Jealous Jews--Intrigued Intellects
Jealousy is one of those sins that leads us to do horrible things for the sake of hurting others, but in the end, we usually only hurt ourselves. As we continue our series Going Viral, we see today in Acts 17 that the message of Jesus was continuing to spread and that this made the Jews jealous. They felt that their religious views were being attacked.
Raucous Riots
Then some of them were persuaded and joined Paul and Silas, including a great number of God-fearing Greeks, as well as a number of the leading women.
But the Jews became jealous, and they brought together some scoundrels from the marketplace, formed a mob, and started a riot in the city. (Acts 17:4-5a)
We have seen the effects of riots in the city of Baltimore. What happens when riots break out? Streets are shout down making it impossible for stores to open or for people to go to work. Usually the rioters damage property of those that live in their own neighborhoods. Often riots are followed by the exodus of people that don’t want to live in a neighborhood where there is a threat of harm to them or their children. Sometimes businesses will close and move to safer neighborhoods as well.
The riot that was stirred up by the religious Jews in the city of Thessalonica succeeded in harassing the followers of Jesus enough that they persuaded Paul and Silas to leave the city. They may not have realized this, but their jealousy harmed them more than it helped. Because of their jealousy, I am certain that many in that city died without the saving knowledge of Jesus. They harmed themselves and their own families because of their jealousy over a few people believing what Paul and Silas had to say.
Paul and Silas then went to Berea where they found that people were more interested in what they had to say.
Searching Scriptures
The people here [Berea] were more open-minded than those in Thessalonica, since they welcomed the message with eagerness and examined the Scriptures daily to see if these things were so. Consequently, many of them believed, including a number of the prominent Greek women as well as men. But when the Jews from Thessalonica found out that God’s message had been proclaimed by Paul at Berea, they came there too, agitating and disturbing the crowds. (Acts 17:12-13)
Notice that the people of Berea welcomed the message about Jesus eagerly. Sometimes when people come to know about Jesus you don’t see a major change in them. They continue to live their lives pretty much the same. But sometimes you will see someone that is so excited about what they have learned that they begin to search the scriptures to learn as much as they can about Jesus. That is what happened to these men and women in Berea.
Word of this large group that had chosen to be followers of Jesus reached back to the city of Thessalonica and the Jews there were once again filled with jealousy. So much so that they left their jobs and families and traveled to Berea just to start riots there as well. Acts 17:13 says that they were “agitating and disturbing the crowds.”
We have at least heard of people like this in the news. Large numbers of people that are bused into a small city to protest and sometimes even riot because they disagree with a legal decision. Sometimes the protests are valid and needed to help bring attention to a social injustice, but rioting does nothing to solve a problem. Rioting only serves to agitate and disturb those that live in the area.
However, the rioting once again persuaded the people to ask Paul to move on to somewhere else. Silas and Timothy remained in Berea and continued to teach and disciple those that were followers of Jesus. It seems that Paul was the most vocal person in the group and that they believed if he left the jealous Jews would leave also.
Paul traveled down to Athens where he was troubled by the many idols in the city. Every day he reasoned with the people in the marketplace and with the Jews in the Synagogues. He eventually attracted the attention of the intellectual elites of Athens. The philosophers, men and women that stood around all day debating one point or another, noticed that Paul was sharing some new teaching that intrigued them.
Distinct Debate
Then also, some of the Epicurean and Stoic philosophers argued with him. Some said, “What is this pseudo-intellectual trying to say?” (Acts 17:18)
The philosophers obviously did not think Paul spoke in an intellectual manner, but they were still intrigued by what he was saying.
Then Paul stood in the middle of the Areopagus and said: “Men of Athens! I see that you are extremely religious in every respect. For as I was passing through and observing the objects of your worship, I even found an altar on which was inscribed:
TO AN UNKNOWN GOD.
Therefore, what you worship in ignorance, this I proclaim to you. The God who made the world and everything in it—He is Lord of heaven and earth and does not live in shrines made by hands. (Acts 17:22-24)
Perhaps we can see why Paul was often run out of so many towns. These men called Paul a pseudo-intellect and Paul counters by telling them that he knows the God that they worship in ignorance. Telling men and women who think of themselves as the most intellectual people in the entire city that they are ignorant is not usually the way to win friends and influence people. But Paul was more concerned with opening the eyes and minds of people that were slaves to idolatry.
The Greeks worshipped the 12 mythological gods that lived on Mount Olympus. But they were people of intellect and knew that the myths did not answer all their questions. Therefore, they also worshipped the Unknown God and had even built a temple to honor this unknown god. This must have been one of their humbler things to do as it meant that they were admitting that there was something beyond their knowledge, something that was beyond their ability to understand.
The Greek philosophers may have thought of themselves as intellectual elites, but they also had a craving for learning things which were new and unknown to them. When Paul talked about the resurrection of the dead, some of the philosophers ridiculed him, but others invited him to come and share more about this Jesus.
Paul left the group that day, but several believed him and became followers of Jesus, including Dionysius of Areopagite, a judge of the court, and a woman named Damaris.
I don’t know why Luke felt it important to mention just these two individuals and not others, but I think that it is possible that he mentioned the woman because in his own culture women would not have been present at a public debate. It was unique enough to him that he thought it important to note. It is also possible that Luke mentioned both people because they would have been known to Theophilus, the Greek man for whom Luke was writing down this history.
We study these ancient stories because we want to understand how the message of Jesus went viral back then, without Internet or TV or even a printing press. The first thing we can notice is that the men and women in Athens were hungry for knowledge. They wanted to hear what Paul had to say to about Jesus.
We also see that the men and women of Berea searched the scriptures daily. We should be just as diligent about reading God’s Word and learning more about Him. Learning from others about Jesus as well as reading the Bible daily will help us in our task to make the message of God go viral once again.
What can we learn from the story of the jealous Jews? If we become jealous of others and try to stir up dissent, as has been seen even among the church, we will agitate and disturb people. How can the message go viral if we are turning people against us? We must not be tempted to protest because we feel that others are attacking our religious views, but rather we should share the love of Jesus with others.
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