This week, Acts 17:1-12 forms the basis of our Blog. It is appropriate that this sermon be preached on Mother’s Day. How many of us learned our first Bible scriptures listening to our mothers read Bible stories to us at bedtime! How many faithful grandmothers have read the Bible to children. Therefore, this blog is for everyone, but I dedicate it to our  mothers, living and with the Lord, and especially to my mother!

We are in a short series dealing with some aspects of our culture that make it difficult for us to live out the Christian life. Just to bring everyone up to date, we’ve talked about becoming unplugged from human pride and plugged into God. We’ve  talked about becoming unplugged from selfishness and plugged into Jesus. We’ve talked about getting unplugged from isolation and plugged into God’s Spirit-filled community. In this blog, we’re going to talk about getting unplugged from the media and plugged into the word of God.

One striking feature of our culture is the role media plays in our lives. In many ways, our culture is the most media-dependent culture in the world. Let me give you a few examples. A most unfortunate aspect of our culture is the number of hours a day children and youth stand watching. reading, or listening to media. In prior years, fundamental values were transmitted by parents reading the Bible and other great literature to their children, by young people attending church regularly, and by the relationships children had within families and in local communities. Today, study after study shows that young people receive almost all of their information about what it means to be human and how to live from the media. The world view of the newer generations is formed primarily by the media.

When my parents were young, the word “media” largely meant people read newspapers, magazines, and listened to the radio. Every so often, when people could afford it, they saw a movie. At night they read books, most often the Bible. Even in my parent’s generation things were slowly changing. Things began to change dramatically in my generation. We were the first generation formed more by “Micky Mouse Club” than by the Bible.

Today, young people are saturated with images, many of which involve sex, money, and violence. Music is a more important factor in forming young people than ever before in history, and young people have access to music that would’ve been unimaginable in prior generations. In addition (and unfortunatelty), increasing the media deliberately distorts reality for political and social conditioning purposes.

Pornography, which is a problem for men and women today, used to involve a certain amount of risk of getting caught buying a girlie magazine. Today, any youngster can dial into a pornographic website almost without risk. If they smart enough this includes without risk of getting caught by their parents.

In Psalms, we learn that the Word of God is a light that shines into our daily walk and a lamp that illuminates our way in dark times and through all of life (Psalm 19:105). The wise men of Israel believed that one of the most important ways to become wise was to meditate daily upon and laws of God (Joshua 1:8; Psalm 1:2, 119:15; 97). Today, little of the news we read or watch makes any attempt to avoid bias. Therefore, if we want to live wisely and lovingly, and if we want our children to live wisely and lovingly, we need to take time to unplug from the media and plug into the word of God.

A Noble Beginning.

In the first part of Acts 17, Paul began a church in Thessalonica (Acts 17:1-9). Unfortunately, the Thessalonicans refused to listen to Paul when he taught from the Old and New Testaments that Jesus was the Messiah of Israel. From Thessalonica, Paul went to Berea. There, Paul has a different experience.

In  Acts 17:10-15, we read:

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 Berean Jews were of more noble character than those in Thessalonica, 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. But when the Jews in Thessalonica learned that Paul was preaching the word of God at Berea, some of them 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 (Acts 17:10-14).

Let us pray: O God who speaks, please enter our hearts and speak to us by the silent power of your word. Allow us to hear afresh your Word of Truth. Convict us. Convert us. Make us wholly yours. Amen.

Narrow Minded Prejudice: The Enemy of Faith.

There is a little phrase in this text that is one of my favorites in the New Testament. I love the phrase reads that “the Bereans were more noble than the Thessalonicans” (Acts 17:11). Various translators translate this phrase differently. Sometimes it is translated “open-minded (NLT). Sometimes it is translated “more open minded” (NLV). Sometimes it is translated “more willing to listen” (NCV). However, traditional English translations render it “more noble” (KJV, RSV, ESV). In Greek, the word literally means “high born”. The idea Luke is communicating is that wise people are always willing to learn. “Nobility” is not a matter of social class, or money, or intelligence, or education; nobility is a way of life characterized, among other things, by wisdom and willingness to learn.

When Paul was in Thessalonica, he conducted his ministry as he normally did: He went to the synagogue and began to teach. Our Scripture tells us that Paul taught in the synagogue explaining how the Old Testament Scriptures pointed toward the Messiahship of Jesus (v. 3). Like Jesus with the disciples after his resurrection, Paul looked at passages from Moses, Psalms, and the Prophets (and particularly Isaiah), showing that they did not point toward a military Messiah but toward a Messiah of suffering love. which is what Jesus was.

After a short period of time in Berea, a few Jews and a number of God-fearers received Paul’s message and accepted Christ (v. 4). On the other hand, the majority of the Thessalonians had rejected Paul’s message almost without listening and started a riot (vv sildentadal.com.5-9). Our text indicates that the leaders of the Thessalonian synagogue were jealous of Paul’s learning and of their loss of power (v. 5).  It was only when trouble makers from Thessalonica came to Berea that there was trouble.

When we did our series in the fall, we spoke about “People of  Peace” (Luke 10:6). A person of peace is a person who is open to hear the word of God and accept the peace God offers us in Christ. If we are not open to hear the word of God, it will never transform us.  We don’t need to be people of peace just once before we accept Christ. We need to continue to people peace day after day searching the Scriptures and hearing the word of God.

Scripture: Our Guidebook for Faith.

I keep in my briefcase (until I lose it or give it away) a little copy of the Westminster Shorter Catechism. In answer to Question 3, “What does the Bible teach?” the catechism responds, “What human beings need to believe about God and about how to behave” (GCS paraphrase). As Christians, we accept the fact that we are fallen creatures. We all have our prejudices and shortcomings. Scripture provides us a way to gain perspective on ourselves and hear the voice of God speaking into our hearts so that we may be changed.

In Second Timothy, Paul writes perhaps the most famous of all his words about Scripture. Writing to young Timothy, he says:

You, however, have followed my teaching, my conduct, my aim in life, my faith, my patience, my love, my steadfastness,  my persecutions and sufferings that happened to me at Antioch, at Iconium, and at Lystra—which persecutions I endured; yet from them all the Lord rescued me. Indeed, all who desire to live a godly life in Christ Jesus will be persecuted, while evil people and impostors will go on from bad to worse, deceiving and being deceived. But as for you, continue in what you have learned and have firmly believed, knowing from whom^[a]you learned it and how from childhood you have been acquainted with the sacred writings, which are able to make you wise for salvation through faith in Christ Jesus. All Scripture is breathed out by God and profitable for teaching, for reproof, for correction, and for training in righteousness, that the man of God may be competent, equipped for every good work (2 Timothy 3:10-17).

In other words, Scripture contains everything we need to know about the Christian life. It gives us knowledge. It corrects us when we’ve gone wrong. It trains us in how to behave morally. It makes us wise and able to do the things God wants us to do.

When I’m traveling, I often have my quiet time on the airplane. I’ve done this for forty years. It’s always been comforting to see how many people read their Bibles on an airplane. It doesn’t happen all the time; however, I frequently see businessmen and women, mothers, and young people all studying Scripture as they travel. It means that whatever they’re going, they’re getting equipped to be God’s people when they get there. Of course, we should not just do this when we’re traveling. We should be equipping ourselves every day. To do that, we have to unplug ourselves from the world, and especially from the media, and get plugged into God.

Perhaps you think this is easier for pastors or other professionals than it is for you. You could not be more wrong. I have a computer. I have a cell phone. I have an iPad. I’m addicted to the news. During election years like this one, I have to constantly remind myself to check the news once in the morning and once at night or I watch it all the time. The media knows that big headlines and juicy stories catch our attention. What we need is the wisdom that comes from comparing what we hear in the media and hear on the news to what Scripture teaches.

How to Get Plugged the into Scripture.

Some people don’t know how to get started studying Scripture, so I thought that I would take a few moments to share a few ideas.  There are some basic techniques that anyone can use to connect with the Bible and learn from the text. Some of these are:

1. Personal Reading. The first level of any text is a rendering of what it literally says. Some questions that will help get the basic meaning out are as follows:

• What did you hear the author (or character or Jesus) saying as the text was read?
• What is the context where this is said?
• What was frustrating, unclear, or difficult?

2. Personal Involvement. The next stage is to get personally involved in the text. Some helpful questions here are:

• With whom or what do you identify with in the story?
• What past feelings does this text restore?
• What personal experience does this text bring to mind?
• What joy, pain or hurt does this text bring to mind?

3. Personal Application. Remember that meditation and personal application is the most important thing in studying the Bible. We should always leave adequate time for application. Some personal application questions are:

• What is God asking you to do?
• What hope does this give you?
• What relationship does this impact?
• What will you do differently because of this study?

Sometimes, people feel that they need to be Bible scholars in order to study the Bible. This is not true. In fact, I urge people not to read commentaries until they’ve studied the text for themselves. Commentaries tell you what other people think and have thought in the past. They are very useful. However, they inevitably cause us to treat the text as an object we are studying. While this is important, it is more important for us to personally enter the text and allow the text to transform us googletest. When I write sermons, I do look at commentaries. However, the first thing I do is read the text and allow the text to enter into my heart. Sometimes, as it did this week, it takes a long time and it isn’t easy.

Christ the Center.

If you remember our Easter series, you remember learning that when Jesus rose from the dead on three occasions he or the Angels explained to the disciples that the things written in the Old Testament explained why the Messiah had to suffer, die, and be resurrected from the dead (See, Luke 24:7; 25-27;44-47). Paul does the same thing in Berea.

As Christians, we read Scripture to understand the laws of God, to learn the history of Israel and how God acts in history, to learn to be wise, to allow the music of God into our hearts as in Psalms, and to hear the prophetic word of God judging us as in the Prophets. However, the most important thing we learned in Scripture is who Christ is and how Christ acts in our lives to change us into the image of God.

Let me repeat this: the most important thing we learn in Scripture is who Christ is and how Christ acts in our lives to change us into the image of God. Christ is the center of Scripture. Scripture should lead us into a personal relationship with God through Jesus Christ. Scripture should allow us to find ourselves surrounded and permeated by the love of God. The function of Scripture is to lead us into a personal relationship with God. In fact, if we do not allow Scripture to do this, we will never be able to understand Scripture.

It is a long time since I began my journey through Scripture. Sometimes it’s hard to remember what it was like at the beginning. I do remember it was hard. I do remember that I could not understand Job no matter how hard I tried! Even today, I remind myself how boring I find Leviticus and a few other books of the Bible. Nevertheless, over the years it has been the single most important thing in my learning about God, about other people, and about myself.

Copyright G. Christopher Scruggs, 2016, All Rights Reserved