Trip 2 Europe: Thessalonica & Berea
Notes
Transcript
“What life’s all about...”
“What life’s all about...”
What if you’re wrong… they’re wrong.
Every story that resonates has some overlap with reality -
// what is it in your life that matters most - what do you get most upset about?
The Gospel: causes trouble
The Gospel: causes trouble
Everywhere Christianity goes, it upsets the status quo.
6 But when they did not 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,
Trouble follows the good news about Jesus because it challenges all the previously held assumptions/presumptions about what life is all about.
For the Thessalonians: wealth, good life
“So long as nature does not change, Thessalonica will remain wealthy and fortunate.” Meletius
Port - largest in Eastern Mediterranean
Marketplace.
The good life in a bustling sea port.
Commerce, money, sex, freedom, peace (go read 1 Thessalonians if you think we’re overplaying this).
A story about ‘what life is about’, a dogma, that offers security, peace, fulfilment.
Part of their story:
A Thessalonian coin - Caesar as god.
Best way to ‘out’ Christians - sacrifice to emperor.
What are our towns gods? The things for which they’re willing to use up their energy and spend their time - to be satisfied? [peace, experience, justice, family, belonging, recognition, , anti-fracking/environmental, reconciliation - which good thing (for the concerns are all overlaps), has become a god-thing
9 for they themselves report what kind of reception you gave us. They tell how you turned to God from idols to serve the living and true God,
Christianity upends social order.
[Christianity a crutch? - no, a foundation. Moves people from faulty crutches, to a true foundation:
7 and Jason has welcomed them into his house. They are all defying Caesar’s decrees, saying that there is another king, one called Jesus.”
There’s a challenge to the status quo, to the story of what life is all about - to the being who makes fulfilment possible.
And the challenge even includes guilt by association.
Where are we?
Common pattern:
synagogue (when it exists), announce good news about Jesus, some trust, some oppose it, in both towns of Thessalonica and Berea they leave for their safety, and the church family ensure this happens.
God’s account of what it’s all about
13 But when the Jews in Thessalonica learned that Paul was preaching the word of God at Berea, some of them went there too, agitating the crowds and stirring them up.
The Gospel: Life’s meaning according to God
The Gospel: Life’s meaning according to God
God’s word. The account of life according to God.
Acts 17:3 (NIV)
3 explaining and proving that the Messiah had to suffer and rise from the dead. “This Jesus I am proclaiming to you is the Messiah,” he said.
explaining and proving: This was God’s plan - God is at work
The Messiah - God’s chosen ruler
had to suffer (his death for our sins - see 1 Cor 15:3
and rise
Here is the very dangerous, troublesome account of life according to God:
God has a big plan
To deal with a big problem: sin (and his holiness therefore excluding sinners)
holiness matters, sin matters
To make a big rescue: God takes on human flesh, and faces the judgment of death
humanity matters especially to God, the body is of value - God himself becomes flesh
To overcome death: God the Son, Jesus, is risen from dead
- justice matters, God does keep a record, death is not inevitable
Declares Jesus is in charge
not Caesar, or you or me, or family, or work/company
universal, global, equalizing - Greeks, Jews, elite, simple
You can see how it has overlaps with so many fake gods.
Christopher Hitchens’s brother - Peter Hitchens:
“The most dangerous idea in human history and philosophy remains the belief that that Jesus Christ is the son of God and rose from the dead ... that is the most dangerous idea you will ever encounter."
"[It's dangerous] because it alters the whole of human behaviour and all our responsibilities. It turns the universe from meaningless chaos into a designed place in which there is justice and there is hope and therefore we all have the duty to discover the nature of that justice and work towards that hope.”
// claim to an ultimate: that’s what it’s all about //
// but how do you know?
The Gospel: As told by God
The Gospel: As told by God
2 As was his custom, Paul went into the synagogue, and on three Sabbath days he reasoned with them from the Scriptures,
Where does Paul go? The Scriptures.
Sure, it’s amongst the Jewish folk who also share this.
In Athens (next week), he knows God’s Big Story so well he can tell it.
In front of King Agrippa he makes it the basis of his hope
6 And now it is because of my hope in what God has promised our ancestors that I am on trial today.
3 For what I received I passed on to you as of first importance: that Christ died for our sins according to the Scriptures,
4 that he was buried, that he was raised on the third day according to the Scriptures,
This is to Gentiles - and what he passes on.
In Berea luke tells us how to respond to that:
Acts 17:11 (NIV)
11 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.
And this is how it is received in Thessalonica:
13 And we also thank God continually because, when you received the word of God, which you heard from us, you accepted it not as a human word, but as it actually is, the word of God, which is indeed at work in you who believe.
Three things to say:
it is our only reliable authority on what life is all about [everything else is human’s speculating and pooling their speculations]
it is the highlight of our gathering, of pastoral ministry, and should be of every Christian:
they were examining the Scriptures daily to know the truth.
less than half of us meet during the week to examine the Scriptures together - pretty poor, for people who claim to follow God - but don’t seem to prioritize listening to him
PTC course interest?
final thing: we thank God, because you received it as the Word of God - this is God’s work. None of us has to seal the deal with outsiders or with insiders - but we can be confident in this Word of God about what life is all about.