‍The Bereans and Sola Scriptura

‍Did the Bereans test all of Paul’s teachings against Scripture?

  Gary Hoge  ·  September 29, 2026

‍When Paul preached in the synagogues, his message was that “this Jesus I am proclaiming to you is the Christ” (Acts 17:3). Luke tells us exactly how Paul made his case. In Thessalonica, Paul reasoned “with them from the Scriptures, explaining and proving that the Christ had to suffer and rise from the dead” (Acts 17:2–3).

‍Those who rejected his teaching riled up the people to such an extent that Paul and Silas were in danger and had to flee by night. They went to Berea and preached in another Jewish synagogue. This time Paul’s message received a very different response. Instead of rejecting it, the Bereans “received the word with great eagerness, examining the Scriptures daily to see whether these things were so” (Acts 17:11). The result was that “many of them therefore believed” (Acts 17:12).

‍The context tells us that Paul was using the Jewish Scriptures to show that the Christ had to suffer and rise from the dead and that Jesus was that Christ. The Bereans were commended because, unlike the Thessalonians who rejected Paul’s message, they eagerly received it and examined those same Scriptures to see whether Paul’s claims about the Christ were true.

‍Some Protestants point to this passage as a biblical example of people being commended for testing every doctrine against Scripture before accepting it. For example, the evangelical apologetics website GotQuestions.org says,

‍The principle of sola Scriptura is clearly affirmed by verses such as Acts 17:11 which commends the Bereans for testing doctrine—taught by an apostle, no less—using Scripture.¹

‍For the Berean Jews “Scripture” was the Jewish Scriptures, what we call the Old Testament. If you think the Bereans were commended for using the Old Testament Scriptures to verify Paul’s apostolic teaching, let me ask you this: Did you  do that? Did you examine the Old Testament Scriptures to determine whether you should accept everything Paul taught in Romans, Galatians, Ephesians, etc.?

‍I’ll bet you didn’t. I didn’t either. And Acts doesn't say the Bereans did, either.

‍The Bereans received Paul’s message with great eagerness and examined the Old Testament Scriptures to see if they really foretold that the Christ had to suffer and rise from the dead. Paul’s apostolic teaching, however, did not derive its authority from independent verification in the Old Testament. Rather, Paul says that the gospel he preached came to him by revelation from Christ: “I did not receive it from any man, nor was I taught it; rather, I received it by revelation from Jesus Christ” (Galatians 1:11–12).

‍Acts 17 demonstrates the authority of Scripture; it does not demonstrate the exclusive authority of Scripture. It also does not demonstrate that the Bereans subjected every apostolic doctrine to an Old Testament test.

‍A Protestant may believe that Scripture became the sole infallible rule of faith after the apostolic age, but Acts 17 does not establish that proposition. The Bereans lived during the apostolic age, when God was still revealing truth through his apostles and not through Scripture alone.

‍In fact, the Bereans couldn’t have subjected every apostolic doctrine to an Old Testament test, even if they wanted to. Paul himself tells us that some of what the apostles taught had only now been revealed. He describes the “mystery of Christ” as something that “was not made known to men in other generations as it has now been revealed by the Spirit to God’s holy apostles and prophets” (Ephesians 3:4–5). The Old Testament therefore could not have contained the fullness of what was only now being revealed through Christ’s apostles.

‍Where, for example, could the Bereans have looked in the Old Testament to verify these teachings of Paul?

• Circumcision was no longer a covenantal obligation (1 Corinthians 7:18–19).
• Foods expressly designated unclean under the Mosaic Law were no longer unclean (Romans 14:14, 20).
• Observance of Jewish festivals, New Moons, and Sabbath days was no longer mandatory (Colossians 2:16–17).
• At Christ’s return “the dead in Christ will rise first,” after which living Christians will be “caught up together with them in the clouds” (1 Thessalonians 4:16–17).

‍The first three teachings concerned requirements explicitly imposed under the Old Covenant; the last contained details of the resurrection that the Old Testament does not disclose.

‍Paul did not teach Christians to accept only those apostolic teachings that they could independently verify from Scripture. He praised the Thessalonians because, when they received the word of God which they heard from him, they accepted it “not as the word of men, but as it actually is, the word of God” (1 Thessalonians 2:13). And he later instructed them to “stand firm and hold to the traditions” they had been taught, “whether by word of mouth or by letter” (2 Thessalonians 2:15).

‍It is therefore anachronistic to portray the Bereans as if they operated on the principle that every apostolic teaching had to be verified from Scripture before it could be accepted as divine revelation. Acts tells us that Paul had argued from the Jewish Scriptures that the Christ had to suffer and rise from the dead and that Jesus was that Christ. The Bereans eagerly examined those Scriptures to see whether his claims were true.

‍That the Bereans tested Paul’s claims about the Messiah against Scripture establishes that Scripture was an authoritative standard; it does not establish that Scripture was the only means by which they could receive authoritative divine revelation, or that apostolic teaching generally had to be subjected to the same test.

‍Acts 17 demonstrates the authority of Scripture. It does not demonstrate sola Scriptura.

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^‍1 Got Questions Ministries, “What is Sola Scriptura?”, GotQuestions.org, accessed September 30, 2026,  https://www.gotquestions.org/sola-scriptura.html.