Shownotes Transcript
Hey, Bible readers, I'm Tara Lee Cobble, and I'm your host for The Bible Recap.
Before we dropped in on Paul's letter to the Galatians, we were hanging out with Paul and Silas in prison in Philippi and watching them get released, after which point the local authorities apologized for imprisoning them without a trial since they're Roman citizens. Today, they head for Thessalonica, where they're staying with a guy named Jason. Thessalonica is a big port city in Greece today with a population of about a million people, except now it's called Thessaloniki. It's about 100 miles from Philippi, which is about a four-day trip. By the way, Paul
Paul writes two letters to the church in Thessalonica, and we'll read those letters tomorrow. The guys are in Thessalonica for a long time, and at one point, Paul spends a string of three days going to the local Jewish synagogue to reason with them about the scriptures. He shows them how Jesus is the Messiah the prophets wrote about. Here's one thing I find interesting about this. Paul isn't just sharing his own personal testimony, even though he has a more compelling one than anyone I've ever met. Instead, he's sharing scripture's testimony of Christ.
It's true that personal stories are moving for many people, but Paul knows that subjective experiences can also be easily dismissed by anyone who has a different experience. So he takes a more objective and logic-based approach. He's sharing facts, not feelings. He lets scripture speak for itself. Per usual, the audience is split. Some believe and some don't. The ones who believe include Jews as well as a lot of Greeks and a lot of female leaders.
The Jews who don't believe him form a mob and start a riot, and they go to Jason's house to try to find the guys. When they can't find them, they drag Jason and a few others out of the house and take them to the authorities. Like most of the accusers, they're saying that the early church is rebelling against the establishment, this time Caesar in particular. They say, these men have turned the world upside down. Yes and amen. The effects of the gospel are dramatic. That's the upside down kingdom of God.
Jason posts bail for everyone and the authorities let them go home. This money probably has a bit of a promise attached to it as well. In the way that bail money serves as a promise that you'll return for your court date, Jason's money probably serves as a promise that Paul and Silas will leave town. They leave in the middle of the night and head to Berea. First stop, the synagogue. And you know how Paul loves a good scripture testimony. So he shares it and they love it. But they don't just take his word as fact. They coax him into doing it.
They crack open their scrolls every day and check his words against scripture. They walk in wisdom and humility. They're open to receive, but not just anything. They'll only receive the truth. And because of that, a lot of them believe, including Greeks and prominent male and female leaders. When word gets back to Thessalonica, they march over to Berea to try to shut it down. So Paul packs up to leave, but Silas and Timothy stay behind.
When Paul gets to Athens, he sends word that he needs Silas and Timothy there stat. We don't know why he needed them so urgently, but they don't make it to him for a while. He's in Athens, maybe with Luke, we don't know for sure, and it's full of idolatry. People there worshipped so many different things, in part because they were open to many different ideas and philosophies. They are inundated with religious options, and the people love hearing new ideas.
In fact, a lot of the prominent people Paul encounters are kind of professional seekers. They're always following the current trends, which change frequently. It seems like they love to seek, but they don't like to find. They prefer to just keep seeking.
This is new territory for Paul. He's mostly been used to talking to Jews or Gentiles who already have some kind of grasp on the Hebrew scriptures, but the Athenians are not on that page at all. Still, they're intrigued by Paul's message. Not because they're moved by their own sinfulness and God's great mercy, but because it's a new idea they hadn't heard yet.
Paul is educated and knows how to lean into that when it's helpful, so he talks to them in the intellectual language they understand, much like Jesus did when he used agricultural analogies in his parables to farmers and fishermen. Paul quotes philosophers and poets they're acquainted with. He points out that they know something is missing. Amidst all their religious paraphernalia, they still have an altar dedicated to an unknown God.
He says,
Some of them mock the idea of the resurrection, but others believe, including Dionysius and Damaris. Today, my God shot was in Paul's quote from a Greek poet in verse 28. It says,
Paul clips a quote from culture and pastes it into his conversation about God because it speaks to the truth of who God is. Ultimately, all truth is God's truth. Anything that is true points back to him, the author of truth, the way, the truth, and the life, which is kind of what this verse says. In him we live, he's the life, and move, he's the way, and have our being, he's the very truth at the core of who we are, and he's where the joy is.
Tomorrow, we'll be reading 1 and 2 Thessalonians. We'll link to a short video overview of both books in the show notes, so check those out if you have a chance. If you're new here, you may not know much about our daily study guide, daily journal, and weekly discussion guide, so let me fill you in. The first is our daily study guide. This is just for you to do at home by yourself. I've written roughly five questions today to help you dig into the text and learn more on your own while you're reading.
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