Acts 17:11 (New International Version)
"Now the Bereans were of more noble character than the Thessalonians, for they received the message with great eagerness and examined the Scriptures every day to see if what Paul said was true."
Can you imagine being there with the Bereans at this time in history? The Apostle Paul, while on his missionary journey, stops by to do some teaching. You sit and listen to him speak, when he is done, you go home and take out your Bible and check on Paul, they wanted to be sure what he had said was true.
What a great lesson for every Christian. We too often put all of our faith and trust in the preacher or teacher and fail to search the Scriptures to verify that they are accurate. I understand why this happens, after all, you may have come to know and trust this teacher, and the thought is, he is never wrong, he takes his gift very seriously. We need to keep something in mind, he is only human and has the ability to error! Even the very best may get
2007-02-14 13:11:20 · 4 answers · asked by Anonymous in Society & Culture ➔ Religion & Spirituality
Even the very best may get a bit off once in a while, or may be teaching what he learned from someone else, someone he trusted. We need to be more concerned about being true to our first love, the Lord! God wants us to have the truth, and He gave us the Scriptures so we would have it available. We have the truth and need to check to see if our teacher or preacher is accurate.
We should all be of noble character like the Bereans and search the Scriptures.
2007-02-14 13:13:05 · update #1
Christians should always ponder over messages they receive, whether from ministers, the scriptures, or personal revelations. There is always more being said then just the face value. And, we need to know how to apply this to lives in this day and time.
Additional comment. The Jews had the "Old Testament." The message of the New Testament was foretold in the Old Testament.
2007-02-14 13:16:49 · answer #1 · answered by jack-copeland@sbcglobal.net 4 · 1⤊ 0⤋
I believe the article is absolutely correct in stating this to be a great lesson for everyone (claiming to be a Christian). All saved people (aka Christians) know that the only accurate source for all the knowledge we need to live our life is in God's Word. Many people have interpreted God's Word to make their opinions be true. What we have to do as Christians is to listen to what people have to say, and then go to the Word, read it and pray about it -- if it seems unclear to us in some way, we should look up other sources, read them, compare them , re-read the Word of God in the Bible, then ask the Lord in prayer to help us to understand what He wants us to take away from the reading. What is His will for us as we read the Scripture. God will make it clear to each one of us what it is He wants us to learn and live from the Scripture. Ginny
2007-02-14 13:26:16 · answer #2 · answered by Ginny P 1 · 1⤊ 0⤋
There is one major flaw in this...the Bible as we know it today, did not exist then. In other words, there was nothing they could refer back to but what others said about the subject as well.
How could they have "old testament" bibles just laying around when there was no such thing as the printing press or monks to copy it???? Regular people did not have access to these writings like we do now.
2007-02-14 13:15:16 · answer #3 · answered by Bronx B 2 · 2⤊ 0⤋
I guess illiterate people can't be Christians then. . . .
2007-02-14 13:15:34 · answer #4 · answered by Sass B 4 · 1⤊ 0⤋