Acts tends to be my favourite NT book. Glad to meet someone else who likes it.
That’s my problem with Ray’s article, he snipped the text a bit too much, like a TBS movie .
In Thessalonica, there were a number who listened, consulted the Scriptures and believed. There was also a group of Jews who became jealous and stirred up hostility toward Paul.
In Berea, no such jealous group existed, initially. It was only after thessalonians arrived and stirred up some of the citizens that there were problems.
In both areas there were people who listened, checked out the scripures and accepted Paul’s teaching when they saw it lined up with the scripture they had prior confidence in.
I agree that this doesn’t teach
sola scriptura-I never implied it did. As you point out, the Old Testament only was used by the church-or in this case non-church members who evaluated the teaching of the Apostle. All it points out is that Luke doesn’t portray those who assess Apostolic teaching against Scripture in a negative light. Luke doesn’t say one “must” do it this way, but he doesn’t condemn it either.
My biggest problem with Ray’s article is that he tries to make the problem in Thessalonika to be the result of rejection of new revelation, rather than jealousy as Luke clearly states in the text. Ray’s reading that into the text.
As I said, take a good look at the whole chapter and see if Ray hasn’t taken a shortcut or two. Let me know what you think.
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