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Originally Posted by visionary
Simple question. Is obedience to God pleasing to Him?
I agree, but wonder if it would still be as simple to agree that obediance to Him is impossible & considered foolishness, without His undeserved intervention?
We may have just gone from a nutshell to an egg shell.
One definition of SS that was given to me by Standing Up is "the Bible is the supreme authority in all matters of doctrine and practice" but the passage in Acts 17 does not say that or anything remotely like that. It reports the reaction of the Jews in Beroea. It commends them for examining the old testament to check if Paul's statements were true. It does not commend them for saying "unless your statements about Jesus Christ are actually in the old testament then we will not receive them". Clearly what saint Paul said about Jesus was alluded to in the old testament but not explicitly stated and clearly it took faith to accept the allusions as applicable to Jesus and not to some other (as yet unknown) person. The message of the story about the Jews of Beroea is that it is better to test claims than to ridicule the preacher and run him out of town. Yet it was the less noble town of Thessalonica that received letters from saint Paul because a Church was established there and grew and in the fullness of time because a major centre of Christian faith and teaching while the town of Beroea is never mentioned again (except as the place of origin of a man in Acts 20) in the new testament and makes almost no impact in history.
That is an important acknowledgement. It is true that those who are commended in Beroea were Jews not Christians and their conduct is not set forth as a rule of conduct for Christians. It is commended in comparison to the way that some of the Jews in Thessalonica behaved. And most important of all is the fact that the passage teaches that saint Paul's words were the gospel of Jesus Christ which, at the time, was not yet committed to writing.
Except that saint Paul's teaching was about Jesus and that is not written in the old testament. Jesus name is not mentioned in the old testament. Emmanuel is mentioned but that is a different name. Saint Paul preached the name of Jesus of Nazareth as did the twelve apostles of the Lord, saying, "Neither is there salvation in any other: for there is none other name under heaven given among men, whereby we must be saved." It is the same gospel that Christians preach today but when saint Paul was in Thessalonica and later in Beroea he preached Christ and him crucified. Saint Paul says "But we preach Christ crucified, unto the Jews a stumblingblock, and unto the Greeks foolishness; But unto them which are called, both Jews and Greeks, Christ the power of God, and the wisdom of God." So we ought not to pretend that saint Paul was preaching the old testament and nothing else. He would be following the example of Jesus Christ by showing in all the old testament scriptures what is said about Jesus Christ. It takes faith to accept the identity of Jesus as the Christ and as the one who fulfils the old testament prophecies. The Beroeans are commended for checking the old testament for the things that saint Paul said but it was some of the Thessalonian Jews who became Christians and who built a church to which saint Paul wrote two letters. No letter to the Beroeans is preserved in the new testament and history make very little mention of Beroea after Paul's visit. So even though some in Thessalonica maltreated saint Paul in the end their town became a centre of Christian faith and teaching known throughout the whole world.
It appears that using/quoting Scriptures could be hazardous to ones health during the time of the Apostles:
Whoa! There's the problem. You don't think the prophets wrote about Jesus.
The Beroeans did not have a "full bible" they had something similar to the old testament in my bible. It contained more than is in the NASB old testament since they were very likely reading from the LXX. But even if they read a Hebrew old testament - assuming that they could read Hebrew even though they were resident in Macedonia/Greece - they would not see the name of Jesus in it and had to rely on saint Paul's identification of Jesus with the Messiah. The Jews in Beroea almost certainly didn't have direct eyewitness experience of Jesus life and teachings so they had to rely on what saint Paul said to them. They had to believe that saint Paul was telling them the truth about Jesus. And they required faith on their part. They checked up what he had to say about fulfilment of the prophetic words about the messiah and could verify those prophetic words but they had to rely on saint Paul's honesty in saying that the Lord Jesus Christ did the things that saint Paul claimed. Some of the Jews in Beroea did believe, some in Thessalonica also believed but the testimony of history is that those in Thessalonica formed a church to which saint Paul wrote two letters and which went on to become a centre of Christian learning and evangelism to the world. Beroea receives no further mention in the holy scriptures (except for observing that a man came from there in Acts 20).
The prophets wrote about the messiah and the Lord Jesus Christ is that messiah but the prophets never named the Messiah by the name Jesus. If you think that they did then show us the passage in the old testament that names the messiah as Jesus.
They (meaning the Jews of Beroea) used the old testament to check what Paul said about the old testament passages that pointed to messiah. Some of them accepted saint Paul's testimony that the messiah is Jesus of Nazareth whom he preached as the Christ and saviour of the world. The old testament didn't contain any passages that recount the life of Christ, for that the Jews had to rely on the truth of saint Paul's testimony. Some did accept what he said, some did not.
Sorry but I don't understand the point you are trying to make. Paul himself was not an eyewitness to Jesus' life. His experience with the Holy Spirit was what guided him into searching the scriptures for himself to come to the understanding that he had of the meaning of what was happening. He was a pharisee and knew the scriptures better than anyone, so what do you think he was doing during the years before becoming prominent in the Christian circle if not studying the scriptures himself to establish the connections that became the gospel that he preached.
Yes, interesting verse; many people use it while often disagreeing, on the meaning of Scripture, with others likewise using it. And one significant point is that, independent of Scripture there existed, at that time, a new body of beliefs, held and professed by this new church made up of Jesus's disciples, based on the revelation He had given them. These beliefs didn't come from Scripture, rather they were held in common by a group of people, and were checked against Scripture. While the OT writings were considered to be the standard by which to test the veracity of these new teachings and claims, these teachings and claims had an existence apart from any written source until later when writings were penned by disciples and associates and later yet assembled into the canon we know as the New Testament. In any case the church continued to hold, teach, and practice this new faith which the Bereans were looking into before and after anything was written about it.
The point is this. Saint Paul preached a message that was not in holy scripture. He preached Christ and the new testament was not yet written. Acts 17 is not a testimony to SS no matter how hard one tries to force it to be.
Where does holy scripture say that saint Paul read the old testament to learn about Jesus Christ? I think you made that up.
Pure speculation and supposition. You may think it was so but you need more than your hunches and speculations to establish it as true.
