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That's connectwithskip.com. Now, let's get started with today's message from Pastor Skip Heitzig. When Paul writes 1 Thessalonians to this church, he writes this. This is 1 Thessalonians chapter 1. The word of the Lord sounded forth, echoed forth, not only in Macedonia and Achaia, but also in every place your faith toward God has gone out so that we do not need to say anything. So the word of the Lord came to them through Paul. Eventually, the word of the Lord went from them.
They became receivers of the truth, and then they became transmitters of the truth. That is God's plan for your life. God's plan is not that you just receive, receive, receive, soak, soak, soak, study, study, study, read, read, read, get spiritually fat, fat, fat. He wants you to get spiritually fat, and then he wants you to exercise and get lean again. And the way you exercise and get lean again is by taking the truth that you learn and disseminating it to others. Take principles that you hear, make it your own, and tell somebody else.
By the way, you will learn it faster when you tell what you know to somebody else. So the word of the Lord came to them. Paul says the word of the Lord went through them as well. So this very strategic town of Thessalonica, Paul goes to, and the word of the Lord will come through them. Verse 2, Paul, as his custom was, went into them. He's in a synagogue, and for three weeks, three Sabbaths.
Now, I love this. You're going to find this word a lot with Paul, and especially even in this chapter. It says he reasoned with them from the Scriptures. The Christian faith is reasonable faith. Paul never went and said, hey, believe this just because you ought to believe it.
Believe it just because. He reasoned with them. He wanted them to know what to believe and why to believe it. So you'd find Paul reasoning with them, and you would have to reason with Jewish scholars in a synagogue to get them to believe that Jesus is the Messiah. You're not going to just go in there willy-nilly and go, Jesus is the guy you guys have been looking for. Amen.
You better believe that. But for three weeks, week after week, Sabbath service after service, he reasoned with them from the Scriptures. Hey, parents, let me encourage you to reason with your children from the Scriptures. Please don't expect our wonderful Bible Island. They do such a great job.
They have for years. Don't expect them to give all that your kids need. Reason with your children from the Scriptures. Show them why they ought to believe certain things.
Do it yourself. Reason with them. God said, come now, let us reason together, says the Lord. And notice verse three, explaining and demonstrating that the Christ, the Messiah, had to suffer and rise again from the dead, saying, this Jesus whom I preach to you is the Christ. 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. But the Jews who were not persuaded, becoming envious, took some of the evil men from the marketplace. Now, I've always loved the old King James translation of this verse. It says they took, listen to this translation, lewd fellows of the baser sort. Come on, that's just good. Lude fellows of the baser sort.
You just don't get any gnarlier than that. But it's translated into a more modern translation, evil men from the marketplace and gathering a mob, set all of the city in an uproar and attacked the house of Jason and sought to bring them out to the people. Notice the two effects of Paul's ministry in Thessalonica. Some were persuaded, some were not persuaded.
You see that in two verses in verse four and in verse five. There was a strong reaction, a strong favorable reaction, a strong unfavorable reaction. No middle ground. Some were persuaded, some were not persuaded.
They got really mad about it. I think that when you share the gospel, you should make it unmistakably clear, unmistakably clear. For years, we have used the radio for not only Bible teaching, but also evangelism. We've had a little format that we call God spots. We put on hundreds of radio stations around the country for years, just little snippets of truth, not just on Christian radio stations, but many times on secular radio stations. We've done it just on purpose, just to target unbelieving audiences while they're in their car, they're going to get 15, 20, 30 seconds of truth and they're going to have to deal with it. And so it's like a music bit and then bam, a little nugget of truth. And I loved the responses we would get all the way from, we love this, we didn't expect this, we're believers, but we heard it on the secular radio station as we were going to work. Others saying, you have no right to put that on our radio station, even though we do because it is American, you can buy time and we did, but they just thought, look, we're heathens and that's our turf, so don't mess with our turf. So I loved getting two strong reactions.
One saying go for it, other saying go home. Some were persuaded, some were not persuaded. Now I just want to draw your attention again to the fact that Paul is in Thessalonica for how many weeks? Three. Three Sabbaths.
He reasoned with them. Then he's going to move on to Berea. Three weeks and a church starts.
It's not a long time. We don't read of Paul going into Thessalonica saying, okay, Silas and boys, we need to get a demographic study of the city of Thessalonica for this church plant. We need to do an internet campaign to launch this, though I'm not opposed to these as techniques, they work, I understand they have their place, but of course Paul didn't have that ability to do a demographic study, probably wouldn't have anyway. He didn't take sort of the right population in the right part of town because the whole town was unchurched because there was no church ever. This is the first one, but it only took three weeks and a church was started. Listen, it does not take long when God wants to move. All he did was unleash the Word of God and let the Holy Spirit do his deal. Three weeks, a church was started.
We know it was a pretty good church because he writes 1 Thessalonians and 2 Thessalonians later to the church, very viable, strong church that grew up in that area and also sent out missionaries around them. Verse 6, so Paul's at the house of Jason, Jason had Paul, they go to the house of Jason, sought to bring him out to the people, but when they did not find them, they dragged Jason and some of the brethren to the rulers of that city crying out, These who have turned the world upside down have come here too. Now listen to what they're saying.
These guys who turned the world upside down have come here too. What a wonderful thing to hear. Now they didn't mean it as a compliment. They meant it as a cut.
They meant it as a complaint. But as a believer, I would take this as a compliment. Given the condition of the world, this is a compliment. Given the condition of the dark and deplorable and fallen state of this humanity called the world, when the world says you turned the world upside down, I go hallelujah.
We need more people like that who will turn their world upside down. You see, what the world calls right side up is really upside down and what the world calls upside down is really right side up. Paul didn't turn the world upside down as God intended the world to be. He turned it back to its original ideal, among the believers at least.
Believers in harmony with God, loving God, praising Jesus, trusting Him. That's not upside down. That's right side up.
But they didn't mean this as a compliment but as a cut, a complaint. These who have turned the world upside down have come here too. My prayer for you is that you would turn your world upside down. I pray that you will not be inoculated with a mild form of Christianity so as to be rendered immune from the real thing. I pray that you'll be a radical. Go radical. Yeah, just love people. Share with people.
That's radical. You're listening to Connect with Skip Heitzig. Before we return to Skip's teaching, God's peace, his shalom, can penetrate every aspect of your life spiritually, mentally, physically and emotionally. In his book, Unleashing Peace, Experiencing God's Shalom in Your Pursuit of Happiness, author Jeremiah J. Johnston helps you understand shalom and guides you into the peace that passes all understanding. And when you give a gift of $50 or more today, we'll send you Unleashing Peace. Our thanks for your support to reach more people with God's love through Connect with Skip Heitzig.
Go to connectwithskip.com slash offer or call 800-922-1888 and request your copy when you give. Now let's get back to Skip for more of today's teaching. Just live the loving, compassionate, wonderful, authentic Christian life in your community. That's radical. And that's right side up. And it doesn't mean you have to go be a church miner, be a pastor, be a worship leader.
God needs doctors, lawyers, secretaries, business people, politicians, salt and light in their community. That's how you turn the world upside down, right side up. These who have turned the world upside down have come here, too.
Jason has harbored them. They continue their complaint. And these are all acting contrary to the decrees of Caesar, saying there is another king, Jesus. Now that happens to be accurate and it will eventually get the Christians into trouble. The persecution that will be fomented and burgeon under Nero, Domitian and others will be in part because believers gave their allegiance to King Jesus rather than King Caesar. When a yearly libelous had to be signed and a pledge had to be given, kurias caesar, Caesar is Lord, the Christian wouldn't say it. The Christian would say Caesar isn't Lord, Jesus is Lord.
And it would cost his or her life. This is the beginning of that complaint. They're not acknowledging Caesar. They're saying there's another king, Jesus. And they troubled the crowd, these lewd fellows of the baser sort. They troubled the crowd and the rulers of the city when they heard these things. So when they had taken security, that is a bribe, money, financial money, financial money that was sorry, that was redundant, a cash bribe from Jason and the rest, they let them go. Then the brethren immediately sent Paul and Silas away.
Get out of town, boys. Sent them by night to Berea, just a few miles away. When they arrived, they went into the synagogue of the Jews. Are you seeing a pattern with Paul? Every city, it's the synagogue first. Why the synagogue first? Because as Paul will say, the gospel is to the Jew first and also to the Greek, the Gentile, the non-Jew. But why the Jew first? Because the Messiah was predicted through the Jewish Scriptures. It was the Messiah the Jews spoke about, Isaiah spoke about, Jeremiah spoke about, Ezekiel spoke about, Hosea spoke about. It was the fulfillment of the promise to Israel and to the world, but he begins first with the Jew.
They went into the synagogue of the Jews. I love verse 11. It is one of my all time favorite verses of scripture.
I recommend you commit it to memory. These were more fair minded than those in Thessalonica in that they received the word of God with all readiness and searched the scriptures daily to find out whether these things were so. Have the heart of a Berean. Now, these were Jewish people, Jewish unbelievers who heard in their synagogue a rabbi giving them Old Testament teachings. Ooh, that sounded amazing, they thought. I wonder if it's true. Well, let's go home.
Let's go find scrolls of the prophets and let's look this stuff up. And really, let's see if what he said is so. Now, let me encourage you in like manner to don't just take what people say as a blanket statement. Well, I read it somewhere, so it's got to be true. Skip said it.
It's got to be true. I think Wednesday nights is a group of Bereans you hear, but then you want to look up yourself to make sure that's really what he quoted, what he said. Is that is that right? Is that right with the rest of the scripture? I don't discourage that.
I encourage that. It'll make you a stronger believer. It'll help you reason through the scriptures. So they were more noble, more fair minded in that they received the word with all readiness of mind and searched the scriptures daily to find out whether these things were so. Therefore, many of them believed and also not a few of the Greeks, in other words, a whole bunch of Greeks, prominent women as well as men. But when the Jews from Thessalonica, see, that's not far from Berea, I told you. So word gets back to Thessalonica, what happened in Berea that people are hearing Paul and responding.
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. Then immediately their brethren sent Paul away. Seems to be another pattern with Paul. He's there for a while, then get out of town, Paul. They sent Paul away to go to see both Paul and Silas, both Silas and Timothy remain there. So Paul goes, Silas and Timothy remain. 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.
Now Paul is at Athens and the rest of this chapter Paul shows his ministry at Athens, the next chapter will be Corinth. Athens was the heart of the Greek Empire. Athens had been conquered by the Romans in 146 BC, it was technically a Roman colony, however, it was given free status. It was regarded as a free city, even though it was technically under Roman occupation.
Because of its storied past, its incredible background, it was given the status as a free city. All the way back, many years before this, Alexander the Great, the head of the Greco-Macedonian Empire had a dream, as I mentioned before, to unite the West and the East together. Effectively, to turn the East into the West. That is, he wanted to spread Greek thinking, Greek language, Greek customs around the world, making it all the way as far as Babylon.
And by the way, Alexander at age 32 died in Babylon, weeping, he said, because there were no more worlds to conquer. So he conquered from West to East, conquered the world, but he sought to impose a Greco-Macedonian culture around the world, and largely he succeeded. He succeeded in bringing Greek art, Greek drama, Greek politics, Greek architecture into the Roman world and even into our world. The Greek political system of democracy, of a nation ruled by the people comes to us from the Greek culture.
The idea of personal freedoms within a society comes to us from the Greek culture. The very heart of this was Athens. Paul finds himself at Athens, he's there for a few days, he's waiting for his friends.
It says now, verse 16, now, while Paul waited for them at Athens, his spirit was provoked within him when he saw that the city was given over to idols. I've been to Athens and when I was at Athens, I was looking around going, wow, wow, wow. I mean, it's just amazing to step into modern Athens and you can from the harbor, you can look into Athens and you can see the Acropolis in the distance and the Parthenon gleaming like a jewel. Then you go to the Parthenon and the Odeon and the theater and the Agora and the Areopagus, Mars Hill, which is all mentioned here, and it's just amazing what they did. But when Paul went to Athens, he didn't go, wow, like I did.
He went, whoa. Because Paul looked at Athens not as a sightseer, but as a soul winner. And what he saw bothered him. He just said, look at all those cool statues, look at those cool temples. He said, this is a shame, those statues in these temples, because it shows me, said Paul, the failure of these religious systems to satisfy the heart of mankind. These systems can't take away their sin.
These systems are false religious systems. His heart was stirred. He was provoked. He saw a city that had been wholly given over to idols. When you go to modern cities like Hollywood or you go to Las Vegas, I wonder what your response, your reaction inwardly is.
I mean, it's pretty amazing. You see all the screens that are shining on the strip in Las Vegas and the lights and the hotels and the fountains and it's easy to go, wow. But you just look a little deeper or you look at Hollywood.
You don't have to look very far. These are places that are looked over by millions of visitors, but overlooked by millions of believers. I might have overlooked Athens, I might have just looked over it and gone, wow. Paul went, whoa, he was troubled. It's sort of like Jesus. You know, he stood on the Mount of Olives, a place that some of us stood a few weeks ago, and we were going, wow, look at this place. We're in Jerusalem. There's the holy city. That's where the temple stood. Jesus looked at Jerusalem and he wept over it. He said, oh, Jerusalem, Jerusalem, how often I wanted to gather you as a mother and gathers her chicks, but you were not willing. See, your house is left to you desolate and there will not be one stone left upon another till all is thrown down.
He wept. We're glad you joined us today. Before you go, remember that when you give 50 dollars or more to help reach more people with the gospel through Connect with Skip Heitzig, we'll send you Jeremiah Johnston's powerful book, Unleashing Peace, to guide you into the peace that passes all understanding. To request your copy, call 800-922-1888. That's 800-922-1888 or visit connectwithskip.com slash donate. For more from Skip, be sure to download the Connect with Skip Heitzig app where you can access messages and more content right at your fingertips. Come back next time for more verse by verse teaching of God's word here on Connect with Skip Heitzig. Make a connection, make a connection at the foot of the cross and cast all burdens on his word. Make a connection, a connection. Connect with Skip Heitzig is a presentation of Connection Communications, connecting you to God's never-changing truth in ever-changing times.
