Acts 17:1-9

Read: Acts 17:1-9

 

Keep in mind as you read through the book of Acts that the message of the resurrected Christ, the gospel was being spread all over the Roman world. Really, what the gospel entailed was the teaching that Jesus was King. As you can imagine, those in the Empire loyal to Caesar, saw the message of the gospel as subversive. The gospel was threatening to Caesar’s claim to sole kingship, for what Paul and the other apostles were doing was telling Jews and Gentiles that the

kingdom of
God, the reign and rule of God was a much larger force in the world than Caesar’s earthly kingdom. Really, what we have is a clash between two worlds, the way of Christ vs. the way of earthly power. The way of Christ is a life of constant surrender to Christ. We are agreeing to let go of petty things, of selfishness, of putting ourselves first. If we are agreeing to take up our crosses, we are really living to die so that we might find life. Whereas the way of the world teaches us that we are our own gods, the master of our own destinies. The way of the world is full of deceit, bitterness, envy, murder, sexual immorality, and emptiness.

 

It is interesting to me that the trouble makers here in Thessalonica were Jews. For the ones that were threatened by Paul’s preaching stir up trouble for Paul by inciting a mob riot and got the city officials involved. The charge brought against Paul was that had “caused trouble over the whole world … and…are all defying Caesar’s decrees, saying that there is another king, once called Jesus” (17:6-9). I don’t know about you, but I find these charges against Paul rather exciting. Already the gospel had a reputation for infecting the whole world and now people are beginning to see that God’s kingdom was larger than Caesar’s. What intrigues me about these trouble making Jews is that they were the inheritors of a religious conviction that the only king was God, but Jewish history demonstrates over and over again that the Jews had often rejected God’s rule for a foreign gods. Remember way back to the book of Samuel, there is a terribly reminiscent scene where the Israelites beg and plead with the prophet Samuel to give them a king. Sickened by this plea, Samuel brings his request before God and God the giver of human choice, tells Samuel to give the Israelites what they want, for the one they were rejecting was really God himself.

 

We are part of movement that demands our total commitment. We cannot straddle the fence on who or what will rule over us. Only you can decide who you will let sit on the throne of your heart. I ask only that you choose wisely.