. And so, as I went on reading for my courses, I would file passages that would speak to my condition, then carefully copy them in a leather-bound pocketbook I would always carry with me. The quotations, which I numbered in red ink for easier reference, would lead me as it were from fear and anguish, through a variety of intervening stages, to supreme utterances of release and jubilation.’
At last, the day came when he put the finishing touches on, as he said it, ‘the book that would understand me.’ He describes a beautiful, sunny day in which he sat under a tree and opened his precious anthology. As he read, however, he was overcome by a growing disappointment. Instead of speaking to his condition as he expected, the passages only reminded him of their context of the circumstances of his labor over their selection. Then, Cailliet says, he knew that the whole undertaking would not work, simply because it was of his own making. It carried no strength of persuasion. In a dejected mood, he put the little book back into his pocket.
On that same day, Cailliet’s wife had come into the possession of a Bible by extraordinary circumstances. Emile had always been adamant that religion would be taboo in their home, and at the age of 23 had never even seen a Bible. But at the end of that disappointing day, when she apologetically tried to explain how she had providentially (as he would later realize!) picked up a copy of the Bible, he was eager to see it. He describes what happened next:
‘I literally grabbed the book and rushed to my study with it. I opened it and “chanced” upon the Beatitudes. I read and read and read now aloud with an indescribable warmth surging within. I could not find words to express my awe and wonder. And suddenly the realization dawned upon me: This was the Book that would understand me! I needed it so much, yet, unaware, I had attempted to write my own in vain. I continued to read deeply into the night, mostly from the Gospels. And lo and behold, as I looked through them, the one of whom they spoke, the one who spoke and acted in them, became alive in me.’[xviii]
Easter Sunday is the day we celebrate each year as the day of declaration that the God who made us, loves us. He came, became a man and died for us, but on Easter Sunday, He rose again! He conquered our final enemy: death. This living Savior comes to each of us, calls to us, invites us to Himself to give us a better life and prepare us for eternity. How will we respond? Will we embrace the message, and the One as Emile wrote: “who spoke and acted in them, becoming alive in us”? Will we today receive Christ in us, the hope of glory?
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[i] Lee Strobel, The Case for Christ, (Grand Rapids: Zondervan, 1998), 15.
[ii] Frederik Balfour, ‘David Bloom’s Last Ride,’ Business Week Online, (April 7, 2003).
[iii] Gebhard Maria Behler, “What Is God’s Game?” in A Treasury of Catholic Digest. Christianity Today, Vol. 31, no. 13.
[iv] Real Religion, ‘Christian Parenting Today,’ (Winter 2003).
[v] Joshua 1:8, The New International Version of the Bible, Zondervan, 2011.
[vi] Acts 17:1.
[vii] Lee Strobel, The Case for Faith, (Grand Rapids, Mi: Zondervan, 2000), 7-23.
[viii] Acts 17:2.
[ix] Acts 17:3.
[x] John MacArthur Jr., Acts 13-28, The MacArthur New Testament Commentary, (Chicago, Il: Moody Press, 1996), 121.
[xi] I. Howard Marshall, Acts, TNTC, (Grand Rapids, Mi: William B. Eerdmans’s Publishing Co., c. 1980, 1989), 276.
[xii] Acts 17:5-7.
[xiii] Acts 17:8-9.
[xiv] Acts 17:10-12.
[xv] Henry, Matthew: Matthew Henry’s Commentary on the Whole Bible: Complete and Unabridged in One Volume. Peabody: Hendrickson, 1996, c1991, S. Ac 17:10.
[xvi] D. A. Carson, New Bible Commentary: 21st Century Edition. 4th ed. Leicester, England; Downers Grove, Il: Inter-Varsity Press, 1994, S. Ac 17:10.
[xvii] Acts 17:13-15.
[xviii] Emile Cailliet, Journey into Light (Zondervan, 1968), 12-18.
