Tuesday, June 21,
2016
The following week almost the entire city turned out to hear them preach
the word of the Lord. But
when some of the Jews saw the crowds, they were jealous; so they slandered Paul
and argued against whatever he said. Then
Paul and Barnabas spoke out boldly and declared, “It was necessary that we
first preach the word of God to you Jews. But since you have rejected it and judged
yourselves unworthy of eternal life, we will offer it to the Gentiles. For the Lord gave us this
command when he said,
‘I have made you a light to the Gentiles,
to bring salvation to the farthest corners of the earth.’”
to bring salvation to the farthest corners of the earth.’”
When the Gentiles heard this, they were very glad and thanked the Lord
for his message; and all who were chosen for eternal life became believers. So the Lord’s message
spread throughout that region. Then the Jews stirred up the
influential religious women and the leaders of the city, and they incited a mob
against Paul and Barnabas and ran them out of town. So they shook the dust
from their feet as a sign of rejection and went to the town of Iconium. And the believers were
filled with joy and with the Holy Spirit.
Acts 13:44-52(NLT)
Hearing a “new message” is not an
easy thing. This is especially so when
it appears that the new message tramples on the old. Entrenched feelings and beliefs do not give
up their space easily.
In the case of the Gospel, Paul
was on shaky grounds with the ruling elders of his faith. For centuries the Gentiles and Jews were as
separate as night and day. But the
Apostle had been called to proclaim the news that the so-called “outsiders”
were welcome.
Paul and Barnabas tried again and
again to go to the synagogues with the Gospel, but were rejected at every
turn. Finally they gave up and shook
the dust off their sandals, telling the elders their rejection of the
message of Christ would be their undoing.
So Paul turned to the Gentiles.
Throughout the centuries any new
message is generally met with opposition, and even angry backlash. Some of the clash between old and new is
silly, and merely boils-down to a cultural spat, we like this,
versus we want that! The
key of this is found in the verbs; when you like something, you want it, and you
don’t very much appreciate anyone else meddling with it.
This is the same problem Adam and
Eve had in the Garden – their “wanter” got them in deep
trouble, as it has for every one of their family members down through the
centuries.
But sometimes the new
is right, and rejecting it is wrong. In
the case of the elders who opposed Paul, holding on to the old way was the
latter, and they missed welcoming the Son of God.
Freshly returned from yet another
deeply-divided annual conference of the United Methodist Church, I am nagged by
the question which has plagued this denomination for forty years: are the progressives right – that homosexuality
isn’t a sin? Or are the
conservatives right – making the prevailing wind of change in American culture
(both secular and church) a stench in God’s nostrils?
For You Today
It is no secret that there is
little room to sit on the fence in this issue; tempers flare the moment the
bell rings for the next round.
When all is said and done, I pray
the side you have chosen will not be where the dust from God’s sandals will
fall on you.
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