What do you do when someone tells you something new? Not small talk or a fun fact, but something that claims to be a foundational truth about your very life?
I’ve had a lot of conversations with people about God, and about how the only way to be saved from our sins and have eternal life is through Jesus Christ. Many of them rejected it on the spot.
“I can’t believe that.”
“If there’s a God, then why do I suffer? Why do so many people suffer?”
“I believe in science.”
“I could never just blindly believe in some unseen God out there somewhere.”
“I don’t have that kind of faith.”
Some were open to the idea of a god. But Jesus being the only way? No, they didn’t believe that.
So they shut it down. They didn’t even want to hear what I had to say.
I’VE DONE IT TOO
If I’m being honest, I’ve done the same thing, and I did it as a Christian.
When I was beginning my call into ministry, I sat down for lunch with another ministry leader. He started talking about grace in the Bible, and in a nutshell, here’s what he said:
Jesus + Nothing = Everything.
My immediate reaction was, “Nope. I don’t believe that.”
I pushed back with other Scripture. “What about James 2 and faith without works being dead? What about Jesus saying we have to take up our cross and follow Him to be true disciples?”
Without realizing it, I was arguing for a different equation: Jesus + My Commitment + My Surrender + My Good Works = Everything.
He answered every objection I raised from Scripture. But instead of being open to what he was saying, I put up a wall. I wouldn’t let myself consider these new ideas or the truths he was trying to show me.
So what about you?
What’s your normal response to new ideas, or to truths that are different from what you’ve heard or believed before? Do you reject them right away? Or do you go the other direction and accept them automatically? “They sound like they know what they’re talking about, so I guess it’s true.”
How are we supposed to respond? Acts 17 gives us the answer.
PAUL REASONED WITH THEM
On his second missionary journey, Paul and his companions came to Thessalonica, the capital of Macedonia. It was a major seaport with a lot of commercial trade, and some historians estimate that as many as 200,000 people lived there at the time. There was a Jewish synagogue in the city, and that’s where Paul went first.
“As was his custom, Paul went into the synagogue, and on three Sabbath days he reasoned with them from the Scriptures, explaining and proving that the Messiah had to suffer and rise from the dead.” (Acts 17:2–3)
Notice the word Luke uses: Paul reasoned with them.
That matters, because you’ll hear a lot of people say that believing in God takes blind faith. You can’t see Him and there’s no proof He exists, so religion is for people who can work up that kind of blind faith.
That isn’t what Paul did. He didn’t walk into the synagogue and tell people to believe blindly, and he didn’t tell them to go looking for an emotional feeling to believe in.
He reasoned with them. Christianity is a reasonable faith.
J. Warner Wallace describes biblical faith as “a reasoned trust in light of the evidence.”
Christianity is not a blind faith. It’s a reasonable faith.
A MESSIAH THEY DIDN’T EXPECT
Paul’s audience in Thessalonica didn’t doubt that God existed. Their problem was that they didn’t believe Jesus was the Messiah.
So Paul reasoned with them from the Scriptures. He laid out the evidence and showed them that the Messiah had to suffer and rise from the dead.
Why start there? Because that wasn’t the Messiah they were expecting. The common Jewish hope was for a conquering King who would restore Israel’s fortunes, defeat its enemies, and set up His kingdom on earth. A Messiah who would suffer and die at the hands of His own people was almost unthinkable.
So how do you convince people of something that new? Paul reasoned, explained, and proved it from the Old Testament Scriptures.
He used the Old Testament to show, carefully and reasonably, that Jesus fulfilled the prophecies about the Messiah. Then he made the claim plainly:
“This Jesus I am proclaiming to you is the Messiah.” (Acts 17:3)
Jesus is the One the Scriptures pointed to. He had to suffer for the forgiveness of our sins, and He was raised from the dead so we could be reconciled to God and receive eternal life.
TWO RESPONSES
“Some of the Jews were persuaded and joined Paul and Silas, as did a large number of God-fearing Greeks and quite a few prominent women.” (Acts 17:4)
Some people were persuaded. They looked at the evidence, stayed open to what Paul was saying, and put their faith in Jesus. Their sins were forgiven, they were joined in spiritual union with Christ, and they became family with Paul and Silas in the church.
Others closed their minds and hardened their hearts against where the evidence was leading.
“But other Jews were jealous; so they rounded up some bad characters from the marketplace, formed a mob and started a riot in the city.” (Acts 17:5)
When people cling to legalistic religion and someone starts talking about grace through Jesus, it can bring out the worst in them. They couldn’t refute Paul’s argument, so they turned to a mob.
They stormed Jason’s house looking for Paul and Silas. When they couldn’t find them, they dragged Jason and some other believers before the city officials, shouting:
“These men who have caused trouble all over the world have now come here... They are all defying Caesar’s decrees, saying that there is another king, one called Jesus.” (Acts 17:6–7)
Verse 6 can be translated literally as “these men who have turned the world upside down.” They meant it as an accusation, but it works as a backhanded compliment, because it was true.
These early believers were taking the values of this world and flipping them over, or really, turning them right-side up, to show the values of King Jesus. They put humility, service, and sacrifice ahead of power, wealth, and status. The same thing still happens today when we live by the Spirit and let Him produce His fruit in us and through us.
THE BEREAN WAY
After the uproar, the believers sent Paul and Silas away at night to Berea, about 40 to 50 miles away. Berea was much smaller, maybe 6,000 people, and its culture was very different.
“Now the Berean Jews were of more noble character than those in Thessalonica...” (Acts 17:11)
What does it mean that they were “of more noble character”?
The word can refer to noble birth, people of high status. It can also refer to noble character and attitudes, and that’s Luke’s meaning here. The Bereans were open-minded and unprejudiced.
When they heard new ideas, they didn’t harden their hearts or shut down the possibility that those ideas might be true.
They also didn’t just take Paul’s word for it. Being open-minded didn’t mean believing every idea that came along. Look at how the verse continues:
“...for they received the message with great eagerness and examined the Scriptures every day to see if what Paul said was true.” (Acts 17:11)
That’s how it’s supposed to be done.
They received the message. The word means to take a favorable attitude toward something. They didn’t reject Paul’s message right away or push it off with clenched fists. They welcomed it with open hands as something that might be true.
They received it with great eagerness. They were like kids in a candy store, unable to wait to dig in and see whether it was true.
They examined the Scriptures. This word means to interrogate or cross-examine, the way a witness is questioned in a court of law.
So the Bereans were eager and open to the message being true. But before they reached a verdict on Paul’s preaching, they sifted through what he said to see whether it lined up with Scripture.
And here’s what happened:
“As a result, many of them believed, as did also a number of prominent Greek women and many Greek men.” (Acts 17:12)
Because they were willing to follow the evidence wherever it led, they saw that Paul was telling the truth. The Messiah had to suffer. God is holy and just, and He can’t turn a blind eye to sin. Justice has to be served, and the penalty for sin is death. The only way to rescue sinners from God’s wrath was for the sinless Messiah to take that wrath on Himself and satisfy the righteous demands of a holy God.
So they believed. Their sins were forgiven, and they received eternal life.
IF YOU’VE NEVER BELIEVED
If you’ve never put your faith in Jesus, I hope you’ll be like the Bereans.
Be open to the gospel and don’t harden your heart right away. If you’re still not convinced, don’t take my word for it. Examine the evidence for yourself with an open mind.
Start with the evidence for a Creator. Frank Turek wrote a book titled I Don’t Have Enough Faith to Be an Atheist, and his point is that if we honestly follow where the evidence leads, it takes more faith to be an atheist than to believe in God.
But don’t stop at being open to the existence of God. Be open to Jesus being who He said He was, the Messiah Paul proclaimed.
Follow the evidence for the resurrection. Be open to what Scripture says about what Jesus accomplished: He paid the penalty for your sins through His death on the cross, and He defeated the power of sin and death through His resurrection.
And be open to receiving His free gift of salvation by putting your faith in Jesus as “the way and the truth and the life,” the only way anyone comes to the Father (John 14:6).
IF YOU ARE ALREADY IN CHRIST
This passage isn’t only for skeptics. It also shows those of us who are already in Christ how to respond to new ideas and teaching, whether it comes from preachers, teachers, authors, or Christian friends.
We’re supposed to be open-minded and to examine the Scriptures while the Holy Spirit reveals His truth to us. Sometimes He’ll show us that the new idea isn’t true.
Other times, He’ll change our minds.
Remember that lunch where I shut down the idea that Jesus + Nothing = Everything? I went home and told my wife, Natalie, about it, and she said what she almost always says: “God will show us.”
So I opened up. For an entire year, we read Scripture. We read books and checked them against Scripture. We listened to sermons and did small group studies with other men and women, investigating, examining, and pursuing the truth.
Eventually, the Holy Spirit turned the lights on.
We saw that because of Christ’s finished work, the threat of failure, judgment, and condemnation has been removed for those who are in Him, and that’s permanent. Nothing we do can make God love us more, and nothing we do can make Him love us less. Everything we’ve longed for and could never secure for ourselves is already ours in Christ: pardon, approval, purpose, freedom, righteousness, worth, and belonging. We don’t need to add anything to it.
The same grace that makes you a Christian is the grace that keeps you a Christian. It’s unconditional, undeserved, and unrestrained, and it rests completely on the finished work of Jesus. The banner over the Christian life reads “It is finished.”
Jesus plus nothing equals everything; everything minus Jesus equals nothing.”
You are free.
WHAT IS THE SPIRIT LEADING YOU TO BE OPEN TO?
Natalie and I are living in that freedom now, and it came after we chose to be open-minded and search the Scriptures for the truth.
So what is the Holy Spirit leading you to be open to?
Maybe it’s the gospel itself. Maybe it’s a deeper understanding of grace that’s hard to accept because it feels too good to be true. Whatever it is, don’t clench your fists. Receive it eagerly, examine it carefully, and trust the Spirit to lead you into the truth.
Be a Berean. Trust Him and dive in today.
