Berean Nobility
“And the brethren immediately sent away Panl and Silas by night unto Berea: who coming thither went into the synagogue of the Jews. These were more noble than those in Thessalonica, in that they received the word with all readiness of mind, and searched the Scriptures daily, whether those things were so.” — Acts xvii. 10, 11.
JASON and his companions were admitted to bail. The tumult for the time subsided. The brethren sent Paul and Silas away by night to Berea; for they were free to act on their Master’s rule, “When they persecute you in one city, flee ye unto another.”
That nightjourney demands a passing notice. They started at night in order to escape the rage of the persecutors; but they could not reach Berea in one day’s march, for the distance was about sixty miles. The road led at first westward, through a great plain, and then ascended the mountain. Berea lies on the eastern slope of the Olympian range. It is still a town of 20,000 inhabitants, and contains some remains of Greek and Roman buildings. Behold the two missionaries, with their guide, toiling along by night, eager to reach another station, where they might work and win before the wave of persecution should overtake them.
It is instructive to compare the occupation of this night with that of the last night of which the history is recorded — the night in prison at Philippi. Then they sang praise and prayer. They were enclosed within prison-walls, and fastened to the ground. What could they do? All was bound except their lips, and with these they sang. But this night, when they had escaped from the persecutors, in Thessalonica, they did not sit down and sing. There, worship was work; here, work was worship. Generally the history tells what was done in the day-time; but in these cases the events of the night are mentioned because these events concerned the King. In the first of these nights, the men, finding work impossible, worshipped; and that act of worship turned out a successful work, for numbers were thereby won to Christ, and a footing for the gospel obtained in a heathen city. In the second night, when they could neither sleep nor work, the missionaries marched; and the march became the means of life from the dead to many in Berea, for by that sudden night-march the preachers got the start of their enemies, and had laid the foundations of a permanent edifice, before the Jews of Thessalonica could discover the direction of their flight and take measures for opposing them.
In Berea, they immediately addressed themselves to the Jews in their synagogue. “These were more noble than those in Thessalonica, in that they received the word with all readiness of mind, and searched the Scriptures daily whether these things were so.”
There is a heraldry, it seems, in the kingdom of God as well as in the kingdoms of this world. Our Kings throne, too, is encircled by a high-born nobility. In the Scriptures you will find the record of their deeds and the patent of their rank. The disciples of Christ are taught neither to vilify nor extol a temporal nobility. Christianity is not revolutionist. It is so deeply occupied with an inner revolution for eternity, that it cannot bestow any attention on the political revolutions of time. As it will not spend its strength in setting these thrones up, neither will it turn aside to pull them down. It leaves them precisely where it found them, and passes on in pursuit of its own aim.
If we could obtain a view of this earth from a great height in the heavens, the mountains would not appear very high, the valleys would not .appear very deep. The inequalities on the earth’s surface, which from our present view-point seem great, would disappear, and all would be reduced to a level. Precisely the same law rules in the spiritual sphere. When any one attains spiritually a great elevation, the differences of social condition, which bulk largely in other men’s eyes, almost altogether disappear. To one who looks on the community as from the throne of God, the artificial distinctions which prevail in society seem to be blotted out: in his view, all are low until grace raise them up.
But distinctions there are, notwithstanding — distinctions between one man and another — -real, deep, permanent. Some are slaves when seen from the higher view-point, and some are free; some are dead in sins, and some have been raised to newness of life; some are rich in grace, while others are wretched, and poor, and miserable, and blind, and naked; some are high-born, and some low.
These were more noble — high-born. Two things go to constitute nobility in its temporal form: first, the sovereign’s choice in its origin; and second, the actual birthright of each individual noble in successive generations. The spring of all lies in the good pleasure of the king. The same feature is found in the nobility of the heavenly kingdom. Abraham was one of the multitude “beyond the flood” — on the east of the Euphrates. He was of plebeian blood and training. His tribe served idols in the rich plain of the Tigris, and lived without God in the world.” He was sovereignly chosen and called. He received the patent of his nobility in the specific promise of the King eternal; and large possessions were bestowed upon him for the support of his dignity. To him, many generations afterwards, kings and nobles proudly traced their pedigree.
At a later period of the empire, when the King’s Son was sojourning in this province, he called others — certain common plebeian men — and conferred on them the patent of nobility. Some fishermen were at that time raised from the ranks. In Rome they call Peter a prince: the title is not amiss, although they apply it falsely. About the same time some tax-collectors were admitted into the princely rank; and after the King’s Son had returned to the seat of government, a noted rebel was first taken captive, and thereafter made a noble at his conqueror’s court — an ambassador to the nations in the service of his reconciled King.
Further, each noble of this kingdom is himself born to his title and estate. Mcodemus, though a son of Abraham by his first birth, must himself be born again ere he could enjoy the privileges of a peer.
But there is one broad distinction, which should be carefully observed, between the kingdoms of this world and the kingdom of Christ, in regard to the manner in which peers are made — in regard to what constitutes nobility. In the kingdoms of this world there are two distinct methods; and of the whole body of the peerage, some are admitted in one way, some in the other — none in both. Some are called from other classes by the free election of the sovereign, and some are born into their dignities. In the kingdom of Christ, every noble unites in himself both these rights. He is chosen from without into the circle of the princes; and he is also born into the family. It requires both the earthly things to represent the heavenly. One represents the election by the sovereignty of God, and the other represents the actual change which in the regeneration passes upon the heart and life of the man.
These two represent salvation respectively on its upper and its under side, as the parable of the Good Shepherd and the parable of the Prodigal represent it. The upper side of the seal contains the legend, “The Lord knoweth them that are his;” and the under side, “Let every one that nameth the name of Christ depart from iniquity.”
Two characteristic features of the Berean nobility are recorded, in order that we in the end of the world may be able to distinguish between the genuine and the spurious; “They received the word with all readiness of mind, and searched the Scriptures daily whether these things were so.” These qualities are distinct from each other, and yet are so bound together as to constitute a pair. The one is a tender, childlike receptiveness for revealed truth; the other is a manly independence of judgment. Their hearts drank in readily the water of life; but their understandings sifted the doctrines that were preached, and tried them by the law and the testimony.
1. Their hearts were receptive. In this matter the Jews of Berea were favourably distinguished from those of Thessalonica. Those who, like Saul before his conversion, had a knowledge of the law, and a full stock of variegated merits, did not so readily open to receive the gospel. They were like a field that is soaked and soured with stagnant water: when a shower falls on such a field it trickles off again. It is the dry land that drinks in the rain.
The distinction is similar to that which the parable makes between the good ground and the hard beaten wayside. The seed that fell on both places was the same. It was the quality of softness in the one that rendered it receptive, and the quality of hardness in the other which caused it to reject the seed. Here lay the cause of the difference disclosed in harvest. As more depends on the condition of the soil than on the skill of the sower, so more depends on a receptive spirit in the hearers than on the peculiar ability of the preacher. There is a remarkable analogy, too, between the immediate cause of receptiveness in the cultivated ground on the one hand, and the immediate cause of the receptiveness of a human heart on the other. A broken, a contrite heart is the ordinary expression for a humble disposition of soul, crushed by a sense of sin, and thirsting for the living water. It is where the ground is broken small that the seed finds its way into the soil and the grain is gathered in harvest; in like manner it is in those who have been bruised by conviction of sin, and as it were melted by the mercy of God, that the offer of the gospel goes home, and the fruits of righteousness ripen apace.
2. The second characteristic of Berean nobility is the exercise of private judgment. They searched the Scriptures daily, whether these things were so. This short, simple intimation puts to shame the sophistry with which Rome has for ages striven to conceal the Word of God from the people. Charity is popular in our day, and “great is the company of them” that preach it; but we must see well to it lest we make a fatal mistake as to what is charity. Charity is not an equal regard for truth and falsehood, — for light and darkness. Charity is love; but how can you really love your brother if you do not loathe and denounce that which destroys him? You cannot love your brother, and fondle the serpent which is stinging him to the second death. The political sentiment which in the name of charity supports the Papacy is a delusion. It is a dream from which political men will be awakened by some rude shock. It is a spurious liberalism that under any pretext pets and feeds the greatest enslaver of mankind. It is noble, says the Spirit of God, for private men to search the
Scriptures daily in order to determine thereby the truth or falsehood of any doctrine that may be proposed for their acceptance: for this noble act the Romish hierarchy has everywhere persecuted even unto death.
The term rendered “searched” in the text indicates that they pored over the page; and after having read a sentence, returned to traverse the lines again, in order that the track of the sense might be more deeply graven on their minds. They avoided the two extremes of easy credulity and hard unbelief. Some stand rigid against the truth and yield not at all; others bend easily before every doctrine that is plausibly presented, but bend as the willow bends to the breeze, taking every position but keeping none.
It is a general law of human nature that what comes lightly, goes lightly. What we gain by a hard struggle, we retain with a firmer grasp, whether it be our fortune or our faith. Those men who have obtained great wealth without any trouble or toil of their own, often scatter it, and die in poverty. It is seldom that the man who gains a fortune by gigantic labour wastes the wealth he has won. In like manner, give me the Christian who has fought his way to his Christianity. If it is through fire and water that he has reached the wealthy place, he will not lightly leave his rich inheritance.