{"id":14524,"date":"2025-09-28T00:00:01","date_gmt":"2025-09-27T16:00:01","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/acky4.com\/wp\/?p=14524"},"modified":"2025-09-30T22:17:50","modified_gmt":"2025-09-30T14:17:50","slug":"believing-based-on-understanding","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/acky4.com\/wp\/2025\/09\/28\/believing-based-on-understanding\/","title":{"rendered":"Believing Based on Understanding"},"content":{"rendered":"<p style=\"text-align: justify;\">Acts 17:10-15 <em><sup>10<\/sup>So the brothers immediately sent Paul and Silas away by night to Berea; after they arrived, they went into the synagogue of the Jews. <sup>11<\/sup>Now these Jews were more noble than those in Thessalonica; they received the word with all eagerness, examining the Scriptures daily to see if these things were so. <sup>12<\/sup>Therefore, many of them believed, with not a few of the prominent Greek women and men.<\/em><\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: justify;\">The church in Thessalonica had been started in spite of opposition. To protect Paul, Silas, and Timothy, the new believers in Thessalonica sent them on to the next city of Berea. Berea was to the southwest and about fifty miles away from Thessalonica, at least a three-day trip on foot. The trio left at night to avoid further trouble. Once in the city, they went straight away into the local synagogue. Luke does not always record in detail how the group established themselves in the cities they went to, or how many days until the Sabbath when they could attend the synagogue meeting. It would have been strategic to find people of similar interests and ethnicity, so finding other Jews would have been helpful.<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: justify;\">The team had a different reception once they arrived and began sharing in the synagogue. Luke describes the Jews in Berea as\u00a0<em>more noble<\/em> (<em>eugenesteroi<\/em>), a word that means well-born or noble-born. When it is used for average citizens like here, it refers to those who think high thoughts and are open-minded. Luke goes on to explain in verse 11 why these Jews could be described in this way. One was their <em>eagerness\u00a0<\/em>(<em>prothymias<\/em>). This word means a readiness or willingness to listen and consider more deeply. The way they showed their enthusiasm to engage in dialogue was that they studied the Scriptures every day to test and determine if what Paul said was true. The assumption here is that Paul once again drew his preaching from the Old Testament. He was able to prove Jesus to be the fulfillment of prophecy and at the core of God&#8217;s eternal plan.<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: justify;\">The evangelistic method used here was logical and intellectual. Faith came through understanding. The addition of the word\u00a0<em>daily<\/em> indicates that this was not a slow process but a consistent investigation, listening, and believing. Many of them believed in the gospel because Paul clearly explained it based on the Scripture, which was the primary authority for diaspora Jews like those in Berea. Like in Thessalonica (verse 4), many prominent women and men believed. That Luke notes the women first adds to his interest through his writings of showing how women also believed. An emotional appeal can be helpful in evangelism, but emotions come and go. Explaining the gospel in logical, consistent, and authoritative ways can produce lasting fruit. However, there needs to be a commonly accepted authority. People need to accept the authority of the bible if they are going to listen to what it says about Jesus.<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: justify;\">\n<p style=\"text-align: justify;\">\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Acts 17:10-15 10So the brothers immediately sent Paul and Silas away by night to Berea; after they arrived, they went into the synagogue of the Jews. 11Now these Jews were more noble than those in Thessalonica; they received the word with all eagerness, examining the Scriptures daily to see if these things were so. 12Therefore, [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-14524","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-devotions","post-preview"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/acky4.com\/wp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/14524","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/acky4.com\/wp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/acky4.com\/wp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/acky4.com\/wp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/acky4.com\/wp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=14524"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"http:\/\/acky4.com\/wp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/14524\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":14548,"href":"http:\/\/acky4.com\/wp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/14524\/revisions\/14548"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/acky4.com\/wp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=14524"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/acky4.com\/wp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=14524"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/acky4.com\/wp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=14524"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}