A Word in Season: Apostolic Preaching (Acts 17:2–3)

Apostolic Preaching from the Scriptures in Thessalonica

If you could have looked through the window of the synagogue in Thessalonica about 2 ,000 years ago, give or take a few decades, you would have seen a man who was giving his all to making known Jesus Christ.

His name was the Apostle Paul, and week after week he went into that synagogue and he was, according to the Scriptures in Acts chapter 17 and from verse 2, he was reasoning with them from the Scriptures, explaining and demonstrating that the Christ had to suffer and rise again from the dead, and saying, this Jesus whom I preach to you is the Christ.

And some of them were persuaded, and a great multitude of the devout Greeks and not a few of the leading women joined Paul and Silas. What is this man doing with earnestness and intensity, with a fervency and an ardency that is clear in his face and in his body?

Reasoning, Explaining, Demonstrating, and Proclaiming Christ

He is reasoning, explaining, demonstrating and proclaiming. He is reasoning. That doesn't mean just a dialogue, a discussion about what may be. The Apostle is arguing from the Word of God. He's shedding light on different views and opinions.

He's bringing all reason to the standard of divine revelation and asking, what then does the Word of God say to us? He's explaining and demonstrating. He's opening the truth up so that it can be understood.

He's like a doctor in a classroom who's teaching people by peeling back the layers of the skin. He's opening things up. It's an anatomical dissection so that from top to bottom, the thing may be fully known.

And he's demonstrating. The truth is being set forth. And he recognizes that it raises certain questions and it opens up certain avenues for exploration. And so he's answering those questions. If there are objections, he's addressing them.

He's showing constantly, improving to those who are hearing the coherence of what he says, the validity of it, how it all holds together and how it holds water. And as he reasons and as he explains and as he demonstrates, he is proclaiming Jesus as the Christ.

All of these other things are servants of this great declaration, this unequivocal and unashamed statement that Jesus of Nazareth is the Messiah of God and the Savior of sinners. And you can see all the way through the substance of what he's dealing with.

He's reasoning from the very Word of God. He's explaining and demonstrating the glorious person of the Lord Jesus Christ and his particular work in salvation, that he must suffer and rise again from the dead.

The Death and Resurrection of the Lord Jesus Christ

And it's this Jesus, not any other, not a Jesus who is not found in the pages of the Word of God, not a Christ who's simply a good man, a nice man or a fine example, not a Jesus who dies and doesn't rise, not a Jesus who doesn't suffer and die on the cross, but rather the one who came into this world having taken flesh and blood, the very Son of God among us, who suffered and died upon the cross and rose again in triumph on the third day, fulfilling all the promises of God's Word and all the prophecies that were spoken concerning the Savior and his salvation.

And this one, this one is the Christ. And in him and in him only is salvation found. I hope you can catch in some of those verbs and in some of those nouns the style and the substance, the tone and the warmth, the affection and the intensity of apostolic preaching.

And some of them were persuaded. The truth under God gripped their souls and a great multitude of the devout Greeks and not a few of the leading women joined Paul and Silas. As these men made known this truth, reasoning from God's Word, explaining and demonstrating concerning the sufferings, death and resurrection of the Lord Jesus Christ, and proclaiming this Jesus as God's Savior, people embraced it because God was at work.

Preaching Christ with Apostolic Earnestness

How then we should pray and long, and if we're preachers, study, that we may so preach that if people should look through our window and see us at work, they would see and hear the same declaration of Jesus of Nazareth as God's Christ and our Savior.