Acts 17 Round Two: Be A Berean

A city erupts, a city listens, and a city debates—Acts 17 shows three worlds colliding with the same unshakable message. We follow Paul through Thessalonica, Berea, and Athens to uncover a timeless pattern for wise discernment and courageous witness. Along the way, we highlight the Bereans, who model how to listen eagerly and test everything by Scripture, and we trace Paul’s bold move into the Areopagus, where he engages philosophers without diluting the gospel.

We start with Paul’s strategy in the synagogue, reasoning from the Scriptures that Jesus is the promised Messiah. The response in Thessalonica is intense: some believe, others rally a mob. Then comes Berea, where the people search the Scriptures daily to verify the message. Their posture becomes our blueprint for spiritual discernment—welcoming new ideas, yet measuring every claim against the authority of God’s Word. That kind of daily, thoughtful examination cultivates resilient faith and guards the church from trends that sound spiritual but stray from truth.

Next, we step into Athens, a marketplace of idols and ideas. Paul studies the city, notices an altar to an unknown god, and starts where his audience is. He connects their search to the Creator who made everything, is near to all, and commands all people to repent. He quotes their poets to build a bridge, then anchors the conversation in the resurrection of Jesus. Some scoff, some ask for more, and some believe. The lesson is clear: use culture as a tool to carry the message, but never let culture edit the message.

By the end, two takeaways stand out. Be a Berean—let Scripture be your objective standard. And follow Paul’s example—engage your world thoughtfully, speak with clarity, and trust God with the results. If this resonates, subscribe, share the show with a friend, and leave a review to help more people discover the Bible Breakdown Podcast. What’s one idea you’ll test against Scripture this week?

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The More We Dig. The More We Find.

Scripture quotations taken from the Holy Bible, New Living Translation (NLT).
Copyright © 1996, 2004, 2015 by Tyndale House Foundation.
Used by permission of Tyndale House Publishers, Carol Stream, Illinois 60188. All rights reserved.

Chapters

• 0:00 Welcome And Theme: Be A Berean
• 0:50 Paul In Thessalonica: Teaching And Turmoil
• 4:08 The Bereans: Testing Truth With Scripture
• 6:00 Athens: Idols, Ideas, And The Areopagus
• 9:20 Paul’s Message: Creator, Repentance, Resurrection

Transcript

SPEAKER_00: 0:00

Welcome to the Bible Breakdown Podcast. Every day, we take one chapter of the Bible, dig deeper, and discover that the more we dig, the more we find. You can find out more at the BibleBreakdown.com. Now let's grow in God's Word together. Well, hello and welcome back to the Bible Breakdown Podcast with your host, Pastor Brandon. Today, Acts chapter 17. And if I were to give this a title, it would be Be a Berean. Be a Berean. We're going to talk about what a Berean is in just a little while. But of course, as always, if you like what we're doing here, make sure you like, share, and subscribe on our YouTube channel. Make sure you're commenting down below so we can engage with God's word together. And if you're listening on the podcast, leave us a five-star review and go to our Facebook group, a Bible Breakdown Discussion, and let us know what you're finding. Because the more we dig, the more we find. And as we've been saying throughout this whole thing, is that, man, the doctor-turned investigative journalist, Luke, inspired by the Holy Spirit, is writing about the birth and growth of the church. And what we see over and over and over again is that this, we've been saying this, that if you were voted most likely to succeed by your peers, if everybody loves you and they just think you're an awesome person, I want to tell you some good news. God can still use you. But most often he uses the least likely to succeed, the ordinary, the common, the one that nobody talks about. That's the one that God does amazing things through. And we get to see that as we saw in the first half, where God took ordinary fishermen and used them to shake up the known world. And then when we shifted in Acts 12 and 13 to now, you know, Luke is actually traveling with Paul on now his second missionary journey. We see this washed-up Pharisee turn just firebrand for the gospel and just sharing the good news everywhere he goes. What we're going to see today is we're just going to walk with Paul as he's going through these different Roman cities and just sharing the good news. And what we're going to come across in the middle are these people from a place called Berea. And I love the way they take the gospel. I love what they do. And I think there's a great lesson for us on the idea of just being a Berean. But let's get there first. If you have your Bibles open with me to Acts chapter 17, let's start reading our New Living Translation, verse 1. Paul and Silas then traveled through the towns of Amphipolis and Apollonia and came to Thessalonica, which by the way, that's where he would eventually write 1st and 2nd Thessalonians, where there was a Jewish synagogue. He, or as was Paul's custom, he went into the synagogue service, and for three Sabbaths in a row, he used the scriptures to reason with the people. He explained the prophecies and proved that the Messiah must suffer and rise from the dead. He said, This Jesus I'm telling you about is the Messiah. Some of the Jews who listened were persuaded and joined Paul and Silas, along with many God-fearing Greek men and quite a few prominent women. But some of the Jews were jealous, so they gathered some troublemakers from the marketplace 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 of the crowd. Not finding them there, they dragged out Jason and some of the believers instead and took them before the city council. Paul and Silas have caused trouble all over the world, they shouted, and now they are here, disturbing our city too. And Jason has welcomed them to his home. They are all guilty of treason against Caesar, for they profess allegiance to another king named Jesus. The people of the city, as well as the city council, were thrown into turmoil because of these reports. So the officials forced Jason and the other believers to post bond, and then they released them. So another city, same story. The Jewish people start to get jealous, start to lie, and then just things start to happen. Verse 10, that very night, this is where the Bereans come in. That very night, the believers sent Paul and Silas to Berea. When they arrived there, they went to the Jewish synagogue. Now watch what something different happens in this city. And the people of Berea were more open-minded than those in Thessalonica, and they listened eagerly to Paul's message. Listen, they searched the scriptures day after day to see if Paul and Silas were teaching the truth. As a result, many Jewish believers as did, believed, as did many prominent Greek women and men. But when some Jews of Thessalonica, Lord help us, learned that Paul was preaching the word of God in Berea, they went there and stirred up trouble. And the believers acted at once, sending Paul onto the coast where Silas and Timothy remained behind. Those escorting Paul went with him all the way to Athens. Then they returned to Berea with instructions for Paul or for Silas and Timothy to hurry and join him. Well I love about what the Bereans did is they listened, but then they didn't believe him. They looked to the scriptures, and they looked to the scriptures to tell them what was true. That is one of the number one ways to discern a false teacher from a true teacher. Is don't take what they say at first, let the scriptures speak. And if God's word is true, then it will agree with God's word. If it's not true, it won't agree. How good could we do if we became Bereans in our mindset and let God's word be the truth that we establish our life on? And then whatever wants to come, let it come. But it has to agree with God's word, or I'm not going to pay attention. Be a Berean. Verse 14. While Paul was waiting for them in Athens, he was deeply troubled by all of the idols he saw everywhere in the city. And he went to the synagogue to reason with the Jews and the God-fearing Gentiles, and he spoke daily in the public square to all who happened to be there. He also had a debate with some of the Epicureans and Stoic philosophers. When he told them about Jesus and the resurrection, they said, What is this babbler trying to say with these strange ideas he has picked up? Other says, He seemed to be preaching about some foreign gods. Then they took him to the high council of the city. Come, tell us about this new teaching, they said. See, you are saying that some rather strange things, and we want to know what it's all about. It should be explained that all the Athenians, as well as the foreigners in Athens, seemed to spend all their time discussing the latest ideas. So Paul, standing before the council, addressed them as follows, Men of Athens, I notice that you're very religious in every way. For as I was walking along, I saw many shrines. One of your altars had this inscription on it, to an unknown God. This God, whom you worship without knowing, is the one I'm telling you about. He is the God who made the world and everything in it. Since he is the Lord of heaven and earth, he doesn't live in man-made temples. He are and human hands can't serve his needs, for he has no needs. He himself gives life and breath to everything. He satisfies every need. From one man he created all the nations throughout the whole earth. He decided beforehand when they should rise and fall, and he determined their boundaries. His purpose was for the nations to seek God and perhaps feel their way toward him and find him, though he is not far from any one of us. For in him we live and move and exist. As some of your own prophets have said, we are his offspring. And since this is true, we shouldn't think that God as an eye was an idol designed by craftsmen of gold or silver or stone. God overlooked people's ignorance about these things in earlier times, but now he commands everyone everywhere to repent of their sins and turn to him. For he has set a day for judging the world with justice by the man he has appointed, and he proved to everyone who this was by rising him from the dead. When they heard Paul speak about the resurrection of the dead, some laughed in contempt, but others said, We want to hear more about this later. And that ended Paul's discussion with them. But some of them joined and became believers. Among them were Dionysus, a member of the council, and a woman named Demarius, and others with them. So what Paul is doing is he's using everything he can, including modern philosophies and what would be considered then, not necessarily technologies, but what was considered important of the day, the modern cultures, modern customs, in order to help them understand the good news. And I think that's important for us to understand today. Two of the main takeaways we could take is number one, be a Berean. When anything comes your way, don't listen to it and believe it. Don't listen to it and throw it away. Always listen to it and let it see if it can be applied to God's word. If God's word agrees, then give it space. If it doesn't agree, throw it away. But let your objective standard be God's word. The second thing is to learn a lesson from Paul. Paul used modern customs, modern cultures in order to assist him in preaching the gospel. Now, one of the challenges we have in the modern church is we don't always use modern culture to assist us. Sometimes we become a slave of modern culture and then we try to find a way to make it all fit. The message never changed. The culture assisted him in doing so. That's why I think it's wonderful for us to use technology in church. Why it's okay to use lights in church, why it's okay if we use different kinds of instrumentation and to use different technologies. But the gospel stays the same. So the joy we've been given is to use everything we have to bring light and hope to everyone around us. What a wonderful privilege we've been given today. Let's pray together. God, thank you so much for today. Thank you for the opportunity you have given us to bring light and hope. And the opportunity, Lord, to found our lives on your word. And then according to your word, live in freedom every day. We thank you for that. In Jesus' name we pray. Amen. Don't forget what Jesus said in Acts 1, verse 8. What did He say? You will receive power when the Holy Spirit comes upon you, and you will be my witnesses to the ends of the earth. My prayer today is that you will receive that power and you will be God's witnesses to the ends of your world today. I love you. I'll see you tomorrow for Acts chapter 18.