In 1947, a group of Christians in Nebraska formed a fellowship known today as the Berean Church Fellowship. The name of the group is borrowed from the Acts of the Apostles 17:11, which the group quotes on their Web site (
www.bereanchurchfellowship.org): "Now the Bereans… Received the message with great eagerness and examined the Scriptures every day to see if what Paul said was true."
The fellowship’s Articles of Faith begin with the following statement: "We believe the Bible, consisting of both the Old and New Testament Scriptures in their entirety, is the only divinely inspired, inerrant, objectively true, and authoritative written Word of God, and the only infallible rule of faith and practice."
In other words, the fellowship subscribes to the doctrine of
sola scriptura ("by scripture alone") and believes it patterns itself after the Bereans about which Luke wrote. Using this verse as evidence against Tradition is not really unusual; in fact, many
sola scriptura adherents quote Acts 17:11 as "proof" that the Bible is the sole rule of the Christian faith.
Some seem to imagine the Bereans to be a group of early Christians faithfully living according to what the Bible teaches when Paul comes along claiming to be a teacher. They listen to what he has to say but they also cautiously compare his teachings to what their Bibles say in order to be sure that what Paul is saying is authentic Christian doctrine.
Interestingly, though, a closer look at Acts 17:11 reveals that the people of Berea were not
sola scriptura adherents at all. In actuality, they were primarily Jews converting to Christianity through Paul’s use of Sacred Tradition. Here’s the verse within its fuller context:
The brethren immediately sent Paul and Silas away by night to Berea; and when they arrived they went into the Jewish synagogue. Now these Jews were more noble than those in Thessalonica, for they received the word with all eagerness, examining the scriptures daily to see if these things were so. Many of them therefore believed, with not a few Greek women of high standing as well as men. (Acts 17:10-12)
Luke’s words commend the Bereans for being more noble than the Thessalonians because they eagerly received "the word." They also examined the scriptures to see if the word was true. So just who were the Bereans? What was "the word" they received and what scriptures did they examine?
Before the New Testament
The Bereans, we’re told, were mainly Jews (and some Greeks), not Christians, and they even had a Jewish synagogue. The word they received was Paul’s teaching about Jesus?that same teaching which he sums up in his first letter to the Corinthians, "For I delivered to you as of first importance what I also received, that Christ died for our sins in accordance with the scriptures" (1 Cor. 15:3). The scriptures mentioned here by Paul are the same scriptures which the Bereans examined?the Old Testament scriptures. These were the only scriptures of the day, as no New Testament Scripture existed at the time. Most of the New Testament had not yet been written and what had been written had not yet been canonized so as to attain the status of Scripture. What we see here is a group of people being taught about Christianity by Paul prior to the existence of the New Testament. They eagerly listened to Paul while examining the Old Testament Scripture.
This all makes sense when we understand this event in its historical context. The event occurred during Paul’s second missionary journey. On his journeys Paul taught the good news of Christianity as Jesus had commissioned him to do. As a Jewish convert to Christianity himself, he knew Jewish Scripture well and he knew that it prophesied about Jesus. He undoubtedly explained this Scripture to enlighten other Jews about the truth of Christianity. These Jews would have to examine their Old Testament Scripture to see if what Paul was saying made sense. It did, and many Jews, including some of the Bereans, became Christians.
Not of Human Origin
