Enlightened?
Read Acts 16:16-34.
Rome was an enlightened culture, or so they liked to imagine themselves. They had culture and philosophy, a solid government and peace throughout the known world. (Much of their culture, of course, they had adopted from the Greeks, but that's another story.) They had a strong economy and they had no time for the ancient superstitions; they preferred to worship the emperor Caesar as a god.
So when Paul and Silas come to Philippi, an important Roman city, and they dared to preach about one true God who ruled the world and the universe, and especially when they threatened the merchants' well-being by healing a slave girl, Rome went into action. By that I mean, the gears of government and the law began to grind. Paul and Silas are arrested, but the charge brought against them has nothing to do (on the surface) with economics. The charge was this: they are "advocating customs unlawful for us Romans to accept or practice" (16:21).
The unlawful customs they are pointing to? Paul and Silas' religion. But all their faith had done recently was bring healing to a slave girl. What was unlawful about that? The unlawful part, of course, was that in the healing, in setting this young girl free, they took away her masters' ability to make money off of her. The unlawful custom was economic in nature.
An enlightened society doesn't understand what happens when faith comes into the marketplace.
This morning, on a television news show, a story was broadcast about Tim Tebow helping a man who had a seizure. The man's own words went something like this: "I'm so glad he prayed with me." The broadcasters' commentary on Tebow's actions went something like this: "Well, he's a good guy. Sure, he wears his religion on his sleeve and makes too much of it. But he's a good guy anyway." They completely missed the point (or ignored the point). Tebow is a "good guy" because Christ is making him that way. His faith is everything to him. His immediate response to help the man came out of that faith, not out of some inbred "good" nature.
The same was true of Paul and Silas. Their response to help the slave girl came out of their faith and Jesus' calling to set the captives free, not out of some inbred "good" nature. Paul himself will later remind his readers that we are not good by nature. We do things we know we shouldn't and don't do the things we know we should (see Romans 7:14-25). But Jesus transforms all of that. The Jesus living inside of Paul and Silas called them to set the slave girl free. The Jesus living inside of Tim Tebow causes him to help others.
And an "enlightened" society doesn't know what to do with any of that.
Who is Jesus making you into because he lives inside of you? And what will you do today that the enlightened society around us just won't be able to make sense of?
+++++++
I have more to say on this passage in a recent sermon.
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| Caesar, from the Imperial Forum - Rome, 2014 |
So when Paul and Silas come to Philippi, an important Roman city, and they dared to preach about one true God who ruled the world and the universe, and especially when they threatened the merchants' well-being by healing a slave girl, Rome went into action. By that I mean, the gears of government and the law began to grind. Paul and Silas are arrested, but the charge brought against them has nothing to do (on the surface) with economics. The charge was this: they are "advocating customs unlawful for us Romans to accept or practice" (16:21).
The unlawful customs they are pointing to? Paul and Silas' religion. But all their faith had done recently was bring healing to a slave girl. What was unlawful about that? The unlawful part, of course, was that in the healing, in setting this young girl free, they took away her masters' ability to make money off of her. The unlawful custom was economic in nature.
An enlightened society doesn't understand what happens when faith comes into the marketplace.
This morning, on a television news show, a story was broadcast about Tim Tebow helping a man who had a seizure. The man's own words went something like this: "I'm so glad he prayed with me." The broadcasters' commentary on Tebow's actions went something like this: "Well, he's a good guy. Sure, he wears his religion on his sleeve and makes too much of it. But he's a good guy anyway." They completely missed the point (or ignored the point). Tebow is a "good guy" because Christ is making him that way. His faith is everything to him. His immediate response to help the man came out of that faith, not out of some inbred "good" nature.
The same was true of Paul and Silas. Their response to help the slave girl came out of their faith and Jesus' calling to set the captives free, not out of some inbred "good" nature. Paul himself will later remind his readers that we are not good by nature. We do things we know we shouldn't and don't do the things we know we should (see Romans 7:14-25). But Jesus transforms all of that. The Jesus living inside of Paul and Silas called them to set the slave girl free. The Jesus living inside of Tim Tebow causes him to help others.
And an "enlightened" society doesn't know what to do with any of that.
Who is Jesus making you into because he lives inside of you? And what will you do today that the enlightened society around us just won't be able to make sense of?
+++++++
I have more to say on this passage in a recent sermon.
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