Acts 17:11

11. We have now, at last, the pleasure of seeing one Jewish community listen to the truth and examine it like rational beings. (11) " Now these were more noble-minded than those in Thessalonica, who received the word with all readiness of mind, searching the Scriptures daily to see if these things were so. " Their conduct can not be too highly commended, nor too closely imitated. The great sin of the Jews was a refusal to examine, candidly and patiently, the claims of the gospel. Having fallen into error by their traditions, they resisted, with passion and uproar, every effort that was made to give them additional light, or to expose their errors. Their folly has been constantly re-enacted by religious partisans of subsequent ages, so that the progress of truth, since the dark ages of papal superstition, has been hedged up, at every onward movement, by men who conceived that they were doing God service in keeping his truth from the people. If such men live and die in the neglect of any duty, their ignorance of it will be so far from excusing them that it will constitute one of their chief sins, and secure to them more certain and more severe condemnation. There is no greater insult to the majesty of heaven than to stop our ears when God speaks, or to close our eyes against the light which he causes to shine around us. The cause of Christ, as it stands professed in the world, will never cease to be disgraced by such exhibitions of sin and folly, until all who pretend to be disciples adopt the course pursued by these Jews of Berea; search the Scriptures, upon the presentation of every thing claiming to be God's truth, and "see whether these things are so." Unless the word of God can mislead us, to follow implicitly where it leads can never be unacceptable to its Author.