To the ends of the earth - Acts 17:1-9 (ESV) - Tim Kroeker
1 peter 2:13-14
“Be subject for the Lord’s sake to every human institution, whether it be to the emperor as supreme, or to governors as sent by him to punish those who do evil and to praise those who do good.”
On the evening of December 16, 1773, more than 100 members of the Sons of Liberty snuck aboard three cargo ships docked in Boston Harbor. They proceeded to dump 340 crates of East India Company Tea into the waters of the Massachusetts Bay. This was viewed as an act of sedition against the King, who would then clamp down on the colonies, which eventually led to the American Revolutionary War.
In Acts 16, we read that the gospel had finally reached Europe. This development presented a serious question important to our author Luke. As the gospel advanced further and further into the heart of the empire, were Christians a threat to the social, economic, and political order of Rome? In Philippi, Paul and Silas were arrested and accused of advocating unlawful customs. In Thessalonica, Christians are now accused of being disloyal to the king.
This charge was not without basis. Paul and Barnabas presented Jesus as the Christ, a Jewish title loaded with political meaning. However, Christians recognized Jesus as their heavenly king. They were not disloyal to the earthly king. Caesar didn’t have to worry about the Christians igniting a revolution. In fact, Luke is careful to point out that the persecutors of the church were the real troublemakers. They were the ones setting the city in an uproar.
The Christians were not revolutionaries; claims to the contrary were false. Paul and his missionary team did not stoke people’s passions or seek to coerce. Instead, they appealed to reason, using evidence-based arguments in the context of dialogue. Paul instructed the believers to live quietly, to mind their own affairs, and to work with their hands, while they waited patiently for the coming Savior. Christians demonstrate loyalty to their heavenly king by submitting to the earthly one.
