If you have any questions about the accuracy of the message, ask the pastor to explain his reasoning from Scripture: like both Paul and the Bereans, he should also be eager to submit all his teaching to the standard of the Word of God.

In Acts 17:10-11, we find Paul and Silas preaching in the synagogue in Berea; the apostles find a receptive audience there, as the gospel message is accepted as the fulfillment of the OT Scriptures. We read, “Now these Jews were more noble than those in Thessalonica; they received the word with all eagerness, examining the Scriptures daily to see if these things were so” (ESV, NIV, NAS).

The prevalent understanding of this passage can be described thus: the “Bereans,” having listened to the teaching of Paul and Silas, went home to study their Bibles to see if what they heard matched up with what they read.

Moving from indicative to imperative, the line of reasoning goes, this is what it means to be a “Berean” today: personally to study and search the Scriptures to verify (or to question) what the preacher says. Underlying this perspective is that one’s individual (closet?) interpretation of Scripture is the final measure and arbiter of the truth: “If your teaching coincides with my reading (of the Bible), then I’ll support you; if not, then I will look elsewhere, or start my own church.”

However, there are good reasons to question this popular (mis)conception and appropriation of the activity of the Bereans. Firstly, it is historically implausible that “examining/searching the Scriptures” meant consulting one’s individual copy of the Bible. In the first century, written copies of the codex of Scripture were not found in every household (except perhaps in the case of the wealthiest families). Each synagogue maintained a copy of the canonical text (usually in scroll form as in Luke 4:17-20), and one’s knowledge of the Scriptures was mediated almost exclusively through the oral reading and hearing of this word (cf., 1 Tim 4:13).

This fits with the fact that literacy in Graeco-Roman society was defined not by the ability to “read and write” but the capacity to “speak and argue.” We should not read (!) the circumstances of the post-Gutenberg Press context back into the ancient setting.

Secondly, recent lexical analysis of the word “examined” (anakrinontes) in Acts 17:11 has yielded a more reasonable interpretation of the phrase “examined the Scriptures.” Roy Ciampa points out that the use of “examine” with impersonal objects (which fits “the Scriptures”) indicates the meaning “to inquire into” or “to ask (someone) questions about the object.”

CK Barrett writes, “anakrinein is nowhere else in the NT used of the study of Scripture; it suggests rather the legal examination of witnesses (or of an accused person) – see Acts 4:9, 12:19, 24:8, 28:18 – and this is in fact the sense in which it is used here. Paul has set up the Scriptures as witnesses: does their testimony, when tested, prove his case?”

Thus we should take 17:11 as saying, “They (the Bereans) were asking (Paul) questions about the Scriptures every day to see if these things were true.”

This is consistent with the context of Acts 17, as earlier in the chapter Luke writes that Paul the synagogue in Thessalonica had “reasoned with them from the Scriptures, explaining and proving that it was necessary for Christ to suffer and to rise from the dead…” (17:2-3). Paul’s ministry of persuading his audience about Jesus’ fulfillment of the Law and Prophets included his answering their questions about the Scriptures – in both Thessalonica and in Berea, where not just every Sabbath but daily the hearers were receiving and evaluating his instruction about Jesus the Messiah. As Ciampa states, the Bereans’ activity “does not suggest a different type of engagement with Paul’s interpretation of Scripture (textual investigation versus oral discussion) but a more frequent engagement with Paul and a more positive response to his message.”

The Bereans showed themselves eager to hear the gospel ‘unpacked’ from the Old Testament, and they were evidently well-versed enough to ask for more detail about the passages from which the apostles preached, and to inquire about other OT texts and how they were related to Christ’s person and work.

This conclusion about the Bereans’ activity corrects the all-too-common individualizing inductions made from Acts 17, and also contributes to a proper framing of the doctrine of Sola Scriptura. “The Bible is the final authority for the church’s faith and life”does not enshrine purely private interpretation as the final court of appeal in matters of faith and practice.

The Bible is the church’s book, and both ecclesiastical ministers and members are to see that the church’s teaching is evaluated by the final authority of “The Holy Spirit speaking in Scripture” (WCF 1.10). To erect a parallel “community of interpretation” outside of the church with its confessions, officers, and discipline is to circumvent the ministry that Scripture itself authorizes and commands for the people of God.

This is by no means to suggest that Christians should neglect private reading of Scripture, as it is certainly one way to “meditate on the teaching of God day and night” (Psalm 1). But we cannot say that individual Bible study is what made the Bereans “noble” according to Acts 17. If you truly want to “be a Berean,” faithfully attend to the teaching ministry of the church and its Christ-centered explication of the Word.

If you have any questions about the accuracy of the message, ask the pastor to explain his reasoning from Scripture: like both Paul and the Bereans, he should also be eager to submit all his teaching to the standard of the Word of God.

Ken Montgomery is a minister in the Orthodox Presbyterian Church and currently serves as Associate Pastor of Redeemer Presbyterian Church (OPC) in Dayton, Ohio.