Acts 17:11 - What marks a congregation of Noble Character?

“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.”

I’ve lost count of the number of times I’ve heard someone preach, “Don’t just believe me, go and read the Bible for yourself!” Which is a direct link to this passage. We look at the Bereans and want our congregations to have that same desire to go and examine the Scriptures for themselves. 

But there’s a gap between what we’d love to see our congregation doing and what they actually do. That gap is discipleship. So let’s have a look at the things that marked the Berean Jews as having a Noble Character, and what we can do to help bridge the gap.

1.  They receive the Word with eagerness

I’m disappointed about the number of times I’ve seen people who I expect to be mature disciples of Christ; but instead of receiving the Word with eagerness, they receive it with a sense of arrogance. They’re like Anton Ego, the food critic from the hit Disney-Pixar movie Ratatouille who said, “I don’t like food, I love it. And unless I love, I don’t swallow.” Does that sound like he truly loves food? Compare that to taking a child to get dessert. You can see the excitement in their eyes, they can’t wait to dive in. Soon enough the excitement, and the food, is all over their face.

Who loves the food more, the food critic or the child?

Who receives the Word, the one who sits back, arms folded, waiting to be impressed; or the person who leans forward in his or her chair, listening intently to hear the Word of God?

The Bereans were marked by a sense of eagerness. Eagerness is the outward expression of a soft heart towards God. You can’t be eager and cynical at the same time. I’m not suggesting your congregation must always be clapping at every point or shouting “Amen” or “that’s good!” after every sentence (although, that’s no bad thing), but look at the body language of your congregation… are they eager?

The mark of a noble charactered church is in how they receive the Word.

At the end of the movie, Anton Ego eats the Remy the Rat’s ratatouille, and finds his inner child who fell in love with food. He waltzes into the Remy’s restaurant with joy, you can see it on his face. He’s no longer the sullen old man. He’s changed. He has a sense of eagerness. He’s not pridefully demanding to be impressed, he says to the waiter with a smile, “Surprise me!”.

Would that we all come to a church service, a small group or course with that same attitude. “Surprise me! I’m eager to hear what God will say to me!”

2.  They see Scripture as authoritative

The Bereans didn’t just mindlessly receive the Word though, they went back to Scripture to confirm it. This means that they saw Scripture as authoritative. The authority, as well as the inspiration and inerrancy of Scripture, is one of the most under-attack doctrines in Christendom at the moment.

I recently heard someone say on a Podcast, “I like Jesus, I’m sceptical of Paul.” And this was said by a so-called minister talking about Scripture.

If we are to have congregations of noble character, we need to be teaching the inspiration, authority, and inerrancy of Scripture. Otherwise, with what will people examine truth? They will examine their own hearts and feelings, the very thing Scripture calls “deceitful above all things” (Jeremiah 17:9). 

We used to be able to assume that Scripture is authoritative, but no more. TikTok, Instagram and YouTube are providing persuasive teaching that goes directly against this orthodox doctrine. We need to teach and keep re-teaching this.

The inspiration, authority and inerrancy of Scripture doesn’t need to be taught as something that engenders fear, though. It isn’t a rigid doctrine, but something that is flexible. As the Chicago Statement (1978) says, “Holy Scripture, being God's own Word, written by men prepared and superintended by His Spirit, is of infallible divine authority in all matters upon which it touches: it is to be believed, as God's instruction, in all that it affirms, obeyed, as God's command, in all that it requires; embraced, as God's pledge, in all that it promises. 

It goes on to say, “We affirm that the text of Scripture is to be interpreted by grammatico-historicaI exegesis, taking account of its literary forms and devices, and that Scripture is to interpret Scripture. We deny the legitimacy of any treatment of the text or quest for sources lying behind it that leads to relativizing, dehistoricizlng, or discounting its teaching, or rejecting its claims to authorship.”

It's infallible in what it touches, affirms, requires, and promises. That means that we can encourage people who are struggling with some of the finer points of Scripture without them needing to jettison their faith.

3.  They knew how to examine Scripture for themselves

The fact that the Bereans examined Scripture means that they knew how to examine Scripture. That cannot be said of many Christians today. We can either go too heavy or too light on light on this.

On one hand, we can go too heavy and say that unless people go and learn the original Greek and Hebrew texts, they’ll never be able to understand Scripture. This is patently not true. Most people throughout history have been able to understand Scripture without having to learn the original languages. An approach like this would not be helpful to the vast numbers of Christians who will never have the luxury to learn not one but two languages. Not that I’m against learning the languages of the Bible, it’s a very worthy endeavour, it’s just not for everyone. More realistic is helping the congregation to understand the Scriptures in context. We can help them read Scripture and process through the main themes of the Bible, to help them understand the overviews of each book, the literary context, the historical context and so on.

We can also go too light on examination. “What did you get out of it, what does it mean to you?” That’s helpful to a point, but it runs a big risk of people reading into the text (eisegesis) what they want (science, prosperity, secularism, post-modernity etc) rather than what the text actually says. That’s not to say God can’t speak prophetically through a passage where the message doesn’t reflect the author’s intention, but we should do that carefully, and must fit in with Scripture more broadly.

We must give our congregation tools in how to process a message correctly. Just saying “go read it for yourself” is an insufficient and careless statement today.

If we can help our congregations receive the Word eagerly, view Scripture as authoritative, and know how to examine the Scriptures, I’m confident we’ll be able to have a more Berean Church.