Scripture: Acts 17:1–9
Introduction to Thessalonians and Acts
We have two New Testament readings today, as we spend some time exploring the early church in the Greek city of Thessalonica. A bit of timeline background might be helpful here, along with a reminder that the order of the books in the New Testament as we have them is not chronological. Paul’s letters were actually written before the Gospels. And Acts was written along with the third Gospel of Luke. So, the chronological version of the Thessalonica story looks like this:
- The last couple of weeks, we read about the events of Acts 1 and 3, which took place around the time of the Pentecost, depending on who you talk to, around the year 30–35. Now, remember that in Acts 1, Jesus told his to be witnesses to the ends of the earth.
- So, it shouldn’t be a surprise that by Acts 17 we are getting there. We’ve skipped a lot in the meanwhile. Paul has been converted. He has been preaching and starting churches, and witnessing to the power of Christ farther and farther away. Probably around the year 50, some 15 to 20 years after the Pentecost, Paul visited a trade city by the name of Thessalonica, and we’ll read more about that story later from the book of Acts.
- If Paul first visited Thessalonica in the year 50, his first letter back to them was soon, either in 50 or 51. Here’s a weird thing about the timeline. Even though a lot has happened in those 20 years, this is the first written text that we have from this timeline. The first chapter of the first letter to the Thessalonians is considered by scholars to actually be the earliest words of the New Testament that were written. The earliest theological conception of the Church and what it meant to be a Jesus-follower.
- Finally, it might be helpful to know a final date on the timeline: the year 85. This is, give or take, when the book of Acts was actually written. So, you see that there was some time between these events taking place and the author of Luke and Acts writing about them. Thus, Acts looks back in time to tell the story of the Holy Spirit working through the early church, with a bit more hindsight after the time had passed.
Some of you are currently bored out of your mind, but others of you might find it important to understand how all of this stuff fits together. As we read what is likely the earliest written text we have in the New Testament, I want you to imagine what it might have felt like to get a letter from the man who helped to start your church, and hear what he has to say. As we enter a space in our worship service where we talk about gratitude and church and stewardship, perhaps you might hear some words important to us, as well.
I Thessalonians 1.1–10
1 Paul, Silvanus, and Timothy,
To the church of the Thessalonians in God the Father and the Lord Jesus Christ:
Grace to you and peace.
2 We always give thanks to God for all of you and mention you in our prayers, constantly 3 remembering before our God and Father your work of faith and labor of love and steadfastness of hope in our Lord Jesus Christ. 4 For we know, brothers and sisters beloved by God, that he has chosen you, 5 because our message of the gospel came to you not in word only but also in power and in the Holy Spirit and with full conviction; just as you know what kind of persons we proved to be among you for your sake. 6 And you became imitators of us and of the Lord, for in spite of persecution you received the word with joy from the Holy Spirit, 7 so that you became an example to all the believers in Macedonia and in Achaia. 8 For the word of the Lord has sounded forth from you not only in Macedonia and Achaia but in every place your faith in God has become known, so that we have no need to speak about it. 9 For they report about us what kind of welcome we had among you and how you turned to God from idols to serve a living and true God 10 and to wait for his Son from heaven, whom he raised from the dead—Jesus, who rescues us from the coming wrath.
Acts 17.1–9
1 After Paul and Silas had passed through Amphipolis and Apollonia, they came to Thessalonica, where there was a Jewish synagogue. 2 And Paul went in, as was his custom, and on three Sabbath days argued with them from the scriptures, 3 explaining and proving that it was necessary for the Messiah to suffer and to rise from the dead and saying, “This is the Messiah, Jesus whom I am proclaiming to you.” 4 Some of them were persuaded and joined Paul and Silas, as did a great many of the devout Greeks and not a few of the leading women. 5 But the Jews became jealous, and with the help of some ruffians in the marketplaces they formed a mob and set the city in an uproar. While they were searching for Paul and Silas to bring them out to the assembly, they attacked Jason’s house. 6 When they could not find them, they dragged Jason and some brothers and sisters before the city authorities, shouting, “These people who have been turning the world upside down have come here also, 7 and Jason has entertained them as guests. They are all acting contrary to the decrees of the emperor, saying that there is another king named Jesus.” 8 The people and the city officials were disturbed when they heard this, 9 and after they had taken bail from Jason and the others, they let them go.
When we first moved to our neighborhood, there was an intersection on our block that didn’t have a stop sign. Cars going north and south thought they had the right of way. Cars going east and west thought that they had the right of way. You can imagine the fun that ensued. We asked neighbors about it, and they said that there are accidents all the time, which probably isn’t a surprise.
David Fitch uses this example to talk about the dynamics of power in our world. You might remember the name because Dr. Fitch was our speaker for the ABCCR Annual Meeting that we hosted last fall. He stood right there [in this room], and used this microphone, to talk about the power of the Church in the world.
Dr. Fitch has written a new book about the dynamics of power, and he uses the example of the stoplight or the stop sign. He suggests that there is a type of power that is required for human society to work well. It is the power of the stop light. Imagine if there were no stoplights…our neighborhood doesn’t see that much traffic, but what about if there were no stoplights or stop signs at 15th and Kasold? 23rd and Iowa? There is value in a power that establishes control and exhibits power over others. Traffic laws. Police to enforce those laws. A legal system to punish those who do not follow those laws. These are parts of human society. All good things.
Or mostly good things. Fitch calls this kind of “power over” worldly power, and suggests that while it can be very important, it is not the whole story. We want it to be. We want to believe that worldly power is enough. There is a simplicity and elegance to it. We will just give assault rifles to the “good guys,” whatever that means. Or we just need to elect the right person as president, and they will save the day. Or this America First idea, that our country always knows best and always gets it right, so we just need all the power. We desperately want to believe that this kind of worldly “power over” is really all that we need, and that all we need to do is find the right people to give that power to, and everything will be fine. But of course, historians, and psychologists, and theologians will tell you that there is no perfect person, and that even those with the best of intentions are often corrupted by the very power that we give them. There are plenty of examples of “power over” gone wrong. Church officials abusing children. Tyrants ruling with an iron fist. Police officers using their power to brutalize others. Military juntas like we see now in Myanmar, oppressing the people. Worldly power is at best imperfect, and at worst has the potential to be abusive. Worldly power is never quite enough.
The problem, Fitch says, is that we have to recognize the limits of worldly power. “Power over” cannot change hearts and minds. Cannot really bring true transformation. He uses the civil rights movement as an example of good and important “power over.” Through legal and civic change, it was able to do a lot of amazing things to preserve the rights of African Americans. To change the laws that oppressed them. But it did not stop racism. It did not transform hearts and minds of people who believed that white people are superior to everyone else. There are times and places for “power over,” but it is at best imperfect.
Again, think about the intersection in my neighborhood. Soon after we moved here, the city put in a stop sign. Problem solved! But does that mean that people don’t drive too fast through our street on their way to work? Or glide past the stop sign, barely slowing down? Or completely ignore it? The screech of tires or roar of engines tell me otherwise. The stop sign can only do so much.
Let me suggest that today’s story from Acts is a fascinating case study on the dynamics of power. Over and over again, the Early Christians ran into examples of “power over.” Stephen is killed by the authorities. Paul is imprisoned, many, many times. Even in more subtle ways, there are those who think that new converts to the Christian faith must practice a certain set of traditional practices in order to belong…it is a lording over of those with the power over those new to the faith. “If you want in, you have to do it our way.” All examples of worldly power.
And it happens here in Acts 17. The religious leaders in Thessalonica are threatened by Paul, and jealous of his success, so they used violent worldly power to create a riot. In language that sounds eerily like the lynch mobs of our own history, they attacked a house where they thought Paul was staying, and beat up the owner of the house and the Christians who were there with him. The city authorities sided with the mob, and put a Christian man named Jason in jail and forced him to pay bail. It is a clear example of those with the worldly power exerting it over others who threatened them.
A word of explanation that might be helpful. Verse 5 talks about the fact that it was “the Jews” who became jealous and formed a lynch mob to kill Paul and Silas. We have to be careful not to cross over here into antisemitism here. Christians reading this and other passages from Scripture have for the last 2,000 years used them as reasons why it is okay to oppress or abuse Jewish people. But remember that Paul was a Jew. All of the disciples were Jews. Jesus was a Jew. What Acts is talking about here are the specific religious leaders who had power and privilege in that context, using that “power over” to oppress and violently subjugate others. It is more about the way power was used than about the religious background of the person. We can draw just as many comparisons to Christian leaders through history who assume that theirs is the only way, and that those who disagree with them deserve to be punished. It demonstrates the limitations of worldly power, at best imperfect, but at worst violent and abusive enough to drag people out of their homes and have them arrested for being different.
But there is another power at play in the 17th Chapter of Acts. Dr. Fitch suggests that while “power over” can be helpful to preserve, it cannot transform. That requires another power, what he calls in comparison “Godly power.” While worldly power seeks to control, Godly power seeks to cooperate with God and others. While worldly power is about “over,” Godly power is about “under” or “with.” While worldly power says “I know what God wants and I will make you submit to my authority,” Godly power says, “I seek to submit to God’s authority and humbly seek to cooperate with others doing the same.”
This type of power is present in Acts 17 as well, and it comes from the explicit and implicit actions of Paul and Silas. First, notice that they came into Thessalonica not in an attempt to overpower, but to discuss. To engage in a conversation. They made a beeline to the place of religious discussion, the synagogue, and began to work to convince them about the truth of Jesus. In fact, it said that they did so three sabbaths in a row. This was a three-week argument that they had with folks! And did you notice what they were arguing? “It was necessary for the Messiah to suffer and to rise from the dead.” For many in that time and place, it would have seemed ridiculous that God would come in the form of a baby, live a human life, and then be killed. It went against everything that they believed about worldly power. Then and now, there is an assumption that a God who is weak enough to be crucified is not a God to be worshipped. But here is the flip: Paul argued that a God who chooses crucifixion over domination is the ONLY God to be worshipped! This is an explicit argument for a Godly power, instead of worldly power. There is no wonder that the people of Thessalonica were ready to kill Paul and Silas: after all, they were “turning the world upside down.”
Indeed. The true power to transform hearts and minds comes with conversation, discussion, and at the heart of it is the story of a Jesus who did not consider equality with God as something to be taken advantage of. Laying that worldly power aside, refusing the Tempter’s invitation to lead by it, praying for God’s will and not his own, and following that path all the way to his death…that is the eternal and transformative power of God on earth—then and now! That kind of power with, power beneath, power that communicates and cooperates…that is the power that God uses to change hearts and minds. That is the power to transform, not just preserve. This was the power demonstrated by Paul, Silas, Timothy, and Silvanus. And it was the power that felt so threatening to others that people were willing to participate in violent oppression to keep them quiet.
I want to end today with a shift to what that Godly power might look like in our world. I don’t love the “three steps to the perfect faith” kind of sermon, so perhaps you might see these as some ideas that might evoke your own path…might demonstrate what this Godly power might look like in practical terms, and invite you to make your own list.
One, I invite you to spend more time reading the Gospels than you spend reading the news. I am not suggesting that we live with our heads in the sand about current events. But the news tends to be exclusively about those with worldly power, and if that is where we spend all our free time, then we start to believe that worldly power is the be-all, end-all. But the Gospels tell a different story. Of a Jesus who taught about a different definition of greatness. And did it alongside of the unprivileged and relatively powerless. Spend at least much time reading that story as you do reading or watching the news. Ground yourself in the story of Godly power.
Two, pay attention to children. If you spend time reading the Gospels, this is not new information. Jesus tells us that children do a better job showing us the Kingdom than adults do. I think that some of that is because they have not been corrupted with much in the way of worldly power, and they don’t seem to want it, either. Watch how children wonder. How they think about things. About the questions that they ask. May they be our teachers.
Three, listen more and talk less…or talk more and listen less. This is a more complicated direction. There are some of us who are regularly told that things we say are good and wise and eventually we start to believe it, and think that others need to hear more from us. We ought to listen more than we do. But there are some of us who are regularly told that our voices don’t matter, and that our words and our bodies are in the way. Perhaps those people need to talk more. Cole Arthur Riley writes about the experience of growing up as a young black woman in the U.S., and especially in the church, where she was told that her questions and her pain and especially her anger should be kept to herself. Godly power empowers voices who have been ignored or told to “be nice” or “be civil” or “calm down.” Some people have a reason to have righteous anger. Some people ought to make their voices heard. Some of us need to shut up so that they can.
Finally, pray more. This seems like a preacher cop-out, I know. But let me be more specific. There are prayers that stem from a worldly power perspective, coming to God with what we know is the right way for the world to be, and telling God to get on it as soon as possible. But then there are ways to pray that ask God for wisdom. That listen for how we might use our gifts. That give thanks for the way that we are wonderfully and fearfully made. That seek to have our hearts and minds transformed. Pray that second way. And see what happens.
We have a stop sign now. It is better, but not perfect.
It seems like those who drive the fastest or the craziest are those who don’t live around there, who are taking a shortcut from one place to another. But those who drive more carefully are those who have taken the time to know the neighborhood. To know that there are kids who live on both sides of that duplex, so you need to slow down in case they are riding their bikes out front. Or that dog walkers are always out, so make sure to take the curve slowly in case you don’t see them at first. And it doesn’t hurt to roll your window down on nice days, so that you can wave and call out to those you see.
There is power in being with others. In listening and learning from them. In celebrating who they are. May we learn to live in ways that open our hearts to God at work in the world, and be ready to have those hearts transformed by the Risen Christ.
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