Acts 17:1-9

Chapter 59

Prayer

Almighty God, we come to thee in the name of Jesus Christ, and breathe our prayer through him who makes all prayer prevalent. We plead not our own case before thee; we stand beside the Cross of the Crucified, and through Christ the Lord our prayer is clothed with might. There is one Intercessor between God and man; there is a Days-Man who can lay his hand upon both and plead the human cause. All we can say is what he taught us "God, be merciful unto me a sinner." So are we plunged in darkness by our own guilt, and lifted up into light by thy great grace. We are gathered at the Cross. Every hand is touching it; every heart throbs with love towards it; every eye is fixed upon it; it is thy Cross; Lord, meet us at this sacred place. We are here because of sin; we are mourning because of self-accusation, and the only hope that is in us is a light lighted by thine own hand. Our hope is in the Saviour; our confidence is in the Cross; our expectation is from on high. Read Thy Word to us, O Spirit that wrote it. Let us hear, in the hearing of the soul, how it should be read, so that none of its music may be lost. May our ears be greedy to hear the melody of thy truth; may our hearts clamour with vehement love to hear it more perfectly in all its infinite sweetness and tenderness and passion. Thy Word giveth light; thy Word giveth life; thine is the only Word that is true. May all the syllables of our speech be drawn from it and return again to it, to find their completeness and their glory. Help us to live well because wisely. May our life be hidden with God in Christ a mystery to the world, so that time has no effect upon us but to make us young; and all energy employed in thy service is but so much sleep that renews the strength. The Lord take us wholly into his care we would not think for ourselves; we would have no planning or scheming that taxes our poor blind ingenuity, we would rest in the Lord. We are confident of this one thing: that he doeth all things well. We are not waiting, so much as longing; we are standing still, not as an effort, but we are standing still to catch the last phase of beauty, the lingering blessing of the light. Oh, that we might have no wish, or thought, or desire, or anxiety, but live in God and rest in the God of gods. This can be done only by the indwelling and continual ministry of God thy Spirit. Holy One, live in us. Thou knowest what we are, and what we need; thou knowest the trouble at home, the difficulty in the market-place, the sickness we cannot heal, the infirmity that becomes a burden, the joy that makes us laugh, the prosperity that now is a blessing and now a tempta-tion thou knowest us altogether. The strong man; the patient woman; the longsuffering heart; the dreamy spirit; the active soul behold, are not all these standing before thee like plain reading? Have mercy upon us through Christ Jesus, and give each a blessing and make each young again. Thou knowest our silent prayer, for which there are no words dainty and fit enough; prayers that words would debase; the cry of the heart; the yearning of the spirit; the groping of the soul in the dark, seeking for light, and yet almost afraid to find it. Lord, help us in all these passages from the known to the unknown, and from the youth to the maturity of the soul. The Lord look upon us, and we shall be well again. One glance of love, one smile of approbation, one touch of thine hand, and we shall be as the angels. If we may but touch the hem of thy garment, we shall be made whole. Amen.

Act 17:1-9

1. Now when they had passed through Amphipolis [capital of the first of the four districts of Macedonia. On the Strymon; 33 miles S. W. of Philippi by the Egnatian road, which ran from Dyrrhachium to the Hellespont] and Apollonia [a town of the second Macedonian district, 30 miles S. W. again] they came to Thessalonica, where was a synagogue of the Jews [this was why they stopped there. Thessalonica, capital of the second district, afterwards of all Macedonia, lay 38 miles W. of Apollonia. Cassander, who rebuilt it, changed its name from Therma in honour of his wife, Alexander's sister. Was "the bulwark" of Greek Christendom in the Middle Ages, and the means of converting both Sclaves and Bulgarians]:

2. And Paul, as his custom was, went in unto them, and for three Sabbath days reasoned with [G. held dialogues with; the word Plato uses of Socrates] them from the Scriptures [O. T.],

3. Opening and alleging [Bengel paraphrases, "cracking the nut and bringing out the kernel "] that it behoved the Christ [Messiah] to suffer, and to rise again from the dead; and that this Jesus, whom, said he, I proclaim [G. announce], unto you, is the Christ.

4. And some of them were persuaded and consorted with Paul and Silas; and of the devout [G. "worshipping," i.e., in the synagogue] Greeks a great multitude [throng], and of the chief women not a few.

5. But the Jews, being moved with jealousy, took unto them certain vile fellows of the rabble ["market loungers"], and gathering a crowd, set the city on uproar; and assaulting the house of Jason [ Rom 16:21 ], they sought to bring them forth to the people [G. "demos"; Thessalonica was a "free city." The demos (commons) in its ecclesia, church, or duly summoned meeting was the head political power, and appointed the politarchs, here translated "rulers of the city"].

6. And when they found them not, they dragged Jason and certain brethren before the rulers of the city, crying, These that have turned the world upside down [G. "stirred up to sedition," as in Act 21:28 ] are come hither also;

7. Whom Jason hath received [ Joh 13:20 ]: and these all act contrary to the decrees of Cæsar [imperial edicts, Luke 2:1 , were binding upon the whole Roman world. But there is no mention in this "free city" of the Roman law and magistracy as at the "colony" Philippi], saying that there is another king, one Jesus.

8. And they troubled the multitude [G. demos, as we say, "The Commons"] and the rulers of the city [the politarchs], when they heard these things.

9. And when they had taken security [had satisfied themselves by examination that no sedition was meant] from Jason and the rest, they let them go.

Paul's Manner

LUKE was evidently left at Philippi, where he might have a good deal of doctor's work to do. Paul and Silvanus and Timotheus moved on from Philippi elsewhere. We wonder whether Paul will fight any more, or whether he will spend the remainder of his days in pious reflections? We have some little time for the consideration of that question, for a period is occupied in passing through Amphipolis, where nothing was done, and Apollonia, where nothing was attempted. Surely the fight is over, and the warriors are going home. The warriors travelled some thirty-three miles the first day, from Philippi to Amphipolis; thirty miles a day seemed to be about an apostolic journey. The next day they went some thirty miles, from Amphipolis to Apollonia, but there was not any preaching. The fight seems to be over, and the smitten warriors are going home to anoint their wounds and wash their stripes in secret. But, when they had passed through the cities that had no synagogue, they came to lovely Thessalonica a woman's name, so named because her great husband loved her. He took away the old name, and said he would call the city Thessalonica, the capital of all proud Macedonia. Then we read: "where was a synagogue of the Jews." Seeing the synagogue, Paul saw a battle-field, and instantly he stripped to the fight! We see now what he was looking for. We were a little troubled when he passed through Amphipolis and said nothing; and when, the next day, he went through Apollonia and never challenged public attention, we wondered what the matter was. But now that he has come into the lady-city, the capital, now that he sees a synagogue of the Jews, he begins again. The war-horse will paw when he can no longer stand; the war is in his blood. You cannot make war-horses of wood and paint; they are God's fires! Nor can you put fire into men when there is none. Their industry is but a strenuous idleness, and their walking about is only whirling around in a circle. Truly the Christian war spirit had entered the very soul of Paul! When this Marmion came to die, "he shook the fragment of a blade," and said, "I have fought a good fight," and none could deny it. Surely he had been a brave fighter! "I have finished my course," and finished it gloriously. When are we going to begin the fight the good fight, the battle that means victory? Let us assemble at the synagogue in Thessalonica, and watch events.

"And Paul, as his manner was, went in " It is difficult to do away with a "manner." Paul was not an occasional attendant. Jesus Christ did not go now and then to the synagogue. The first Christians lived in the Church, and only existed elsewhere. It was a dull time to the early Christian when the church was closed. Outside he was always waiting for the opening of the gate. They were brave days of old.

Paul is here, as everywhere, the very model of a true Christian preacher. What conditions does he fulfil as such? Here he stands, with a written revelation; "he reasoned with them out of the Scriptures." The preacher stands in a great tower. If he were standing within a paper castle, which his own fingers had fashioned, it might be burned down or blown away by the tempestuous wind. But the true preacher, who preaches with every drop of his blood, and every spark of his life's fire, utters the words of Another. So the true preacher is never stale in matter or dull in manner. The sunlight is never other than a quiet miracle; the common air is an uncommon blessing. Paul did not go up and down European or Palestinian cities talking something which he himself had invented; he had a Book, an authority, a written order, and he at least believed that every word he said was written for him by the pen and ink of Heaven. Once let that thought go, and preaching becomes loose and vain, without a centre and without one dominating thought or note, A sermon is nothing that is not a paraphrase of the Bible. It is great only in proportion as it begins, continues, and ends in the Scriptures. Paul is standing in the synagogue, or sitting there, as a man who constructs a historical and religious argument, "opening and alleging" opening words to find their inner secret; alleging, contending, demonstrating, proving, bringing one thing to bear upon another; connecting the golden links and making a chain of them; constructing an argument which should be at once a tower of protection and a home for the soul's security. Then he crowns his ministry by enforcing a distinct personal appeal. Hear him: "This Jesus, whom I preach unto you, is Christ." This was a sword with a point. This is a sermon with an accent. The preacher must have an object in view; he should say to himself every time he stands up, "What do I want to do?" Paul always had his answer ready, "I want to preach Jesus and the resurrection, and to get every man to say to Christ, 'My Lord, my God.' "So whatever Paul did was contributory to this great end. The difficulty with the Christian preacher is that nobody wants to hear his doctrine. Do not imagine, my young brethren preparing for the ministry, that the people care much to hear your doctrine. They want to hear your particular way of putting it. They could hear the doctrine next door to their own houses; they would never travel miles for the purpose of hearing your doctrine. They know your doctrine, your theology, your thought, but they want to hear your way of putting it. Babies! they want to see your toys! They like your manner, your gentleness, or your force, your voice or eloquence, or rhetorical way; but the doctrine they would listen to you with equal delight if you were uttering the other doctrine! This is the difficulty of the Christian preacher. There are those again who love the doctrine above all things, and they care not how it is spoken; but they are in the inner circle, and of them I am not speaking. My reference is to the great multitudes crowding around the Apostles, and crowding around all Christian ministers, and the question which I have to put is this: Do these people want to hear the thought, or only the happy words which for a moment endeavour to express it? I went the other day to hear the most illustrious judge in England. Every man who can afford the time ought to spend, I think, one hour a week in the law courts; it is an education and a stimulus. I sat with reverence of no common kind before the foremost judge of his day. His voice was feeble and indistinct; at times I had great difficulty, as had others, in hearing him; but, oh, the strain, the anxiety not to miss one word! It was dry, it was argumentative, there was not a single flower of speech in the whole, and yet no man coughed there; every man was silent. Why this anxiety? Because the people wanted to hear what he said. He is interpreting law, or making law, or settling an expensive controversy, and bringing practical questions to an issue. As to his manner no man cared for it; no man went to hear eloquence or poetry; every one was there to hear what the judge would say, not how he said it. You must not compare the judge and the Christian minister. Poor minister, he must please, persuade, pander to many a taste, for who wants to hear the truth? This is the difficulty we all have to contend with, and it will be a growing difficulty with the ages. When a mumbling speaker reads a will to persons probably interested in the disposition of the property, does any one say anything about his manner? Each wants to know what he in particular is to get. Oh, could I persuade my hearers that I am reading a WILL! for that I am surely doing; the will of God, the testament of Christ, the decree of heaven. Oh, that men were wise, that they understood these things!

Contrast with that scene the opposition which it awakens. Sometimes you cannot enter into the merits of a controversy, but you may form a tolerable judgment as to its quality by observing the way in which it is conducted. Let that thought rule our construction of these incidents. Opposition arose again, as it always arose; however quiet the town when the Apostles entered it, they left it in a serious uproar. They came not to send peace on the earth, but a sword. They kindled a fire among the dry wood, and how it burned, how it flamed, how it went up as with a will! Look at the opposition, "moved with envy"; then it was a little-minded opposition. Where is majesty? There is none. Where is the noble challenge to discuss a great question upon equal terms? There is none. How is Paul moved? By love. How is the opposition moved? By envy. The Jews will not have it that a felon so deemed by the law shall be King. The Jew will never kiss the Cross in homage; he hates it; it smites his pride; it blows witheringly upon his national and personal vanity, and he will not accept it.

"Moved with envy, they took unto them certain lewd fellows of the baser sort"; then it was an unscrupulous opposition. Any stick will do with which to beat a dog. The Jews, who would not have spoken to those "lewd fellows" on any account on common ground, will make use of them to put down this religion of the Cross. If they had not been "lewd fellows," and in very deed "of the baser sort," they would have seen that they were being made use of. On legal, political, social questions they never would have been consulted for a moment. How Envy can stoop to take up polluted weapons! How Envy can search in the mud for stones to throw at Goodness! Is there anything so lasting as hatred? We are told that Love will outlive it, but it is hard to believe in that survival. We do believe it, or we could not live; but Hate is long-lived; unscrupulous; will say anything, do anything; pervert, twist, corrupt, and poison. There is nothing too despicable for it to use to express itself in denunciation and contempt and penalty.

"Moved with envy, they took unto them certain lewd fellows of the baser sort, and gathered a company, and set all the city on an uproar"; then it was a lawless opposition. Never mind the dignity of the city. Never mind the politarchs who reign over it; they can easily be alarmed, and they will take part with the opposition. Magistrates are bound to be timid; politarchs cannot stand against an uprising city; they will either dismiss the case, or take bail, or do something to get out of it. So the opposition little-minded, unscrupulous, lawless prosecutes its mission to the end. This is true of all opposition to the Christian cause. Do not let us suppose that this was a Thessalonian incident with local beginnings and local endings. Wherever you find opposition to Christianity you find an opposition that is little-minded, unscrupulous, lawless, and dishonest. There can be no honest opposition to Christianity. There may be an honest opposition to some special ways of representing it, but to its purity, its self-sacrifice, its nobleness, its purpose, there can be no honest opposition. Yet how the Lord makes the wrath of man to praise him! What said the enemy? "These that have turned the world upside down." There! that is a tribute to their power. Even the Jews, "moved with envy," dare not make a little cause of this Christian mission. They did not dare to call it "a bubble on the water," "a flash in the pan," "a nine days' wonder." They saw in it a world-exciting force, and we who are Christians will become fearful and timid and self-protecting just in proportion as we lose our conception of the grandeur of the cause which we have to handle. This is a case that touches the world. It is not a parochial accident. This is not an affair you can confine within local boundaries; this is not an incident to be read off in a hurried line and then forgotten. It is a force that causes the whole world to thrill and vibrate with new life.

Then they become themselves again, "saying that there is another king." That is a lie! The Apostles never said so, in the sense now put upon that word by their accusers. You can use the right words with a wrong meaning. It is not enough to tell me the words a man employed; I must see the man himself; I must hear his own voice; I must get into the music of his utterance before I can tell you what the words really mean. When the Jews said to the Thessalonian politarchs, "These men say there is another king," they told a lie. But the Apostles did say there was another king. Yes, but not in that treasonable sense; not in the sense of opposing Cæsar, in the sense of sedition, in the sense of throwing down political constitutions. So you must know the man before you can tell the value of the word. You may report words correctly, so far as they are mere words; you may relate a conversation line for line and word for word, and yet make a lie of it. A conversation is not an affair of words; it is an affair of looks, tones, touches, accents, subtle undertones, and emphases that are full of colour. You are right when you say, "These are the very words he said," and yet by your telling of them you have created a false impression. We must not only speak the words of the Gospel, we must speak them in Gospel tones. True eloquence is true love; true preaching is true feeling. If you have sympathy with Christ and with his Gospel, you will speak it in words that are more than words; part of an atmosphere; syllables that must be measured in their native air, and must be viewed in relation to all the appointments of the universe.

Then the accusers proceeded to say, "one Jesus." There they were right. The Apostles, then, had left no false impression as to the Man they were preaching. The Apostles had not left a vague impression that they were preaching about some one who had come, or was coming, or might come. Amid all the tumult and uproar and opposition, they had got this word well into the public memory "Jesus." They were skilled speakers. They did not lodge in the memory an indefinite article, or an auxiliary verb, or some part of speech that was of no consequence; but whenever there was a lull in the storm they said "Jesus." Then came the uproar, then another lull, then "Jesus." So that at the end, whatever word had been unheard or misheard, this word "Jesus" was instamped on the public recollection.

Is this the end? Why, this is not only not the end, it is hardly the beginning. The very first letter that Paul wrote to any of the churches was probably the First Epistle to the Thessalonians. What does he say to them? "For our gospel came not unto you in word only, but also in power, and in the Holy Ghost, and in much assurance, for ye know what manner of men we were among you for your sake. And ye became followers of us, and of the Lord, having received the word in much affliction, with joy of the Holy Ghost; so that ye were ensamples to all that believe in Macedonia and Achaia. For from you sounded out the word of the Lord, not only in Macedonia and Achaia, but also in every place your faith to Godward is spread abroad; so that we need not to speak anything. For they themselves show of us what manner of entering in we had unto you, and how ye turned to God from idols to serve the living and true God; and to wait for his Son from heaven, whom he raised from the dead, even Jesus, which delivered us from the wrath to come. For yourselves, brethren, know our entrance in unto you, that it was not in vain: but even after that we had suffered before, and were shamefully entreated, as ye know, at Philippi, we were bold in our God to speak unto you the gospel of God with much contention." This is confirmatory evidence; this is a happy corroboration of Luke's narrative.

Paul spent at least three weeks in Thessalonica; how did he live during that time? He had no money; how did he live? How we ought to live by working! That is the only true way of living. Why ask so foolish a question? If you go into a village without any money, with only one coat for your back, and one staff for your hand, how are you to live? By breaking stones, by sweeping floors, by cleaning boots. How are you to live by writing begging letters to London? This is how Paul lived: "For ye remember, brethren, our labour and travail, for labouring night and day, because we would not be chargeable unto any of you, we preached unto you the Gospel of God." These were not the men to be put down; they did not live on patronage; they did not consider whether they would offend the "subscribers," for there were none. We now live on "subscribers," and therefore we do not live at all, and therefore we breed a small race of men, whose height is to be measured in inches and whose weight is to be announced in ounces. Paul, Silvanus, Timotheus fell to working not eight hours a day and eight shillings for pay, but why, if I read the time-bill aright, their hours were long: "For labouring night and day." "Two hours longer, Silvanus," said Paul, "and this tent will be done. If we sit up till three o'clock to-morrow morning, we shall just get bread enough to keep us going until the synagogue is open again." These were not the men to be put down!

When they said good-bye to Thessalonica, was it a final adieu? Read Paul's First Epistle to the Thessalonians, second chapter, seventeenth verse: "But we, brethren, being taken from you for a short time in presence, not in heart, endeavoured the more abundantly to see your face with great desire." They wanted to go back to the old battle-field; they were not afraid of the uproar. When anything occurs nowadays, we become suddenly "not very well, and must go down to the seaside over Sunday." We think it better to be out of the way. How did Paul view the people whom he had won there? Said he: "For what is our hope, or joy, or crown of rejoicing? Are not even ye in the presence of our Lord Jesus Christ at his coming? For ye are our glory and our joy." They valued the prey which they took in fight; they saved the souls of men. These are the relations which Christianity would establish amongst us if we would allow it. Christianity would make a compact society of us not living under formal rules, but under gracious inspiration. If Christianity had its own way in the world, it would never rest until it had united all hearts, driven out all unforgiveness, expelled every evil spirit It would unite heart to heart, life to life. It would take away every evil memory and every ungenerous thought, and make men, strong men, love one another, hope the best concerning one another. It would lift up the whole level of our life to the plane of Christ's own character.