THOUGHTS

July 2, 2020

"'Beasts of the people' setting uproars and assaulting people."

Adam Clarke
1762-1832

Macedonia

Since I haven't been well, I may not be consistent in posting a daily blog, but I think I will begin a study of I Thessalonians.   Today I will set the scene.  Paul took a few journeys afar going long ways on foot, on donkeys and by boat.  For being in the first decades of D.C., there was a whole lot of sailing going on.   (1400 years later, Columbus was significant because he proved that the earth was not flat and he did not fall off the edge.) In this instance, Paul and Silas sailed to Macedonia, then took Silas and Timothy along with him on his second journey there.  It's so pretty, I want to go!  

Macedonia 

Why Macedonia?  Acts 16 describes Paul's journey when he was forbidden by the Holy Spirit to preach in Asia.  But in verse 9-10 it says, "And a vision appeared to Paul in the night.  A man of Macedonia stood and pleaded with him, saying, 'Come over to Macedonia and help us.'  Now after he had seen the vision, immediately we sought to go to Macedonia, concluding that the Lord had called us to preach the gospel to them."  So there you go.  They set sail from Troas to Philippi area then down to Thessalonica.  

But I have a laugh in my heart because Paul's first convert there was a woman!  Now there you have it written in Scripture a man called 'help us,' but it was for a woman."  Hmm. 

Macedonia

Acts 16:11-15 says, "Therefore, sailing from Troas, we ran a straight course to Samothrace, and the next day came to Neapolis, and from there to Philippi, which is the foremost city of that part of Macedonia, a colony.  And we were staying in that city for some days  And on the Sabbath day we went out of the city to the riverside, where prayer was customarily made; and we sat down and spoke to the women who met there.  Now a certain woman named Lydia heard us.  She was a seller of purple from the city of Thyatira who worshipped God.  The Lord opened her heart to heed the things spoken by Paul.  And when she and her household were baptized, she begged us, saying, 'If you have judged me to be faithful to the Lord, come to my house and stay.'  So she persuaded us."

Macedonia

Macedonia "is in fact the oldest surviving name of a country in the continent of Europe.  Archaeological evidence shows that old European civilization flourished in Macedonia between 7000 to 3500 B.C."  In biblical times, the Roman province of Macedonia consisted of what is today Northern and Central Greece.  The name Macedonia originally meant "the tall, slim ones" or "highlanders."  It is said to be an incredibly beautiful country.  To this day, the prominent religion in Slovenia/Macedonia is Christian, Catholic and Eastern Orthodoxy as well as Protestantism.   Just think what Paul started!  

Macedonia

You know how I love Adam Clarke's commentaries.  Well he says that Thessalonica is a seaport town which anciently was the capital of Macedonia.  In fact, it was embellished and enlarged by Alexander the Great's father.  

"Paul, in company with Silas, first preached the gospel in this city and the adjacent country.  "Though the Jews, who were sojourners in this city, rejected the gospel in general, yet a great multitude of the devout Greeks, i.e., such as were proselytes to Judaism, or the descendants of Jewish parents, and naturalized in Greece, believed and associated with Paul and Silas. Not afew of the chief women of the city embraced the Christian faith." (Acts 17:4)

Macedonia

"As the Jews found that, according to the doctrine of the gospel, the Gentiles were called to enjoy the same privileges with themselves, without being obliged to submit to circumcision and other ordinances of the laws, they persecuted that gospel and those who proclaimed it; for, moved with indignation, they employed 'certain lewd fellows of the baser sort'--the beasts of the people, 'set all the city on an uproar, and assaulted the house of Jason,' where the apostles lodged, dragged him and certain brethren before the rulers, and charged them with seditious designs and treason against the Roman emperor!  Thither the Jews of Thessalonica, pursing them, raised a fresh tumult; so that the apostle, being counselled by the brethren, made his escape to Athens. Acts 17:5-15.  Thus, he followed the command of his Master: Being persecuted in one city, he fled to another; not to hide himself, but to proclaim in every place the saving truths of the gospel of Christ."

The Jews in Macedonia did not think the Greeks were as good as they were.  Racism?  Recently we have seen "beasts of the people," "certain lewd fellows of the baser sort" setting uproars and assaulting people.  Remember what the name Macedonia means?  Tall, highlanders. Yikes! But then and now, it cannot stop the gospel.

Macedonia

"Who the persons were who formed the apostolic church at Thessalonica is not easy to determine.  They were not Jews, for these in general persecuted the apostle and the gospel in this place. Acts 17:4, 'devout Greeks;' and of the converts from heathenism; for, on the preaching of the gospel to then it is said, chapter 1:9, that they 'turned to God from idols to serve the living and true God.'  Though some of the Jews believed on the preaching of Paul and Silas, Acts 17:3-4, yet it is evident that the great bulk of the church was composed of Grecian proselytes and converts from heathenism."

In short, Paul was a rowdy preacher, a respecter of women, a seafaring traveler, and a preacher of the gospel, my kind of fella.