Paul and his traveling band of evangelists moved on from Phillipi after scaring the authorities who were not giving them the lawful protections due a Roman citizen (Acts 16:16-40). At Thessalonica Paul did not mince words:
Acts 17:2-3
And Paul went in, as was his custom, and on three Sabbath days he reasoned with them from the Scriptures, 3 explaining and proving that it was necessary for the Christ to suffer and to rise from the dead, and saying, “This Jesus, whom I proclaim to you, is the Christ.”
This once again triggered a divisive response from those who heard their message.
Acts 17:5-7
But the Jews were jealous, and taking some wicked men of the rabble, they formed a mob, set the city in an uproar, and attacked the house of Jason, seeking to bring them out to the crowd. And when they could not find them, they dragged Jason and some of the brothers before the city authorities, shouting, “These men who have turned the world upside down have come here also, and Jason has received them, and they are all acting against the decrees of Caesar, saying that there is another king, Jesus.”
They had indeed been turning the world upside down. The Christians were declaring the sacrificial system and the binding and atonement required by the priests unnecessary. But just as it had occurred in Phillipi, the world of the Jewish religious leaders was being upset even further.
Previously, when they appealed to Pilate, they used Roman law in their favor to crucify Christ. Now Roman law was being used to protect the Christians, or at least to quell the uprisings.
Acts 17:8-9
And the people and the city authorities were disturbed when they heard these things. And when they had taken money as security from Jason and the rest, they let them go.
In fact, in Berea and in Athens, Paul and his band began to be welcomed!
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.
Acts 17:19-20
And they took him and brought him to the Areopagus, saying, “May we know what this new teaching is that you are presenting? For you bring some strange things to our ears. We wish to know therefore what these things mean.”
Once in Corinth, we are told how this change of tide began.
After this Paul left Athens and went to Corinth. And he found a Jew named Aquila, a native of Pontus, recently come from Italy with his wife Priscilla, because Claudius had commanded all the Jews to leave Rome.
During their First Missionary Journey, Paul was often run out of the town by an angry mob, typically of Jews. The actions of those mobs became so disruptive that in Rome Caesar Claudius eventually commanded all the Jews to leave Rome (Wikipedia Claudius' expulsion of Jews from Rome).
In high school, I made some off-handed remarks about the captain of the wrestling team to one of his minions. I soon regretted those words because he and his posse began to humiliate me in the hall-ways.
With very little of my dignity left, I did the only thing a geek could do, I reported him to the principal as a bully. The principal took swift action and called both of us to the office. In a very brief meeting, the bully was told that he would lose his place on the wrestling team, if this meeting ever had to occur again.
For the remainder of our time in high school, this former bully would avoid being in the same hallway with me. His world had been turned upside down.
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