A Higher Authority
Acts 17
1 Now when they had passed through Amphipolis and Apollonia, they came to Thessalonica, where there was a synagogue of the Jews. 2 Then Paul, as his custom was, went in to them, and for three Sabbaths reasoned with them from the Scriptures, 3 explaining and demonstrating that the Christ had to suffer and rise again from the dead, and saying, “This Jesus whom I preach to you is the Christ.” 4 And some of them were persuaded; and a great multitude of the devout Greeks, and not a few of the leading women, joined Paul and Silas.
5 But the Jews who were not persuaded, becoming envious,[a] took some of the evil men from the marketplace, and gathering a mob, set all the city in an uproar and attacked the house of Jason, and sought to bring them out to the people. 6 But when they did not find them, they dragged Jason and some brethren to the rulers of the city, crying out, “These who have turned the world upside down have come here too. 7 Jason has harbored them, and these are all acting contrary to the decrees of Caesar, saying there is another king—Jesus.” 8 And they troubled the crowd and the rulers of the city when they heard these things. 9 So when they had taken security from Jason and the rest, they let them go.
10 Then the brethren immediately sent Paul and Silas away by night to Berea. When they arrived, they went into the synagogue of the Jews. 11 These were more fair-minded than those in Thessalonica, in that they received the word with all readiness, and searched the Scriptures daily to find out whether these things were so. 12 Therefore many of them believed, and also not a few of the Greeks, prominent women as well as men. 13 But when the Jews from Thessalonica learned that the word of God was preached by Paul at Berea, they came there also and stirred up the crowds. 14 Then immediately the brethren sent Paul away, to go to the sea; but both Silas and Timothy remained there. 15 So those who conducted Paul brought him to Athens; and receiving a command for Silas and Timothy to come to him with all speed, they departed.
Fred Craddock is an old Southern Preacher that now resides in rural Georgia. He is in his 80s now, and is admired by scads of preachers much younger than himself. He is admired for two reasons. First, he is credited with developing a new kind of preaching style that encourages people to be drawn into the story of Scripture instead of simply informed about what Scripture says. Secondly, he is a master storyteller.
One of his stories goes something like this:
A very wealthy man called the university that Fred was working at. He asked for a meeting with the president of the university and Fred himself, who was the preaching professor for this seminary in Oklahoma. He said he wanted to help support the development of better preaching in the churches.
Who doesn’t want better preaching in churches?
The school was holding on by its fingernails financially, so they began to have discussions with the man. Finally he said he planned to give the school a sizeable endowment.
So the president and Fred the preaching professor went to visit with this man.
The gentleman asked if he could lead the three of them in a time of prayer. The men from the seminary agreed. They prayed for the school, and for the ministers that would be developed there etc etc.
He pulled out the papers that he already had prepared to commit to this astronomical contribution. He had a few questions.
“Now all of this goes to the preaching program?” he said
“Yes, it does.” The president of the seminary said.
He started to write, “Now, you understand, none of this goes for the women or the blacks.”
The president picked up his paperwork, packed his briefcase, and stood up. “I am sorry. I cannot accept your money on those conditions.” And Fred and the president began to leave the man’s office.
As they were leaving he said, “Well, I will find plenty of people who will take the money!” The president and Fred again said goodbye and left.
Turns out that man gave over 60 million dollars to higher education around the country. But just not to the women or the blacks, you understand?
I understand. I understand that there are some people who say that they are Christians, and yet some issue, some grudge, some amount of money, some loyalty is more important than their loyalty to God and his word.
The school we read about had convictions. Convictions based on who they had committed themselves to be: namely believers in Jesus Christ with unshakeable beliefs that were based upon Scripture that they would not compromise. The believed their ultimate marching orders came not from financial benefit, political opportunism, achievement, or popularity. Ultimately, these men were their marching orders came from Christ, and when anything compromised with loyalty to Christ and his kingdom they needed to step away.
The apostle Paul, Silas, and their entourage of assistants and missionaries continued their ministry in the first 15 verses of Acts 17. And if you just read over the passage the first time, as I did a couple of weeks ago, you might say to yourself, “Man this book of Acts is kind of repetitive!”
You know how it goes by now. The missionaries come into town. They preach at the synagogue. Lots of people come to Jesus. Some of the powerful Jews think they are heretics and get jealous. They find Gentiles that are also uncomfortable with Paul’s teaching and his popularity. They get them arrested. They drag them to the middle of a city and start a riot. Before long a church is started. Before long Silas and Paul need to move down the road to the next town before they get killed. Then the whole cycle starts again.
There are lots of places where there are cycles in Scripture, where it seems like the same story is being said over and over again. Read the book of Judges. Read how family cycles repeat themselves in the book of Genesis. This is shared for a couple of reasons. First, the Bible shares these repetitive things because we live our lives in certain rhythms and cycles. Also, the Bible shares about these events in this way because they are in fact, true.
And, when you read stuff where the same kind of story is repeated over and over again, it is important to re-read the details of that particular passage to see what unique is being said about what is happening to those particular people, in that particular situation. When you slow down, re-read for a few details, the deeper story of what is going on emerges.
The key to this passage is in verse 7. Verse 7 says, “these are all acting contrary to the decrees of Caesar, saying there is another king—Jesus.”
You see, these Christians were dangerous. They were dangerous because they believed in a higher authority. They believed that the authority of Jesus trumped religious authority, the authority of tradition, governmental authority, political authority, the power of the crowd, and even their own individual rights and needs.
The men and women of Thessalonica and Berea, as well as the missionaries, are not political radicals. They are, however, religious radicals in any Greco-Roman measure. Their beliefs in the resurrection of Jesus defined their whole world view. Their faith was NOT a hobby. It defined their whole life—their professional life, their social life, how they spent their money, what they would and would not do with their friends and more. Their accusers were right. These Christians were turning the world upside down. Their accusers were on to something when they said that their loyalty was to a higher power—the God of the Bible. And they were correct in that this belief in Jesus was even more important to them than their loyalty to Caesar.
You can see this in the passage the kind of authority they bucked against. They came into the synagogue, which was, in effect, the church that they grew up in. The opened the Old Testament Scriptures, and they began to teach about how Jesus was spoken about in the old Testament and fulfilled the prophecies about what the Messiah should be. There were many people that supported them, but the guardians of the synagogue in Thessalonica did not like what they taught. It went against church tradition. It went against the way that it had always been done, and the way the faith had always believed and had always practiced. But it did not matter to Paul and Silas. The truth of Jesus was worth making the religious powers that be upset. Their faith in Jesus was bucking against the religious authority and the authority of the traditions and the ancestors of the synagogue. And it made the Jewish authorities angry. And they started a riot in order to bring trouble to Paul and the missionaries. They thought this trouble would make them stop. But Paul and Silas had a higher authority.
The Gentile citizens were easily swayed by the idea that the Christians were disloyal to the state. In some cases, this is not unjustified. You see, good citizens did not worship one God, they worshipped many gods. So when they were told that these people were “turning the world upside down” and “had another king besides Caesar”, they began to threaten and punish the Christians because they only worshipped one God and not many. The Christians were not going to support the unjust businesses like prostitution, and they treated slaves as equal to free men. And so they were humiliated, they were beaten, and they were punished. It did not matter what the Greco-Roman authorities said. Paul and Silas had a higher authority.
When Paul and the missionaries went to Berea, it appears that they experienced less strife. As a matter of fact, the Scripture says that the people in Berea were “fair-minded” to Paul and Silas. But they were not going to just trust the first smooth talking strangers that came into town. They too had a higher authority. Since God was their authority, they searched the Scriptures after each time Paul and Silas preached to make sure they were not being led astray. You see it wasn’t just Paul and Silas that had a higher authority. The Berean church had a higher authority than Paul and Silas. Their authority is the God of the Bible.
Friends, I could go on and on and on. The truth is this. As long as we call ourselves Christians, ultimate authority is due to Jesus, and ultimate loyalty is his as well. Unfortunately, it is also true, that as long as we have breathe, as long as we live in this world, as long we struggle against temptation and sin, that there will always be a myriad of other things vying for that power in our lives.
We will be tempted to give first place to money and things. We will be tempted to place our security and our hope in what is in our bank account. We will be tempted to make our financial well-being more important that our spiritual health. We will be tempted to hoard instead of to give. To be miserly instead of being generous. To be selfish instead of giving. And when we are tempted in this way, we need to remember we have a higher authority. Cash is not king. Jesus is.
We will be tempted to believe that government and political authority is our ultimate authority. We will be tempted to put our political agendas before God’s agenda for our church and our lives. We will be tempted to believe that being a Christian means being loyal to a political party, or a voting guide, or a government policy. But the government does not have authority over this church, or over my faith or your faith. We need to remember that a political party or a governmental authority is limited. We have a higher authority. That authority is Jesus.
We will sometimes be tempted to believe that this church has more authority than God has given it. We will be tempted to believe that our traditions are equivalent to the Word of God. We will be tempted to believe that the rituals of the church are more important than a relationship with Christ. We will be tempted to let the pastor do our thinking for us, instead of searching out the Scriptures for ourselves. We have a higher authority that church institutions and structures. We have the authority of Jesus Christ, who is the cornerstone of the church, and whose teaching is the solid rock the church is built upon.
There may be times when we are tempted to believe that the crowd has more authority than God. We may crave the approval of friends. We may long for the acceptance of others. We may hope to maintain peace with those around us at any cost. We may place all the authority for our lives in the hands of friends and family. We need to flee this temptation, and realize that the God who calls us to love our neighbor calls us to love Him with all our heart, all our soul, and all our mind first. We have a higher authority in our relationships. That authority is Jesus.
Finally, we may believe that we need to be on the throne in our own lives. We may be tempted to believe that our desires, our dreams, our hopes, our “rights” are more important that being loyal to Jesus, and to his commands. We may convince ourselves to do all sorts of sinful, taudry, and sordid things because we feel we have earned it, or we deserve it. It is then that we need to remember we have a higher authority. We need to take ourselves off of the throne in our own lives, and put Jesus up on it.
You see Jesus does not leave us an in-between option. Either he is Lord of all for us, or he is master of nothing in our lives. Jesus wants us fully-committed. Not half-hearted. Jesus wants us “all-in”, not frittering our lives away on penny ante wagers that lead only to sin and death. He doesn’t want part of our lives, he wants the whole.
And so we come to the cross. We come to the table. We remember that the King of Kings and the Lord of Lords gave it all for us. He died for us. He calls us to live our whole lives for Him. So as we come to this table, and we remember the body and the blood of our Lord, we remember that this sacrifice commands our complete devotion and loyalty. No half measures. No piece meal commitment. He gave it all for us. He asks us to give all of ourselves to Him.
As we come to this table, remember this. As we come to this table, commit to this. As we come to this table, believe this. As we come to this table, commit to live your whole lives like this. Amen.
Acts 17
1 Now when they had passed through Amphipolis and Apollonia, they came to Thessalonica, where there was a synagogue of the Jews. 2 Then Paul, as his custom was, went in to them, and for three Sabbaths reasoned with them from the Scriptures, 3 explaining and demonstrating that the Christ had to suffer and rise again from the dead, and saying, “This Jesus whom I preach to you is the Christ.” 4 And some of them were persuaded; and a great multitude of the devout Greeks, and not a few of the leading women, joined Paul and Silas.
5 But the Jews who were not persuaded, becoming envious,[a] took some of the evil men from the marketplace, and gathering a mob, set all the city in an uproar and attacked the house of Jason, and sought to bring them out to the people. 6 But when they did not find them, they dragged Jason and some brethren to the rulers of the city, crying out, “These who have turned the world upside down have come here too. 7 Jason has harbored them, and these are all acting contrary to the decrees of Caesar, saying there is another king—Jesus.” 8 And they troubled the crowd and the rulers of the city when they heard these things. 9 So when they had taken security from Jason and the rest, they let them go.
10 Then the brethren immediately sent Paul and Silas away by night to Berea. When they arrived, they went into the synagogue of the Jews. 11 These were more fair-minded than those in Thessalonica, in that they received the word with all readiness, and searched the Scriptures daily to find out whether these things were so. 12 Therefore many of them believed, and also not a few of the Greeks, prominent women as well as men. 13 But when the Jews from Thessalonica learned that the word of God was preached by Paul at Berea, they came there also and stirred up the crowds. 14 Then immediately the brethren sent Paul away, to go to the sea; but both Silas and Timothy remained there. 15 So those who conducted Paul brought him to Athens; and receiving a command for Silas and Timothy to come to him with all speed, they departed.
Fred Craddock is an old Southern Preacher that now resides in rural Georgia. He is in his 80s now, and is admired by scads of preachers much younger than himself. He is admired for two reasons. First, he is credited with developing a new kind of preaching style that encourages people to be drawn into the story of Scripture instead of simply informed about what Scripture says. Secondly, he is a master storyteller.
One of his stories goes something like this:
A very wealthy man called the university that Fred was working at. He asked for a meeting with the president of the university and Fred himself, who was the preaching professor for this seminary in Oklahoma. He said he wanted to help support the development of better preaching in the churches.
Who doesn’t want better preaching in churches?
The school was holding on by its fingernails financially, so they began to have discussions with the man. Finally he said he planned to give the school a sizeable endowment.
So the president and Fred the preaching professor went to visit with this man.
The gentleman asked if he could lead the three of them in a time of prayer. The men from the seminary agreed. They prayed for the school, and for the ministers that would be developed there etc etc.
He pulled out the papers that he already had prepared to commit to this astronomical contribution. He had a few questions.
“Now all of this goes to the preaching program?” he said
“Yes, it does.” The president of the seminary said.
He started to write, “Now, you understand, none of this goes for the women or the blacks.”
The president picked up his paperwork, packed his briefcase, and stood up. “I am sorry. I cannot accept your money on those conditions.” And Fred and the president began to leave the man’s office.
As they were leaving he said, “Well, I will find plenty of people who will take the money!” The president and Fred again said goodbye and left.
Turns out that man gave over 60 million dollars to higher education around the country. But just not to the women or the blacks, you understand?
I understand. I understand that there are some people who say that they are Christians, and yet some issue, some grudge, some amount of money, some loyalty is more important than their loyalty to God and his word.
The school we read about had convictions. Convictions based on who they had committed themselves to be: namely believers in Jesus Christ with unshakeable beliefs that were based upon Scripture that they would not compromise. The believed their ultimate marching orders came not from financial benefit, political opportunism, achievement, or popularity. Ultimately, these men were their marching orders came from Christ, and when anything compromised with loyalty to Christ and his kingdom they needed to step away.
The apostle Paul, Silas, and their entourage of assistants and missionaries continued their ministry in the first 15 verses of Acts 17. And if you just read over the passage the first time, as I did a couple of weeks ago, you might say to yourself, “Man this book of Acts is kind of repetitive!”
You know how it goes by now. The missionaries come into town. They preach at the synagogue. Lots of people come to Jesus. Some of the powerful Jews think they are heretics and get jealous. They find Gentiles that are also uncomfortable with Paul’s teaching and his popularity. They get them arrested. They drag them to the middle of a city and start a riot. Before long a church is started. Before long Silas and Paul need to move down the road to the next town before they get killed. Then the whole cycle starts again.
There are lots of places where there are cycles in Scripture, where it seems like the same story is being said over and over again. Read the book of Judges. Read how family cycles repeat themselves in the book of Genesis. This is shared for a couple of reasons. First, the Bible shares these repetitive things because we live our lives in certain rhythms and cycles. Also, the Bible shares about these events in this way because they are in fact, true.
And, when you read stuff where the same kind of story is repeated over and over again, it is important to re-read the details of that particular passage to see what unique is being said about what is happening to those particular people, in that particular situation. When you slow down, re-read for a few details, the deeper story of what is going on emerges.
The key to this passage is in verse 7. Verse 7 says, “these are all acting contrary to the decrees of Caesar, saying there is another king—Jesus.”
You see, these Christians were dangerous. They were dangerous because they believed in a higher authority. They believed that the authority of Jesus trumped religious authority, the authority of tradition, governmental authority, political authority, the power of the crowd, and even their own individual rights and needs.
The men and women of Thessalonica and Berea, as well as the missionaries, are not political radicals. They are, however, religious radicals in any Greco-Roman measure. Their beliefs in the resurrection of Jesus defined their whole world view. Their faith was NOT a hobby. It defined their whole life—their professional life, their social life, how they spent their money, what they would and would not do with their friends and more. Their accusers were right. These Christians were turning the world upside down. Their accusers were on to something when they said that their loyalty was to a higher power—the God of the Bible. And they were correct in that this belief in Jesus was even more important to them than their loyalty to Caesar.
You can see this in the passage the kind of authority they bucked against. They came into the synagogue, which was, in effect, the church that they grew up in. The opened the Old Testament Scriptures, and they began to teach about how Jesus was spoken about in the old Testament and fulfilled the prophecies about what the Messiah should be. There were many people that supported them, but the guardians of the synagogue in Thessalonica did not like what they taught. It went against church tradition. It went against the way that it had always been done, and the way the faith had always believed and had always practiced. But it did not matter to Paul and Silas. The truth of Jesus was worth making the religious powers that be upset. Their faith in Jesus was bucking against the religious authority and the authority of the traditions and the ancestors of the synagogue. And it made the Jewish authorities angry. And they started a riot in order to bring trouble to Paul and the missionaries. They thought this trouble would make them stop. But Paul and Silas had a higher authority.
The Gentile citizens were easily swayed by the idea that the Christians were disloyal to the state. In some cases, this is not unjustified. You see, good citizens did not worship one God, they worshipped many gods. So when they were told that these people were “turning the world upside down” and “had another king besides Caesar”, they began to threaten and punish the Christians because they only worshipped one God and not many. The Christians were not going to support the unjust businesses like prostitution, and they treated slaves as equal to free men. And so they were humiliated, they were beaten, and they were punished. It did not matter what the Greco-Roman authorities said. Paul and Silas had a higher authority.
When Paul and the missionaries went to Berea, it appears that they experienced less strife. As a matter of fact, the Scripture says that the people in Berea were “fair-minded” to Paul and Silas. But they were not going to just trust the first smooth talking strangers that came into town. They too had a higher authority. Since God was their authority, they searched the Scriptures after each time Paul and Silas preached to make sure they were not being led astray. You see it wasn’t just Paul and Silas that had a higher authority. The Berean church had a higher authority than Paul and Silas. Their authority is the God of the Bible.
Friends, I could go on and on and on. The truth is this. As long as we call ourselves Christians, ultimate authority is due to Jesus, and ultimate loyalty is his as well. Unfortunately, it is also true, that as long as we have breathe, as long as we live in this world, as long we struggle against temptation and sin, that there will always be a myriad of other things vying for that power in our lives.
We will be tempted to give first place to money and things. We will be tempted to place our security and our hope in what is in our bank account. We will be tempted to make our financial well-being more important that our spiritual health. We will be tempted to hoard instead of to give. To be miserly instead of being generous. To be selfish instead of giving. And when we are tempted in this way, we need to remember we have a higher authority. Cash is not king. Jesus is.
We will be tempted to believe that government and political authority is our ultimate authority. We will be tempted to put our political agendas before God’s agenda for our church and our lives. We will be tempted to believe that being a Christian means being loyal to a political party, or a voting guide, or a government policy. But the government does not have authority over this church, or over my faith or your faith. We need to remember that a political party or a governmental authority is limited. We have a higher authority. That authority is Jesus.
We will sometimes be tempted to believe that this church has more authority than God has given it. We will be tempted to believe that our traditions are equivalent to the Word of God. We will be tempted to believe that the rituals of the church are more important than a relationship with Christ. We will be tempted to let the pastor do our thinking for us, instead of searching out the Scriptures for ourselves. We have a higher authority that church institutions and structures. We have the authority of Jesus Christ, who is the cornerstone of the church, and whose teaching is the solid rock the church is built upon.
There may be times when we are tempted to believe that the crowd has more authority than God. We may crave the approval of friends. We may long for the acceptance of others. We may hope to maintain peace with those around us at any cost. We may place all the authority for our lives in the hands of friends and family. We need to flee this temptation, and realize that the God who calls us to love our neighbor calls us to love Him with all our heart, all our soul, and all our mind first. We have a higher authority in our relationships. That authority is Jesus.
Finally, we may believe that we need to be on the throne in our own lives. We may be tempted to believe that our desires, our dreams, our hopes, our “rights” are more important that being loyal to Jesus, and to his commands. We may convince ourselves to do all sorts of sinful, taudry, and sordid things because we feel we have earned it, or we deserve it. It is then that we need to remember we have a higher authority. We need to take ourselves off of the throne in our own lives, and put Jesus up on it.
You see Jesus does not leave us an in-between option. Either he is Lord of all for us, or he is master of nothing in our lives. Jesus wants us fully-committed. Not half-hearted. Jesus wants us “all-in”, not frittering our lives away on penny ante wagers that lead only to sin and death. He doesn’t want part of our lives, he wants the whole.
And so we come to the cross. We come to the table. We remember that the King of Kings and the Lord of Lords gave it all for us. He died for us. He calls us to live our whole lives for Him. So as we come to this table, and we remember the body and the blood of our Lord, we remember that this sacrifice commands our complete devotion and loyalty. No half measures. No piece meal commitment. He gave it all for us. He asks us to give all of ourselves to Him.
As we come to this table, remember this. As we come to this table, commit to this. As we come to this table, believe this. As we come to this table, commit to live your whole lives like this. Amen.
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