First Baptist Church of Paris

First Baptist Church of Paris Founded in 1791, this church sits atop Paris Hill and has services at 10AM on Sundays.

The historic building has a clock donated by the Honorable Hannibal Hamlin, and one of only 11 Revere bells in Maine.

09/08/2026

September 6, 2026
Speaker: Doug Twitchell
Areopagus Part 2
Romans 13:8-14; Acts 17:22-32

Last week we talked about Paul going to Athens. Once there, he walked around the city and was distressed by the many idols he saw. But amongst those idols he saw one that was “to an unknown God.” That gave him a launching point for his sermon.

If a Bible School or Seminary professor graded Paul on his presentation of the gospel, they would fail him because he never once mentioned the crucifixion. The fact is, Paul wasn’t exactly preaching the gospel; he was setting the stage for the gospel. We will see at the end that some people sneered and walked away while others stayed and wanted to hear more. So, we shouldn’t be too quick to judge Paul.

This reminds me of a time when I did a ventriloquism show and Bible lesson for a Sunday school class. The following
week, the pastor invited me to come over and watch a video with him. He sat me down in front of the television, handed me a notebook and a pencil, started the video and walked away. It was a video about how to present the gospel. So, I watched it. When the video was over, he came back and said, “Now you know how to do it.” I said, “do what.” He said, “teach the gospel to a group of children.” I told him, if he thought I was teaching the gospel to the Sunday school class, he’d never asked me to. I was teaching a lesson on Christian growth for believers. He’d assumed what I was trying to accomplish and therefore felt I was doing it incorrectly.

So, we shouldn’t judge Paul too harshly for not covering all the bases – the bases that people told us we need to cover when we present the “Roman Road” teaching of the gospel. Paul is doing something very different here that leads into the gospel. Really, no one was better equipped for the job than Paul. He grew up in Tarsus, which was a center of Greek philosophy, and he had Jewish religious training. He knew all the things the Greeks believed and clearly understood the difference between how Greeks viewed “God” and how Jews and Christians viewed God. Paul put his knowledge to use and set the stage for the Greeks to hear the gospel. He was knocking down all the issues that would get in the way of them believing the gospel when he finally did present it to them.

I’d like to point out also that Paul was very non-confrontational in his approach. There were so many ways the Greeks were wrong in their views about who God is, but he didn’t tell them that they were wrong. He did say they were ignorant a few times, but that was after they recognized and voiced their ignorance of this “unknown god.” Paul was just acknowledging what they said. I think this is a good lesson for us to remember. People are more teachable when someone doesn’t start right off by saying, “You’re wrong.” Let the truth be your focus when you share your faith.

Now, we’re going to look at how Paul’s understanding of Greek philosophy, religion and mythology shaped the message that he gave to the Greeks.

We begin with Paul saying, “The God, who made the world and everything in it.” Paul addressed, right off the bat, the biggest issue that he saw between his core views and the Greek’s views of “God.” Paul was a monotheist and they were polytheists. Paul said, “there is one God, Jehovah, the Lord, and you believe in a multitude of gods. So let me tell you about the God.”

In polytheism, there wasn’t one god who ruled everything. We think of Zeus as the king of gods in Greek mythology, but even he wasn’t truly supreme. He was the son of Cronos who was the supreme god before him, whom he dethroned. Then, Zeus shared the throne with his brothers Poseidon and Hades. He was even a victim of a revolt by the gods and was temporarily bound by some of the other gods. So, we might think Zeus was the Greek’s supreme god, but they really didn’t have one, at least not in the sense Paul was talking about. There is the one God who does everything. Paul started with a notion that was foreign to the Greeks – the ONE God who created everything and has rule over everything in heaven and on earth, not like Zeus and Poseidon sharing control of the universe. There is ONE God who controls everything.

Paul continued, pointing out that God doesn’t live in temples built by human hands.

Acts 17:24 “The God who made the world and everything in it is the Lord of heaven and earth and does not live in temples built by human hands.”

The Greeks saw their temples as dwelling places for their gods. Paul said it’s not like that. We might ask, but didn’t God live in the temple and tabernacle in the Old Testament? Not exactly. God’s glory filled the temple, but it wasn’t His dwelling place. When Solomen dedicated the temple, he said God couldn’t be contained.

1 Kings 8:27 “But will God really dwell on earth? The heavens, even the highest heaven, cannot contain you. How much less this temple I have built!”

Solomon continued with this:

1 Kings 8:28-30 “Yet give attention to your servant’s prayer and his plea for mercy, Lord my God. Hear the cry and the prayer that your servant is praying in your presence this day. 29 May your eyes open toward this temple night and day, this place of which you said, ‘My Name shall be there,’ so that you will hear the prayer your servant prays toward this place. 30 Hear the supplication of your servant and of your people Israel when they pray toward this place. Hear from heaven, your dwelling place, and when you hear, forgive.”

So, the Old Testament view is not that God resides physically in a building, but rather this is a building that has His attention, but He’s too big to be contained.

Acts 17:25 “And he is not served by human hands, as if he needed anything….”

God is fully self-sufficient. This reminds me of the story of Bel in the Apocrypha (book/writings that some say are part of the Bible but are not included in the Bible). “The Babylonians worship a clay and brass idol named Bel. They leave huge amounts of food and wine for it every day. Daniel proves that the idol is fake by secretly spreading ashes on the temple floor. The footprints reveal that the pagan priests and their families sneak in at night to eat the food.” So, we have a little mystery story from back in Daniel’s time. He was the investigator who solved the mystery. The point is, the Babylonians thought they needed to bring food to their god. But our God is self-sufficient. He doesn’t need anything from us.

Acts 17:25 “…Rather, he himself gives everyone life and breath and everything else.”

Here, Paul set God up as a contrast to the Greek deities who were always fighting one another, seeking power over one another, and using humans as pawns in their wars. Paul said the unknown God, the one they didn’t know about, isn’t like any of the others. He is the one who gives instead of taking. This reminds me of:

James 1:17 “Every good and perfect gift is from above, coming down from the Father of the heavenly lights, who does not change like shifting shadows.”

He is a giver, not a taker.

In the process, Paul mentioned that God is the creator of humanity. In Greek mythology humanity wasn’t created by the chief god Zeus, but by one of the Titans who came before him and was eventually bound in the underworld for eternity. Throughout all of this, though, Paul never told the Greeks that they were wrong thinking Zeus or Poseidon were creators of humanity. Paul simply stated that the “unknown God” is the creator of humanity, and He is still around to care about it. He focused on what is true. To the Greeks, the idea that the God who created humanity is still around to be part of His creation would have been shocking.

Acts 17:26 “From one man he made all the nations, that they should inhabit the whole earth; and he marked out their appointed times in history and the boundaries of their lands.”

Here’s another contrast. In Greek mythology they considered Zeus as the most powerful god, but he didn’t have control over the events of man. Yes, he could throw thunderbolts and all the rest, but in Greek mythology, the three fates (the three sisters) were more powerful when it came to controlling the fate of humans and nations. Zeus had no control over humans. That control was spread out among these deities who had different roles. Paul pointed out that the “unknown God” is ONE God who has control over all humanity. He handles it all.

Up to this point, Paul was painting a picture of God, who has qualities the Greek gods never dreamed of – self-sufficient, eternal, creative, and powerful.

The comment Paul made about “marking out their appointed times in history and the boundaries of their lands” follows up in verse 27.

Acts 17:27 “God did this so that they would seek him and perhaps reach out for him and find him, though he is not far from any one of us.”

How does God setting up boundaries and guiding history cause people to seek Him? I think (though I could be wrong) that this is Paul’s first real subtle mention of Christ, because before His crucifixion, before He went to the cross, Jesus said, “If I am lifted up, I will draw all men to myself.” God created boundaries and guided history all through the Old Testament to prepare the way for the coming of the Savior who would be crucified, and in His crucifixion would draw all men to Himself. He did that so that (verse 27) “they would seek Him, and perhaps reach out for him and find him, though he is not far from any one of us.” This was very different from the Greek gods. There is no sense of their gods wanting to be “close” to humanity. Paul was suggesting something shocking – that this “unknown god” wanted to be near humanity, know humanity and to be known. This reminds me of what Paul said in 1 Corinthians 13:12 – that someday “then I shall know fully, even as I am fully known.”

Jesus connected God’s all-knowing nature and his all-loving nature by pointing out that just as God keeps track of the number of hairs on your head, and he cares enough about the sparrows that he notices every time one falls to the ground. Surely, he must care for you even more. Paul presented a very different picture of who God is.

Acts 17:28 “’For in him we live and move and have our being.’ As some of your own poets have said, ‘We are his offspring.’”

Once again, Paul found some common ground with the Greeks. Around 300 B.C. a Greek poet wrote a poem which included a reference to humanity as being Zeus’s offspring. Paul, in all his knowledge of Greek literature and philosophy, had read this poem. With that line stuck in his head, he said, “Here’s something you believe in. I believe the same thing about this ‘unknown god’ – that we are His offspring.”

Acts 17:29 “Therefore since we are God’s offspring, we should not think that the divine being is like gold or silver or stone—an image made by human design and skill.”

Paul’s point was this: if we are created by God, then God is not created by us. So, what’s the point of all your idols? You just created them yourselves. So, the idols can’t be god because God created you. And if we are not made of silver and stone, why should we assume our God our Father is?

Acts 17:30 “In the past God overlooked such ignorance, but now he commands all people everywhere to repent.

Yes, Paul referred to their ignorance, but they admitted their ignorance earlier. He wasn’t being rude but was acknowledging what they had already said. Paul pointed out that now that they knew who the “unknown god” is, it was time to turn away from their idol worship, their shrines and their temples and worship this one true God.

And now we get to the only actual mention of Jesus in Paul’s sermon.

Acts 17:31 “For he has set a day when he will judge the world with justice by the man he has appointed. He has given proof of this to everyone by raising him from the dead.”

Paul said, God is going to judge the world and there are two things you should know about God’s judgement. First, God is just; He will do what is right. He will judge the world with justice. And secondly, He has appointed someone to carry out this justice and judgment. (We know this person is Jesus.) The Greeks didn’t know this yet, and Paul hadn’t even mentioned Him by name. He’s the guy through whom the world will be judged. Paul skipped through everything about Jesus until this one final statement, the culmination of the gospel – “He has given proof of this to everyone by raising him from the dead.” Paul skipped the crucifixion and went straight to the resurrection. That’s interesting.

Even here, Paul addressed a difference between the gospel and the gods of the Greeks. In Greek mythology there really is no such thing as resurrection. In the rare case where resurrection happened, somebody was raised directly to Olympus, not the mortal world. In Greek mythology, there’s a whole story that serves as a cautionary tale to avoid messing with the underworld – Orpheus. His true love died, so he travelled down to the underworld to bring her back. Hades, the king of the underworld said Orpheus could take her with him but she needed to follow behind him, and he couldn’t look back to see if she was still there. Hades said if Orpheus could do that, his true love could return to life. They set off for the journey out of the underworld and at the very last moment, Orpheus panicked. He was afraid she wasn’t there behind him. He turned around to look, and he lost her forever. It’s a cautionary tale, saying don’t mess around with the underworld. The idea of a resurrection was so foreign to the Greeks. They laughed.

Who has seen the movie “Aladdin?” In it, the Genie played by Robin Williams said, “I can’t bring people back from the dead. It’s not a pretty picture.” That’s how the Greeks viewed resurrection.

Acts 7:32 “When they heard about the resurrection of the dead, some of them sneered, but others said, “We want to hear you again on this subject.”

The resurrection is a key part of the gospel message, and it was exactly this point that broke up the meeting. Some folks openly mocked Paul for presenting the idea that people could come back to life. Others came to him and said, “Uh, we would like to hear some more about this.”

There are a couple things to think about from this passage.

1) Paul managed to say all of this without once saying to the Greeks, “you’re wrong about who God is.” He simply told the truth and let them draw their own conclusions. I think there’s a good lesson for us in that. The truth is powerful. When we spend our time telling people they are WRONG, that’s not where the power is. Simply speak the truth and let people make their choices about what they’re going to believe.

2) It is important to know the Gospel, to understand that Jesus came, was crucified, buried and raised again, and all who believe in him have salvation, forgiveness, and eternal life. But what made Paul’s message powerful is not just that he understood the gospel, but that he understood the people he was speaking to. When it comes to sharing the good news, there is no one-size-fits-all way of presenting it, because each person is a unique creation. Don’t be afraid to tell people what you believe, trust God’s spirit to guide you, and don’t be discouraged. Even Paul had people scoff at what he shared. We have a message to share.

09/02/2026

August 30, 2026
Speaker: Doug Twitchell
Areopagus Part 1
Matthew 16:21-28, Acts 17:16-24

Our culture’s perception (and perhaps ours as well) of evangelism often includes things like people standing on street corners shouting at people as they walk by, people waving signs that say, “the end is near,” or people standing up in an airplane and lecturing a captive audience about sin and salvation. If any of these are part of your perception, I want to give that perception a nudge in a different direction, because our perceptions come from misunderstandings of some Biblical words and ideas. Paul’s visit to Athens in Acts 17 will help us address some of these.

First, “Evangelism” comes from the Greek word “evangelion” which means “good news.” That makes me think of the following verse from Isaiah:

Isaiah 52:7 “How beautiful on the mountains are the feet of those who bring good news, who proclaim peace, who bring good tidings, who proclaim salvation, who say to Zion, ‘Your God reigns!’”

God considers it beautiful when his people declare peace and good tidings, announce salvation, and promote God’s sovereignty. God sees this as such a beautiful thing that even the feet of the people doing these things are beautiful. I don’t consider feet beautiful; they’re often dirty. But God looks beyond the imperfections and considers it beautiful when we share the Good News.

Another popular image often associated with evangelism is of a dirty, bearded old “prophet” on a street corner with a sign stating, “The End is Near.” If you go to Google and search images related to “The End is Near,” you’ll come up with page after page of comic strips and pop culture references. I think this image of evangelism may, in part, come from Mark, chapter 1.

Mark 1:15 “The time has come,” he said. “The kingdom of God has come near…”

Here, Mark talked about Jesus traveling throughout the countryside, proclaiming good news that the Kingdom of God was drawing near. We use the term “drawing near” in a couple different ways - to mean either getting closer in space (or distance) or getting close in time. When I walk towards someone, I am “drawing near,” or getting closer to him or her. When we say the end of the sermon is drawing near, that means it’s approaching in time rather than space. So, we use this term “drawing near” in two very different ways.

In the Bible the term only means drawing near in time when it is accompanied by a time-based word, like the hour is near or the season is near. All other instances where the term “drawing near” is used, mean physically approaching. So, the guy standing on the street corner saying the “end is near” is using the wrong idea of what that term means.

In Mark 1:23 Jesus wasn’t saying the end of all things was coming near in time. He was saying God’s kingdom has approached you; it has come close to you. We’ll talk about this more when we get closer to Christmas because that’s one of the big deals of Christmas – that in the instant when Jesus came in the flesh, God was drawing near to us. When Jesus proclaimed, “the kingdom of God is near” he wasn’t declaring it as a threat. He was declaring it as a hopeful thing, a glorious, wonderful promise. This is background on how we should and shouldn’t look at evangelism.

When we finished last time, Paul left some of his co-workers behind in Berea to work with the church while he traveled on to avoid the mob. He went to Athens where he waited for the others to catch up.

Acts 17:16 “While Paul was waiting for them in Athens, he was greatly distressed to see that the city was full of idols.”

He explored the city and discovered there was a ridiculous number of idols, altars, and shrines set up to worship various gods. One writer claims there were 30,000 shrines and idols. Considering that the population was probably 5-10 thousand, that would suggest several idols per person. After seeing all the idols, altars and shrines, Paul was distressed. He was Jewish, and while he had Roman training and Roman citizenship, he was at heart a monotheist. There was one God, and no others. So, even though he started out waiting for his co-workers to show up, he realized that seeing all the shrines gave him the opportunity to talk about Jesus.

I think one of the things we struggle with when it comes to evangelism is that many of us grew up in churches where we were told, “you must tell people about Jesus” rather than, “you get to tell people about Jesus.” For Paul, sharing Jesus was a joy to be celebrated, and not a duty to be performed. He saw people who would benefit from hearing about Jesus, and he couldn’t wait to go tell them.

Baseball fans don’t have to be told, “You MUST tell people why you like the Red Sox so much.” They will tell you, whether or not they’ve been told to. It should be the same with us. If we have great love for Jesus, it should be a joy to tell others about Him.

Acts 17:17 “So he reasoned in the synagogue with both Jews and God-fearing Greeks, as well as in the marketplace day by day with those who happened to be there.”

Paul chose two locations where he would evangelize. First was the synagogue, where Jews met for worship, and were joined by gentiles who had rejected the polytheism and chose to believe in the One God. Second was the marketplace.

Because our culture is very different, we can easily misunderstand the nature of Paul’s ministry. We relate the synagogue to someone walking into church and disrupting the church service, maybe interrupting the preacher to preach his own sermon. How would you react to something like that? Generally, we would frown upon it. We might think this guy had “gone off the deep end,” and wonder who he thought he was marching into our church service and lecturing us about our theology. The religious meetings in synagogues were not much like our church services though. If anything, they were closer to Quaker meetings, where you sit in a circle, in silence, until ANYONE who has a word from God gets up and speaks. When that person finishes, it is silent again until someone else has a word from God and shares it. The synagogue was a little bit like that. They permitted anyone to talk. In fact, there could be multiple teachers at the same time in different areas of the synagogue with people asking questions and trying to get them to explain what they meant. Though it might seem that Paul was doing something rude by getting up to speak, it was common practice.

When we think of the marketplace, we might think of a modern-day equivalent like someone going to Hannaford and standing in the produce section to announce the good news of salvation through Jesus Christ. How do you think that would go over? This is also a bad comparison. I’ve been in a couple Middle Eastern and north African marketplaces, and I can tell you they are NOTHING like Hannaford. People shouted out to passersby to come buy what they had. Friends loudly greeted one another. People haggled over prices and stood around in groups having conversations. It was a very social place. Paul walking into this social place, striking up conversation to start telling people about Jesus, wasn’t at all like someone standing in the produce section at Hannaford and preaching. We need to understand that evangelizing in the marketplace is very different. Also note, that the phrase “reasoned with” used in this verse is the Greek word dialegomai- “dee a LEG o my” which means Dialogue. Paul wasn’t preaching. He found a group of people standing around chatting and started a conversation about religion and Jesus. He talked to them; they talked back to him. In this setting, Paul talking about Jesus was not out of the ordinary.

Acts 17:18 “A group of Epicurean and Stoic philosophers began to debate with him. Some of them asked, ‘What is this babble trying to say?’ Others remarked, ‘He seems to be advocating foreign gods.’ They said this because Paul was preaching the good news about Jesus and the resurrection.”

People debated with Paul. Philosophers especially loved to debate. So, when we have modern-day pictures of evangelists on street corners and in the marketplaces, we picture them as being obnoxious and obtrusive because our culture is different from theirs. Paul was not obnoxious and obtrusive. He went where people socialized and socialized with them.

Because of all this conversation, discussion and debating about Jesus, Paul was called to the Areopagus, also known as “The Hill of Ares.” This hill was named from a Greek myth in which Ares was accused of murdering one of Poseidon’s sons, and his trial took place at The Hill of Ares. (He was acquitted). The Greeks figured if the gods held their trials at “The Hill of Ares,” then they should hold their trials there too. The Areopagus became the location of the supreme court of Athens, where they met to handle criminal and religious trials. The importance of this hill is evident today because the supreme court of Greece is still called “Areopagus.”

Acts 17:19-21 “Then they took him and brought him to a meeting of the Areopagus, where they said to him, ‘May we know what this new teaching is that you are presenting? 20 You are bringing some strange ideas to our ears, and we would like to know what they mean.’ 21 (All the Athenians and the foreigners who lived there spent their time doing nothing but talking about and listening to the latest ideas.)”

Paul was called there to give an answer to what he’d been talking about. While the governing board had the power to imprison him, kick him out, and who knows what else, they appeared to be simply curious about his ideas. So, Paul began to preach.

Acts 17:22 “… ‘People of Athens! I see that in every way you are very religious.”

This wasn’t a condemnation. Even though Paul was distressed by their idolatry, he didn’t speak of their religiousness in negative terms. He saw the encounter as a steppingstone to a better understanding.

Acts 17:23 “For as I walked around and looked carefully at your objects of worship, I even found an altar with this inscription: to an unknown god...”

This is an interesting story. The city of Athens had idols and shrines for every imaginable deism. Several centuries before that, there was a plague that hit the city. A man from Cyprus advised them to take a flock of black and white sheep to the Areopagus and let them go. Wherever a sheep stopped, they would kill the sheep and offer it on the nearest altar. The Greeks had all these gods, and they didn’t know which one sent the plague, so they set loose a boatload of sheep. And when one stopped, they sacrificed it on the nearest altar to appease that god. Hopefully, with all the sheep, they would appease all the gods, and hopefully the right one so the plague would stop. If there was no altar nearby, they built one and dedicated it to “the unknown god” because maybe the god that was upset with them was one they didn’t know about. They wanted to cover all the bases. It’s an interesting story but a little bit depressing. Can you imagine living in fear that you might distress, upset, or anger one of the multitude of gods. You didn’t even know which one was affected or why. So, you spent your life trying to appease the gods.

Paul began connecting with people in a non-belligerent way through what they had in common. He said they recognized that there might be an unknown god. He announced that they COULD know the “unknown god,” and that He was greater than all the other gods they worshipped.

Let’s take a few minutes to think about Paul’s approach so far. Of course, we will see more next week when we look at his actual sermon. But what can he teach us about having beautiful feet (sharing the good news). First, unlike our pictures of evangelism, his approach was very non-aggressive. Paul went to places where it made sense for him to engage with people in conversation about the gospel. (Instead of standing in the produce section at Hannaford, we should look for opportunities where it makes sense to talk about Jesus.)

If you’re anything like me, you’ll find that opportunities to share the entire gospel with someone are not as common an occurrence as we think they should be. At best, you might be having a conversation with someone, and something that’s said will remind you of something Jesus said or did. And, because the things Jesus said or did are important to you, you’ll say, “you know, this reminds me of…” It fits into the conversation because we’re talking about it. It’s not the whole gospel; it’s the little morsel that came to your mind. And that’s okay.

I remember as a teenager, learning this lengthy process of all the steps you had to go through to teach someone the gospel. If you missed something, you blew it. It felt overwhelming. I want to encourage you by pointing out that you don’t have to follow every little step. Share what makes sense in the moment. When we read Paul’s sermon next week, we will see that even Paul didn’t outline the full gospel. He missed what we consider a KEY element –the crucifixion.

Paul engaged in debates and discussions, but they weren’t initiated with the intent of causing trouble. They were initiated because people wanted to know more.

The following verse seems to encapsulate Paul’s mindset about evangelism.

1 Peter 3:15 “But in your hearts revere Christ as Lord. Always be prepared to give an answer to everyone who asks you to give the reason for the hope that you have. But do this with gentleness and respect.”

08/23/2026

Today Douglas Twitchell, Ventriloquist did his "Be Kind" show/message at First Baptist of Paris. He will be posting clips of that show on his own page in the coming months, but here's the sermon part of the show.

08/19/2026

August 16, 2026
Speaker: Doug Twitchell
Thessalonica and Berea
Matthew 15:10-20; Acts 17:1-15

Previously, Paul and Silas went on a “wild goose chase” and ended up in Philippi. God diverted them several times from the route they originally planned to take, and they ended up in Troas. From there, God directed them to the region of Macedonia, in Europe, more specifically Philippi. Here, God led Paul and his group to teach the gospel in a new area of the world. As a result, the first European Christian churches started and grew. But that wasn’t without trials. They cast a demon from a slave girl which resulted in Paul’s and Silas’s imprisonment. While in prison, the two men were chained and closely watched. One night there was a violent earthquake enabling them to run free. Instead, they stayed and shared the gospel with the jailer and his household, who came to believe in God. The magistrates requested they leave Phillipi.

Today’s study is from Acts 17. Paul and his companions headed west on a three-to-four-day journey by foot to Thessalonica. It is interesting to note that God was using their tribulations and troubles to advance the gospel through the region. If it hadn’t been for the jail incident and earthquake they probably would have spent longer in Philippi. But God’s plan was to keep them moving.

Thessalonica was a Greek city named after Alexander the Great’s sister. It was a very diverse city made up of people from many nations – Greeks, Romans, and Jews from Israel.

We need to read between the lines to conclude that there was a larger Jewish population in Thessalonica than in Philippi. There’s an Old Testament interpretation that said you could not have a synagogue unless you had ten Jewish men (13 years old and up) in your city. If you didn’t have at least ten Jewish men, you had no formal meeting place. This was a Jewish restriction. The theory is that it comes from the book of Genesis where God came to Abraham and said He was going to destroy S***m and Gomorrah. Abraham whittled it down to asking, “would you spare the city if there were only ten righteous people in it.” The Jews took this to mean you had to have ten people to have a congregation. Paul and Silas didn’t go to a synagogue in Philippi; they went to the river. We can conclude there was no synagogue because there were less than ten Jewish men there. On the other hand, when they reached Thessalonica, they went straight to the synagogue. Thus, we can conclude there were at least ten Jewish men in that city. So, there were a few more Jews living in Thessalonica than in Philippi.

There were also a lot of Gentiles who had converted to Judaism. The biggest part of the conflict between Judaism and the faith of the Greeks and Romans was the idea of monotheism versus polytheism. The Greeks and Romans believed in a whole group of gods. The Jews believed in only one God and that it was evil to worship anyone but Him. So, there was a lot of conflict in that area. But some of the Greeks (Gentiles) converted to Judaism and were permitted to worship in the synagogue.

Paul was in Thessalonica for three Sabbaths. While in Philippi, Paul and his companions probably stayed with a man named Jason. We don’t know much about him other than his name. Maybe he was an innkeeper or had a spare room, and he was willing to listen to them talk about Jesus.

Every week they went to the synagogue to teach. The synagogue was very different from our modern-day church services. If a stranger walked into many of our churches and said, “I just came from Phillipi and have a word from God to share with you,” we would ask him to have a seat and wait until the preacher finishes. But back then anyone could stand up and speak, so Paul stood up. He argued for faith in Jesus Christ. The people there probably had heard very little about Jesus who was a long distance from them geographically. They may have heard of Jesus from traveling merchants who referred to Him as the “trouble-maker rabbi,” or heard “crazy” stories of miracles, or stories about some Jewish teacher who was crucified. They may have heard a handful of stories from faraway but hadn’t thought too much about them. But Paul came and showed them, through the Old Testament, the story of Jesus. He showed them that Jesus was more than some rabbi they’d possibly heard about, and that He was Christ, the Savior of the world.

Paul likely used Old Testament passages that showed prophecies Jesus had fulfilled to prove that Jesus was who He said He was. A couple verses he may have spoken of:

Genesis 3:15 “And I will put enmity between you and the woman, and between your offspring and hers; he will crush your head, and you will strike his heel.” This is symbolic of Christ being made to suffer.

Isaiah 53:5 “But he was pierced for our transgressions, he was crushed for our iniquities; the punishment that brought us peace was on him, and by his wounds we are healed.”

Some of the Jews were persuaded:

Acts 17:4 “Some of the Jews were persuaded and joined Paul and Silas, as did a large number of God-fearing Greeks and quite a few prominent women.”

Some Jewish leaders, however, became jealous. This is very similar to the time Jesus lived on earth and the religious leaders were jealous of Him because people were more interested in listening to Jesus than to them. Now, Paul faced the same thing. He talked to people about Jesus and everyone was soaking it in. The Jewish leaders complained because Paul got more attention than they did. So, they formed a mob. They rounded up a group of bad characters, riled them up, and started a riot. The group rushed to Jason’s house looking for Paul and Silas but didn’t find them. The natural thing to do next was to continue looking for Paul and Silas elsewhere. But when you have a mob, the mob wants a victim. They want someone to vent their anger against. Paul and Silas weren’t there, but Jason was, and Jason had let Paul and Silas into his home. Therefore, Jason was a “problem” too. So, they grabbed Jason and some other Christians and dragged them to the officials. They threw some silly accusations at them – “These men who have caused trouble all over the world have now come here, and Jason has welcomed them into his house. They are all defying Caesar’s decrees, saying that there is another king, one called Jesus.” (Acts 17:6-7) First, how would they know what trouble Paul and Silas might have caused all over the world? And then the Jewish leaders said because Jason welcomed them into his home, he’s guilty by association. It’s true that Paul and Silas presented Jesus as the King, but the Jews also believed there was a king besides Caesar. They believe God is king and that He will send a Messiah who is king. When we realize that, this was quite a hypocritical comment for them to make. The magistrates didn’t know what to do. They were probably a bit like Pilate when he was presented with Jesus. His response was, “this is a Jewish problem.” The magistrates also probably recognized there was no case against Jason. When they couldn’t find anything to charge Jason and the others with, they let them go on bail.

That night, the believers in the church at Thessalonica sent Paul and Silas away to Berea. They were concerned that the mob would come after them again and find them. Paul and Silas left, and when they arrived in Berea they found it to be very different from Thessalonica.

Acts 17:10 “As soon as it was night, the believers sent Paul and Silas away to Berea. On arriving there, they went to the Jewish synagogue.”

Again, we have a city with a synagogue, so we know they had a Jewish population. There was a totally different reaction to their arrival though. Instead of jealousy, anger and the mob, there was curiosity. The city called Berea back then is called Verea today. It’s about an hour’s drive from Thessalonica but takes 2-3 days by foot.

I love this verse and that Camp Berea has it as their theme verse:

Acts 17:11-12 “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. 12 As a result, many of them believed…”

These people, listened to what Paul had to say and said, let me pull out my Bible and hunt for the verse he talked about and see if what he said is in context with scripture. They studied it themselves. They opened God’s word and analyzed it and considered it before they accepted and received Jesus. Because of that very rigorous evaluation and study of what Paul said, they came to believe Paul was telling the truth – this Jesus is the Messiah, the Savior of the world, the Son of God, the Lamb of God. He takes away the sins of the world.

So, we’d say it was a happy ending in Berea. But not quite… because amazingly, somebody in Thessalonica got word that Paul and Silas were in Berea. Now if I were in Thessalonica and these two “troublemakers” left my city and went to another city a 2-3 day’s journey away, I would wash my hands of them. I wouldn’t bother to worry about them anymore. But the person who discovered their location once again stirred up a mob that marched on Berea, and attempted to arrest Paul and Silas in a different city. As a result, Paul had to leave Berea. However, Silas and Timothy stayed for a short while longer before rejoining Paul.

Let’s look at the differences between the cities of Thessalonica and Berea. In Thessalonica there was a huge opposition to the teachings about Jesus Christ. In Berea there was curiosity. In Thessalonica there was anger and jealousy. In Berea there was patient study and evaluation. Thessalonica had only three weeks of Bible teaching from Paul and Silas before they had to leave. Can you imagine starting a church with a handful of people and all you have is three weeks to teach them? In Berea Paul had to leave in a hurry too, but he was able to leave Silas and Timothy to continue teaching. The thing I find interesting is that there are two very different places, but they both had the same outcome; they both became predominantly Christianized over the course of the next few years. They both started with a small church and kept growing.

All three places we’ve talked about in the last few weeks – Philippi, Thessalonica, and Berea – are good illustrations of what Jesus talked about in the passage we looked at back in July.

Matthew 13:31 “He told them another parable: ‘The kingdom of heaven is like a mustard seed, which a man took and planted in his field. 32 Though it is the smallest of all seeds, yet when it grows, it is the largest of garden plants and becomes a tree, so that the birds come and perch in its branches.’”

God was able to take small things and do great things with them. This is a good lesson for us, as a small church, to remember. I challenge you to be in prayer for us as a church, that God would do great things through his fellowship.

We would do well to be like the Thessalonian and Berean churches. 1) We should be faithful even when it feels like we’re a minority against a majority. 2) We should be hopeful for the future because we are confident that God can do more than we could even think or imagine and turn a tiny seed into a giant tree. 3) We should study the Word faithfully. I think most of us have experienced being in churches where the pastor says, “trust the Bible” but really means “trust my interpretation of the Bible.” It’s easy to let someone else read and study the Bible for us. Open your Bibles. Where I’ve quoted verses to you, go check them out in context and make sure I haven’t taken them out of context. So, be faithful, hopeful for the future, faithful in studying the Word, and trust the Bible not the pastor. And finally, I want to give you Paul’s words to the Thessalonian church:

1 Thessalonian 4:9-10 “Now about your love for one another we do not need to write to you, for you yourselves have been taught by God to love each other. 10 And in fact, you do love all of God’s family throughout Macedonia. Yet we urge you, brothers and sisters, to do so more and more.”

Have hope. Study faithfully. Grow in love and serve God.

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