Why the Bereans Were Noble in Character

There's this strange passage in Luke's account of the early church where he accounts one group of early believers as more noble than another. The passage is short and reads like this in one translation:

"Now the Berean Jews were of more noble character than those in Thessalonica, for they received the message with great eagerness and examined the Scriptures every day to see if what Paul said was true."
-Acts 17:11

I have read that passage before and thought, Ah yes, these Bereans were solid because they received the word with eagerness. That is true. But it is only half of the whole truth.

The Bereans not only received Paul's message with eagerness, but they examined the Scriptures every day to see if Paul was right about Jesus.

First century Jews were not ones to easily give up their faith. Berean Jews would not just shrug their shoulders and follow whatever was popular (which was not Christianity at that time, anyways). In fact, Bereans were some of the most educated of 1st century Jews and Luke says they were more noble because of their eagerness to examine the Scriptures.

One thing that drives me a little crazy is how many of us hear something a good speaker says and automatically believe it. We'll hear one side of something or hear something said strongly with enough authority and we're willing to take it as our own. It's not necessarily a great argument, but the person said it with enough gusto that we assume it to be right. That's what most of cable news is today and I'm afraid some of our churches are leaning this way.

My friend Branden often says in his sermons, "Don't take my word for it, look at the Scriptures and examine it for yourself." The Bereans were not noble in character for just accepting and agreeing with Paul, they did their homework.

Strange thing is, this is the next verse:

"As a result, many of them believed, as did also a number of prominent Greek women and many Greek men." 

The product of their eager examination was to believe. Not the other way around. Many people blame the movement of Christianity on ignorance. And perhaps, yes, it started with fishermen, but it didn't stop when it reached the scholars.