What a church!

• Divided, partisan, immoral ingrates
• selfish, greedy, lawsuit-happy swindlers
• idolaters
• drunks
• slanderers
• sexually immoral, married but cheating adulterers
• judgmental, undisciplined, and arrogant
• immature sensationalists acting in every way with impropriety

And of course, I’m talking about the church at Corinth. Today we’re in Acts 18:1-17 as Paul continues on his second missionary journey—a journey of great brokenness.

Remember for a moment, Paul was kicked out of Philippi, chased out of Thessalonica where he was only bringing trouble on Jason and the other believing brothers; he had been hunted down in Berea and separated from his companions Silas and Timothy, and forced out to pagan Athens where few people would believe in the Good News.

Paul was broken on this 2^nd missionary journey.  But there’s Hope for the Broken.  There’s Hope for all kinds of Broken.

Acts 18:1 After this, Paul left Athens and went to Corinth.

Corinth was an unlikely place to find Hope for the Broken. If you look up “broken” in the dictionary, you’d find a picture of the church at Corinth. Closely related words would be splintered, dysfunctional, loveless, judgmental, and trendy. Yet, for now at least, Paul will minister in Corinth as a thoroughly broken man.

Do you remember all the way back when Paul had just seen the resurrected Christ and was blinded by the light? Remember how he had those scale-like things on his eyes and Ananias had to go to Straight Street to set Paul straight and give him clear vision again? Do you remember the words that the Lord spoke to Ananias in a vision?

Acts 9:15 But the Lord said to Ananias, “Go! This man is my chosen instrument to carry my name before the Gentiles and their kings and before the people of Israel. 16 I will show him how much he must suffer for my name.”

The Word of God is eternal and true. Paul has only begun to suffer…and he’s already broken. John J. Parsons on Hebrew4Christians wrote a devotional on Psalm 34:18 [19h] stating,

Brokenness is the means through which God performs some of His deepest work within our hearts. A.W. Tozer once said, “It is doubtful whether God can bless a man greatly until he has hurt him deeply.” Likewise Alan Redpath once wrote, “When God wants to do an impossible task, He takes an impossible individual—and crushes him.”

There is healing and Hope for the Broken, for those who are willing to let God come near to touch their lives where it hurts the most.

Paul was a broken man. He had been throwing himself into the task of sharing the Gospel—exactly as he had been told—and has faced closed door after beautiful closed door…and even after seeing a vision of the open door, Paul still gets kicked out of towns even there in Macedonia in which he’s only begun to minister.

So now, Paul is alone in a strange town. He knows no one. He’s sad. And he’s probably very confused. He’s a brilliant guy, an excellent speaker, a fantastic theologian, and a compelling witness for Christ and yet, he may be wondering—in the flow of Acts—whether he’s doing any good at all. He doesn’t have the benefit of the rest of the New Testament to tell him there’s light at the end of the tunnel and to give him a vision of exactly what an earth-changing impact this one man will make in his lifetime. For now, he’s living it. He’s broken and needs an injection of hope and encouragement.

God gives him Hope for the Broken in 5 different ways.

• First, God gives Paul companionship with like-minded people. Aquila and Priscilla. “Coincidentally”, they’re tentmakers by vocation too.

2 There he met a Jew named Aquila, a native of Pontus, who had recently come from Italy with his wife Priscilla, because Claudius had ordered all the Jews to leave Rome. Paul went to see them, 3 and because he was a tentmaker as they were, he stayed and worked with them. 4 Every Sabbath he reasoned in the synagogue, trying to persuade Jews and Greeks.

Do you see how beautiful this is? Aquila and Priscilla had been kicked out of Rome along with all the other Jews…because as Suetonias in his chronicle Claudius tells us, this expulsion order was given because of the Jews and the “continual tumults instigated by the Chrestus [the Christ].” In other words, trouble wasn’t just following Paul. It had followed all the Jews who went home from Pentecost with the coming of the Holy Spirit—all the way to Rome—and Jew and Christian alike were booted out of Rome because of all the trouble. Jesus didn’t come to bring peace but a sword because the Truth Cuts Both Ways! It divides and makes trouble for followers of Christ. It did for Aquila and Priscilla. And they had common ground with Paul. Hope for the Broken in companionship with like-minded people. But also

5 When Silas and Timothy came from Macedonia, Paul devoted himself exclusively to preaching, testifying to the Jews that Jesus was the Christ.

• A second way that God brings Hope is by bringing a reunion with old friends and encouragement that they brought with them. The churches Paul had founded were surviving and thriving. Hope for the Broken comes in progress reports and fuel for the fire to keep going.

6 But when the Jews opposed Paul and became abusive, he shook out his clothes in protest and said to them, “Your blood be on your own heads! I am clear of my responsibility. From now on I will go to the Gentiles.”

• God gives Hope for the Broken in the form of perspective. Paul preached to the Jews first and then the Gentiles, but there comes a time in which God releases people and tells us to let it go. It’s hard to plant seeds and walk away, but this is how it is sometimes.

Just because we can’t see what God is doing with things doesn’t mean that God is equally blind.

God gives perspective that, in many ways, our scars make us who we are. I look at my own life. I’m sure you can find places in yours as well. Places in our lives where we’ve experienced pain, loneliness, sadness, frustration, despair, depression, and a host of other scars upon our lives, but you know what I’ve experienced? I’ve seen that God uses the pain of life to give me perspective. Hope for the Broken that it’s OK that I’m broken, that my body has betrayed me with illness; friends have betrayed me so I would learn forgiveness; and that ministry would be born of the places of the greatest scars.

We follow a God like that.

Look at His hands.

Pierced for the sinner’s forgiveness.

Scarred to toughen that wound we have and soften our hearts towards God and others.

Scott Krippayne has a song with lyrics that go like this:

• All who sail the sea of faith
• Find out before too long
• How quickly blue skies can grow dark
• And gentle winds grow strong
• Suddenly fear is like white water
• Pounding on the soul
• Still we sail on knowing
• That our Lord is in control
• Sometimes He calms the storm
• With a whispered peace be still
• He can settle any sea
• But it doesn’t mean He will
• Sometimes He holds us close
• And lets the wind and waves go wild
• Sometimes He calms the storm
• And other times He calms His child
• He has a reason for each trial
• That we pass through in life
• And though we’re shaken
• We cannot be pulled apart from Christ
• No matter how the driving rain beats down
• On those who hold to faith
• A heart of trust will always
• Be a quiet peaceful place

God gives Hope for the Broken in (1) companionship, (2) encouragement, and (3) perspective, but it’s more than just that.

• (4) God is as near as you need Him to be. Scott Krippayne calls the heart of trust a quiet peaceful place. The Hebrew4Christians devotional talks about that “close to the brokenhearted” as meaning near enough to touch. In Paul’s case, God was with him and Hope was right next door where God had His work ready to roll. Right there in the neighborhood.

7 Then Paul left the synagogue and went next door to the house of Titius Justus, a worshiper of God. 8 Crispus, the synagogue ruler, and his entire household believed in the Lord; and many of the Corinthians who heard him believed and were baptized.

Success in ministry was next door. It was like God, as coach, was encouraging Paul to keep his pace going. A second wind was on its way. In the words of Dory in Finding Nemo, “Just keep swimming; just keep swimming.”

9 One night the Lord spoke to Paul in a vision: “Do not be afraid; keep on speaking, do not be silent. 10 For I am with you, and no one is going to attack and harm you, because I have many people in this city.” 11 So Paul stayed for a year and a half, teaching them the word of God.

And in case Paul didn’t pick up on Hope for the Broken from what was next door, God make a point of driving home that message in a vision. It’s not a mistake what you’re doing. It’s not a failure of ministry. It’s OK, Paul, I know what’s going on and it’s all part of what you’re going to suffer for my Name. I understand, Paul. I am with you. No one is going to attack or harm you, God says. Then He says something really interesting. “Because I have many people in this city.”

A few things immediately come to mind. Like when Elijah heard the still small voice of God at Mount Horeb while crying out that he was the only prophet left.

1 Kings 19:14 He replied, “I have been very zealous for the LORD God Almighty. The Israelites have rejected your covenant, broken down your altars, and put your prophets to death with the sword. I am the only one left, and now they are trying to kill me too.” 15 The LORD said to him, “Go back the way you came, and go to the Desert of Damascus. When you get there, anoint Hazael king over Aram. 16 Also, anoint Jehu son of Nimshi king over Israel, and anoint Elisha son of Shaphat from Abel Meholah to succeed you as prophet. 17 Jehu will put to death any who escape the sword of Hazael, and Elisha will put to death any who escape the sword of Jehu. 18 Yet I reserve seven thousand in Israel– all whose knees have not bowed down to Baal and all whose mouths have not kissed him.”

Paul was not alone just like Elijah wasn’t alone.

Paul might not have been crying out on the outside like Elijah, but Paul was human and part of the human condition is to become weary in spirit as we do not see fruit for all our hard work. When we feel all alone. When we’re working our fingers to the bone and there’s no encouragement to be found.

God tells Paul that He has many people there.

In a field of wheat and tares, we see the weeds but God sees the wheat. It’s there. It’s still there. It’s still wheat no matter how many weeds surround it.

God has many people, even in a broken place like Corinth. Reminds me also of Jonah’s frustration at preaching to people he didn’t feel like deserved it. To that mindset, God replies, Jonah 4:11 But Nineveh has more than a hundred and twenty thousand people who cannot tell their right hand from their left, and many cattle as well. Should I not be concerned about that great city?”

God is concerned even for people who are too broken to know that they’re broken.

Such was the Church at Corinth. I can see why Paul may have been wondering if he was wasting his time in a fruitless endeavor. Spinning his wheels. Throwing good effort after bad. Imagine taking the worst of Washington DC, Las Vegas, and Chicago and making a church out of that. You’d have a picture of Corinth. It was a terribly broken place.

• (5) Hope for the Broken means that a broken Paul would be used by God to minister to this broken city and form a church on a Gospel that heals the broken. Gives them hope in their brokenness.

Corinth was a broken place, but not without hope. If God can be concerned for Nineveh and for Corinth, no matter what brokenness you have in life, you are not beyond God’s ability to offer hope and healing. But realistically speaking, the more baggage we have the more baggage we need to lay down. And the Corinthians had lots of baggage, probably made with fine Corinthian leather.

12 While Gallio was proconsul of Achaia, the Jews made a united attack on Paul and brought him into court. 13 “This man,” they charged, “is persuading the people to worship God in ways contrary to the law.” 14 Just as Paul was about to speak, Gallio said to the Jews, “If you Jews were making a complaint about some misdemeanor or serious crime, it would be reasonable for me to listen to you. 15 But since it involves questions about words and names and your own law– settle the matter yourselves. I will not be a judge of such things.” 16 So he had them ejected from the court. 17 Then they all turned on Sosthenes the synagogue ruler and beat him in front of the court. But Gallio showed no concern whatever.

Paul would be falsely accused. Again. He was just about to speak (and demonstrate that Jesus Christ is the fulfillment of the Law) when Gallio ejected everyone from the court. To him, it was a Jewish problem not a Corinthian one. What would happen on the streets would stay on the streets. Poor Sosthenes was beaten on the courthouse steps, probably because he was the synagogue ruler. And yet Sosthenes, this Jewish synagogue leader, is mentioned one more time at the beginning of the first letter to the Corinthians as a companion of Paul’s. Evidence that there is hope for the broken. The letters of Paul to the Church at Corinth are a manual, of sorts, for how to deal with broken churches. Timeless hope for God’s Church. God offers Hope for the Broken.

Hope for a broken Sosthenes, Hope for a broken Corinth, Hope for a broken Paul. Broken in different ways, but broken all the same. Romans 5:8 But God demonstrates his own love for us in this: While we were still sinners, Christ died for us.

The Gospel is called Good News because it tells us of Hope. What kind of hope do you need today?

Hope for the Broken as…

1. Companionship
2. Encouragement
3. Perspective
4. Nearness of God and
5. Knowing He cares about you even while you are broken?

Today is the day to pray for God to give you the kind of hope you need. We all experience brokenness. But God can give hope in all these place. He offers Hope for the Broken.

In Acts 18:1-17, Paul was a broken man and Corinth was a broken place.  We see God offering hope for the broken in 5 different ways.  Do you need an injection of hope?  There’s a good word in Acts 18:1-17 for you.

Back in 1961 Ricky Nelson sang a song called Travelin’ Man with the lyrics

• I’m a travelin’ man
• I’ve made a lot of stops all over the world
• And in every part I own the heart
• Of at least one lovely girl

If Ricky Nelson had a girl he left behind in every place he went, the Apostle Paul had his heart tied to a church he left behind. Kicked out of Philippi. Kicked out of Thessalonica. Kicked out of beloved Berea with those noble Bereans who studied the Word of God like their lives depended on it. Of course, Paul’s partners Silas and Timothy stayed behind in Berea to make sure everything was up and running. But they were going to be a while. Paul was a fugitive missionary, shipped off to Athens.

Acts 17:16 While Paul was waiting for them in Athens, he was greatly distressed to see that the city was full of idols.

It’s like touring an apartment, turning on the lights and seeing the roaches the size of small automobiles scurrying for the nearest crack in the wall. Ugh. Not exactly encouraging. So for Paul, it’s like a recurring nightmare. Paul must have been wondering what on earth God was doing with him. Show up. See people for whom Jesus Christ is an unknown God. Preach the Word. Make a lot of enemies. Get persecuted, booted out, and otherwise be dismissed. He’s a travelin’ man making a lot stops and enemies, all over the world. And in every part, he left his heart with a church he’d just unfurled.

So here he is in Athens to repeat this cycle. Starting with the synagogue. Just like the last time.

17 So he reasoned in the synagogue with the Jews and the God-fearing Greeks, as well as in the marketplace day by day with those who happened to be there.

Today, we’re going to see the wisdom of Paul’s strategy when speaking to people for whom Jesus is an Unknown God.

To the Jews in the synagogue, Jesus was an Unknown God, not because they couldn’t have known Him, but because they hadn’t connected the dots. To them, before seeing Jesus revealed in their Scriptures, Jesus was not a god at all. He was just a guy.  They had a Messiah they were waiting for, but even that Christ was not supposed to be God. The Shema of Israel states it very clearly: Deuteronomy 6:4 Hear, O Israel: The LORD our God, the LORD is one. The Jews had been reciting that since the days of Moses. They knew it front and back, sideways and upside down. They could count to one and Jesus made two. Jesus was Unknown to them because they didn’t know that One God is Triune. One God, Three “Persons” which isn’t the same as “people.” Three windows of revelation into the same One God. One God to them meant “1” so Jesus was Unknown.

How did Paul deal with people who had the Scriptures, (the Torah, what our Jewish friends have even today as their Bible) our Old Testament? Paul reasoned with them from their Scriptures as the launching point.

But what do you do when someone doesn’t have a Bible background? Maybe someone grew up Catholic, never read their Bible, but only went to mass a couple of times a year and the priest said it all in Latin. Maybe someone grew up Buddhist or Hindu and has clearly formed ideas about those religions, but really no Christian background or understanding at all. Maybe someone was raised by atheists who don’t even believe God exists! Maybe people who believe that Christ is somehow related to Christmas and that’s Santa. What do you do? Paul shows us.

He goes where they are. To the marketplace of goods and services…and ideas. And he doesn’t start off by pointing to a Bible they have no clue about and reasoning from the Scriptures. Paul was starting with Jesus and the Resurrection. He was preaching Jesus as Good News.

Good news is something we can all relate to. Couldn’t we all use a little good news?

What are the needs of the people you know? What are the needs of this community here in Racine? Jobs. Safety. Food. Education. We’re entering into election season in the US. Candidates, whether Republican, Democrat, Libertarian, Communist, Green, Independent…they all are trying to focus on “felt needs” to be able to have voters relate…and say “This candidate cares about people like me.”

Paul cared and was not only widely traveled, but also highly educated and deeply discerning. What unifies all mankind? Romans 3:23 for all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God. Yup. We’re all sinners and are going to hell apart from Christ. We all need to be saved for eternity as a first order of business. If you have worship right, the rest of life is more bearable and can often fall into place in ways we don’t know at the outset.

A job? Maybe salvation in Christ will connect you with people who can give you one. Safety? Maybe salvation in Christ will reorient your life to godly living and help you to reach one person who will reach one person and result in many giving up a life of crime. Food? Maybe salvation in Christ will connect you with people who can help you today with a fish, but moreover teach you to fish and provide for yourself down the road with fish to spare to repeat the process with those you meet.

Hear me clearly: It’s not some “prosperity gospel” where you believe in Jesus and you’ll win the lottery. Believe in Jesus and flip houses and be a millionaire overnight. Jesus is not a get-rich-quick scheme with a halo.

But when we communicate Christ Jesus with others, we are sharing the greatest riches we have and if we truly believe God provides our daily bread…well, that is why we pray,

“Give us this day our daily bread.”

So who did Paul meet in the marketplace of ideas? A bunch of philosophers who sat around all day taking in the latest and greatest ideas. They were the ones on Twitter, in elite colleges, and writing Op-Eds long before those things existed.

18 A group of Epicurean and Stoic philosophers began to dispute with him. Some of them asked, “What is this babbler trying to say?” Others remarked, “He seems to be advocating foreign gods.” They said this because Paul was preaching the good news about Jesus and the resurrection.

Babbler because what he was proclaiming sounded like nonsense to them—resurrection? Ha! Advocating foreign gods because the Greeks didn’t have a temple or an idol that looked like Jesus. To them, Jesus was an Unknown God. He wasn’t on the list of “approved gods.” He was destined for their spam folder or blocked by their firewall.

Who were these Epicureans? They believed in pursuit of pleasure. They believed that all pain could be and should be eliminated from life. They believed that all those Greek gods were a bunch of hooey. They were intellectual elites. They may have believed that there’s some sort of god who put everything in motion, but that this god didn’t involve himself in anyone’s life. Not a relational god, but more like a Big Bang and auto-pilot. If you think this sounds like the National Academy of the Sciences, you’ve got a pretty good modern picture of the Epicureans whose expert advice could save the world by pursuing goodness and pleasure, eliminating pain, and by human philosophic and scientific ingenuity.

They talked a lot. They argued a lot. Kind of like Congress. Arguing because there was little bipartisanship with the Stoics, that other group in the Athenian marketplace.

Stoicism was a popular philosophy of that day. Stoics were like their name sounds. They are seemingly indifferent to or unaffected by joy, grief, pleasure, or pain. They were nose-to-the-grindstone kind of people. Realists, believing that there IS a supreme god, but he’s left me on my own. Be real. Get real. Life is short. Then you die. Or in the words of author David Gerrold, “Life is hard. Then you die. Then they throw dirt in your face. Then the worms eat you. Be grateful it happens in that order.”

To the Stoics, the world is determined by fate and random chance, and you either win life’s lottery or you don’t. John Stott described their mindset: “human beings must pursue their duty, resigning themselves to live in harmony with nature and reason, however painful this might be, and develop their own self-sufficiency.”

You’re on your own. Be a Stoic, unless you’re an Epicurean who wants pleasure and no pain. And they were both there in the marketplace of ideas and had some sort of generalized sense of a god who put everything in place and who then went away on a forever vacation, leaving us to cope on our own.

So here comes Paul, preaching about Jesus who was raised from the dead and both the Epicureans and the Stoics would have thought no one would want to be resurrected from the dead. It’s not pleasurable and it’s more of a painful hard life to be endured. To them, Paul was a babbler, making no sense whatsoever!

19 Then they took him and brought him to a meeting of the Areopagus, where they said to him, “May we know what this new teaching is that you are presenting? 20 You are bringing some strange ideas to our ears, and we want to know what they mean.” 21 (All the Athenians and the foreigners who lived there spent their time doing nothing but talking about and listening to the latest ideas.)

At least they were open to hearing ideas. Don’t invite Paul to speak unless you’re prepared to get the Gospel with both barrels, full strength, undiluted, uncut, untrimmed, and with all the power of the Holy Spirit. He’s going to tell them that Jesus is God. They just don’t know it yet. Jesus is presently unknown.

22 Paul then stood up in the meeting of the Areopagus and said: “Men of Athens! I see that in every way you are very religious. 23 For as I walked around and looked carefully at your objects of worship, I even found an altar with this inscription: TO AN UNKNOWN GOD. Now what you worship as something unknown I am going to proclaim to you.

Now, let me add clarification that the Athenians weren’t worshiping Christ as THE Unknown God. The Athenians were covering their bases.

It was fire insurance. Just in case they’d overlooked a god who was important, they could just point to that altar and tell that god, “Oh! That one’s for you! We just didn’t know what to call you.” Covered so he wouldn’t get angry and throw lightning bolts or something. Hedging all their bets and covering all the angles. The altar to AN UNKNOWN GOD is not concerned about an inability to identify like the Tomb of the Unknowns at Arlington Cemetery. It’s all about making sure you’re not passing over the real one.

But Jesus, however unknown He presently was to the Athenians, is not just one god among many. He’s the only One. So Paul, having already mentioned Jesus and the resurrection (which are not two separate gods: Jesus and the one named Resurrection, Anastasis) goes on to build off of what the Athenians knew…just like Paul built off the Scriptures with the Jews. With philosophers, he points to what they already know. Education, it is said, is like creating Velcro hooks onto which one builds a body of knowledge. Gotta start hanging things somewhere. So Paul says,

24 “The God who made the world and everything in it is the Lord of heaven and earth and does not live in temples built by hands. 25 And he is not served by human hands, as if he needed anything, because he himself gives all men life and breath and everything else. 26 From one man he made every nation of men, that they should inhabit the whole earth; and he determined the times set for them and the exact places where they should live. 27 God did this so that men would seek him and perhaps reach out for him and find him, though he is not far from each one of us. 28 ‘For in him we live and move and have our being.’ As some of your own poets have said, ‘We are his offspring.’ 29 “Therefore since we are God’s offspring, we should not think that the divine being is like gold or silver or stone– an image made by man’s design and skill. 30 In the past God overlooked such ignorance, but now he commands all people everywhere to repent. 31 For he has set a day when he will judge the world with justice by the man he has appointed. He has given proof of this to all men by raising him from the dead.”

There’s a lot packed into this speech. And we won’t have time today to look at it in the depth we could. But let me draw a few points about what is called “contextualization” of the Gospel by Paul even quoting one of their own poets! Paul was an intellectual in addition to being the greatest evangelist the world has known. Remember our friends the Bereans? They were noble because they examined the Scriptures to see if what Paul was telling them was true. The Athenians had a whole pantheon of gods and adding one more was no big deal. The more, the merrier. Had Paul said adding one more among many is fine, that would have been compromise of the truth and what is sometimes called syncretism (basically a great big religious soup blended together) or pluralism (like a collection of divine shot glasses).  Paul does not compromise.  Jesus stands alone!

But along comes Paul who can quote their own poets, but also tells them that there’s only One God. He is the Lord of heaven and earth and cannot be contained in any temple no matter how marvelous or beautiful it seems to us. God doesn’t need anything we can bring to the table. God gives us life, not the other way around. To both the Epicureans and the Stoics, Paul says, 27 God did this so that men would seek him and perhaps reach out for him and find him, though he is not far from each one of us.

He’s not far. He’s not impersonal. He’s real. And He cares how you live. He cares what you find pleasure in. He cares what you do with your pain. He cares about your life. Personally. Individually. You’re not just one in a crowd to Him. And “Life is short then you die.” And therefore, God wants people to repent. A Judgment Day is coming.

Humans are different. They are not like a leaf on the forest floor, dirt in our faces, eaten by worms until all we are is just compost. We die and then we are judged. The whole world will be judged. Some will be judged on the basis of what they did with their lives because Jesus was unknown to them and they remained unknown to Him as saved. “I never knew you” (Matthew 7:23).

Others will be judged on the basis of the finished work of Christ—and believing the Good News, resurrected to everlasting life. All the dead will face judgment, Scripture says in Hebrews 9:27. And Jesus is the Judge because He was the first to be resurrected from the dead and accepted to be the man [God] has appointed.

Do you know Jesus? Does He know you?

It’s as easy as believing that Jesus died for human sin and that you need His forgiveness. That’s why Paul’s speech says, 30 In the past God overlooked such ignorance, but now he commands all people everywhere to repent.

Confessing sins to God means admitting that no matter how good or smart or moral or clever we are, we sin. And we don’t ever want to be judged on our own merit. Stop and think for a moment. Can you remember any mistake, any harsh word, any unloving thought or action, any stolen cookie from Grandma’s plate of cookies? For every one of those you can remember, God remembers millions that you don’t maybe even recall at all! When you’re judged it won’t be on a curve. Any one of those sins, left unforgiven, is enough to send you to hell because God won’t allow unforgiven sin in heaven. That’s scary!

But here’s where it’s GOOD News! In Christ, we don’t have to remember them all. Instant forgiveness of every sin. God wants all people to repent and be forgiven so that He can save them to eternal life and be resurrected to the new heaven.

32 When they [the Epicureans, Stoics, and Athenians] heard about the resurrection of the dead, some of them sneered, but others said, “We want to hear you again on this subject.” 33 At that, Paul left the Council. 34 A few men became followers of Paul and believed. Among them was Dionysius, a member of the Areopagus, also a woman named Damaris, and a number of others.

Was Paul’s ministry there a failure because only a few came along and believed? Can such a few make a difference?

Was his technique a flop? Maybe he needed a different strategy like he used with the Jews and God-fearing Greeks at the synagogue where the woman named Damaris presumably heard the message since she wouldn’t have been at the Areopagus.

I’d argue that it was not a failure. There were places where Jesus’ ministry was less because of unbelief (his hometown of Nazareth being one notable example). But we have a record in our Bibles of that and of Paul’s speech. Seeds sown through the generations because it was recorded.

We may not be large in number here at Plymouth, but I’m trusting God that few in number isn’t small in significance because we are about making Jesus known. The sermons are posted. They are recorded. You can hand them to people, forward them via email and they are out there in the world wide web for anyone to hear and read on Plymouth’s web site.   We’re touching the globe from the corner of College and 12^th in Racine.

Jesus doesn’t need to be an Unknown God when you can make Him known. Let’s pray.

On the Apostle Paul’s 2nd missionary journey, he ends up in Athens alone.  He reasons with the Jews at the synagogue and then heads to the marketplace where he meets some philosophers to whom Jesus was an unknown God.    Paul speaks at the Areopagus and teaches us the difference between careful contextualization of the Gospel message (which the Apostle Paul does artfully) and a reckless compromising of the integrity of Scripture which Paul would never do.  This message was first preached at Plymouth Congregational Church of Racine, WI on August 9, 2015 by Barbara Shafer.

As we grow older, our thoughts are more likely to turn to how we’ll be known long after we died. In the BBC miniseries Emma, the long-despised aunt of Frank Churchill dies and Emma exclaims, “I am so very happy at this….dreadful news.” Emma’s brother-in-law says, “No one has liked Mrs. Churchill for years and now that she’s dead, we all have to be sorry.” No one liked Mrs. Churchill very much and presumably after the obligatory favorable treatment of the recently dead, she resumed her former status as disliked. On Facebook, she’d go from having many Likes to suddenly Unliked by everyone. She may have had followers, but few friends. That’s because she would be remembered for her controlling behavior than for anything honorable.

History can be both generous and brutal in its record of our lives.

There are a few people/people groups in the Bible who are known for being honorable. Today, we’ll meet one of these groups. The Bereans.

They are mentioned only in a couple of verses in the whole Bible, but what a powerful testimony! They are there for all eternity. They are held out to us as a model of how to approach the Word of God in a responsible way. Particularly for our day and age in which truth seems to be awfully blurry with all kinds of half-truths and lies mixed into a pretty dangerous cocktail of beliefs, we would be wise to be like the Bereans.

When we last left off with our missionary friends Paul and Silas in our study of the book of Acts of the Holy Spirit and the Apostles, they were being run out of Thessalonica on a rail. Their friends, Jason and others, were paying a heavy price for friendship even to the point of having to post bond (pay off) the authorities and guarantee that Paul and Silas wouldn’t have anything to do with causing more trouble in Thessalonica.

Which brings us to today and learning to be like the Bereans.

Acts 17:10 As soon as it was night, the brothers sent Paul and Silas away to Berea.

Jason and the Thessalonian church brothers sent Paul and Silas away under the cover of darkness. That tells you something about how Paul and Silas were viewed by the authorities. They were treated as fugitives, two guys on the run. They had to sneak away and hope they wouldn’t be found…kind of like those two prisoners who escaped the maximum security prison in NY, one to be gunned down and the other apprehended alive after an extensive manhunt. The difference is that Paul and Silas hadn’t done anything wrong. Just words…of truth…spoken to people who didn’t want to hear it.

Berea was 50 miles south of Thessalonica and when Paul and Silas arrived safely there, what did they do?

On arriving there, they went to the Jewish synagogue.

Some people never learn. Or maybe it’s that they didn’t give up easily. I’d like to think that they were simply faithful to the call of God even under persecution. After all, there had been a ton of closed doors: Asia, Mysia, Bithynia. And the open door of Macedonia with the guy in the vision pleading for Paul to come and “help us.” At some point, one would think Paul would finally find a place to settle down and help someone. So far, he’s been driven out of Philippi, he’s been booted out of Thessalonica, could it really get much worse? It actually will, but for now…there’s also good news.

11 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. 12 Many of the Jews believed, as did also a number of prominent Greek women and many Greek men.

I think it’d be kind of nice to be known as a person who would be like the Bereans. Noble character recorded in the Word of God for all eternity. To have people know you for that. For “noble character” on two scores:

1. They received the message with great eagerness.
2. But perhaps more importantly, they examined the Scriptures every day to see if what Paul said was actually true.

We could learn a lot from the Bereans. We could learn a lot by trying to be like the Bereans. Studying the Bible to see if it’s true. Digging deep. Not just taking it from me because I say so, but taking it from God’s Word because He says so.

To know God’s ways because as it says in Isaiah 55: 6 “Seek the LORD while he may be found; call on him while he is near. 7 Let the wicked forsake his way and the evil man his thoughts. Let him turn to the LORD, and he will have mercy on him, and to our God, for he will freely pardon. 8 “For my thoughts are not your thoughts, neither are your ways my ways,” declares the LORD. 9 “As the heavens are higher than the earth, so are my ways higher than your ways and my thoughts than your thoughts. 10 As the rain and the snow come down from heaven, and do not return to it without watering the earth and making it bud and flourish, so that it yields seed for the sower and bread for the eater, 11 so is my word that goes out from my mouth: It will not return to me empty, but will accomplish what I desire and achieve the purpose for which I sent it.”

God’s ways and God’s Word endure. If we’ll only dig deep enough to see it.

There are a lot of denominations out there that have been tinkering with the Word of God. They have done what Thomas Jefferson did: take scissors to the Bible and he cut out all the parts he didn’t like. Remove all of the supernatural stuff so it’s easily believable. Remove all the hard to understand parts, the violent parts, the miraculous parts. Trim it. Prune it. Make it what you want it to be.

But it’s not that they’re trying to give the Bible a G rating, clean it up for public consumption and not pollute young and innocent minds with blood and gore. Nope.

They’re trying to give the Bible a makeover and make Jesus all love and no wrath. Make the Bible all salvation and no sin. Make the Bible all good and no guilt. All good news, but no bad news to make the good news really good. And you know what? Ultimately these efforts will all fail. Why? Because we may be willing to believe a lie, but God isn’t required to believe it too.

God understands the hard parts that He put there. He actually did the supernatural parts that the Bible records.   And He still hates sin. He hates it a lot. And moreover, He defines what it is. That’s what the Bereans knew from study. We need to be like the Bereans and learn to take a stand against watered down Scripture that some in Christendom want to christen as being the new Bible when they’re just dumbed down words which will lead people astray.

So for all those who want to make Jesus a manmade hero wearing a white tunic, Jesus is bigger than that. He can use even the violent parts to accomplish His good and loving and perfect will. God is no dope. The Crucifixion of Christ on account of human sin wasn’t something that God couldn’t control or happened while God was napping. It was every bit as intentional as every other part of the Bible because the truth is: all of us have sinned and fall short of the glory of God. (Romans 3:23)

That’s why Jesus came. To deal with sin because sin is real. And God hates it a lot. Jesus came because we’re all sinners. It wasn’t to pose for stained glass renditions with little lambs. He isn’t Little Bo Peep in a brown wig.

The Bereans got that. They studied all the Scriptures they had (which at that point was our Old Testament) and they didn’t get grossed out by all the blood, get confused by a God of wrath, get bogged down in genealogies, get overwhelmed by all the history involving hard to pronounce names, or bored with all the legal stuff about animal sacrifices.

They studied the Scriptures to see if what Paul was telling them about Jesus being the Christ was true. Which, of course, it was. They studied the Word and were very discerning about what they believed. That’s part of what made them noble.

Think about all the things we consider noble. Gaining a political party’s nomination. Getting promoted at work. Winning an award for being a good citizen, having good attendance, or a good number of days without a work-related injury. Peace prizes. Governor’s awards. Purple hearts. The top 10 Best Dressed list. A big net worth.

That isn’t what matters to God. He considered the Bereans noble because they didn’t consider earthly treasures as anything to be compared with knowing God. He considered the Bereans noble because they weren’t too proud to need a Savior. He considered the Bereans noble because they loved His Word (like our Scripture reading this morning!)…and didn’t buy just any stuff coming out of left field. We need to be like the Bereans.

Perhaps you know people who are avid readers and they absorb every self-help thought that appears on a written page as if it’s true. They are constantly in search of new idea territory to try in their try-and-fail approach to life. The one place they don’t go to learn how to live is the Bible. Maybe they do a flip-point-and-read of Scripture, but it doesn’t stick because they’ve already bought the notion that the Bible is antiquated and irrelevant. So they try horoscopes, feng shui, color energies, karma, oat bran, wheat grass, and smoothies made from organic stuff believing the half-truth that organic is better. They’ve bought all that, too.  Profoundly undiscerning about what they put in their minds through words, talk, and TV.

We’re living in the age of the big lie. Politicians lie. Industry people lie. Bankers lie. Plumbers lie. Planned Parenthood lies. We all lie. Some of us just lie more than others. And those that do usually go into politics where selling the big lie is a test of one’s skill. And sadly, the consequences of promoting the big lie are costlier in a human toll. There’s a huge human toll for politicians, leaders, and yes, preachers. For every person we can legitimately help, we can ruin that person if we are careless with our words.

But the Bereans were noble. They accepted the message Paul was preaching—the Good News about Jesus Christ—as being true. Because they dug deep to test it.

They understood that Hebrews 4:12 For the word of God is living and active. Sharper than any double-edged sword, it penetrates even to dividing soul and spirit, joints and marrow; it judges the thoughts and attitudes of the heart.

2 Timothy 3:16 All Scripture is God-breathed and is useful for teaching, rebuking, correcting and training in righteousness, 17 so that the man of God may be thoroughly equipped for every good work.

Or as we heard this morning already: Ps 119:105 Your word is a lamp to my feet and a light for my path.  Digging deep in God’s Word is always good!

A little key for us in living in biblical ways is that God is thoroughly consistent. He won’t tell you something doesn’t matter if it does. He won’t lead you down a path that leads to destruction if you’re seeking His will. Don’t get me wrong: He’ll let you go your own way if you hate Him, but He will never lead you to destruction. If it doesn’t match up with His Word, then it’s not true. Dig deep. Test it. 1 John 4:1 Dear friends, do not believe every spirit, but test the spirits to see whether they are from God, because many false prophets have gone out into the world.

The Bereans were noble, though. They didn’t buy something just because it was offered for sale. They tested what Paul was saying and found it to be true. Everything should be great, right?

Well, our cycle…remember it? Pure Church, Powerful Church, Growing Church…yup. Persecuted Church.

13 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.

Some people just can’t stand it when a work of God is occurring.

They have to oppose it in their backyard, in their neighborhood, and chase it from coast-to-coast in their obsession to squelch it. To smother it with mob action. This is where the Bereans were definitely nobler than some of the Thessalonians. Didn’t take much to be nobler than those Thessalonians who were on a witch hunt without an actual witch. They wanted Paul dead because he was the one who was preaching the word of God with such power. So Paul’s ministry at Berea was done. Over and out. He was being run out of town….again.

14 The brothers immediately sent Paul to the coast, but Silas and Timothy stayed at Berea.

Here’s the interesting thing though: Silas and Timothy stayed on at Berea long enough to get the church grounded and established. The fledgling church in Berea was in a particularly vulnerable stage to attack…but they were testing what they were hearing and would be self-sufficient sooner. Their taking personal responsibility for learning the Word made them stronger…and nobler….than the Thessalonians. Because they were self-disciplined and grounded.

Yet, there was some work to be done before they could take off the training wheels. Silas and Timothy stayed on to help. They wouldn’t rejoin Paul until Chapter 18 at Corinth which is in Greece. The most interesting thing, to me at least, is that Paul was chased out of 3 different towns, but left behind 3 stable churches which would remain dear to his heart. Those churches would go on to share the Gospel in a far larger area than Paul could have done on his own. And just to be fair to the church at Thessalonica, plugging in from the rest of Scripture, when Paul writes his letters to the Thessalonians, he describes them positively saying, 1 Thessalonians 1:6 You became imitators of us and of the Lord; in spite of severe suffering, you welcomed the message with the joy given by the Holy Spirit. 7 And so you became a model to all the believers in Macedonia and Achaia. 8 The Lord’s message rang out from you not only in Macedonia and Achaia– your faith in God has become known everywhere. Therefore we do not need to say anything about it, 9 for they themselves report what kind of reception you gave us. They tell how you turned to God from idols to serve the living and true God.” Paul worried for how a church he’d left without sufficient grounding would hold up. Timothy traveled back there to find out how they were doing.

It must have been hard for Paul to get started in ministry only to have to pull up stakes and run for his life, leaving behind churches over which he’d pray and grieve with concern. But this is how God works. Paul planted. Others watered. And God made these churches grow.

They grew by doing what came naturally to the Bereans. Being noble. We can grow by deciding to be like the Bereans.

• To receive teaching with both discernment and eagerness.
• Eager to learn what it means that Jesus is the Christ.
• But discerning enough to check it out with the rest of Scripture, not buying the lies that our culture and even Christian quacks might try to sell.
• To humble ourselves. To repent and accept our need for salvation….because it’s something that we can’t earn. Noble for the Bereans meant stepping down from their worldly position to accept that they needed Jesus.  They knew it because they knew God’s Word.

Yes, in all these ways, we will grow if we decide to be like the Bereans.

In Acts 17:10-15 we meet the Bereans, recorded for all history as being noble.  We can learn a lot from the Bereans.  This message was first preached at Plymouth Congregational Church of Racine, WI on August 2, 2015 by Barbara Shafer.