Summary retelling of Acts 5:17-18:
Spiritual
leadership (for better or worse) will rise up and assert itself. The Jewish leaders – driven by jealousy –
rise up and arrest the disciples and throw them in prison. Even worse, we are told that the imprisonment
was not some private “hush-hush” prison but rather this was a public
imprisonment.
Thoughts for Today:
First Thought:
I
truly meant what I said in the opening words of my summary retelling. Leadership will assert itself. Sometimes it comes quickly. Other times it needs time to develop. But eventually leadership will assert itself,
for that is the definition of leadership.
However, not all leadership is good.
Here we see the Jewish spiritual leaders rising up and acting out of
jealousy. They act not because God is
leading them to stop false teaching; they act because the disciples are
stealing their show.
How
often does a human emotion like jealousy get in the way of what God is trying
to do here on earth?
Second Thought:
The
apostles are thrown into prison. There’s
no other way to paint this truth. They
are imprisoned. They are thrown into
prison because of their faith. They
“have a record” now because they were called to proclaim Jesus Christ.
So
what are you willing to do for Christ?
Are there things God might ask you to do that legitimately proclaim Him
to the world that you would be unwilling to do?
Third Thought:
The
imprisonment is specifically called out as public in the Bible (and even in the
original Greek). This is clearly a
“smear tactic” on behalf of the Jewish leaders.
They understand the popularity that the apostles have been generating
and they want to do something to stop it.
Nothing causes good people to look negatively upon someone else than
smearing their reputation by throwing them in jail. After all, who wants to be
associated with lawbreaker, right? (For
the record, they accused Jesus of being a lawbreaker, too. I do mind being associated with Him.)
How
often do other people try to knock down our public testimony by talking poorly
about us or by putting us in a potentially compromising situation? Are you willing – like the apostles – to do
it for the sake of Christ?
Passage for Tomorrow: Acts 5:19-21
2 comments:
So basically trying to separate people from these people and scare them off like they kinda did with Jesus....how nice...
Yeah, pretty much. But that's how humanity works. The people in power get what they want by scaring away "potential recruits."
Even our own government does this - although sometimes it is for good reason and sometimes they go too far. But yeah, just about everyone in power uses this kinds of tactic from time to time.
The neat thing is that if we identify it, then we can really use it to weed out the true followers from the "wanna-be's."
The true followers do things regardless of the cost.
The fake followers do things when the cost is "affordable."
Dietrich Bonhoeffer wrote a great book on this topic called the Cost of Discipleship. When you have a few years of maturity under your belt, it would make a great read.
(And I'm not saying that as an insult. You are certainly smart enough to read it and understand it now, absolutely. But I read the book when I was younger and then just read the book two years ago after I'd had a decade or so of marriage, home ownership, employment, etc. And the book really had a different dynamic with those kind of experiences under my belt.)
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