thoughtful

 DEVOTION

THE ACTS OF THE APOSTLES

THOUGHTFUL

Acts 17:10-12

10 As soon as it was night, the brothers sent Paul and Silas away to Berea. On arriving there, they went to the Jewish synagogue. 11 Now the Bereans were of more noble character than the Thessalonians,  for they received the message with great eagerness and examined the Scriptures every day to see if what Paul said was true. 12 Many of the Jews believed, as did also a number of prominent Greek women and many Greek men.

NIV

Can we say it requires a noble character to be open to a new message, a new idea, examine the facts, and then change a long-standing position held? Could we then say that those, like the people called Thessalonians, who refused any new ideas, are not of noble, or at least less noble of character? It would seem this is the case. But this word noble implies well-born, or of high ranking, which could also indicate more highly educated and thus more thoughtful. It would make sense those who are not well-born, and of a lower rank, would have less opportunity to be educated and thus thoughtful. This of course is not a hard fast rule to apply to all people, but it seems this is what is implied here. This might indicate that Christianity is a thinking man’s faith. People who are thoughtful, who are open to ideas, and research to determine if those ideas are valid, or test them in some way will see the truth of Jesus Christ. Those who refuse this truth may never have actually examined it thoroughly, but only responded out of emotion, or an unwillingness to consider their current position in life as possibly not correct. Now does this mean we Christians are nobler than non-Christians? That is not a great statement for surely there are noble people who have yet to believe. But it does say those who do believe do so because they are nobler, more thoughtful, and more open than those who refuse to believe. Believers are therefore open-minded people and those who refuse Jesus Christ are closed-minded. That is simply the facts. Yet what life lesson do we learn here. It is to remain open-minded continuing to examine the scriptures for truths that apply to our thinking, our behaviors, our lifestyles, and not only the willingness but eagerness to make those changes that are needed. We cannot afford to be so rooted in one belief, one denominational doctrinal position that we are closed to truths in the scripture, only seeing the ones, perhaps even out of context, that we make our position from. We need to see all the scripture, the whole truth, for our position in life and more importantly in our relationship with God. We need to always eagerly accept the message as well as the transformational work of God in our lives.