Acts 17:2-3

THE PREPARATION FOR CHRIST

‘And Paul, as his manner was, went in unto them, and three Sabbath days reasoned with them out of the Scriptures, opening and alleging, that Christ must needs have suffered, and risen again from the dead; and that this Jesus, Whom I preach unto you, is Christ.’

Acts 17:2

This passage records part of St. Paul’s second missionary journey. Obedient to the vision of the man of Macedonia, and responding to his call—‘Come over and help us’—he has passed through Philippi and arrived at the city of Thessalonica. According to his usual custom, he seeks out the members of his own nation in order to convey to them first the message of the Gospel which he preached. There is a synagogue in the city, and thither he betakes himself on three successive Sabbath days.

I. The method of St. Paul is simple and appropriate.—He is addressing an assembly of Jews. He takes their own sacred writings and he shows that from them the truths which he desires to put forward can be learnt. They were expecting the coming of the Messiah. He endeavours to put before them the true character of His coming. From their own Scriptures he opens and alleges that the Christ must suffer and must rise again. If they accept this truth he has yet another to impress upon them. Jesus of Nazareth, Whom he preached to them, fulfilled all the conditions of Messiahship. He was therefore the Christ. The distinguishing characteristics of St. Paul’s method are, we thus observe, his use of the Scriptures as they were received by the Jewish nation, and his deduction from them of the great fundamental truths of Christianity. The example of St. Paul has been followed by the Christian Church during past centuries in its use of the Old Testament. Christian teachers and apologists have turned to it for prophecy and type of the fuller revelation of God which was made in the Christ. More or less clearly in the events of the Old Testament record they have seen the foreshadowing of the events of the life of Christ. Some of the interpretations of the Christian fathers may have seemed fanciful and mystical, yet there was never any serious question that from the mention of the seed of the woman bruising the serpent’s head onward, there was a continuous and designed reference to the life and work of Christ. More direct and clear were the various meanings attached to the feasts and fasts, to the details of the sacrificial rites, and to the observance of such ceremonies as those ordered for the Day of Atonement. These were all regarded as having distinct reference to the redemptive work of Christ.

II. We are sometimes told the sense of sin is lost.—We can confidently affirm that, however much at times it may seem to lie dormant, it can never be lost. It is an essential part of our consciousness as enlightened by the Spirit of God. It is equally true that it leads men everywhere to seek, in the doing of something, to rid themselves of the weight of guilt. Mankind is slow to learn the lesson that he has no power of himself to remove either the punishment or power of sin. It is only in Christ that the great truth is realised, that the way to life is only through the gate of death—His death. This was the message for which mankind longed. This was the Gospel, the good news which St. Paul preached. It had its effect upon the world, because it answered the deepest needs of the human heart. The spread of Christianity among Jews and Gentiles alike was the best testimony to the truth and the power of the message. In bringing this message of a suffering Messiah to the Jews he was able to appeal to their own Scriptures and to show them that the whole system pointed to this fulfilment. The New Testament transcends the Old, but the value of the Old is that it is essentially true as leading men along the pathway God had arranged for them to the full knowledge of Himself in Christ.

III. So we can realise the unique position of the Jewish religion, and the value of the Old Testament as the record of God’s revelation of Himself to the chosen people; and we can see at the same time that each step in that process of revelation was in keeping with the human experience to which other and less noble religions bear their witness. And as St. Paul turned to those Scriptures for the enlightenment of those to whom he preached, so we can to-day, and increasingly in future ages the Church will be able to turn to them as the revelation of God which prepared the world for Christ, and instead of merely drawing help from the spiritual experiences of the Psalmists, as many are content to do to-day, it will be seen that the whole history has a special and peculiar spiritual value, of which we shall lose much if we do not make use of the Old Testament as we ought.

Rev. George F. Irwin.

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‘It is a commonplace now that in the history of the world different nations stand for different gifts and powers bestowed upon humanity. They have each been the channel through which some special addition to the world’s advance has come, just as in the future it will be seen that the nations of to-day, both of West and East, are contributing their particular share to human progress. In this way we attribute to Greece our art, to Rome our organisation, and to the Jews the best gift of all (because it is the one which controls all the others and renders them serviceable to men joined together in communities)—the gift of religion and morality. We do not mean to say that other nations had no art, no organisation, and no religion, but that these several nations possessed in a peculiarly high degree the genius for the purest and the best in their respective domains, and the human race was gifted with the capacity to recognise them as the highest. Who shall say, then, that both these gifts—the power itself and the capacity of recognising it—are not from God Himself?’

(SECOND OUTLINE)

PAUL AT THESSALONICA

Thessalonica was a grand sphere of apostolic enterprise, and St. Paul carried on his labours for three successive Sabbaths.

I. The sermon.—St. Paul set Jesus the Messiah as the absolute need of the congregation before him. The same vital truth must be declared, for the same reason, to all congregations now, wherever assembled. All other preaching beside Him is beside the theme. He is the very foundation of all preaching, and all other preaching is only building castles in the air; He is the soul of preaching, and all other preaching is like a body without a soul; He is the end of preaching, and all other preaching is sure to miss the mark. St. Paul reasoned with his audience, and asserted that Jesus must be the Messiah, and that, being the Messiah, He must suffer and die and rise again. He, doubtless, based his leading arguments and averments on the fact that all the Messianic prophecies had been fulfilled in and by Jesus; His birthplace (Micah 5:2; Matthew 2:1); His descent from Jesse and the royal line of David (Isaiah 11:1; Isaiah 11:10; Luke 2:4); and His appearance, character, and work (Isaiah 53; Matthew 26-28).

II. And its results.— Many received the Gospel—a goodly number of Jews, of Greeks, and of Thessalonian females. What a harvest of precious souls to gather at the close of the third Sabbath! Jews convinced in spite of their prejudices; Greeks who, having renounced idolatry, were now Jewish proselytes; and not a few of the chief women of the city—women of high rank and great influence. How came this to pass? The almighty power of the Holy Spirit accompanied and crowned the teaching and preaching of the ambassador of Christ Jesus. Hence the wonderful success on this occasion. Such success may be obtained now, but it must be in the same way, and through the same agency and blessing. But some rejected the Gospel. Because so many converts had been made to the faith, certain Jews, who disbelieved the Messiahship of Jesus, were filled with envy, and their envy took a desperate form. They engaged some of those bands hanging about the forum or market-place—the scum and refuse of the city—to insult and injure St. Paul and St. Silas. How true it is that the same sun which softens some things hardens others! So the Gospel softens some hearts and saves them, while it hardens others and leaves them tenfold more the prey of Satan (2 Corinthians 4:3).

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‘In the light of modern knowledge we see that we need have no hesitation in using the religious experiences recorded in the Old Testament as unique in character and of special value to us Christians. It is somewhat in this way that many scholars are now asking us to look upon the observances of the Jews. The Epistle to the Hebrews is an example of the interpretation of the Old Testament in the New, and the latest commentator (Dr. Du Bose) on it tells us “The New Testament as absolutely transcends the Old as it fulfils it; but, on the other hand, it is as actually the culmination and completion of the Old Testament as it transcends it.” And again, “The new Testament too far transcends the possible meaning of the Old to be ever a mere interpretation of it. Even the writer of the Hebrews is not so much trying to interpret to them their Scriptures as seeking to find in them, in their ideas and hopes and figures, warrant and expression for the transcending fact and facts of Christianity. In them the mind, the needs, the very language has been moulded and prepared for the reception of a truth infinitely greater than they themselves could have ever meant or expected.” ’