Morning, Zane.
I need to be off soon to carry on with the milling job I began a couple days ago. Just to help with a little bit of visualization, I’ll try to stick on a photo—showing the mill making a 1” cut off the top of a cedar cant that is afflicted with a rotten core—which proved to be the home of a hoard of carpenter ants. They came out all mad and complaining over what I was doing. It’s not the first time for me to stir up angry reactions without intending to do so. What else is new?! Even Jesus did that. Today’s reading features Peter and the disciples doing it. On and on it goes!
Blessings on your day—which requires doing the right thing—even when others think it’s the wrong thing.
Love and prayers—Tua/Ray.
Who are the “they”?—these guys who are so worked up and “greatly disturbed” over the performance (healing of the crippled beggar) and preaching of Peter and John? It says they were “The priests and the captain of the temple guard and the Sadducees” (v. 1). Obviously, all of them wanted Jesus dead and done with because He posed such a threat to their religious power, influence, and control. (Things haven’t changed much as confirmed by the record of human history.) But this last group mentioned, the Sadducees, is particularly interesting to me this morning—enough to prompt me to read up on them in my UNGER’S BIBLE DICTIONARY.
There are those who view the diversity of interpretation, doctrine, and organization within the Christianity as sufficient reason to reject the whole scope of anything religious as a big bunch of controversial confusion. They could reason, “Why would I want to join and participate in such opinionated chaos and competition?” That reasoning is somewhat understandable. But, at the same time, the big risk attached to that view is that of “throwing out the baby with the bath water.” The point I wish to make here is that there was (and is) a good deal of “denominationalism” within the ranks of Judaism as well. And the Sadducees were a very strange case in point—disbelieving in anything spirit or spiritual—and definitely not anything eternal—no hereafter—no rewards or consequences beyond the grave. Yippee! What a wonderful ideology to live and die for! But it is confirmed that they were very focused on politics and government in the here and now—kind of like a modern liberal progressive—thinking that the bigger the government, the better—as long as they could be the government. So when Israel soon after met with such national destruction under the control of Rome, their hopes were dashed and their “denomination” collapsed.”
Back to the critical issue—let me go straight to the core: DID JESUS RISE FROM THE DEAD—OR DIDN’T HE? That is the question. It occurs to me that that question is really not far off from a more basic one: IS THERE A SOVEREIGN GOD—OR ISN’T THERE? If there is, the question over the resurrection of the dead in general, and the resurrection of Christ in particular, is little more than trivia in the context of Sovereignty—like a no-brainer. Without question a Sovereign God Who creates life from dead ingredients in the first place will have no problem re-creating life in that which was previously living.
Here’s the deal as I see it: If Jesus did not rise from the dead, then I conclude that the whole of both Bible and Christianity is just another bunch of nonsensical religious gobblygook. But if it is true that He did rise from the dead as the Bible affirms, then we are all in a bunch of trouble apart from that Special Baby that so many want to throw out with the bath. For me, the familiar song sings it well—“I’d rather have Jesus than anything this world affords today.”
Be reminded again of the glory of the Gospel. Be reminded of your salvation roots. And be reminded of what our eternal status would be if it were not for this Passover Lamb of God.