Trouble at Thessalonica – Acts 17:1-9

As I suggested last Sunday night, it appears to me that Paul and Silas left Philippi voluntarily.

They were asked to leave by the magistrates of the city,

But I don’t think that they were under any obligation to go.

For the safety of the mission in Philippi, and for future evangelism there, they chose to leave.

However they didn’t leave the brethren there without any help or comfort.

Not only did they meet with the saints before leaving town, praying with them and comforting them,

But they also left Luke among them to do what he could to help.

Did they have some members who were sick and needed a physician?

Or was Luke there to minister the Word?

Well then, why they didn’t leave Timothy as well?

About thirty miles to the southwest of Philippi was the city of Amphipolis, and 35 miles beyond that: Apollonia.

These were both significant cities, but it doesn’t appear that there was a synagogue in either one.

In fact there may not have even been a Jewish place of prayer – a proseuche.

Paul, Silas and Timothy may have spent a night in each of these cities, but they didn’t stay.

The way that verse one is worded, seems to say that there was one major difference between those towns and Thessalonica:

“Now when they had passed through Amphipolis and Apollonia, they came to Thessalonica, WHERE WAS A SYNAGOGUE OF THE JEWS.”

The father of Alexander the Great, Phillip, united Macedon by force.

One of the battles that he fought to create his country was at this place, which was then called Thermes.

The application of the name “Thessalonica” is attributed to three different things depending on which historian you believe.

Some say that after Phillip whipped the Thessalians, he named both this city and his daughter “Thessalonica.”

Other writers say that he named the city AFTER his daughter Thessalonica.

And yet others say that the city was named by Cassander, to honor his WIFE, the daughter of Phillip.

Fortunately, I don’t think that this will ever come up in any Biblical Trivial Pursuit games you’ll have to play.

When the missionary trio came to Thessalonica, they took up residence with someone named “Jason.”

We have here in Jason another of the many mysterious and intriguing characters of the Word of God.

We find this name only twice: here and at the end of the Book of Romans.

We don’t know for sure that he was a Christian, but it appears so.

His name is Greek, but most of the experts believe that it was the equivalent of “Joshua” in Hebrew and “Jesus” in Aramaic.

So it is very likely that this man was an Hellenistic, or Grecian, Jew.

And the reference to a Jason in Romans 16:21 raises some interesting prospects.

At the close of Paul’s letter, written from Corinth to Rome, he mentions some of his co-workers.

“Timotheus my workfellow, and Lucius, and JASON, and Sosipater, my KINSMEN, salute you.”

This statement leads some scholars to suggest that Jason was a kinsman to Paul.

That maybe the reason that the missionaries were staying in his house.

Whether or not he was a Christian before this chapter is speculation, but that is a possibility.

And it’s also speculation whether this is the same Jason who became pastor of the church in Tarsus.

But remember that Tarsus was the hometown of Paul’s family.

So Paul and his company came to Thessalonica.

“And Paul, as his manner was, went in unto them,

And three sabbath days reasoned with them out of the scriptures,

Opening and alleging, that Christ must needs have suffered, and risen again from the dead;

And that this Jesus, whom I preach unto you, is Christ.

And some of them believed, and consorted with Paul and Silas; and of the devout Greeks a great multitude, and of the chief women not a few.”

It seems that a successful ministry requires opposition and sometimes even open persecution.

But there was a church established in Thessalonica, primarily among the Jews.

And as a study of Paul’s letters to that church reveals, he dearly loved and appreciated those people.

They had some doctrinal problems, but there is hardly any rebuke in those two letters.

So although they may have learned some things incorrectly, their practical lives were exemplary.

Something else that First and Second Thessalonians shows us is that church were severely persecuted.

In fact, it may have resulted in the deaths of some of the believers.

And these attacks began even before the missionaries were forced to move on.

Let’s think about the nature of persecution as we see it there in Thessalonica.

The Jews in that city persecuted the missionaries and the church because they rejected their message.

And they rejected the truth because it was NEW AND DIFFERENT.

After three weeks in the Jewish synagogue the members there began to be polarized by the message.

“Some of them believed and consorted with Paul and Silas,”

But there were many who believed not.

Now, try, for just a moment, to put yourself into the shoes of those unbelievers:

Here comes someone trying to overturn some of the things that you have been taught all your life.

Essentially, you have been told that the Messiah would come in power and great glory to overthrow the Roman government and the Greek culture.

But Paul comes along and tells you that before the Messiah can reign He must suffer and die.

This is something that you have never heard before.

All that you have been taught is that YOU must suffer persecution before the coming of the Messiah.

Paul tells you that the Temple in Jerusalem is going to be destroyed and Israel is going to be scattered once again.

You know that the Messiah must come from Bethlehem in the tribe of Judah, but Paul tells you that Jesus of Nazareth in Galilee is the Messiah.

These things lead a long list of doctrines which run contrary to what you have always been taught.

Paul did come into your synagogue armed with plenty of scriptures, but he had a new twist and interpretation on those scriptures.

Many of those Jews rejected Paul’s message because it was new and different.

Despite the Biblical proof that he presented, that proof was rejected.

Why?

Because there are a lot of people in this world who think that THEY KNOW IT ALL.

They are not open to anything new, because it is their opinion that if they don’t know it already then it must be newly devised and have the intention to deceive.

Let me illustrate what I mean.

Our son, Kraig, called Tuesday morning all excited about something that he had just witnessed.

He works at the Kings Bay Nuclear Submarine base in the extreme southeast corner of Georgia.

He told me that if he hadn’t seen it with his own eyes he never would have believed it.

When he got to a meeting at the Port Operations office, he heard some really strange screeching and screaming sounds.

He got out and saw a cage full of some sort of large seals.

After his meeting he asked the Base Operations Executive, what the seals were for,

And he was told that they were attack sea lions.

He was told that they attack bad-guys, tie them up and give them to the MPs.

Because it was something that Kraig had never heard before, he told the man that he didn’t believe a word of it.

So he was invited to the balcony of the office overlooking the harbor and was handed some binoculars.

A motor boat zipped out about 300 yards and a diver jumped into the water.

Shortly after that the sea lions were released and they zipped out toward the place where the diver went in.

In a matter of moments that diver popped to the surface, bound in rope and attached to some sort of flotation device.

The man was completely immobile and helpless.

After a few minutes the sea lions returned to their holding pen all excited and waiting their reward.

Do you refuse to believe that, just because you’ve never seen it or heard of it before?

Whether you believe it or not, what you think will not make it go away, if it is indeed the truth.

Let’s say that you don’t believe it;

Doesn’t your disbelief really boil down to a lack of will to believe?

“I have never heard this before, and I will not believe that it can be true.”

Kraig said that he would have sooner believed in police goats, before he believed in MP seals.

Nevertheless the story of those seals is true.

These Thessalonian Jews rejected the truth because it was new and different from what they had learned.

An additional factor was their ENVY.

Perhaps this is something you haven’t really experienced, but most preachers have.

Of course, we pastors have a corner on the truth and our ministries cannot be improved upon.

But then one of our families, for whatever reason, decides to join another church in the area.

They are obviously insane, or they have been deceived, probably by Satan himself,

Or they may not even be real Christians.

But we pastors become immediately jealous over the loss of our loved-ones and members.

We rant and rave against the heretics who have stolen our sheep.

And sometimes we even throw fire bombs at their church buildings. Right?

Of course civilized people don’t fire bomb the building of the heretic.

But that was essentially what the synagogue of Satan did towards Paul and Silas.

In fact it may have even been more literal than most of us would like to imagine.

Their persecution of the people of God was real.

And then they stooped to a WICKED ALLIANCE in an effort to stop the missionaries of the Lord.

“But the Jews which believed not, moved with envy, took unto them certain lewd fellows of the baser sort, and gathered a company, and set all the city on an uproar, and assaulted the house of Jason, and sought to bring them out to the people.”

I seriously doubt that under ordinary circumstances, those Jews would have anything to do with those lewd fellows of the baser sort.

And I’m sure that those Gentile thugs probably had no more concern for Paul and Silas than they did for a couple of mice running around their houses.

But somehow those Jews got a Gentile street gang to agree to assist them.

Was there money involved?

Were there some other kinds of payment?

Were their debts invoked or debts paid off?

Sometimes mortal enemies will be temporarily joined in order to fight another mutual foe.

In this case, it seems to me that this pair of enemies joined forces to oppose Paul and Silas,

But for entirely different reasons.

One group were moved by envy and the other group had a different agenda.

The Christian needs to remember that the world is going to hate us,

But the reasons for that hatred may be as varied as our enemies themselves.

Our job is not to placate their hatred, but to stay focused on our purpose to serve and glorify the Lord.

And other part of our job is to make sure that there is no genuine reason for them to hate us.

The attack that the Jews made against the brethren was, as usual, a MISREPRESENTATION.

“These that have turned the world upside down are come hither also; whom Jason hath received:

And these all do contrary to the decrees of Caesar, saying that there is another king, one Jesus.”

Of course Paul was saying that there is another King, named Jesus.

But as the Lord Jesus Himself taught, his Kingdom is not of this world.

And yes, the new birth and life in Christ are going to make an impact on the world by making an impact on the saint,

But it is an exaggeration to say that Paul had turned the world upside down.

In fact its an exaggeration to say that at any point since had the world been turned upside down.

The world is just as wicked, just as alien, just as rebellious against the Lord as it has ever been.

And as we shall see next week, the Kingdom of Christ is not in the same realm as any kingdom of man.

So just as it had been in Philippi, for the safety of the saints and the security of the mission in Thessalonica, it was mutually agreed that the missionaries should leave town.

Those wicked Jews were successful in driving Paul and Silas out of their community.

They might have patted themselves on the back and talked about a job well done.

But once again, what actually happened was that they solidified the brethren in Thessalonica,

AND they encouraged the missionaries to move on to start a new mission elsewhere.

If our relationship to the Lord is what it ought to be,

Persecution ultimately shouldn’t hurt our service for the Lord.

And personally, persecution as with any kind of earthly trouble, should drive us closer to our Saviour.