Imagine sitting in a church where the people don't just listen to the sermon. They go home and look it up. Every word. Every day.
In Berea, there was a group of Jews that Paul encountered. And the Holy Spirit saw fit to put their story in the Book.
Without the Word of God we would be like a ship without a compass, lost and drifting, with no way to know if what we are hearing is true or not. Like the noble Bereans, we must receive the Word of God with open hearts and search the Scriptures daily to test everything we hear.
To give you some context: Paul had been driven by a mob from Thessalonica. He fled to Berea, where he preached Christ, the same message he had preached to the Thessalonians. The Bereans heard what the Thessalonians heard, but they gave him a far different reception. They did not drive him away. They were not afraid to discuss, examine, and investigate the new teaching Paul brought to their ears. We can learn a great deal from them.
First: They Received the Word with All Readiness of Mind
This tells us a few things. First, it tells us these were the people of God. They were a people who knew the Lord.
It is a high blessing to be saved and to be a member of one of the Lord's churches, but let us never think ourselves better than anyone else in and of ourselves. Were it not for the grace of God, we would still be ignorant of even the most basic truths. We would not have a desire to hear the Word of God. Yet here we are. This is the mark of the people of God: they receive the Word of God.
Before you were saved, the Word of God was not something you were interested in. And even now when you witness to someone, sometimes it is like talking to a brick wall, until the Holy Spirit gets hold of them.
Understand something else: you and I who are members of the Lord's churches, even if we are very seasoned saints who have been in this Book for decades, we still have much to learn. We will never get to the point where we don't need to be taught, or don't need to be studying.
We are to be studying the Word of God so that we can handle it properly. If it can be rightly divided, it can be wrongly divided.
If you have never been saved, I want to point you right now to Jesus Christ. He was the hope for the Thessalonians, the hope for the Bereans, and He is the hope for you. But if you have been saved, you know something about what I am talking about. The Bereans received the Word. We ought to receive the Word. When we truly start with God and His Word, we will get along a great deal better with our brothers and sisters in Christ.
Secondly: They Searched the Scriptures Daily
They didn't just randomly look in the Scriptures every now and again. They did so daily. This was a monumental task. You and I are a blessed people. We have Bibles we can carry around easily. You can even have the Bible on your cellphone. They didn't have that. They didn't even have the complete Word of God.
When a man gets into the pulpit to preach, he needs to be preaching the Word of God, and what he preaches needs to be sound. The men and women within his hearing should be able to check it out, to see whether it is according to the Word of God.
How can we test the spirits? The same way the Bereans did. Just because someone gets up into the pulpit and opens a Bible doesn't mean it is the truth that is being preached. There is a standard, and that standard is the Word of God.
We as preachers need to preach the Word, and all of us need to expect it, even demand it, when we sit down to hear any man preach. I'm not here to preach myself, tell stories, give opinions, grind axes, win debates, stroke egos, entertain, or tickle ears.
Those Bereans were a great example for us, searching the Scriptures daily to see whether those things were so. Are you in God's Word daily? It's not too late to start.
The writer is a Baptist, but not a Baptist braggart. We lay no claim to superiority in character or conduct or education. When you find a Baptist with a superiority complex, you can be sure that he is an off brand. C.D. Cole, Definitions of Doctrine, Vol. 3, p. 16
Thirdly: This Was True for All Preachers, Even Paul
Paul was an apostle. He was a missionary. He had begun to write Scriptures under the inspiration of the Holy Spirit. He knew the Old Testament Scriptures well. Yet even he did not get a free pass.
Now understand something. Paul had begun to write Scripture under the inspiration of the Holy Spirit. He knew the Old Testament better than any man in that room. And yet the Bereans tested him anyway, and Paul didn't object to it for a single moment.
Think about that today. A seminary degree doesn't exempt a man. A long ministry doesn't exempt a man. A well-known name doesn't exempt a man. Every preacher who stands behind a pulpit must be held to the same standard: the Word of God. Spurgeon himself said the people in the pew have a right and a duty to bring their Bibles. If it was true for Paul, it is true for every man who has ever preached since.
But notice and understand, I don't listen to catch the man of God doing something wrong. No. The Bereans were receptive to the Word of God. They were contending for the faith, but they were not contentious. Let us be the same way, and realize that not every disagreement is a hill to die on or a line to divide over.
Some doctrine is, but not all. The closer we get to the Lord's return, I believe we ought to be looking in this Book and finding points where we can fellowship to some degree or another. We need to seek out friendships with men and women who love the Word of God, even if they aren't echo chambers of everything as we see it.
Fourthly: Notice the Holy Spirit's Record of These Bereans
Paul didn't get angry or upset with them. Paul didn't call them Pharisees. He didn't say "touch not the Lord's anointed," which by the way does not apply to any preacher or pastor of any church, and to apply it that way is to take the passage out of context. He didn't even accuse them of sowing discord.
It wasn't right just because Paul said it. It had to be right because God's inspired Word said it.
That should be our attitude as well, from the pulpit to the pew.
Notice what the Holy Spirit called them. Not faithful. Not diligent. Not learned. Noble. That word carries the idea of high birth, of a character that marks a man out from the crowd. In the world, nobility is about your family name, your education, your station in life. In God's economy it is something else entirely. The most noble people in that city weren't the rulers or the scholars. They were the ones who went home and opened the Book.
The Bereans were earnest seekers of truth. They did not merely go on the word of the preacher, they searched the Scriptures to see if the things being preached were so. I am convinced that if more professing Christians had the spirit of the Bereans we would have a lot less heresy in our day. The Bereans did not merely pick up their Bibles one day a week, rather they sought to mine truths of Scripture every day. Every Christian needs to spend some time in the Word of God every day. Not only should we read it, we should search it out as we would for hid treasures. Time spent in earnest study of the Scriptures is never wasted. If more Baptist church members followed the example of the Bereans there wouldn't be so many churches compromising and departing from the faith once delivered unto the saints. Tom Ross, commentary on Acts 17:11
Finally: The Scriptures Are Sufficient
Consider this: every cult, every heresy, every church that has drifted into error has done so the same way, by adding something to Scripture. A new revelation. A binding tradition. A personality too big to question. The Bereans had none of those anchors. No pope, no council, no charismatic leader telling them what to think. They had the Word, and it was enough. It has always been enough.
The Bible is our only rule of faith and practice. Whatever else we have, whether books of men, education, opinion, or anything else, it must submit to the authority of the Word of God.
The preacher needs it. The Bereans needed it. The pulpit needs it today. The pews need it today. The Word of God.
We don't need another book to be preached. We don't need any audible word from God. If you want to hear from God, read God's Word. If you want to hear God speak audibly, read God's Word out loud.
You have more access to the Word of God than any generation in history. The Bereans searched with scrolls they had to borrow. What is your excuse for not being in this Book every single day?
May we all be like the noble Bereans, receiving the Word with open hearts and searching the Scriptures daily to see whether what we hear is so. And as preachers, may we always preach the Word, and may we appreciate the noble Bereans who are in the audience.