(Continued part 2)
Furthermore, the Jews did not believe that their coming Messiah had to “suffer,” let alone “rise from the dead.” Most of the Jews expected their Messiah to be a powerful king who would save them from Gentile rule. In their view, he would not have to rise from the dead because he would establish himself as an eternal king who would rule forever over the Jews’ enemies. They simply did not understand the many Old Testament passages which spoke of the Messiah as a suffering servant who had to die ¬a suffering he underwent precisely for their sin of disbelief in him (cf., Isaiah 53:10-12;Luke 24:46).
In Thessalonica, it was Paul’s statement that “the Christ” of the Old Testament was the “Jesus” of the New, which caused such contention and jealousy among the Jews. In Acts17:5-7 Luke records their response:
5 But the Jewish leaders were jealous, so they gathered some worthless fellows from the streets to form a mob and start a riot. They attacked the home of Jason, searching for Paul and Silas so they could drag them out to the crowd. 6 Not finding them there, they dragged out Jason and some of the other believers instead and took them before the city council. “Paul and Silas have turned the rest of the world upside down, and now they are here disturbing our city,” they shouted. 7 “And Jason has let them into his home. They are all guilty of treason against Caesar, for they profess allegiance to another king, Jesus.”
It is apparent by their last words, “another king, Jesus,” that the Jews were simply not ready to accept the Christ of the Old Testament as the Jesus of the New. Hence Paul and the Jews of Thessalonica were not contending about the veracity or usefulness of Scripture; rather, it was Paul’s interpretation of Scripture that they could not accept.
Everyone believed Scripture’s prophecy about the coming Messiah. But the information that the Christ was “Jesus” who had recently suffered and died at the hands of the Jews was something Paul was getting from another source outside Scripture. This new information would, of course, correlate with Scripture but it would none the less be in addition to Scripture.
Such was the case, in fact, in Paul’s own conversion. He had to be convinced through additional divine revelation that the people who followed “Jesus,” and whom he was persecuting, were in actuality followers of “the Christ.” In Acts 9:5, after being knocked off his horse by a flash of light, the Lord said to Paul, “I am Jesus, whom you are persecuting…” At that instant Paul recognized that his long¬ awaited Messiah was the “Jesus” who had suffered and died a decade or so earlier.
(Notice the attention Acts gives to identifying Jesus as Messiah, cf., Acts 1:1, 11;2:22, 32, 36; 3:13, 26; 4:27-33; 5:30; 7:55; 8:35; 10:38; 13:23; 18:5, 28; 25:19; 28:23). It was not Scripture that brought him to this point but a revelation from Jesus himself showing Paul how the Old Testament Scriptures were to be interpreted.
When Paul arrived in Berea, he acted just as he did in Thessalonica — he went to the synagogue to teach. We may assume that he engaged in similar “arguing,” “explaining” and “proving” from Scripture with the Bereans that he had done with the Thessalonians. We may also assume that Paul, as in Thessalonica, made it a point to teach the Bereans that the Christ of the Old Testament was the Jesus of the New. The Bereans received Paul’s interpretation of Scripture without hesitation.
But why, we ask, did Luke consider the Jews of Berea more “noble” than the Jews in Thessalonica, when, according to Luke’s description of the Thessalonians in Acts 17:4, “And some of them were persuaded, and joined Paul and Silas; as did a great many of the devout Greeks and not a few of the leading women.”
It is obvious that not all the Jews in Thessalonica had rejected Paul’s interpretation of Scripture. Wouldn’t Luke consider these Jews “noble” for accepting Paul’s message? The answer is yes, but these noble Jews were so badly outnumbered by the jealous and riotous Jews who rejected Paul’s message that Luke was forced to sum up the situation in Thessalonica as one of general unbelief. We see this also in the way he describes how many people were positively influenced by Paul’s message. Regarding the Thessalonians in Acts 17:4 he points out that only “some of the Jews were persuaded,” while in regard to the Bereans in Acts 17:12 he says “many of the Jews believed…” (“Some” is from the Greek word tines, while “many” is from the Greek work polloi).
Apparently, the number of believing Jews in Berea were of a sufficient quantity that Luke could designate them, at large, as “noble” in contrast to the overall negative disposition of the people in Thessalonica. Moreover, the unbelieving Jews of Thessalonica further justified Luke’s negative assessment since they caused riots among the people both in Thessalonica and later in Berea (cf., 17:5-9 and 17:13-15).
Acts 17:11 dose not support Sola Scriptura.
