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Act_17:1-15
The destination of Paul and Silas was Thessalonica, nearly a hundred miles west from Philippi, and the chief city of the second part of Macedonia. To this place they pursued the usual course by way of Amphipolis and Apollonia, cities about thirty miles apart, and nearly equidistant between Philippi and Thessalonica. As nothing is recorded of their proceedings, it is probable that they merely passed a night at each of these places on their way. Amphipolis was then a large commercial city, but both it and Apollonia are now in ruins.
Thessalonica was a far more important place, rich and populous, with a very large proportion of Jews among its inhabitants. They were, as usual, attracted by the commercial advantages of the place; and the same attraction has secured to the city an extraordinarily large Israelitish population down to the present day, when, of its seventy thousand inhabitants, more than one-half are of the Hebrew race. This population renders it the third city of the Ottoman empire in Europe. It still preserves its ancient name, in the contracted form of Salonica; and rising up the slope of a hill upon the shore, presents, from the sea, an imposing appearance, which is not sustained by a nearer examination.
Paul and Silas remained here for three or four weeks, preaching not merely in the synagogues on the Sabbath-day, but teaching daily from house to house. As was his wont with Jewish congregations, Paul “reasoned with them out of the Scriptures;” proving first that the promised Messiah, whoever he was, must needs have suffered and risen from the dead; and then proceeding to declare that the Jesus whom he preached was that Messiah. The effect upon the different classes of hearers is pointedly indicated. “Some of them (the born Hebrews) believed and consorted with Paul and Silas, and of the devout Greeks a great multitude, and of the chief women not a few.” It would thus appear, as Paul’s own epistles to the Thessalonians intimate, that the basis of the church formed at this place was Gentile. From these epistles we gather some indications of his proceedings, which the Acts of the Apostles does not supply. It was here particularly that Paul manifested a marked carefulness in avoiding all appearance of living upon other men’s labors, as if he made a gain of godliness; while he felt and avowed that those who ministered in spiritual things had a right to a subsistence from those among whom they labored. But though he possessed this right, he did not choose to exercise it. By his own hard labor, night and day, upon the rough hair-cloth used in the making of tents, he was enabled to maintain the honest dignity of independence in being chargeable to no one, and to convince those to whom he presented the Gospel that he sought not theirs but them—thus maintaining his disinterestedness beyond all suspicion among the rich converts of Thessalonica. He, however, received once and again some aid from the small and therefore poor church at Philippi; for, from their tried love to him, and their established faith, it would have been churlish to refuse the aid which from the untried Thessalonians it would have been unsafe to accept. No man ever knew better than Paul how to show the right distinction at the right place.
The success at Thessalonica soon aroused the opposition of the Jews who believed not, and eventually they gave to their opposition the form which had been found effectual in other places. Fearing among the heathen to impart to their hostility a purely Jewish aspect, knowing that as such it would gain little attention from the heathen magistrates, they stirred up against Paul and Silas, by their vile insinuations and calumnies, the rabid passions of the worthless idlers and ignorant rabble, who have always abounded in the maritime towns of the Mediterranean; and soon gathering a company of these, they rushed with howling clamor, which presently set the town in an uproar, to the house where the apostles lodged. This was the dwelling of one Jason, who, if the same person who is mentioned by that name in Rom_16:21, was a relative of Paul. The apostle and his companion were providentially absent front the house; and being thus baulked of their intended prey, the wild mob, having broken into the house, seized Jason himself, with some of the brethren who happened to be there, and dragged them along with swift violence before “the rulers of the city.” Here Jason especially was accused of harboring those, who, after having “set the world upside down,” had “come hither also,” illegally prating to them, the subjects of Caesar, about “another king, one Jesus.” The Jews had thus adroitly put into the months of their “rascal rabblement,” that charge of political sedition which has always been found more that any other effectual for engaging the attention of the magistracy. Here, however, the persons mainly implicated in the charge were not present, and all the magistrates could do was to take security from Jason and the others and allow them to depart.
Security, for what?
Not surely, as some suppose, that they would produce the accused the next day, for they would then have forfeited their bail by sending them away the ensuing night; but rather, perhaps, that they pledged themselves for their immediate departure from the city—which, in general, was all that either the magistrates or the Jews in such cases desired. It has been suggested by some, however, that Jason pledged himself no longer to receive them into his house; and by others, that the undertaking was, that the peace of the city should not be disturbed; while yet others have been content to suppose that they made themselves responsible for the future good conduct of the accused. But all these latter alternatives seem to involve an admission to the discredit of Paul and Silas, to which, we should suppose, that Jason would not have been likely to consent.
What was the form of the security given we do not know. We always think of pecuniary pledges in such cases. It may have been so. But money was in those times less sufficient for all purposes—less the representative of moral value, than it has since become; and it may be that the only security required from Jason and the others, was their word or signature.
During the following night Paul and Silas, at the instance of their friends, took their departure from the city; and passing fifty miles or more southward along the coast, tarried not till they reached Berea.
The Jews at this place were found to be more candid and well-disposed than those of Thessalonica; for they searched the Scriptures diligently, to ascertain whether they, indeed, bore that testimony to the doctrine he taught, to which Paul habitually appealed in declaring the Gospel to Jewish hearers. Not but that the truth of the Gospel might be, and has been proved without such reference to the Old Testament. But in reasoning with Jews, it would be impossible, and if possible, unwise, to dispense with the advantage which the Old Testament gives; and all subsequent experience has proved that the old apostolic method is the most effectual of all others for the conversion of the Jews. The results of such an examination of the Scriptures as that which the Bereans instituted, cannot be doubted; and although Paul was soon obliged to leave the place, on account of the persecution raised against him by some Jews who arrived from Thessalonica, the prospects of a good harvest were here so promising, that he left Silas and Timothy behind him to cultivate the field. Timothy had joined them at this place or at Thessalonica, and we may suppose that it was not without a pang that Paul parted so soon again from one so beloved.
Conducted by the affectionate disciples at Berea, who were not to leave him till he was beyond the reach of danger, Paul proceeded towards Athens, going down to the sea, and then embarking in a vessel bound to that city. Here his escort left him and returned to Berea, with a message to Silas and Timothy to join him with all convenient speed.