Be a Berean

My childhood pastor used to say it all the time: "Be a Berean!" The name is near and dear to the hearts of many of you, as I know that some of you worshiped for years at the Berean church here in Gillette. When a church calls itself "Berean," or a pastor says to "Be a Berean," what do they mean? Just this: Read and study the Bible for yourself. If you hear a claim about God, go look into the Bible and find out whether that claim holds up.

That's what the Bereans did. And that is what Luke characterizes as genuine nobility of birth, contrasting it with the ignoble or base-born resistance to the word of God displayed by the Jews and mob of Thessalonica. True nobility lies not in who your parents are, but in how you respond to the word of God.