Daily Manna, Year Two · Day 320 · November 16
They Checked Him
“These were more noble than those in Thessalonica, in that they received the word with all readiness of mind, and searched the scriptures daily, whether those things were so.”
Friend,
In 1631 a London printing of the King James Bible left the word "not" out of the seventh commandment. The printers were fined, and most of the copies were destroyed. The few that survive are named after the mistake: people call them the Wicked Bible. Somebody had to read that page closely enough to catch it.
I want to write to you about a town that read that closely. Paul had just come from Thessalonica. The preaching there had gone well, until a mob "assaulted the house of Jason" and dragged Jason before the rulers of the city. The believers sent Paul away by night. He reached Berea with all of that behind him, and he still walked straight into the synagogue.
Then comes Luke's verdict, which is today's verse: "These were more noble than those in Thessalonica, in that they received the word with all readiness of mind, and searched the scriptures daily, whether those things were so." It takes both halves of that sentence to earn the praise. Readiness of mind is the open door, and the searching is what they did once Paul was inside. They were not deciding whether to let him speak. They had already welcomed him, and now they were checking what he said against their own Scriptures, every day.
What they were checking was no small matter. It was the message Paul had preached in Thessalonica, that "Christ must needs have suffered, and risen again from the dead." Their care bought them no protection. The men from Thessalonica came down and stirred up the people in Berea too, and Paul had to move on again. But Luke records what the searching produced: "Therefore many of them believed."
Lord, I am better at being told than at looking for myself. I would rather be loyal to a teacher than to the text, because loyalty is quicker. Give me both halves. Open the door of my mind wide, then put the Book in my hands, and make me the kind of person who reads to the end of the sentence. Keep me from calling it discernment when I have simply stopped listening to anyone. Thank You that Your Word is still there to be searched, and that it still holds when it is. Amen.
Yours on the same road,
a fellow learner
Daily Manna runs on a two-year cycle. The year one reading for day 320 is Desires of the Heart (Psalm 37:4).