February 5, 2023 · Acts 17:10–11

Bible-Believing Bereans

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.

“The first thing is that there's three basic factors that cause the Bible, I believe, to be central to our faith. The first thing is that the Bible is central to our faith because of what it is. The Bible is the word of God. It is a revelation from God himself. God understands that we humans communicate in language. We like to talk, and so he recognized: what I need to do is put the things down in this form. And this is the way they can receive what I want for them, and they'll understand it. And hopefully they'll listen to it. But I'm going to actually speak to them in their own language. Think about that. If you know anything about teaching children or talking to children, it's really important, if you're going to educate them, that you get down to the same level as them. You sit down, talk to them, speak to them, let them speak. That's what God's doing here with the Scriptures. I want to get down to their level. Then he doubled down and actually came down to our level through Jesus Christ — the word of God, the living Word himself, who is the fulfilment of all the Scriptures. But this is the revelation of God. It has an eternal perspective. It has absolute and final authority for the believer. This is God's work, and I want to point out another thing here. The Bible is not primarily about you. It's not primarily about helping you get the thing that fixes you and makes you better. The main purpose of the Bible is for us to get to know God. Theology before praxis. Learning about who God is, how he loves us, and everything about who he is — that's what's going to transform me.”