Silas & Timothy remained
Acts 17:10-15 · Vern Peterman · Apr 22, 2018
Acts (2017-18), No. 59
Holly Hills Bible Church
https://hollyhillsbiblechurch.org/teaching/messages/4926199492174

Transcribed from the recording by SermonAudio, so expect the occasional misheard word.

Good morning. We're going to be working our way through this passage that Luke just read for us here, Acts 17, 10 through 15. And so as we get moving through it, one of the points we'll make here is Acts begins the stories of two young men, As we pointed out just two weeks back, the Book of Acts begins the stories of these two young men, John Mark, or as he's called in the Book of Acts, John, also called Mark, and Timothy. And while their stories are begun in the Book of Acts, the truth is that none of them have their complete stories or all the information, or as you might have heard it, the rest of the story, within the Book of Acts, but actually in the rest of the New Testament.

So we're going to be looking at that again later, just kind of tracking through it. Meanwhile, we have this record from Timothy. So John, called Mark, is named in Acts chapters 12 and 15, which we've already gone through, and not again in the book of Acts. Timothy, however, we first saw him in the last chapter, chapter 16. He will appear in today's passage, and we'll see him off and on again until chapter 20.

And so we're going to see more about Timothy, and then we'll want to revisit what happened with these two young men over time. So the reason we bring that up is their stories have some deep and enduring insights for all of us in a number of different roles that each of us have. And so we'll be continuing to take a look at that.

So one of the things we're going to point out here, there are principles from the Book of Acts that we want to draw from. A principle is not that guy at the school that you get sent to if you do something wrong or who otherwise administers things. It's either the way things work or a fundamental truth or both. You can kind of keep that in mind. This is the use of the word principle as we employ it here.

Acts is packed with principles that apply to you and me in a number of different realms. It's for church leaders, for parents, for relatives, and for friends. There are a number of different principles that can be brought to bear and will be continuing to bring forward out of the book of Acts. One more thing I want to mention. You might have noticed that a lot of the pictures that I'm using are actually taken out of this DVD. It is Acts of the Apostles.

It was actually done a couple decades back, and you're free to borrow this. One of the advantages here is that they don't do anything but the text of Scripture. That is, they just read through the Bible. dramatically added to, taken away from, altered, is just simply reading the text of Scripture. So you're welcome to borrow that and make use of it. That way you can kind of see it as a sweeping story. It's also the exact same thing. It's available on YouTube for free. So you can take a look at it there if that's what you prefer.

So as we look at it, society bails on men and women. And of course, one of the things we've seen, especially in recent years, is a confusion between men and women. Now, there was a time when I would tell people, oh, society has defined men and women. We've got about 11 different genders. Well, that's way outdated. That's so 90s, right? Because now there's 63 different genders, just in case you didn't know. That's the latest update,

63. The Bible still has two. He made them male and female. So Scripture is not ambiguous about it or unclear. And Acts lays out the biblical principles that actually we need regarding maleness and femaleness in our homes.

And we bring that out because here is John Mark, John who's called Mark, who grew up in a home without a father, at least for some period of time, and perhaps for a long period of time. And that seems to have impacted him. But we see an account of how Barnabas comes into his life. And then we see with Timothy, he had a Greek father and a Jewish mother. His father was spiritually apathetic, right? So he started off with a disadvantage. And guess what?

Paul brought him under wing, and as we'll see as we continue through this account in Acts, brings him along in a place and to a place where he hadn't been before, spiritually speaking. So here's a guy that the Lord uses Paul to help grow up into being the man that God wants him to be. You have on your handout, at least I sure hope so, a map. This is a map of all of Paul's second missionary journey, which we have often included. What we're going to do, however, is to zoom in on the upper northwest quarter of that. And so that should be what you have in the front of your handout.

So because that shows Philippi, which was where Paul and his companions started in Macedonia. And then moving on as we saw last week into Thessalonica. And then, as Luke read for us this morning, from there to Berea, and then on even in that account, as we'll see, to Athens. So you see that that's the movement of this passage as we're looking at in the Book of Facts.

Now we step into the chronology. What was the sequence in which things took place? That's part one. And then secondly, What was the approximate date or timing? There are certain times within the Book of Acts, and we've seen them and we will still yet see them again, where we can actually specify the exact date, I mean to the day, when certain things took place.

The calendar system that we use is not one that they used at all. It wasn't developed until centuries. after the New Testament times, but we're able to go through the calendars of New Testament times and kind of retrofit our calendar. And so he was, Paul and his companions were in Berea.

February of 51 now, I think 51 I think of some Chevy, you know a 51 Chevy No, this is that we're talking a lot earlier than that. Okay. This isn't a 51 Chevy kind of 51. This is 0 0 5 1. Okay, nothing in front of it. Okay 51 ad so it's right after the the beginning and the middle of, approximately, the first century. Now, did these people know that they were living in the first century? No. So that's our dating system, not theirs.

So these are the dates that appear to be relevant. We see Thessalonica starting in November of 50 into January 51, Berea as we said February 51, and then Paul is going to write to the Thessalonians. We have 1st and 2nd Thessalonians just months after he had been there. And so as time goes on, we'll make a remark about that. Here's what's very interesting.

While we have some dates and whatnot for when the New Testament books were written, it's very kind of almost head-scratching. Dr. Luke never records Paul sat down and wrote a letter. Isn't that interesting? He never does. And yet, from the information that's in the Book of Acts, and that is in those letters, we're able to give some pretty concise and precise dates as to when these things were written and in what sequence. So anyway, we lay that there so that the chronology is clear, and also so that there's a relative sequence of these things.

Acts 17.10 goes like this.

The brethren immediately sent Paul and Silas away by night to Berea. When they arrived, they went to the synagogue of the Jews. As you may recall, Paul had gone into the synagogue of the Jews in Thessalonica, and there was actually quite a bit of response. But there were a number of the Jews there who were jealous, as Dr. Luke records, and ended up stirring up trouble with the local officials.

And actually, while on the surface it may seem like it was a rather minor problem, Paul was being accused of a capital offense. That is, it could have cost him his life, hypothetically. Had this been pressed and had they caught him? They didn't do so, and so the consequences were not as severe, and we continue to be able to read something as happening in the Book of Acts instead of saying, well, I guess that's the end, right?

Paul and Silas were sent away from Thessalonica by night, since their lives were in danger. It's like, you've got to get out of here. The Jews had accused Paul and Silas of a capital offense against the Caesars of Rome. There were multiple laws that the Caesars had put in place, starting with Augustus, on into Tiberius, and the Caesars had continuously put in place. You don't predict a change of emperor. You can't even do that. You can't predict that there will be an end of the current emperor. That is a capital offense in the Roman system of law.

Paul had been sent away by night from Damascus as a basket case as you may remember. He gets lowered out of the city of Damascus as King Aretas sought his life at the gates and so they drop him instead at night along the wall. So that was the first, I'm running away at night.

Here is the second, and we're going to see another one when we get to Acts 23, except for that one is going to be a much more momentous event. Paul is going to be accompanied by 70 Roman horsemen and 200 Roman spearmen. That will be quite an event. It's not there yet. At this point in time, he's just got his companions sending him away at night.

So, I have to tell you a farm story, as I know what this is like. Many of you know that in my background, I actually have met and even in some cases sat down at meals with two serial killers. One of them are mass murderers. One of them is Jim Jones, the cult leader.

I actually would sit across from him at PTA meetings. He was my sister's seventh grade teacher. I also have met, shook hands with, Leonard Lake. He's a lesser-known maniac, but he and his friend Charles Ng would torture people to death and leave their remains in buckets all over the property that they had rented, and about 27 different people that they did that to. Fortunately, I wasn't one of them.

Anyway, so there were other crazy things. One of my high school buddies hung around with Charles Manson. So I don't know how this crazy thing happened. But anyway, the story does not end there. Here's one. There was a 600 acre Sun Myung Moon, that is the Moonies, brainwashing camp in the town where I went to high school. So one day we're going by the front gate and there's a young guy and a gal.

And they are running towards the gate and you can tell they are terrified because they are running for their lives with full energy. This wasn't a jogging event. They were running for everything they were worth. We could tell they were running for everything they were worth.

So we pulled the pickup in front of the gate. And I yelled at them, get in! And they climbed over the gate, they got in the back of the pickup truck, and the people who were chasing them in a car had a problem, and that's the gate was locked. So we got a head start. So we tear off and these people are in the back, and I said, you know, just get your heads down and we'll get you to a place and take care of you and get you out of the way.

And so we drove as fast as we could without getting a ticket through town and into the next town. 13 miles away, up on my parents' ranch, two miles off a highway. So we gave this couple the chance to take a shower and get their clothes clean and get some fresh clothes and send them away with some kind of food and money resources. And we arranged for them that night, I mean like midnight, to meet with another Christian family over on the coast where they could plan to get them away.

So anyway, and this was an instance, apparently happened from time to time at this Mooney brainwashing camp. Fairly noisy place, as I understand. If you were nearby, you could hear all the screaming and yelling that they were doing at these people. So anyway, this was a very dangerous situation with people who are not afraid to take your lives. And I've been around that. I've seen what it's like. It's for real. And that's the situation that Paul and Silas were here again. And that's what we'll see.

Thessalonica was the largest city in Macedonia, the capital with a Roman governor, many Roman soldiers at the governor's command. We don't have an exact figure for how many Roman soldiers there. At Ephesus the figure was 3,000, so probably in that order of magnitude in terms of the number of Roman soldiers at the governor's command. So this was a very threatening situation potentially.

So Berea was about 45 miles away to the southwest, and Thessalonica was right on the coast, but Berea was inland by some 20 miles or so. It was on a road that headed south of what's called the Ignatian Way. The Ignatian Way would be roughly equivalent to Interstate 70. And the reason I say that is because Interstate 70 is roughly an east-west interstate, and this is what the Ignatian Way would be.

By going into Berea, they headed south of there, and not only did they head south of the east-west route that they had been on, and there may have been several good purposes for that, but also that it took them down the Greek peninsula. and in that direction, but still within Macedonia, as they were in Berea. So, you think about it, okay, Paul, you go into the synagogue, you tell people about Jesus, what happens? Lots of good things happen, except for one thing.

The Jews get very, very, very upset. Enough that they're going to lie, which of course is against the Ten Commandments, right? They're going to lie in order to kill you. They're serious. Alright. You might wonder if Paul and Silas didn't remember what happened to Thessalonica. Because what do they do? They go straight to the synagogue in Berea. Why? It's because Paul had a particular purpose in doing so, and a particular, you could call it a policy, an approach.

And he wrote about it this way, even when Paul would write to the Romans almost six years later, he would say, for I am not ashamed of the gospel, for it is the power of God for salvation to everyone who believes, and to the Jew first, and also the Greek." Recollection, I think that's Romans 116.

So, he went to the Jew first, and also the Greek, even if he went to Berea, which is not too far away from Thessalonica, and even if it would get him in trouble real quick, Here's Acts 17.1. Now, these were more noble-minded than those in Thessalonica, for they received the word with great eagerness, examining the Scriptures daily to see whether these things were so.

Now, I want to take a look at that. This word is translated noble-minded. It's only used three times in the New Testament, once in the Gospels, once later on in 1 Corinthians and here. It's only used this way as a figure of speech in this verse, in this passage. So, what you have here, they receive the word with great eagerness, examining the scriptures daily to see whether these things were so. By the way, when I was doing this, of course, you see that's Courtney, right? I thought of a really great marketing program for Courtney.

He gets a bunch of cards, and you know what the cards are? They're all cards that say, get well soon, right? So send that to all of his clients and potential clients. Get well soon. That's Courtney's business, by the way. OK. All right. So the Bereans were more noble-minded, which is a figure of speech. I'm going to hear about this on Tuesday, I can tell. All right.

Then their Jewish counterparts in the city of Thessalonica. They were quite eager to hear the gospel that Paul preached to them, which is called here, and we also see it previously. That's why we've got several different... Wait a minute, you can't see what I'm pointing to. You've got several different references there where the word means the gospel. And so that's what we point out here.

They're quite eager to hear the gospel that Paul preached to them called the word in this passage. And we've seen it previously as well. The Bereans also daily examine the scriptures, which would be the Old Testament to them to verify that the things Paul said to them as he gave the gospel with the claims about Jesus in the Old Testament. That is, Paul would say, well, look, this passage here says this, this, and this, and this, and that's about Jesus. All we like sheep have gone astray, and here's Isaiah 53, right? By His stripes we were healed. Our iniquities were laid upon Him. All those things, he said, that's Jesus.

Oh! It just didn't dawn on them. Oh! And so they would look at that. Is that really true, what Paul said? Yeah! So they would examine the Scriptures daily. Was it true? Yes, that's what they discovered. So, have you ever heard, be a Berean? You might have heard that. You might have heard somebody, oh, we should be like the Bereans. Well, maybe and maybe not. Let's take a look at that. As we read this, we should keep in mind that these Buryans were Jews and possibly some God-fearing Gentiles who did not yet believe the gospel of salvation.

Have you believed the gospel of salvation? Yeah. Are you concerned that what Paul said was not necessarily true and you hadn't confirmed it yet? Are you still deciding whether what Paul said was true? No, we're not doing that, are we? So, they examined the Old Testament scriptures. Is that all you're reading? I hope not. So there's much to applaud, but we, having already believed the gospel, are to read all of the Bible, taking it all in as truth, not trying to decide whether what Paul said was true. but believing it's true, with a focus upon Christ.

So, what did the Bereans not have yet? They had an approach to the Word of God that we would pray that other unbelievers would have. They did not have what we, in the body of Christ, now have, because we believe. We've already determined that what Paul said was true. We've already believed it. By God's grace, we have every spiritual blessing in the heavenly places in Christ, and the unfathomable riches of Christ, which these Bereans here did not have, at least just yet.

Here's Acts 17.12, Therefore many of them believed, along with a number of prominent Greek women, and men. So, many of the Jews believed, the primary ones who examine the Old Testament daily, to see if what Paul and Silas claimed was actually true. So, they would listen to what Paul said, they would examine the Scriptures, and they would say, Oh, he's right! He's telling us the truth. Now I get it. This is about this guy, Jesus. I believe him. It's confirmed. What Paul said was true.

The believers included not just the Jews that were there, but God-fearing Gentiles Greeks, as they were sometimes called. The Greeks in the eastern part of the Roman Empire especially being those who would be viewed as these are the nominal Gentiles or the Gentiles of typical character. The men and women who are of Greek language background and often you would say ethnic background, right? And also there were prominent women in Macedonia since the culture of Macedonia and we would add of Galatia was exceptional in the Roman Empire. Usually women had a lower social and political standing, and that was true both among the Jews as well as the non-Jewish Gentile pagan culture.

Women had, generally speaking, a lower standing. So what you will find that Dr. Luke mentions, and we look at those passages where it makes reference to that, He mentions that it would be women who would be leading or prominent women. And you know what? He does so in the exact right places. Because he doesn't just sort of bring it up here and there, but he brings it up in those regions where women had an exceptional level of participation in, for example, politics, an exceptional level in terms of their rights and socioeconomic privileges. And so what Luke writes and where he writes it and the time in which he writes it is a perfect fit. It confirms what we know historically confirms what in fact the book of Acts says.

Acts 17.13 says, And when the Jews of Thessalonica found out that the word of God had been proclaimed by Paul and Berea also, They came there as well, agitating and stirring up the crowds. Oh boy.

So the Jews of Thessalonica had appealed to these local officials in Thessalonica rather than the governor there. That is, he didn't go to the governor, which would have made for a more widespread persecution, because the local officials didn't like things jumping up out of their turf and out of their area of authority. So when they found out that Paul and his companions were in Berea, they had to stir up the locals in Berea. Again, not just tell the governor, hey, these guys are over here now, right?

They had to start it all over again. So the Jews of Thessalonica went and what was their solution? To get people stirred up and agitated. Notice what was not their solution. Look, here's the scripture and Paul's wrong. They couldn't appeal to that. Why? Why couldn't they appeal to Paul's wrong about the Scripture? Because he wasn't. It's that simple.

They had no appeal in that respect, so they had instead to take this emotional and mob manipulation and mob control route instead. They manipulated the crowd, as they did in Thessalonica, into agitation against Paul and his companions. In order to avoid the same kind of trouble in Berea that Paul and his companions and the believers saw in Thessalonica, which would be, okay, here now in Berea, I would also be at risk of being charged with a capital crime, right?

So they say, hey, we got to get out of here. The believers sent Paul to a coastal port about 20 miles or more away. And we say a coastal port because there were actually four of them. that were good candidates and Dr. Luke doesn't tell us which one. Excuse me. Alright, as Paul had been sent by the brethren from Thessalonica in order to avoid legal trouble, he was then sent by the brethren from Berea to get away from the trouble started by the same group of Jews.

They have here in the picture that they're going away on horses. That's possible. We don't know that that's the case, but it's okay, I guess, as a dramatic presentation. Whether horses were actually available or not, we don't know. If they went by foot, I'm sure they went fast. It was typical in a day's journey to go about 20 miles a day if you were traveling at some normal rate. It's possible that if they also did this on foot that they went a little faster than usual, right? And so we'd be able to get to the coast in a matter of hours instead of going all night.

A pattern we can see begin to emerge in the Book of Acts here is to establish a church by evangelism. as they would go in and give the gospel. And where would they start? They would start first with the Jews in the synagogue. That's the pattern we've seen. Then they'd provide a start of growth for the church that's been planted there. So they didn't just go in and say, OK, we've got a bunch of new believers. Now we're going to go on and leave them.

But instead, they would establish the church through evangelism, and then help those believers get started in their growth and maturity. We see that taking place in this instance by keeping Silas and Timothy there in Berea for a time. We saw it previously in Paul's and Barnabas' first missionary journey where they went through the cities of Galatia and then reversed their paths and went back in again to encourage them. And then at the beginning of Paul's second missionary journey, They went through those same churches again. Why? To continue to build up the body of Christ as an essential part of the ministry, not just go around evangelizing, evangelizing, evangelizing, evangelizing.

We're also going to see here that by having Timothy with Silas, Timothy's training alongside Silas continued, even without Paul being in the picture. Here's Acts 17 15. Now those who escorted Paul brought him as far as Athens and receiving a command for Silas and Timothy to come to him and as soon as possible they left. Now as soon as possible this is as soon as possible in New Testament speed. Did Paul get on his cell phone and call up Silas and Timothy?

No. So they passed things by word of mouth, right? And then so the people who were to take the message back, they went to the port of Athens and they got on the next scheduled ship. No, they had to go and ask around because you couldn't just get on the Internet and say, OK, when's the next ship leaving and what's the schedule, right? You couldn't buy a ticket online. So what happened is you had to go around and ask around and say, you know, who's going where?

And not only that, they didn't have just passenger ships. What often would happen is there would be cargo and they would have passengers also along with that so that it wasn't designed as a bunch of passenger lines. They didn't have carnival cruises. They didn't have anything like that.

And so instead, you would have to go ask around and look around and talk to people. And, you know, when are you leaving? And, you know, all that. Do you have room, you know, with your cargo? Do you have room for passengers, et cetera? So and then they would go on the ship and the ship. Where else is the ship going and stopping? And how long is it going to be there at the other ports? Right. And on top of that, then You know, once you get to the other end of it, then you've got to make the travel on foot from wherever the port is.

And it might be farther away than you hoped to the land. So it actually took a while to get the message to Silas and Timothy. So these unnamed brethren, because we actually aren't given their names at any time, escorted Paul to Athens, going from Berea to one of four port cities along the coast of Macedonia.

These are unnamed brethren. Now think of it. You're trying to get Paul out of Berea and out of Thessalonica. These unnamed brethren are young in the Lord. They're brand new believers. That's something else to remember. Imagine stepping into a situation. Here's Paul. His life is at risk. I'm a brand new believer and I'm adjusting to this. Oh, being a Christian can be dangerous.

So here they take these unnamed brethren, take Paul to Athens. They finally get there. And we don't know exactly how complicated was that, but they finally get there. And then Paul says, OK, take this message back. And then Paul's going to remain at Athens, and he has no way to contact Timothy and Silas other than through these unnamed men. So the brethren, as they left Paul in Athens, were told that Silas and Timothy have to come to Paul at once.

Once they get the message there. When the brethren got back to Berea, which would take at least a few days and possibly even as long as weeks later. Weeks later. So here's the travel as you see it on the map. is on page one there. So here's Berea and you go from there about 20 miles to one of the port cities and then by ship into the port at Athens.

So we can be there just in time for the 2004 Summer Olympics, right? Maybe not. So we see Timothy in here being brought up. As we pointed out on April 8th, Timothy was brought from A Jewish mother and a Greek father who is apathetic, spiritually speaking. A Jewish mother and grandmother taught Timothy the Old Testament. So here's another lesson for those who are family, friends, etc. If someone has not had the advantage of godly parents, there is likely and may still be opportunity for others, relatives, maybe it's a mother, maybe it's friends, to come along and teach them just the same. So there is opportunity even when people have not done what they ought to have done.

Paul's first missionary journey brought the gospel to the part of Galatia where Timothy lived. Paul selected Timothy near the start of this, his second missionary journey. One of the things we pointed out a couple weeks ago, and I won't go through the detail on it, but there were three essential stages of bringing Timothy along in the faith. First of all, we see Timothy having been taught the Old Testament by his grandmother and his mother, now is brought along on the second missionary journey by Paul, and so there is at first a matter of learning and watching.

I see what Paul does and I see what Silas does and simply watching what they do and listening. The second stage is to have Timothy then begin to carry it out with guidance from those who are watching Timothy and helping him, giving him some coaching, some mentoring. And here's how this is done. And then finally, Timothy himself putting in this into practice at this stage what we're reading about here in Acts 17 this is probably something of the first part learning and watching Silas and Possibly some practice with guidance at this point here.

Here's Silas and Timothy together staying behind remember Paul's in Athens staying behind and at very least Silas is able to teach and guide and help others grow while Timothy watches and possibly Timothy by that point also teaching with guidance by Silas. The other point to bring out from this is trials are God's will. Here's Paul and Silas and his companions.

They go from Thessalonica where his life is in danger. They escape into the night, they go to Berea, and instead of saying, well, we better keep it quiet here, keep it on the down low, right? Instead of doing that, what? They carry out God's will and Paul goes right to the synagogue there in Berea. Is he going to have trials as a result of that? Yep. Is he going to have to run out of town at night? Yep. Is it God's will? Yep. Trials are God's will.

Now, so just to accommodate things, I've had Nancy make up a special list that I've had her post in the lobby. And you can sign up for some trials. And there's a sign-up list, and by the way, the pen's right there, so no need to just pass by. There's a sign-up list, and you can put your name right there. And you can put a start date on it, if you like.

And she's got the trials in category A, B, and C. Now, C category trials, those are the ones you can handle. I mean, you would call it a hassle. So you can sign up for hassles if you want. And then they've got B category trials. And those are the ones that are just right on the brink of what you can tolerate. And so there's B category. You can sign up for those. But then there's the A category trials that are just way over the top, more than you can handle. And you can sign up for all three if you like. And you can say when the start date is. And there they are. And so just make sure you take advantage of that as you exit, right? Yeah. You know I'm joking, right? OK.

Because I don't decide that. Nancy can't put up a sign-up sheet on that. And you wouldn't want to sign it anyway, right? Hey, I want more of those A category trials, right? One that's way over top and I know I can't handle. But guess what? When you said, I put my trust in Christ as my Savior, I believe that He died for my sins, was buried and rose again, guess what you did? You signed up for the trials to start on that date of any of the categories, A, B, and C. Only I don't have anything to do with the sign-up sheet, and neither does Nancy, and it's not in the lobby. It's in the halls of heaven.

Trials are a further qualification for ministry. 2 Corinthians chapter 1, Paul wrote to the Corinthians about trials. Qualifying a person for ministry, it could not take place without those trials. Trials are not a nice option. When people go through schooling, they'll oftentimes, here are your required courses for this major. And then here are your elective courses, your optional courses. You can take this and this and this, right? So I was going through business school. I opted for marketing courses, which is why I would think of Courtney, you know, sending everybody get well soon cards, right?

But here, 2 Corinthians chapter 1, these are not optional. These are absolutely essential to qualify us for ministry. These are the trials that He has intentionally in our lives. And they're not there to just hassle us, not just to see if we'll survive, but they're to qualify us for ministry, even the ones that are way over the top of what we can stand. God won't give you any more than you can handle. Sorry about that. Not happening. God may well indeed give you more than you can handle.

And it's on purpose. And it's because He loves you. The other thing that we see here is, The Bereans have things we can look at and say, oh, this is really good. Here they were eager to hear the Gospel. Is that good? Oh yeah! Was it a good thing that they examined the Scriptures daily? Really? Yes! Most certainly!

But, once we believe the truth of the Gospel, We come from Scripture to a very different place. We have in Christ a spiritual position and spiritual possessions and are called to be discerning. Did those unbelievers in Berea who were eager for the Gospel and examined the Scriptures daily, did they have the Holy Spirit indwelling them? Not yet.

Do you? Yes. Are you in Christ? Yes. Is Christ in you? Yes. They didn't have any of that. But there is a point of comparison. We are called to be discerning. And this is the key. What does Scripture actually say? And to discern the truth of Scripture, So here are some, and it's not all, here are some points from the Apostle Paul with a call to discern.

Here's Philippians 1.9. So we've seen the church at Philippi recently. And this, I pray, that your love may abound still more and more in real knowledge and all discernment. By the way, does discernment mean you pick love or discernment? Not with this verse, right? You don't pick one.

1 Thessalonians 5.21. But examine everything carefully. That's put everything to the assay test. Hold fast to that which is good. Examine some things. Examine a few things. Once in a while. Examine everything. And do it carefully.

Titus 1.5 and 9 for the overseer who is an elder and a shepherd. must be, and then jumping to verse 9, holding fast the faithful word which is in accordance with the teaching, definite article, so that he will be able both to exhort in sound doctrine and refute those who contradict. Establish absolute truth and what is not absolute truth.

So, there are some real hazards that come with a lack of discernment in the body of Christ, and we're only going to look at two of them here, because we're soon running out of time. You don't want to be here until 5.30, right? So, one, stunted growth. Okay, is one problem. Two, a focus taken off of Christ. We'll look at that briefly in the two letters of Peter, 1 Peter 2.

Like newborn babes, long for the pure milk of the word so that by it you may grow in respect to salvation. Long for the pure milk of the word that by it you may grow. How do you grow? At least one essential ingredient, the pure milk of the word. The Word of God.

Secondly, 2 Peter 3.18, but grow, and here's grow is now the imperative, but you must grow in the grace and knowledge of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. To Him be the glory both now and to the day of eternity. Amen.

What's the direction of our growth? The direction of our growth is personal. Ever hear somebody say, don't take this personally? Take this very personally. Each one of us growing in the grace and knowledge of one, the Lord Jesus Christ. Him. Him. The hazard, with lack of discernment, is that our focus is taken off of Christ. That's the hazard. Let's pray.

Thank you for your word. Thank you for what you have made clear. Thank you that you have made every point clear as to how we are to grow. And you've even defined it here. Growth is not just something we measure with a yardstick, but it's in the person of Christ. It's in Him. Not that we are glorified, but that He is glorified. Thank you for that. We pray in Jesus' name, Amen.