Participants: Jon Paulien & Jon Ciccarelli
Series Code: TBOTB
Program Code: TBOTB000001B
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00:00 Welcome back to Books of the Book.
00:02 Well Jon, pick us up again now, we are getting to the 00:06 Thessalonica here. - okay so now Paul and Silas arrive 00:10 in Thessalonica and their missionary strategy is pretty 00:13 common is when they get to a new city they have never 00:16 been to before, they look up the Jewish synagogue. 00:19 Jewish synagogues at that time loved to have visitors 00:22 from abroad, especially from Jerusalem because 00:25 they would often bring news of what was going on with 00:27 Jews around the Empire, so visitors come in and 00:30 they almost always invite them to come up and at 00:32 least give a travel log if not preach. 00:34 Paul was invariably invited to preach and he would 00:40 go to the Old Testament, what we call the Old Testament. 00:43 That was the New Testament Bible, so at this time there 00:46 was no New Testament, in fact 1 Thessalonians is the 00:49 first book of the New Testament written, 00:51 and Paul has written it yet. 00:52 So he comes in and there's no New Testament, his Bible 00:55 is what we call the Old Testament. 00:57 He will preach the Bible, he'll preach about the Messiah. 01:01 The Old Testament predicts the Messiah is coming and then 01:04 when he is done with that he tells the story of Jesus, 01:08 I found the Messiah, and that was an electric message in 01:11 those days because they were all hungry for the Messiah, 01:15 and he gives a convincing biblical presentation and then 01:18 tells the story of Jesus. 01:20 Many, many Jews said that makes sense, 01:22 that puts everything together. 01:24 Now the principle here, is God is meeting them where 01:27 they are, he goes into the synagogue, he uses their 01:30 Bible, he uses a theme that they are all thinking about 01:33 and talking about, he meets them there to present 01:36 the story of Jesus. 01:37 You know I think that's so important Jon, 01:39 as you mentioned it, it is so easy sometimes I think, 01:42 as followers of Christ, to think that we always have to 01:45 go somewhere else then where we are at. 01:47 Paul would certainly going somewhere else. 01:49 He was going to his people and he was speaking that 01:52 language, I think it's so important for us to remember 01:55 that God calls us to work within our natural environment 01:59 as well, in the medium we see. 02:01 Don't you think you should be missionaries and go to 02:03 Africa? - no I think there are so many opportunities 02:06 for us here in our local area, a local town, and our jobs. 02:09 And in our neighborhoods, there are people need 02:12 to hear the gospel. 02:13 One of the things I love to do, when I was doing youth ministry, 02:16 is that I really put an emphasis on local missions here in 02:19 North America because I want kids to have an international 02:22 experience, but I also wanted them to get the taste 02:25 of what it is like to do something at home. 02:26 Remember that God is calling you to be a missionary here 02:29 at home, so we would go often times into the inner city 02:32 of Los Angeles because I wanted it to be close to where 02:35 their home was and we would spend several days in there. 02:38 They would begin to realize, wow, this is so close to 02:42 home. So when they got home with in an hour and a half after the 02:44 trip, when they went to bed at night they were always 02:46 thinking man there is so much be done just around me 02:49 that I really need to be attentive to what God wants 02:51 me to do in my own area and my own neighborhood. 02:53 That's pretty neat, so you don't have to go overseas to 02:56 be a missionary, but wherever you are you ought to 02:59 understand the context and speak to the people there. 03:02 This is what Paul seems to have done. 03:04 Acts 17 actually tells the story, and in Acts 17:1-3 03:11 it says: 03:20 If you are thinking ancient Greece, you have Philippi 03:23 over here, and then they are traveling down a road that 03:26 is called the Agnation highway that went from Northeast 03:29 Greece all the way to the northwest. 03:31 And along that highway is the city of Thessalonica. 03:35 So here they arrived there: 03:40 so he has a pattern here: 03:55 Christ here is not a name, they would sometimes say Jesus 03:58 Christ and it's become a name to us but it was 'the Christ'. 04:01 Christ is the translation of the Greek word for messiah. 04:06 So he says, the Messiah had to suffer and rise from the 04:10 dead, and the Jesus I'm pro- claiming to you is the Christ, 04:14 is the Messiah. 04:16 So he takes the Old Testament and shows them what? 04:21 He shows them that the Messiah had to suffer and rise from the 04:26 dead. In Luke 24:26, Jesus Himself does the same thing 04:32 Paul is doing here in Acts 17. 04:33 In Luke 24:26 he says, 04:46 So Jesus and Paul understood that the Old Testament 04:51 teaches a Messiah who suffers and is glorified, 04:55 but the suffering comes first. 04:58 The Jews of that day knew about the glorious Messiah, 05:02 they didn't know as much about the suffering Messiah. 05:06 When Jesus came they doubted that He was the Messiah 05:09 because He was suffering, because He was ordinary, 05:12 because He was human. 05:15 So the question arises then, what text would 05:20 Paul have used in the Old Testament? 05:23 - It doesn't say in the book of Acts. 05:26 Nowhere does Paul described the sermon he actually gave 05:29 in the book of Acts, you have it summarized there. 05:33 So as we study the Old Testament, you discover that in 05:36 the Old Testament the text that point to a Messiah 05:40 are of two flavors. 05:42 There is a royal Messiah, a kingly Messiah, and then 05:47 there is a suffering Messiah, both of those are there. 05:53 Let's take a look at a couple of those texts. 05:55 One of them is Jeremiah 23:1-6, and we will show you 06:00 1- 6 but a want to emphasize just the few points of 06:05 that text, verse five in particular. 06:32 So here you see in Jeremiah 23, particularly verses 06:36 5 and 6 he says the Messiah when He comes will be a 06:39 king like David and He will save Israel. - right! 06:42 So you can understand why the Jews of that day were expecting 06:45 a Messiah to come and be a King, deliver them from the 06:49 Romans and everything was going to be the way it was 06:53 before, but that is not the only theme 06:55 in the Messiahship. 06:57 When You go to Isaiah 53, you see a different kind of Messiah, 07:02 a suffering servant kind of Messiah. 07:05 Particularly verses 1-6 and 7 of Isaiah focuses on this, 07:10 but I want to read particularly 3-5. 07:47 Wow. - so you see, in Isaiah 53 there is the picture 07:51 of someone who suffers in behalf of others. 07:54 Now, people might have gotten the impression there was 07:57 going to be two Messiahs, the suffering Messiah, 08:00 and the royal Messiah, but there are texts where the 08:03 two are blended together so tightly that you can't take 08:07 them apart, it is one person who is both King and 08:10 sufferer. Isaiah 52:13-15 says, 08:41 There you can clearly see the suffering and the kingship 08:45 are blended together, but here's the tough question. 08:49 The question that the New Testament writers had to face. 08:53 Which one comes first? Is it the suffering or the glory? 08:56 Jesus and Paul believed that the Messiah suffered first 09:00 and then would enter into His glory. 09:02 How do you think they came to that Jon? 09:04 You know it is so tough just pastorally speaking, 09:10 I kind of empathize with the Jews in the sense of having 09:15 to expect your Messiah to suffer, 09:21 because you are expecting Him to come and conquer. 09:25 I am constantly just amazed by the passage in Hebrew 5 09:28 where talks about Jesus, it says though He was a Son, 09:32 He learned obedience through suffering. 09:35 That just amazes me that Christ suffered. 09:38 But you know there is this a pattern Jon, in the Old 09:41 Testament, and this is how I think they could understand 09:43 this, in the Old Testament you see it over and over and over 09:46 this pattern of suffering and then glory. 09:49 You see it in the life of Joseph, someone who's may be 09:53 imprisoned for about 13 years and then goes on to be 09:56 Prime Minister there in Egypt. 09:59 Then there is of course Moses, Moses is out in the 10:02 wilderness for 40 years chasing sheep, and he becomes 10:06 the great deliver of the Exodus. 10:08 Then of course King David too, you think of how often 10:11 he went through so many things as a fugitive and he becomes 10:15 this great king. 10:16 And then again think of Daniel, here is a prisoner of war 10:20 whose life is even being threatened, and yet he becomes 10:23 prime minister of Babylon. 10:25 So we see that pattern over and over and that's how 10:27 I think the New Testament writers saw that as well. 10:30 The great characters of the Old Testament set a pattern 10:32 that the Messiah would follow when He comes. 10:35 But you know there is one text above all others 10:38 I think that New Testament writers focused on. 10:41 That is Isaiah 53:7-12 and I encourage our viewers to 10:45 read the entire text, but I want to emphasize the 10:49 process here, Isaiah 53:7 and on. 11:05 There is a suffering. 11:16 Now, suffering, suffering, suffering, 11:17 now catch this in verse 11. 11:49 Isaiah 53 blends the two, but the suffering comes first 11:52 and it is because of the suffering that He is glorified. 11:56 So Paul I am certain, along with these other characters 12:00 made Isaiah 53 the central text of his preaching. 12:05 So in Acts 17:4 here is the result of that preaching. 12:22 So in Acts Chapter 17 a church is formed, it's a church 12:26 made up largely of Jews, but some Gentiles. 12:30 But here's the anomaly, you read Thessalonians 12:34 you get the impression the church is mostly Gentiles. 12:37 So what do you do with that? 12:38 Scholars are not too sure. Were there two different 12:42 congregations, one Jewish and one gentile? 12:45 This is possible. Or in the time that Paul was gone 12:49 had those few Gentiles gone to all their family and friends 12:53 you see, and both of those are possibilities. 12:57 Well Jon how would you sum up what we have talked about 13:00 today? Well Jon, I think we can really rely on Scripture. 13:04 God's Word is so, so reliable, and if we would just place 13:07 our life and our faith and our trust in God, we can experience 13:11 God and I think we are going to continue to learn this 13:13 as we go through first and second Thessalonians. 13:15 So we want to thank you so much for joining us on Books of 13:18 the Book and we will look forward to seeing you next time. 13:20 God bless! |
Revised 2023-01-25