What Do You Do When You Encounter Something New?

Steven’s Scribbles
“What Do You Do When You Encounter Something New?”
Acts 17
    
    What do you do when you encounter something new? I can not answer this for you. How do you react when you hear something that goes against what you believe? What if it goes against what you have believed your entire life? Acts 17 is a great chapter to look at case studies of different reactions. In Thessalonica, Paul taught the gospel for three weeks in the synagogues (17:2-3). This means Paul was proclaiming something new to a group of people who never heard it in their entire lives. They started a mob, went against their own principles, dragged Jason, who was presumably a christian, out of his house, and lied about what they had been teaching. The Jews utterly refused to even listen to Paul. However, in Berea and Athens, Paul had a different reception. Paul and Silas travel to Berea where they found the Jews were more “noble minded.” Why and how? They examined “the Scriptures daily to see whether these things were so” (17:10-12). This resulted in “many of them” believing as well as the Greeks. The Thessalonicans followed Paul and his companions to Berea and ran them out of Berea as well. He then went to Athens and taught in the Areopagus (17:16-23). Again, Paul preaches the Gospel to them, and it was grossly different than anything they had heard in their life. It resulted in some sneering, but others believing (17:30-34).  Which one are you? If you were taught something you’ve never heard in your entire life, would you 1) run the teacher out of town, 2) sneer and refuse to listen, or 3) study the Scriptures daily to see if it were true? I think the obvious choice is to be noble minded and study to see if these things are so. I love you all!


In His service,
Steven Hugley