Scripture - The Source of Divine Truth

Acts 17

1  When they [Paul and Silas on the 2nd missionary journey] had passed through Amphipolis and Apollonia, they came to Thessalonica, where there was a Jewish synagogue. 2 As his custom was, Paul went into the synagogue, and on three Sabbath days he reasoned with them from the Scriptures, 3 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.”

The Greek word trans. “reason” means to discuss, dialog, or converse.

Notice that Paul has gone into the Synagogue, a place where the people would have been familiar with the Scriptures. In this case Paul was able to take the OT Scriptures and show the people the truth of Christ in a way they could grasp and understand. He does this by explaining the content of Scripture to them in a healthy exchange of ideas and understandings.

I imagine that Paul took passages familiar to us found in the law, the psalms, and the prophets to show them how the Messiah would first suffer before coming into His glory, then showed them that this promised Messiah had in fact come. His name was Jesus.

Isaiah 53 or Psalm 22 for example were directly related to the person and work of the promised Messiah.

The people could understand what these passages meant in and of themselves, but they did not know that Jesus Christ had fulfilled them in His life, death, and resurrection. They needed someone to explain it to them, to open it to their understanding, and to prove that yes, it was this Jesus who fulfilled the Word of God.

We often need someone to explain things we don’t understand. Just recently a couple of our students were involved in different assignments and tests. It was interesting to see them pull together and help one another to understand. Anne helped Kim with an assignment in reading “Pride and Prejudice.” Anne loves that kind of literature and had read it a couple times so she was able to explain some things. Later Kim was able to help Amanda with some Chemistry studies and as far as I know I believe everyone passed all of their tests.

Paul explained how Jesus fulfilled every single verse of Scripture just as Jesus did when walking with the disciples on the road to Emmaus following His resurrection.

²⁵ Then He said to them,  “O foolish ones, and slow of heart to believe in all that the prophets have spoken! ²⁶ Ought not the Christ to have suffered these things and to enter into His glory?” ²⁷ And beginning at Moses and all the Prophets, He expounded to them in all the Scriptures the things concerning Himself. (Luke 24)

So what?

The Bible is the story of God’s Son from beginning to end. Every single verse does not contain the name of Jesus but every single verse contains the truth of God and the truth of God all points towards Christ.

Now, I have a challenge for you.

If Jesus could explain His gospel from the Scriptures (Old Testament) and Paul could explain the gospel from Scriptures (Old Testament), then can you? We should be able to since we now have the New Testament and 2,000 years of Christian tradition to help us.

So here's the deal. If an unbeliever walked up to you today, handed you a Bible, and said, "Could you please show me Jesus in this book from beginning to end..." would you be able to do it?

If yes, then Amen! If not, what are you waiting for? Dig in.