Does the Bible teach Sola Scriptura? Part 5: Acts 17:11 and the Bereans

Acts 17:11 is another popular text that has been cited in favour of Sola Scriptura. According to many apologists for this doctrine, Luke applauds their searching of the Scriptures to ascertain the trustworthiness of Paul’s message to them. Therefore, they conclude, the Bereans accepted only the authority of the Bible, and no other method of ascertaining the truth of the Gospel is to be privileged (this has also been used to claim that praying to know if the Book of Mormon is the Word of God is false). However, if this proves something, it proves too much for the Protestant apologist. Why? Firstly, even allowing “Scripture” and “the Bible” to be one-to-one equivalent, not all 66 books of the canon were inscripturated at the time of Acts 17:11, so if one will absolutise this verse in the way many do, one will have to hold to, at most, the Old Testament canon, which the Bereans no doubt used. Furthermore, they are said to have received “the word.” What was this word, which they accepted en par with the Scriptures they received? It was, at the time, non-inscripturated revelation (viz. the identity of the long-promised Messiah). If anything, the Bereans were not “proto-Protestants,” in fact, quite the opposite, as Sola Scriptura does not allow one to privilege any other authority as being en par with Scripture, as all other sources of faith and authority are subordinate to “Scripture” (being defined as the Protestant canon).

A couple of years ago, a questioner raised the issue of Acts 17:11 and if it was a verse that posed problems to Latter-day Saint beliefs. What follows is my answer (slightly edited) to him:

Acts 17:11 and the case of the Bereans

These were more noble than those in Thessalonica in that they received the word with all readiness of mind, and searched the scriptures daily, where those things were so.

For those predisposed to believe in the concept of Sola Scriptura, Acts 17:11 is touted as a definitive proof text. It is reasoned that because of the Berean’s appeal to Scripture and the Thessalonians’ apparent lack thereof, Luke, the writer of Acts, judges that the former “were noble” in comparison than the latter and should serve as a model for each Christian to emulate. Obviously, the Bereans’ appeal to Scripture suggests a people very familiar with the word of God who did not bend with every new wind of doctrine that came breezing their way, even from an apostle like Paul. Their “daily” examination of Scripture evokes a picture of studious and intelligent people who did not give God lip-service on the Sabbath but from sun-up to sun-down had, as the Psalmist of old, the word of God on their heart. They did this daily because Paul, as Acts 17:17 specifies, reasoned in the synagogue with the Jews on a daily basis. Luke tells us that not only did the Bereans examine the Scriptures, but they did this purposely to see what Paul said was true or not. Hence, the actions of the Bereans, if we are to take them as our model, seem to set Scripture up on the sole judge of what a teacher is proclaiming. For Sola Scriptura advocates, Scripture is portrayed as the given, but Paul was the new-comer who had to be authenticated. The passage seems to assert, or at least strongly suggest, that in judging anything claiming to be from God, Scripture must be the sole and final authority.

But is Scripture as the final authority a la Protestantism, the message Luke is trying to impart here? Let us examine the context of this passage to find out. Acts 17:2 records:

And Paul, as his manner was, went in unto them, and three Sabbath days reasoned with them out of the scriptures.

Here we see that it was not only the Bereans who were steeped in Scripture, but rather Paul himself, who in this regard had led the way in all the synagogues in which he taught. At this early time in Christian history, the synagogue was still the main meeting place, for Jews as well as Greeks. It was Paul’s “custom” or “manner” to visit the synagogues in each city of his missionary journey. For example, on his trip to Antioch recorded in Acts 13:14, Luke tells us that on the Sabbath Paul and his companions entered the synagogue and read from the Law and the Prophets. As he would later do in Thessalonica and Berea in Acts 17, Paul made it a continual practice to read and teach from the Scriptures--in this case, the Old Testament. Hence we see that Paul’s teaching sessions in the synagogue were to a people who knew their Scripture, used it often, and were willing to exchange ideas about it. If Paul appealed to Scripture, then it was to Scripture the people would go back to check if what Paul said “were so.”

But there was a special reason that Paul may have stimulated (or agitated) his hears. In Thessalonica, Acts 17:2 records that Paul not only read in the Scripture but that he reasoned with them from the Scriptures, explaining and proving that Christ had to suffer. Apparently, Paul was deducing from already known Scripture new understandings about what the Scripture meant in light of the events that had just taken place a decade or so earlier.

In Luke’s wording we notice a slight difference between what Scripture said and what Paul taught. In the beginning of verse 3 he says that Paul was “alleging that Christ must needs have suffered and risen again from the dead” but in the latter part he records Paul saying, “This Jesus, whom I preach unto you, is Christ.” The difference between the two is that Paul is interpreting “The Christ” of the Old Testament to be the “Jesus” of the New Testament. Since the Old Testament did not use the name of “Jesus” to identity the Messiah (Christ), Paul’s message was a new application of Scripture. Further, the Jews did not believe that their coming Messiah had to “suffer,” let alone “rise from the dead.” Most of the Jews expected their Messiah to be a powerful king who would relieve them of Gentile rule. In their view, he would not have to rise from the dead because he would establish himself as an eternal king who would rule forever over the Jews’ enemies. They simply did not understand, in the same manner as New Testament authors, Old Testament “proof-texts” used to support the Messiah as a suffering servant who had to die--a suffering underwent precisely for their sin of disbelief in him.

In Thessalonica, it was Paul’s statement that “the Christ” of the Old Testament was the “Jesus” of the New which caused such contention and jealously among the Jews. In Acts 17:5-9 Luke records their response:

But the Jews which believed not, moved with envy, took unto them certain lewd fellows of the baser sort, and gathered a company, and set all the city on an uproar, and assaulted the house of Jason, and sought to bring them out to the people. And when they found them not, they drew Jason and certain brethren unto the rulers of the city, crying, These that have turned the world upside down are come hither also; Whom Jason hath received: and these all do contrary to the decrees of Casear, saying that there is another king, one Jesus. And they troubled the people and the rulers of the city, when they heard these things, And when they had taken security of Jason, and of the other, they let them go.

It is apparent by their last words, “one [called] Jesus,” that the Jews simply not ready to accept the Christ of the Old Testament as the Jesus of the New Testament. Hence, Paul and the Jews of Thessalonica were not contending about the veracity or usefulness of Scripture; rather, it was Paul’s interpretation of Scripture that they could not accept. Everyone believed Scripture’s prophecy about the coming Messiah. But the information that the Christ was “Jesus” who had recently suffered and died at the hands of the Jews was something Paul was getting from another source outside of Scripture. This new information, would, of course, correlate with Scripture but it would nonetheless be in addition to Scripture. Such was the case, in fact, in Paul’s own conversion. He had to be convinced through additional divine revelation that the people who followed “Jesus,” and whom he was persecuting were in actuality the followers of “the Christ.” In Acts 9:5, after being knocked off his horse by a flash of light, the Lord said to Paul, “I am Jesus whom thou persecutest.” At that instant, Paul recognised that his long-awaited Messiah was the “Jesus” who had suffered and died a decade or so ago. It was not Scripture that brought him to this point but a revelation from Jesus himself showing Paul how the Old Testament Scriptures were to be interpreted.

When Paul arrived in Berea, he acted just as he did in Thessalonica--he went to the synagogue to teach. We may assume that he engaged in similar “reasoning,” “explaining and proving” from Scripture with the Bereans that he had done with the Thessalonians. We may also assume that Paul, as in Thessalonica, made it a point to teach the Bereans that Christ of the Old Testament was the Jesus of the New Testament. The Bereans received Paul’s interpretation of scripture without hesitation. Luke records in Acts 17:11:

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.

Here we see that these Berean Jews “received the word with all readiness.” We can surmise from his previous encounter with the Thessalonians that the main message the Berans were receiving with eagerness was Paul’s news that Jesus of Nazareth was the Christ. Because they believed Paul’s message about the identity of the Messiah, Luke concludes that they were “more noble than those in Thessalonica.” Moreover, their being more noble was also demonstrated when they “searched the scriptures daily” to see if Paul’s message was true. It showed that they cared greatly for God’s revelation, in whatever form it came. We can imagine that their counterparts in Thessalonica perhaps did not investigate the testimony of Scripture after Paul told them that Jesus was the Messiah. They had a blinded or one-sided view of Scripture and did not care for Paul’s interpretation. They were not willing to “reason” from Scripture’s circumstantial evidence that the Messiah was indeed Jesus, thus, they were not noble, open-minded people.

But why, we ask, did Luke consider the Jews of Berea more “noble” than the Jews in Thessalonica, when, according to Luke’s description of the Thessalonians in Acts 17:4, some of the Jews from Thessalonica joined Paul and Silas, as did God-fearing Greeks. It is obvious that not all the Jews in Thessalonica had rejected Paul’s interpretation of Scripture. Wouldn’t Luke consider these Jews “noble” for accepting Paul’s message? The answer is yes, but these noble Jews were so badly outnumbered by the jealous and riotous Jews who rejected Paul’s message that Luke was forced to sum up the situation in Thessalonica as one of general unbelief. We also see this in the way he describes how many people were positively influenced by Paul’s message. Regarding the Thessalonians in Acts 17:4, he points out that only some of the Jews were persuaded while in regard to the Bereans in Acts 17:12 many of them were persuaded. Apparently, the number of believing Jews in Berea were of a sufficient quantity that Luke could designate them, at large, as “noble” in contrast to the overall negative disposition of the people in Thessalonica. Moreover, the unbelieving Jews of Thessalonica further justified Luke’s negative assessment since they caused riots among the people both in Thessalonica and later in Berea (cf. Acts 17:5-9; 17:13-15).

In view of the above facts, is it reasonable to conclude that the Bereans, because they examined, on a daily basis, the Scriptures to ascertain the answer to the question of the truthfulness or lack thereof, of Paul’s message, are models of the modern theory of Sola Scriptura? Is Luke trying here to teach us that being “more noble” or “nobility” consists in using Scripture as the final authority in determining the veracity of oral teaching? When we look at the evidence fairly and accurately, the answer is a resounding “no.” Any attempt to extract from this short pericope a teaching of Sola Scriptura is simply reading into the texts one’s doctrinal bias (eisegesis, in other words). First, the text is simply a narrative of events that occurred in two respective cities, not a treatise on the nature and extent of Scripture and its authority. Granted, the passage suggests how Paul and his hearers used and understood Scripture but neither Paul or his commentator Luke say anything definitive about the doctrine of Scripture. Second, we have seen from our comparison of the Jews in Berea with the Jews in Thessalonica that Luke considered the former more noble not because they merely examined Scripture, but mainly because they believed Paul’s oral revelation that the Christ of the Old Testament was the Jesus of the New Testament. Luke attributes nobility to them because they received his oral message with eagerness. The Bereans believed that the apostle’s oral message had just as much divine authority as the Scripture. In Acts 17:13, Luke specifies that Paul’s oral message to be the very word of God. Paul was not merely speaking about the word of God, he was speaking the actual word of God. Elsewhere, Paul’s own assessment of his oral teaching to the Thessalonians confirms its superlative distinction, for in 1 Thessalonians 2:13, he states:

For this cause also thank we God without ceasing, because, when ye received the word of God which ye heard of us, ye received it not as the word of men, but as it is in truth, the word of God, which effectually worketh also in you that believe.

This is a pivotal passage because it shows that Paul considered his oral message to the Thessalonians in Acts 17:1-4 (which revealed that Jesus was the Christ), and by necessary extension his oral message to the Bereans in Acts 17:11-13, as divine revelations on par with Scripture. In fact, no one could know the real meaning of Scripture, as obscure as it was at times, unless accompanied by an equally authoritative divine interpretation. This is the essential teaching of the Berean encounter.

Since the Old Testament did not explicitly identify “the Christ” as “Jesus,” it was impossible for the Jews of Berea, using the Old Testament alone, to have proven from Scripture that Jesus was the Messiah. One could certainly “reason,” “explain” and “prove” that the Christ had to suffer and rise from the dead, but there was no explicit evidence, other than Paul’s authoritative testimony, that the one who was prophesied in the Old Testament to suffer and rise was the Jesus who walked the earth only a decade or so earlier. The Bereans were noble because they accepted Paul’s apostolic authority on the identity of the Messiah, not because they could extract such for themselves from the Old Testament that Jesus was indeed the Messiah. Thus, their “examination” of Scriptures was limited to re-evaluating those passages which spoke of the Messiah as the one who had to suffer, die, and rise again; not to prove or disprove that Jesus was the Messiah. Before Paul’s teachings to the Bereans, like most Jews, thought that the Messiah would be recognised by a majestic appearance and a subsequent conquering of the Gentiles. It was not until Paul pointed out that the Old Testament passages which spoke of God’s servant as one who had to suffer must be interpreted to apply to the Messiah, and, more importantly, that his name was Jesus. The typical Jew, although he knew his Scripture, invariably skipped over the numerous passages in the Old Testament that suggested his Messiah had to first come as one to suffer and die. As Paul says in 2 Corinthians 3:14-16:

But their minds were blinded; for until this day remained the same vail untaken away in the reading of the old testament; which vail is done away in Christ. But even unto this day, when Moses is read, the vail is upon their heart. Nevertheless when it shall turn to the Lord, the vail shall be taken away.

After Paul was done teaching, the now enlightened Jew could read a passage like Isaiah 53 and see it in a whole different light (cf. Luke 24:26; Acts 8:26-35). It was in connecting Paul’s divine revelation of the person of Jesus with the suffering passages of the Old Testament that the Bereans examined scripture to see if Paul’s message was true. The Berean did not first believe that Jesus was the Messiah and then examine Scripture to see if Paul’s identifying of Jesus was the Messiah was true. No, he examined the Scriptures that spoke of the suffering servant and then accepted by faith that the “Jesus” about whom Paul spoke was indeed the Messiah. His faith was based on accepting Paul’s authority to interpret Scripture, while Scripture served mainly as a witness to what Paul preached. Scripture could not serve as the sole determinant of what Paul taught for the simple reading that Scripture never identified “the Christ” specifically as “Jesus.” Using the New Testament approach to Scripture, He was designated with names like “the prophet” (Deuteronomy 18:15) or “Immanuel” in Isaiah, but never “Jesus” (Matthew 1:21). The Bereans, as their Old Testament prescribed, needed at least two or three witnesses to prove the veracity of a certain person or event (cf. Deuteronomy 19:15; 2 Corinthians 13:1). Paul was one witness and Scripture another, and both were necessary for truth to be know and understood. Hence, Acts 17:11 cannot support the concept of Sola Scriptura. If anything, it implicitly denies such a teaching.