Sermon Tone Analysis

Introduction: One of the most iconic lines in cinematic history was in the movie “A Few Good Men” starting Tom Cruise and Jack Nicolson.

My guess is for some of you already know the line: “You want the truth, you can’t handle the truth.”

Now one of the reasons why I think that line is so iconic is that it deals with something that we can all relate to.

An inability to deal with truth.

Many people can’t handle the truth.

It’s hard to handle the truth:

When it challenges what we already believe.

When it’s not popular

Or sometimes when it’s too popular.

When it goes against what we want to believe.

When it’s said by someone who’ve said other things we don’t like.

But truth has power that we can miss if we aren’t careful.

Jesus says in John 8:31-32.

The truth will set us free, but how can we know what the truth is?

Transition to the Text: Turn with me in your Bibles to Acts 17:10-15.

These few short verses talk about a group of people that is mentioned nowhere else in the Bible, but they made such an impression on Paul and Luke that their story is recorded here for us to learn from.

The Bereans had a mind for truth.

But part of knowing the truth means having an appropriate skepticism of anything that might be a lie.

Introduce:

Authentic Principle: A mind for truth requires appropriate skepticism.

Read:

Acts 17:10–15 (ESV)

10 The brothers immediately sent Paul and Silas away by night to Berea, and when they arrived they went into the Jewish synagogue.

11 Now these Jews were more noble than those in Thessalonica; they received the word with all eagerness, examining the Scriptures daily to see if these things were so.

12 Many of them therefore believed, with not a few Greek women of high standing as well as men.

13 But when the Jews from Thessalonica learned that the word of God was proclaimed by Paul at Berea also, they came there too, agitating and stirring up the crowds.

14 Then the brothers immediately sent Paul off on his way to the sea, but Silas and Timothy remained there.

15 Those who conducted Paul brought him as far as Athens, and after receiving a command for Silas and Timothy to come to him as soon as possible, they departed.

Authentic Principle: A mind for truth requires appropriate skepticism.

Paul had just finished up a tense ministry experience in Thessalonica where in response to Paul’s preaching of Jesus as the Christ sent the city into an uproar.

The church sent Paul and Silas (Timothy was also with them) away in the middle of the night to Berea.

So how great must it have been to find the Bereans to be more noble than what they experienced in Thessalonica.

Luke tells us that the Bereans received Paul’s word with all eagerness, but also a little bit of skepticism.

However what we can learn from them is...

1. Don’t blindly take someone’s word.

(Acts 17:10-11)

Explanation: While it’s true that the Bereans received the words with all eagerness, they weren’t willing to take just anyone’s word for it…and to be honest they had just met Paul.

They wanted to appeal to a higher authority.

So while they were eager to hear what Paul had to say, the fact-checked Paul.

But fact checking is only as reliable as what you check your facts against.

The Bereans fact check Paul against the Scriptures.

In fact Luke records that they searched the scriptures daily.

This means that they checked and rechecked everything that Paul said against the Scriptures to see if what he was saying matched up.

Now one thing we know, the NT at maximum was only starting to be written at this point.

The only NT letter likely written by this time was the Epistle of James.

So everything that Paul was preaching to them had to match up with the OT.

Which shows you that you can preach Jesus just from the OT.

Jesus did...

Now the word Scripture here clearly refers to the OT which is important because later, people like Paul, Peter and even Luke here would call what the NT writers were writing scripture as well.

This shows that they saw that the NT was on the same level as the OT.

So what were the Bereans searching for in the Scriptures?

They were searching for the truth.

And even though what Paul said sounded good to them, that wasn’t enough for them.

Because they had such a high view of Scripture that it overruled everything that didn’t agree with it.

Illustration: There are times in our lives when what someone is saying sounds good to us.

They make a lot of sense.

And before we know it, we’re hanging on every word.

In the last century, there was a man who galvanized a nation and brought them out of an economic and depression.

He gave the nation something to believe in and united them and gave them pride in their nation after years of dealing with the aftermath of WW1.

The only problem was, he did it with lies.

He told the people what they wanted to hear.

And they loved him for it.

His name was Adolph Hitler.

The people did not have a mind for truth because they didn’t have an appropriate level of skepticism.

Be careful of who you are listening to.

People will hate you for telling them the truth.

These days we are naturally skeptical of anyone who tries to convince us of something.

But still, it’s tough to know what to believe or who to believe.

We’ve experienced this these past few years as we’ve navigated COVID.

Application: It’s easy sometimes to just revert to what someone else thinks.

Sometimes people are charismatic and convincing.

And we believe them because we want to.

Paul writes to Timothy about this in 2 Timothy 4:3-5

Don’t take just anyone’s word for it.

Notice that Luke admires the Bereans for not taking Paul’s word for it.

He calls them noble not only for their eagerness to hear Paul but also in their diligence in checking Paul’s teaching against the Scriptures.

They believed what is true.

2. Believe what is true (Acts 17:12)

Explanation: It is so important for us to understand that a person, a pastor, a teacher is only as credible as their source material.

The Bereans didn’t know if they could trust Paul.

But they knew they could trust the Scriptures.

They knew that this was their standard of truth.

You might ask, what if they were wrong about the Bible?

Because that’s what so many people ask today.

So many doubt whether or not the Bible is true and trustworthy, let alone authoritative over our lives.

You could say that people are skeptical of the Bible.

But do they have to be?

First, people doubt that what we have in our Bible is was originally written down.

Secondly, people doubt what was originally written down is actually true and authoritative.

Because it’s only authoritative if it’s true.

The first one is easy.

When it comes to the OT, the Jewish scribes were so meticulous in their copying the Scriptures that their precision led to almost perfect transcription.

For example, the dead sea scrolls were discovered in the 1950s, the oldest copies of the Hebrew Bible were from around 1100 A.D. So when the dead sea scrolls were discovered, they predated those earliest copies by over 1200 years.

The expectation was significant differences.

And wouldn’t you know it, they matched almost exactly.

When it comes to the NT, there are over 5,000 Greek manuscripts, many of which date to within a few decades of the events they record.

Here’s the amazing thing about those Manuscripts.

While not one of them matches exactly with another (they have differences in spelling and expected scribal errors), we can take all of them together and by comparing them we can rebuild with near certainty what the originals said.

If someone were to show up with a single old looking manuscript and were to say this is the original, we shouldn’t believe them.

Because that’s not the way God sovereignly preserved His Word.