The duty of individual research.
This interesting and cheering episode teaches us one lesson in particular; but there are three suggestions we may gain preliminarily.
1. That the Christian pilgrim (and workman) may hope that shadow will soon be succeeded by sunshine; that the tumult of Thessalonica will soon be followed by the reverent inquiry of Beraea.
2. That he must expect sunshine to pass, before long, into shadow; the fruit-gathering of Beraea to yield to the flight to Athens (Acts 17:12-14).
3. That true nobility is in excellency of character: "These were more noble" (Acts 17:11). The word signifies (derivatively) those of noble birth, and it is here applied to those who had chosen the honorable course and were doing the estimable thing. This is the true, the real nobility. That which is adventitious, dependent on birth and blood, is only circumstantial, is liable to be dishonored by the chances and changes of time, is of no account with God. That which is based on character and born of wise choice, pure feeling, estimable action, is real, human, unalterable, of Divine origin, and enjoying the Divine approval. But the particular lesson of our text is—
THE DUTY OF INDIVIDUAL RESEARCH. The Beraeans are commended in the sacred narrative as "more noble than those in Thessalonica, in that they received the Word with all readiness," etc. (Acts 17:11). Their excellency was in their readiness to receive and investigate, to study and search for themselves whether the new teaching was or was not in accordance with the will of God. Whence we infer:
1. That blind opposition to all new doctrine is a sin as well as a mistake. It may be that men who propound views different from those that we have held come to us from God and offer us that which is in the Scriptures, though we have not yet discovered it there. There are more things in that living Word than the wisest man has ever seen yet. Unqualified resistance of doctrine which is different from "that which we have received to hold" may be the rejection of God's own truth; in that case it is both injurious and wrong.
2. That it is the duty of every Christian man to test all new doctrine by the teaching of the Divine Word. We are to search the Scriptures whether these things are so or not. There is no excuse for declining to do this; for
(a) diligently,
(b) intelligently,
(c) devoutly.—C.