“These were more fair-minded than those in Thessalonica, in that they received the word with all readiness, and searched the Scriptures daily to find out whether these things were so.”

Those in Thessalonica

Were those Jews who were not persuaded by Paul’s preaching, and who gathered a mob of evil men from the marketplace and set all the city in an uproar.

These

Paul and Silas were sent away by night to Berea. There they went again to the synagogue to preach Jesus as the Christ, so the word “These” refers to the Bereans.

Fair-minded

The Bereans were fair-minded in two ways:

1. (a) They received the word with all readiness – they were open to hear the preaching of the word, they were ready to be given understanding by God speaking to them through others. Unlike the Pharisees and the Thessalonican Jews, they were not proud and close-minded in their understanding of scripture.
2. (b) But they were also not gullible. They tested what they were told by referring to the scriptures. They used the word of God as their reference point for absolute truth. Those scriptures would have been the Old Testament, which were accepted as God’s word and not man’s. (e.g.Isaiah 1:1, Jeremiah 1:4, Ezekiel 1:3 all attest to the source of their writing with the words, “The word of the Lord came to me”.) The Bereans found from these prophecies that Jesus was indeed the Christ, and the prophecies showed he had to suffer and die.

They searched the Scriptures daily

When I was a young man, I visited the home of friends, and was surprised to find they had a small bookshelf which was largely empty, with just a half dozen or so books; but prominent among them was the bible.
That compared to my large collection of books which filled multiple bookshelves.
But as the years went by I came to understand those few books were more than enough. Reading the bible provides a core reference for daily life, it gives unlimited understanding of who God is, of who we are before him, and our relation to one another. And by providing a core reference of absolute truth as our armour, it enables us to be open to respectfully listen to what others say, and to discern whether it accords with God’s word.

It’s been my experience that people who reject the bible as not being “intellectual” enough, leave themselves open to believing all sorts of ridiculous and fashionable fantasies and unintellectual rubbish. Without a reference base for discerning truth, they tend to lose their bearings and become lost.

Personal response

For me, it’s a source of joy to read and share in the bible, and to allow it to become the core reference manual for our lives. And it is a delight to hear God’s word being proclaimed in new ways, and to worship with people who are eager to hear God’s word being preached.
And like the Bereans, the way to test what we hear is by asking, “Is it biblical?”

Praise God for His word in the Bible.