Acts 17:10-12\u00a0<\/b>–\u00a0As soon as it was night, the believers sent Paul and Silas\u00a0away to Berea.\u00a0On arriving there, they went to the Jewish synagogue.\u00a011\u00a0Now the Berean Jews were of more noble character than those in Thessalonica,\u00a0for they received the message with great eagerness and examined the Scriptures\u00a0every day to see if what Paul said was true.\u00a012\u00a0As a result, many of them believed, as did also a number of prominent Greek women and many Greek men.<\/i><\/p>\n
\u201cAs soon as it was night, the believers sent Paul and Silas\u00a0away to Berea.\u00a0On arriving there, they went to the Jewish synagogue.<\/i>\u201d\u00a0\u00a0Our early Brothers in the Lord were amazing.\u00a0\u00a0They could be beaten, flogged, stoned, run out of town and threatened to be killed and they just moved on and continued preaching the Word. Nothing stopped them.\u00a0\u00a0Yes, they preached primarily with their mouths because merely displaying themselves as good moral people was not the objective.\u00a0\u00a0To be saved, people need to be told the Word of God (Romans 10:17<\/b>).\u00a0\u00a0Paul and Silas and their whole company spread the Good News of salvation through Jesus.\u00a0\u00a0Nothing could deter them.\u00a0\u00a0They, like all of us, have received an edict from God that all are to share the Word, not just model it, but to speak it (Matthew 28:18-20<\/b>).\u00a0\u00a0So being chased away by jealous Jews, they walked at night forty-five miles to Berea and straight away went to the Synagogue to share the Word.<\/p>\n
\u201cNow the Berean Jews were of more noble character than those in Thessalonica,\u00a0for they received the message with great eagerness and examined the Scriptures\u00a0every day to see if what Paul said was true.<\/i>\u00a0\u00a0The Bereans were considered noble because they listened, honestly considered what they heard and then, with open minds, researched what Paul and Silas were preaching to them.\u00a0\u00a0They didn\u2019t, with prejudice, immediately discount or accept what they had been told.\u00a0\u00a0They went to scripture to either verify or reject what they were being told.\u00a0\u00a0They did that because their predisposition was to openly listen and then to verify.\u00a0\u00a0The Word here says that they received the message with great eagerness, or readiness of mind.\u00a0\u00a0They were curious and listened daily and then daily examined the scriptures to verify, and that in fact, deepened their knowledge of the Word.<\/p>\n
\u201c12\u00a0As a result, many of them believed, as did also a number of prominent Greek women and many Greek men.<\/i>\u201d\u00a0\u00a0The Bereans listened with open and honest minds and as a result, hearing the Truth and open to the Spirit of God revealing the Truth to them, they believed.\u00a0\u00a0Jews, Greek women, and Greek men believed.\u00a0\u00a0Notice that it first mentions that Greek women believed and then Greek men.\u00a0\u00a0Gotta love that.\u00a0\u00a0The rights of women, the dignity of them, is front and center throughout the teachings of Christ and His Apostles.\u00a0\u00a0In Christianity there is no caste system, whether women or men, there are not degrees of acceptance, but all are fully and equally accepted.\u00a0\u00a0We all have different roles but neither is valued more.\u00a0\u00a0Praise God!\u00a0\u00a0Jews were saved, and Greeks were saved, and women and men were saved.\u00a0\u00a0Praise God!<\/p>\n
Family how delighted would our Pastors be to have their congregation attentively listen to the sermon, to take notes, and then to go home and study what has been taught.\u00a0\u00a0Sadly, too often members of a congregation want to, after a sermon, tell the Pastors what they \u201cthink\u201d and lambaste the Pastor for reporting what the Word states.\u00a0\u00a0I\u2019m sure that a Pastor would love to have a congregant go home and then return with any questions after studying the sermon notes they took.\u00a0\u00a0But what we feel or think, not based on scripture, well that, quite frankly, is too often just wrong.\u00a0\u00a0Let\u2019s not think of ourselves too highly, what we think is not as important as what the Word says.\u00a0\u00a0That\u2019s not even close.\u00a0\u00a0Family, we should, before coming to hear the sermon, have been in the Word and have spent time fellowshipping with God, most importantly letting Him move our spirit by His.\u00a0\u00a0Then we are ready to hear and to fellowship.\u00a0\u00a0After the service we should study scripture, yielded to the Holy Spirit to receive what God would reveal.\u00a0\u00a0If we do so, as the Bereans did, we will be more blessed than merely hearing.\u00a0\u00a0Yes, it is a blessing to hear the sermon, it is more so to if we hear it having beforehand spent time in the Spirit and the Word, and then afterward verified the sermon by studying the Word.\u00a0\u00a0Then we are much more able to receive what God wants to bless us with.\u00a0\u00a0Than the sermon falls on much more fertile soil.\u00a0\u00a0And that is what we want to be, fertile soil for God to plant His Words in us.\u00a0\u00a0Praise God!<\/p>\n
Psalm 150:6<\/b>\u00a0–\u00a0Let everything that has breath praise the Lord.\u00a0 Praise the Lord!<\/i><\/p>\n
Micah 7:7<\/b>\u00a0–\u00a0But as for me, I watch\u00a0in hope\u00a0for the\u00a0Lord, I wait for God my Savior; my God will hear\u00a0me.\u00a0<\/i><\/p>\n
Micah 6:8<\/b>\u00a0–\u00a0He has shown You, O man, what\u00a0is\u00a0good; And what does the\u00a0Lord\u00a0require of You but to do justly, to love mercy, And to walk humbly with Your God<\/i>.<\/p>\n
Numbers 6:24-26<\/b>\u00a0\u201cThe\u00a0Lord\u00a0bless you and keep you; 25\u00a0the\u00a0Lord\u00a0make His face shine on you and be gracious to you; 26\u00a0the\u00a0Lord\u00a0turn His face\u00a0toward you and give you peace.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Acts 17:10-12\u00a0–\u00a0As soon as it was night, the believers sent Paul and Silas\u00a0away to Berea.\u00a0On arriving there, they went to the Jewish synagogue.\u00a011\u00a0Now the Berean Jews were of more noble character than those in Thessalonica,\u00a0for they received the message with great eagerness and examined the Scriptures\u00a0every day to see if what Paul said was true.\u00a012\u00a0As…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1192],"tags":[82,101,94,1874,17,10],"class_list":["post-1859","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-devotion","tag-acts","tag-matthew","tag-micah","tag-numbers","tag-psalm","tag-romans"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.Bob4God.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1859","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.Bob4God.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.Bob4God.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.Bob4God.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.Bob4God.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=1859"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"http:\/\/www.Bob4God.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1859\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1860,"href":"http:\/\/www.Bob4God.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1859\/revisions\/1860"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.Bob4God.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=1859"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.Bob4God.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=1859"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.Bob4God.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=1859"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}