Preaching the Word of the Cross
Acts 17:1-14
Acts Series Part 33
By Dave Redick
This idea that the word of the cross seems foolish to the arrogant is easy to see today in the way some churches are changing. They are ashamed of the gospel because they know it offends people. As a result the first thing to go when a church buys into the marketing philosophy of church growth that is so popular these days is the heart of the gospel message which people find offensive. The reasoning goes this way: You don’t do everything you can to attract “customers” for your message, and then tell them something that will repel them! That’s poor marketing. So the mention of the cross with its humiliation and suffering and pain and death, along with preaching about sin so people will understand why they are separated from God, and why Jesus had to die, is abandoned – or if not abandoned, studiously avoided, minimized, and shoved into a corner.
Introduction
Before we get to our main text from the book of Acts this morning, I would like to take you over to 1 Corinthians 1:18-24.
18 For the word of the cross is to those who are perishing foolishness, but to us who are being saved it is the power of God. 19 For it is written, "I will destroy the wisdom of the wise, and the cleverness of the clever I will set aside." 20 Where is the wise man? Where is the scribe? Where is the debater of this age? Has not God made foolish the wisdom of the world? 21 For since in the wisdom of God the world through its wisdom did not come to know God, God was well-pleased through the foolishness of the message preached to save those who believe. 22 For indeed Jews ask for signs, and Greeks search for wisdom; 23 but we preach Christ crucified, to Jews a stumbling block, and to Gentiles foolishness, 24 but to those who are the called, both Jews and Greeks, Christ the power of God and the wisdom of God.
What this passage says has long amazed me. It points out something that many people don’t realize. God is pleased to use a message of salvation that appears foolish to arrogant people, and that He does so on purpose. “The word of the cross is to those who are perishing, foolishness…,” Paul says in verse 18. Then in verse 21:“God was well-pleased through the foolishness of the message preached to save those who believe.
Why does the message of the cross seem foolish to some? Think about it. It’s the very opposite of what arrogant man seeks. Arrogant man loves power and prestige and control and autonomy. A story claiming that the mighty Creator of the universe came to earth and allowed those He created to abuse Him in order to show His love and take upon Himself the consequences of their sinful lives doesn’t attract them at all. It seems weak and subservient. And besides the remarkable nature of the story itself, it requires man to admit he is wrong and that he cannot solve his problems on his own.[1] Proud people don’t like to do things like that.
Ever wonder why it’s so hard to work up the courage to share the gospel with people you know? The reason is very likely that you sense what Paul is talking about here. You know that many of those you speak to with the gospel message will consider your words foolish – and that your association with that message will make you look foolish.[2]
Paul recognized this issue and countered it with his words in Romans 1:16: “For I am not ashamed of the gospel for it is the power of God for salvation to everyone who believes, to the Jew first and also to the Greek.” Paul refused to hang his head in shame because the gospel message seemed foolish to arrogant people. He clearly knew that though God’s truth was suppressed by wicked men now,[3] the day would come when it would be clearly seen by all, and his stubborn adherence to the gospel would be vindicated.
This idea that the word of the cross seems foolish to the arrogant is easy to see today in the way some churches are changing. They are ashamed of the gospel because they know it offends people. As a result the first thing to go when a church buys into the marketing philosophy of church growth that is so popular these days is the heart of the gospel message which people find offensive. The reasoning goes something like this: You don’t do everything you can to attract “customers” for your message, and then tell them something that will repel them! That’s poor marketing. So the mention of the cross with its humiliation and suffering and pain and death, along with preaching about sin so people will understand why they are separated from God, and why Jesus had to die, is abandoned – or if not abandoned, studiously avoided, minimized, or shoved into a corner. In its place is often a carefully edited and crafted message that ignores anything from the Bible that sounds negative. Sometimes the Bible is ignored altogether. And it works! Take out the word of the cross with all of its soul baring, convicting power, put in some sermonettes based on positive thinking, self-help, and a bit of Oprah or Dr. Phil type psychology, and you’ll have a house full of people in short order.
Yet there in Paul’s words in both 1 Corinthians 1 and Romans 1 is the sobering truth. This message that can be so offensive to some is the only message that will save us from eternal punishment away from the presence of God.
Seeing then that God has so constructed the gospel message and plan of redemption as to be an intentional stumbling block to those who are arrogant and unwilling to listen to anything that doesn’t further their selfish concerns, we come to Acts 17 in our ongoing series called Acts of the Apostles. I’ve called today’s message, Preaching the Word of the Cross, because we’ll see Paul and his companions doing just that.
Acts 17 encompasses three cities that Paul preached in on his second missionary journey: (1) Thessalonica, where the word of the cross was resisted, (2) Berea, where the word of the cross as received, and (3) Athens where the word of the cross was ridiculed. There is plenty to learn from each city. We’ll have time for the first two this morning. Lord willing we’ll look at the third city next Lord’s Day. We begin then with:
1. Thessalonica - Where the Word of the Cross was Resisted.
17:1 Now when they had traveled through Amphipolis and Apollonia, they came to Thessalonica, where there was a synagogue of the Jews.
The last stop of Paul, Silas, Timothy, and Luke had been Philippi where Paul healed a demon-possessed slave girl.[4] That started a riot which led to their arrest, beating, and incarceration. There was a miraculous earthquake and in the course of events that followed, the jailer who was holding Paul and Silas was converted. He and the members of his household were baptized and joined the little band of believers that met in Lydia’s house. Leaving Luke behind to rejoin them later, Paul, Silas, and Timothy pressed on. It appears that they didn’t preach in either Amphipolis or Apollonia, perhaps because neither city had a Jewish synagogue. Arriving in Thessalonica which did have a synagogue, they went there immediately and began to preach the gospel.
2 And according to Paul's custom, he went to them….
That is, he went to the Jews. Speaking of the Jews and his great concern for them, Paul would later write in Romans 10:1, “My heart’s desire and my prayer to God for them is for their salvation.” Though he had already received significant persecution from the Jews on his first missionary journey, and he knew that possibility was ever present, Paul never ran away from an opportunity to try to reach them. We would do well to let that example of selfless love sink in before moving on. Had Paul been like some modern day market driven preachers he might have simply abandoned them for some more productive demographic. “Target those that are easiest to reach” is the commonly given advice for church growth. I guess God forgot to inspire his apostle with that kind of market savvy.
Though Paul knew that his former brethren in the Jewish faith would oppose him – he couldn’t let them die outside of Christ without at least attempting to preach the gospel to them. Clearly it took great courage for Paul, probably still nursing his wounds from Philippi, to go straight to the synagogue in Thessalonica and preach – yet that is what he did.
2 And according to Paul's custom, he went to them, and for three Sabbaths reasoned with them from the Scriptures, 3 explaining and giving evidence that the Christ had to suffer and rise again from the dead, and saying, "This Jesus whom I am proclaiming to you is the Christ."
Note Paul’s approach to these Jews. Reasoning from the Scripture, he explained why Christ had to suffer. That’s the word of the cross, my friends. Of course, this would involve telling them about their sin, because that’s the reason Jesus had to suffer. Finally he presented the Biblical evidence that this suffering was the key part of God’s plan. Christ had to suffer to redeem man from his sin. These are the things that so many find offensive and foolish – both then and now. These are the things that so many today want to leave out in order to attract a bigger crowd. Yet by leaving them out the very heart of God’s message to man is lost.
The idea that the Messiah would be crucified was a huge stumbling block for the first century Jews. In their arrogance they had come to expect a powerful military Messiah that would give them victory over Rome and world dominance with them at the center. Today many expect a Messiah that will take away all of their problems and give them health and wealth and happiness –again with them at the center – because that’s what their exploitive false teachers have told them. But neither of these errors is the word of the cross that saves. The early Christian preachers refused to stoop to telling self-centered people what they wanted to hear - just as modern day preachers must if they wish to please God.
Paul would later admonish young Timothy, who may himself have struggled with the way some responded to the word of the cross and felt with the temptation to change it, with these words in 2 Timothy 4:1-6:
4 I solemnly charge you in the presence of God and of Christ Jesus, who is to judge the living and the dead, and by His appearing and His kingdom: 2 preach the word; be ready in season and out of season; reprove, rebuke, exhort, with great patience and instruction. 3 For the time will come when they will not endure sound doctrine; but wanting to have their ears tickled, they will accumulate for themselves teachers in accordance to their own desires; 4 and will turn away their ears from the truth, and will turn aside to myths. 5 But you, be sober in all things, endure hardship, do the work of an evangelist, fulfill your ministry.
This bold directive contains God’s expectations for preachers then and now. They are to preach the word when it was popular and when it is unpopular – when people accept it and when they turn away. They are to resist the temptation to major on lesser things in order to tickle the ears of people who will not endure the truth. The resultant hardship from not caving in is to be endured, not avoided.
I’m reminded of God’s similar exhortation under the Old Covenant to the prophet Ezekiel in Ezekiel 3:18-20:
18 "When I say to the wicked, 'You shall surely die'; and you do not warn him or speak out to warn the wicked from his wicked way that he may live, that wicked man shall die in his iniquity, but his blood I will require at your hand. 19 "Yet if you have warned the wicked, and he does not turn from his wickedness or from his wicked way, he shall die in his iniquity; but you have delivered yourself.
It is no trivial thing to preach the word of God. It hasn’t been during either of the great covenants. And Paul’s model of it, seen yet again here in Acts 17, shows that the early preachers took it seriously. So did those in the synagogue in Thessalonica accept his preaching?
4 And some of them were persuaded and joined Paul and Silas, along with a great multitude of the God-fearing Greeks and a number of the leading women.
What a joy it is to see people persuaded to obey the gospel![5] This is what God left us here on earth to do – to help others find Christ. Here is the way Peter put it in 1 Peter 2:9:
You are a chosen race, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, a people for God's own possession [For what purpose?] that you may proclaim the excellencies of Him who has called you out of darkness into His marvelous light…
We’re not saved to sit. We’re not saved only to praise Him while closed up in some church building where we can hide our faith and avoid embarrassment. We’re saved to “proclaim the excellencies of Him who called us” to a world still in darkness. Paul and his companions understood this clearly and were willing to risk their lives to accomplish it – which would be the case once again in Thessalonica.
5 But the Jews, becoming jealous and taking along some wicked men from the market place, formed a mob and set the city in an uproar….
So here it came again – the great divide that the gospel makes when it is faithfully preached – between those who accept it gladly and those who despise it. If you recall, this forming of a mob is what happened in Philippi in the 16th chapter Acts, except this time it was Jews stirring things up instead of Gentiles. Though a good number obeyed the gospel in Thessalonica, mostly Gentiles, the Jews jealously determined that they would put a stop to it. They stirred up a bunch of rabble and went looking for Paul and his companions.
5b and coming upon the house of Jason, they were seeking to bring them out to the people. 6 And when they did not find them, they began dragging Jason and some brethren before the city authorities, shouting, "These men who have upset the world have come here also; 7 and Jason has welcomed them, and they all act contrary to the decrees of Caesar, saying that there is another king, Jesus." 8 And they stirred up the crowd and the city authorities who heard these things.
Did you notice in verse 6 the mob’s acknowledgment of the effect the gospel sometimes has on people? It upsets the world.[6] There are many today who believe that preaching should never offend anyone. Their solution to this “problem” is to remove or minimize the offensive part of the message – effectively neutralizing the gospel and leaving people in their sins. Preach successful living now. Ignore the issues of eternity.
And sometimes it isn’t just the preachers who suffer from those who oppose the gospel. Jason had welcomed the missionaries into his home, and now he and a few others who cooperated, would pay the price.
These faithful brethren, Jason and the others, were among many thousands of unsung heroes who faithfully played their part in the spread of the good news during the first century.[7] They will be rewarded, just as all true Christians will be rewarded who take risks and suffer loss for the sake of the kingdom.[8]
So we see here what all those who desire to see the gospel preached should know and expect – that there will be resistance to the message and messengers by less than scrupulous people – people who will not hesitate to stoop to low levels to stamp out the truth. Whether you are one of those who actually preaches the message like Paul and Silas, or simply one who supports the cause, like Jason and these other brethren, you may have to suffer for Christ. Be prepared for it. It’s nothing to be ashamed of. The gospel message is a message of peace to those willing to accept it, but to those who resist, it can be a sword. “Do not think that I came to bring peace on the earth;” Jesus said in Matthew 10:34. “I did not come to bring peace, but a sword.” That sword has not been put away.
In Thessalonica we see that though many were converted, there was powerful, violent resistance to the gospel message – and if you have read the two letters Paul would later write to the church in Thessalonica, you know that it didn’t stop when Paul and Silas left. The resistance of the Jews against these new Christians continued and they suffered right along with their leaders.[9] Addressing the seeming injustice of such persecution coming upon those whose greatest crime was trying to share the message of salvation, Paul wrote in 2 Thessalonians 1:6-9:
6 For after all it is only just for God to repay with affliction those who afflict you, 7 and to give relief to you who are afflicted and to us as well when the Lord Jesus shall be revealed from heaven with His mighty angels in flaming fire, 8 dealing out retribution to those who do not know God and to those who do not obey the gospel of our Lord Jesus. 9 And these will pay the penalty of eternal destruction, away from the presence of the Lord and from the glory of His power….
Not to be deterred and unwilling to change their divinely given demographic of going first to the Jews, these brave men left Thessalonica where the word of God was resisted and pressed on to:
2. Berea - Where the Word of the Cross was Received
Given such harsh resistance as they received at Thessalonica and Philippi, had Paul and Silas been alive today we might expect them to begin to reevaluate their methods and message to make them less offensive. So is that what they did? Absolutely not!
10 And the brethren immediately sent Paul and Silas away by night to Berea; and when they arrived, they went into the synagogue of the Jews.
They didn’t adjust their method. They didn’t water down their message. These were courageous men!
As I’ve pointed out before, some modern believers think that it is critically important that they not offend unbelievers. So when they see people upset they begin to tune the message back in an effort to remove the offense. I’m not about to suggest that we should offend people intentionally, or for unnecessary reasons, but we do need to understand that no matter what we might do, if we are faithfully proclaiming the whole counsel of God, it will sometimes offend people. They will feel that they are being judged and that we are judgmental. That is because we must warn them of God’s judgment.
When Paul stood before Governor Felix in Acts 24, he wasn’t sharing with him insights on successful living from a modern health and wealth bestseller. He was “discussing righteousness, self-control, and the judgment to come.”[10] Felix didn’t leave Paul’s preaching uplifted and comfortable, eager to return for another entertaining interlude. He left frightened. The true gospel message does that to people who are not saved and that’s the way it’s supposed to be.
If we take away the offense, we take away the heart of the message. People simply must understand that they are sinners and that they are bound for hell unless they accept God’s means of pardon. We do them no lasting favor by removing this truth and leaving people to die in their sin. This is the gospel of the Bible. And do you know what? Sometimes, when you find good and honest hearts, people actually do listen and accept this message. Referring to the Jews in the Berean synagogue, Luke tells us in verse 11:
11 Now these were more noble-minded than those in Thessalonica, for they received the word with great eagerness, examining the Scriptures daily, to see whether these things were so. 12 Many of them therefore believed, along with a number of prominent Greek women and men.
What a wonderful thing it is when people listen with eagerness to the gospel of Jesus Christ. It’s even better when they carefully investigate the things that are said and compare them to the Scripture to see if what they’re hearing is true.
No, people won’t always respond like the Bereans did. In fact, if you’ll take time to read through Acts again this afternoon after you eat lunch you’ll see that it is quite often a comparative minority of people who respond to the gospel in a positive way. But don’t let that discourage you. It was Jesus Himself who said in Matthew 7:13-14, “Enter by the narrow gate; for the gate is wide, and the way is broad that leads to destruction, and many are those who enter by it. 14 "For the gate is small, and the way is narrow that leads to life, and few are those who find it.” How few is “few?” I don’t know. What I do know is that it will not include a single person who does not respond to the gospel on the terms laid down by the Bible.
Jesus’ own words again – this time from Matthew 7:22-23:
22 "Many will say to Me on that day, 'Lord, Lord, did we not prophesy in Your name, and in Your name cast out demons, and in Your name perform many miracles?' 23 "And then I will declare to them, 'I never knew you; depart from Me, you who practice lawlessness.'
It is a joyful thing when people are saved, but that joy isn’t universal. In fact, that’s what we see next.
13 But when the Jews of Thessalonica found out that the word of God had been proclaimed by Paul in Berea also, they came there likewise, agitating and stirring up the crowds. 14 And then immediately the brethren sent Paul out to go as far as the sea; and Silas and Timothy remained there.
There is opposition to the gospel in this world. While these verses don’t mention the ultimate source of that opposition, elsewhere we learn that it is from the devil. He is very powerful.[11] He hates God and anyone who loves God. He has many who work for him, some of them demons and some of them people who are deluded and don’t love the truth. Opposition to the truth is to be expected. Those who faithfully hold to and proclaim the truth will find themselves in a war[12] with forces far more powerful than they are – but not more powerful than God.[13] In fact, it is only by living close to God and depending on Him that they will survive the onslaught. And of course many of those who care little or nothing for the truth of God will seem to prosper. They will multiply as they travel on the wide road. Many of their friends will be there with them. They’ll control the majority opinions. They’ll pay little attention to the forces that are ruining them because they don’t believe God’s warnings. For many of them it will be only at the end that they will see their doom and understand. Like Jesus said in Matthew 24:39 when He compared His return to the days Noah’s flood: “They did not understand until the flood came and took them all away.”
Listen to the words of Jesus again – this time from Matthew 25:41&46:
41 "Then He will also say to those on His left, 'Depart from Me, accursed ones, into the eternal fire which has been prepared for the devil and his angels….46 "And these will go away into eternal punishment, but the righteous into eternal life."
Conclusion
You and I can be ashamed of the gospel because many of those around us think it foolish, or we can be like the noble-minded Bereans who “received the word with great eagerness, examining the Scriptures daily, to see whether these things were so.” If we’re like the Bereans, then we will cherish that “foolish” word of the cross that is critical to our salvation and the salvation of all men.
Isaac Watts captured the significant and right response to the message of the cross in his well-known hymn, When I Survey the Wondrous Cross, with these words:
When I survey the wondrous
cross
On which the Prince of glory died,
My richest gain I count but loss,
And pour contempt on all my pride.
Pride cannot co-exist with a proper understanding and surrender to the word of the cross.
We can make a choice – as long as we live here on earth. We can choose the wide road where there is comfort and convenience, or we can choose the road of the cross that is arduous, humbling, and sometimes lonely. But when we die or Christ returns our time to choose will be gone. The choice is yours. The choice is mine. There is no neutrality. I plead with you to make the right choice!