The Jews who did not believe, in their misdirected zeal for the glory of God and the law (compare Rom 10:2), take measures to thwart the gospel's advance. They "set the city in an uproar" (ethoryboun; compare cognate thorybos, Acts 20:1; 21:34; 24:18; Josephus Jewish Antiquities 18.65; it is more extensive than NIV's started a riot). They gather the rabble lounging in the marketplace and form them into a mob (compare Plutarch Parallel Lives: Aemilius Paulus 38.4, who represents the agoraioi as agitators).

The mob moves to Jason's house, looking for Paul and Silas with the intention of bringing them to trial before the free city's citizens' assembly. Not finding the traveling preachers, they drag some of their own citizens, Jason and some of the brothers, before the local city officials (politarchai, a term found only in inscriptions; Thessalonica had five or six). Possibly they feel it more appropriate to arraign their own citizens there. Maybe they suppose that the citizens' assembly would be more lenient with their own than the officials charged with public order. The charges are threefold: public disturbance—causing trouble all over the world; harboring disturbers of the peace; and defying Caesar's decrees, saying that there is another king, one called Jesus.

The forties had been a turbulent decade for Rome in dealing with the Jews. In A.D. 41 Emperor Claudius wrote a threatening letter to the Alexandrians, saying he would take measures against Jews who were "stirring up a universal plague throughout the world" (Sherwin-White 1963:51). In A.D. 44 there were public disturbances in Palestine in the wake of Herod Agrippa I's death. In A.D. 49 Claudius expelled Jews from Rome because of public disturbances in the Jewish community at the instigation of "Chrestus" (Suetonius Claudius 25.4; see comment at Acts 18:3). Though the Jews themselves had caused the uproar at Thessalonica, their trumped-up charges of public disturbance made sense within the Empire's current political climate.

The charge of defying Caesar's decrees is best understood against this background. "Augustus and Tiberius had been very sensitive about the activities of astrologers and other prognosticators and had issued decrees forbidding predictions and inquiries affecting the affairs of state or the emperor's personal well being" (Bruce 1988:325; Dio Cassius Roman History 56.25.5-6; 57.15.8; Tacitus Annals 6.20; 12.52; compare 14.9). Paul's eschatology could be easily twisted into declarations about a coming monarch who will displace Caesar (1 Thess 1:9-10; 2 Thess 2:5-8). Since Thessalonica would want to maintain its status as a free city through loyalty to the emperor, and since the local officials are charged with preserving order and making sure the imperial decrees are respected, the charges understandably throw the crowd and the city officials into turmoil (tarasso, 17:13; compare 12:18; 19:23).

From Acts 17:10 we can surmise the officials took bond from Jason and the others to ensure two things: there would be no more public disturbances, and Paul and Silas and their preaching would be gone from the city (Longenecker 1981:470). If either condition is not met, the bond will be forfeited (contrast Lake and Cadbury [1979:206], who see the bond involving Jason's denial of involvement with Paul and Silas; the forfeiture would occur if that were found not to be true). The practical result is Paul and Silas's forced departure from Thessalonica.

Although the persecutors had been the real disturbers of public order, the gospel always has an unsettling, even revolutionary effect on those who hear it. It calls for a repentance that means bowing to King Jesus in total allegiance. Totalitarian rulers, whether Caesar or modern-day overlords, cannot peacefully coexist with King Jesus or his kingdom subjects.