Cancer or Cure?
Acts 17:5
But the Jews which believed not, moved with envy, took unto them certain lewd fellows of the baser sort, and gathered a company, and set all the city on an uproar, and assaulted the house of Jason, and sought to bring them out to the people.
The word for envy in the Greek in this passage is zeloo (dzay-lo'-o)
To have warmth of feeling for or against:--affect, covet (earnestly), (have) desire, (move with) envy, be jealous over, (be) zealous(-ly affect)
Kind of a strange reaction here. Generally, when people envy it is because we want something and can't have it, or want something better than what we have, or we want more of something that we do have. It is odd to not want something but then not want others to have it, too.
For example, I want an I-Phone but am locked in a stupid contract with Verizon (that I entered into under with false information from the long-gone Verizon rep, but now can't extricate myself from until June 2010 without paying a penalty...so I am basically screwed). And, I do get envious when I see others with an I-Phone with all those cool apps. But it is because I want an I-Phone that I feel this way. If I thought the I-Phone was a stupid device, would I get envious if a stranger wanted one?
Sounds pretty childish: "I don't want it but I do not want you to have it either." It seems really odd to me that if I can have something and decide that I do not want it, what gives me the right to deprive others of it if they want it? If the early Church was an Apple Store, it was giving away I-Phones and cell service (salvation and sanctification) for free! What Verizon contract? What's my beef, then?
Of course it may come down to my concern for another person like if I don't want to smoke a cigarette, so I don't want you too either. Thus, it could be a caring posture. But let us say that you still do want a cigarette and I decide that then I should dowse you with gas and light you on fire. "You wanna smoke, well here ya go buddy!"
You would have every reason to believe that I really didn't care about you, eh? The rabbis and the rabble (as one commentator called them) beat Jason up and then drag him to the authorities. Not a caring act, any of it. What was R and R's justification for doing so?
Now, Jesus is not a cigarette but it is obvious many of his enemies thought he was the cancer rather than the cure. I am convinced that Jesus's willingness to forgive caused his adversaries to think that He was permissive in regards to sin. Or, they wanted a "monopoly" on the sin-forgiving biz for profit...filthy lucre as the Old King James has it translated.
This same animosity was directed to Jesus's followers in Acts. Yet, it is a sad irony when men who are deadly sick themselves try to be Dr.'s of the souls of others....and beat down other sick people with the remaining energy they can muster out of their own diseased frames.
These enemies of Christians wanted to remove what they saw was the tumor of the Church from the world. In reality, the Church was a hospital for sick people, and some of those who were sick, who sought healing there, were attacked by sick people outside the hospital's gates who needed healing too.
Really sad, really human. How often do we treat the Truth as the cancer and not the cure? People say that they want the truth but do we mean it? The Gospel tells us that we are sick in sin, that Jesus's blood, like a transfusion of holiness, is the only cure. That bothers some sick people, who offer no cure themselves besides death to stave off and stop the disease.
But the Jews which believed not, moved with envy, took unto them certain lewd fellows of the baser sort, and gathered a company, and set all the city on an uproar, and assaulted the house of Jason, and sought to bring them out to the people.
The word for envy in the Greek in this passage is zeloo (dzay-lo'-o)
To have warmth of feeling for or against:--affect, covet (earnestly), (have) desire, (move with) envy, be jealous over, (be) zealous(-ly affect)
Kind of a strange reaction here. Generally, when people envy it is because we want something and can't have it, or want something better than what we have, or we want more of something that we do have. It is odd to not want something but then not want others to have it, too.
For example, I want an I-Phone but am locked in a stupid contract with Verizon (that I entered into under with false information from the long-gone Verizon rep, but now can't extricate myself from until June 2010 without paying a penalty...so I am basically screwed). And, I do get envious when I see others with an I-Phone with all those cool apps. But it is because I want an I-Phone that I feel this way. If I thought the I-Phone was a stupid device, would I get envious if a stranger wanted one?
Sounds pretty childish: "I don't want it but I do not want you to have it either." It seems really odd to me that if I can have something and decide that I do not want it, what gives me the right to deprive others of it if they want it? If the early Church was an Apple Store, it was giving away I-Phones and cell service (salvation and sanctification) for free! What Verizon contract? What's my beef, then?
Of course it may come down to my concern for another person like if I don't want to smoke a cigarette, so I don't want you too either. Thus, it could be a caring posture. But let us say that you still do want a cigarette and I decide that then I should dowse you with gas and light you on fire. "You wanna smoke, well here ya go buddy!"
You would have every reason to believe that I really didn't care about you, eh? The rabbis and the rabble (as one commentator called them) beat Jason up and then drag him to the authorities. Not a caring act, any of it. What was R and R's justification for doing so?
Now, Jesus is not a cigarette but it is obvious many of his enemies thought he was the cancer rather than the cure. I am convinced that Jesus's willingness to forgive caused his adversaries to think that He was permissive in regards to sin. Or, they wanted a "monopoly" on the sin-forgiving biz for profit...filthy lucre as the Old King James has it translated.
This same animosity was directed to Jesus's followers in Acts. Yet, it is a sad irony when men who are deadly sick themselves try to be Dr.'s of the souls of others....and beat down other sick people with the remaining energy they can muster out of their own diseased frames.
These enemies of Christians wanted to remove what they saw was the tumor of the Church from the world. In reality, the Church was a hospital for sick people, and some of those who were sick, who sought healing there, were attacked by sick people outside the hospital's gates who needed healing too.
Really sad, really human. How often do we treat the Truth as the cancer and not the cure? People say that they want the truth but do we mean it? The Gospel tells us that we are sick in sin, that Jesus's blood, like a transfusion of holiness, is the only cure. That bothers some sick people, who offer no cure themselves besides death to stave off and stop the disease.
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