Berea – The Site of the First “Look It Up” Club!

I foundly recall a visit to our young minds in elementary school from a woman (whom I later learned was an employee of the World Book Encyclopedia company!) who spoke to us about the importance of research. Although her intent may have been to sell books, I was inexorably driven into the world of finding things out. I lost the button I was given during her presentation, but this credo has remained with me ever since – “We never guess, we look it up.”

In considering the significance of “looking it up,” I recalled the compliment that Paul paid to the believers in Berea in Acts 17:11 – “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.” Note the enthusiasm they experienced in receiving Paul’s teaching, an enthusiasm that drove them to “look it up” to confirm the biblical validity of what they heard. The word for eagerness, προθυμία (prothumia), is defined in Joseph Thayer’s lexicon as “zeal, spirit, eagerness.” These are my kind of people!

Commentator John Gill describes this well – “…they immediately betook themselves to reading and searching the writings of the Old Testament, to see whether the things which the apostle preached, concerning the Messiah, his incarnation, obedience, sufferings, death, and resurrection from the dead, were agreeable to them, or no; determining, if they were not, to reject them, but if they were, to embrace them, as they did; and this they did continually day after day. They were neither backward to hear and receive the word, nor slothful to examine it.”

May we continue, like the Bereans, to “look it up!”

By the way, I have since found and purchased my very own “We never guess” button…on EBay!