Thursday, March 1, 2007

Acts 28

It's interesting how self-centered the Jews in Jerusalem turned out to be. They knew that Paul had appealed to Caesar and that he would be headed to Rome, but they didn't even write letters or send messengers to the Jews in Rome to warn them about Paul. I would have thought that if he was such a huge threat to Judaism that they would want Jews everywhere to avoid him and to be sure to not heed his words. In fact, the Jews in Rome told Paul that they had not heard anything bad about him at all. The text almost implies that they have heard virtually nothing about Paul good or bad. How peculiar.

When you are working for God to spread His word and share Him with the people of the world, you are very concerned with anything that might hinder or confuse your ability to complete your mission. As Paul does in his epistles, you warn people about false teachers and you name the specifically along with their false doctrines. You don't just ignore them. On the other hand, when you are playing church and you are caught up in your own piety, your only concern will be those that might steal that from you. And as long as that threat is removed, you don't care about it anymore. It's not your problem because you are not concerned with the mission as a whole, you are only concerned about your specific position.

The Jews in Jerusalem seem to have enjoyed being the center of Judaism. They enjoyed being the hub of all the feasts. They enjoyed being looked on by the world as the most devout and most spiritual of all the Jews. Then Jesus shows up and challenges that. And Jesus is followed by the twelve. And they are followed by Paul, one of the Pharisees. Each of these iterations repeats the same message to them over and over. They hear that God is not interested in their piety. That they cannot fulfill the law and that they are embarrassing themselves by even trying. The truth of God's desire for a relationship with man is clarified and the real meaning behind the law is brought out, but if they can't have their piety and their law and their hold on the Jewish society, then they'll be just like everyone else.

I'm sure that some of them, like Paul, realized the truth of the Gospel, but most clung to their positions rather than to the Word. Most clung to their beliefs rather than a relationship. For that reason, once they had rid themselves of Paul (death preferably, but a trip to Rome was good enough), they didn't have to worry about him anymore. He was someone else's problem. Namely, he was the problem of the Jews in Rome. Here's the rub, though, because of their shortsightedness, Paul was able to preach freely to the Jews in Rome without any personal bias tainting their judgment of his words, and he was able to convert many of them. That's not so good for the Jews if they are trying to kill this sect, and especially not if this sect is full of heretics.

Of course, we know that Christianity is not heretical, and we are grateful that the Jews did not warn the Romans because that became the center of Christianity. We can, however, still learn from this lesson. When we as a church body start to focus more on our buildings, community position, piety, knowledge, etc. than we do on furthering the Gospel we run the risk of becoming just like the Jerusalem Jews, and when that happens we allow false teachers into our midst and we don't support our brothers and sisters around the world. If we become like that, just like the Jerusalem Jews, we'll be our own undoing.

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