Tag: Mob

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God goes for the rejected.

Reading Time: 4 minutes

“When he came to the village of Nazareth, his boyhood home, he went as usual to the synagogue on the Sabbath and stood up to read the Scriptures. The scroll of Isaiah the prophet was handed to him. He unrolled the scroll and found the place where this was written: “The Spirit of the Lord is upon me, for he has anointed me to bring Good News to the poor. He has sent me to proclaim that captives will be released, that the blind will see, that the oppressed will be set free, and that the time of the Lord’s favor has come.” He rolled up the scroll, handed it back to the attendant, and sat down. All eyes in the synagogue looked at him intently. Then he began to speak to them. “The Scripture you’ve just heard has been fulfilled this very day!” ‭‭Luke‬ ‭4‬:‭16‬-‭21‬ ‭NLT‬‬

Luke gives us the story we were all so curious about. What happens when a kid comes back home, as an adult? Wow! Themes of familiarity, knowing someone when they were little, but now they are all grown up. Mothers who speak of feeding, burping and changing your diapers. Fathers who use phrases like, “knee high to a grasshopper.” Older friends talking about very stale stories when you were a child or teen, laughing about your “awkward” stage. Jesus went home, but he had changed even though Nazareth had not! It’s gets me.

I’m guilty of and surrounded by the stories of “back in the day.” Unfortunately, it’s one of the things you have to face when you’ve kept life-long friendships and relatives that are more sentimental than ever. Jesus went home and home only had memories of his past and a few stories of what had happened since he left. What a moment to capture! Thank you Dr. Luke for giving us such a dramatic, transitional moment in Jesus’ life, but also an amazing insight into how we tend to keep people locked in our memories, not allowing them to grow into God’s design.

To get the best possible picture of what these short moments in the local Nazareth synagogue looked like, you have to watch The Chosen, Season 3, Episode 3, called, “Physician, Heal Yourself.” To summarize: At the synagogue, Jesus reads a scroll from the Prophet Isaiah and declares its fulfillment on that day. Jesus uses the examples of Elijah with the widow of Zarephath and Elisha with Naaman to prove His pronouncement of salvation in the Year of Jubilee. Jesus then proclaims Himself as the Messiah, enraging and upsetting the hearers. The people of Nazareth reject and condemn Jesus for His proclamation as the Law of Moses, driving Him out of the town to throw Him down a cliff, but Jesus passes through their midst.

Wow! Jesus, comes home and literally causes a violent riot, with the local religious activists fully intending to kill him. Luke tells us, “When they heard this, the people in the synagogue were furious,” Luke‬ ‭4‬:‭28‬. What exactly were they furious about? Because right after Jesus said the prophetic promise was fulfilled that day. Luke tells us they spoke well of him and they were even amazed by his grace with authority. It was most likely the next thing Jesus told his own community leaders that ruffled their defensive feathers.

Jesus, led by the Spirit and reading the room, simply spoke what they were all thinking. What were they thinking? They were thinking about an ancient proverb that says, “Physician, heal yourself”— meaning, “Do miracles here in your hometown like those you did in Capernaum.” Then Jesus presents the pharisaical elephant in the synagogue. “Your legalistic, religious zeal has blinded you because that same selfish spirit is what killed the prophets that brought God’s truth!” Jesus said, “no prophet is accepted in his own hometown,” ‭‭Luke‬ ‭4‬:‭24‬.

Bringing light and salt to their fake facades Jesus quickly summarizes two stories about two of the most favored, famous prophets; Elijah and Elisha. Elijah with the widow and Elisha with the Syrian general. Instead of God sending these two prophets to their own people, the Jews, God sent them to Gentiles – despised foreigners! Hard truth: God has passed you by because you’ve rejected truth, and God has moved on to invite all people – namely, the Gentiles, the Samaritans, the rejected and lost. This is what caused them to pick up their proverbial pitch forks and torches! They didn’t like what Jesus inferred, so they dealt with it exactly how our modern mobs deal with truth – let’s just kill the truth teller! Of course it was not Jesus’ time, it would come later. But, we all know you can’t kill truth, it will endure beyond individuals.

God still goes after the rejected. Paul even says God goes after His enemies – even while we were yet sinners… Christ died for us. Apparently that really makes self righteous folks really mad. The good news for the poor is the understanding that we know we’re broken, but God comes not to condemn us but to save us. If we can’t figure out how broken we are, then when we see God’s mercy given to someone not so good, it makes us angry not grateful.

Prayer

​Dad,
Sinners, know thyself! I know who I was and who I am now. I was not just lost, I was miserable. I knew without you, I would not have anything, no life, no future. You changed my life and I must see others through the same eyes that recognized just how broken I was. Thank you.

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Mob-brain Mentality

Reading Time: 3 minutes 
“About that time, serious trouble developed in Ephesus concerning the Way. It began with Demetrius, a silversmith who had a large business manufacturing silver shrines of the Greek goddess Artemis. He kept many craftsmen busy.”
‭‭Acts 19:23-24‬ ‭NLT‬‬

​Luke’s writing sounds like it came right out the the Ephesus Times newspaper. It seems that Paul’s preaching about Jesus actually DID effect the idol businesses of that day or it just gave Demetrius the excuse of “handcrafted idols” taking a downturn.

Diana, or the goddess Artemis, mentioned here was THE prominent and well known and loved idol of the city. Right in front of the massive library, they had built a gigantic statue of her standing, overlooking the main road filled with multi-level houses and lined with street vendors selling their goods. Ephesus was a bustling port city until later, the inlet body of water itself dried up and city became an abandoned wasteland. Diana couldn’t and didn’t stop that natural disaster from happening.

Demetrius called all the smaller business owners (idol-makers) together and designed a city-wide protest against Paul. Demetrius played to their livelihood and their religious beliefs, “Of course, I’m not just talking about the loss of public respect for our business. I’m also concerned that the temple of the great goddess Artemis will lose its influence and that Artemis—this magnificent goddess worshiped throughout the province of Asia and all around the world—will be robbed of her great prestige!” Ah, yes, Demetrius was so “concerned” about their great mascot. Ah, maybe he was a true cult believer.

It got the whole city angry and it spilled into a riot, as Demetrius knew it would. After the crowd found and dragged two of Paul’s friends into the amphitheater, listen to what Luke commentates about this riot, “Inside, the people were all shouting, some one thing and some another. Everything was in confusion. In fact, most of them didn’t even know why they were there.” Most of them didn’t even know why they were there! Classic mob-brain mentality. Angry, frustrated and ready to do some serious protest-able damage – yet having no idea what it’s about. This #sohuman!

The crowd yelled, chanted and shouted the fury-filled phrase for hours, “great is Artemis!” Until the mayor of the town (Alexander) could finally calm them down, reason with them and then threaten that the Roman government hated riots because of damage it did to the empire. Rome wanted citizens to feel safe, be at peace and spend money (more money equals more taxes). We are well aware of what protests and public riots do – nothing but bad outcomes. It makes people feel unsafe, aggravated and they spend less money! Plus, the business owners have to pickup the cost of repairs after the looting, fires and destruction. Mobs don’t care about a cause, they only care about destruction and violence. Mobs love riots, protests and marches because they take advantage of the cover it provides to steal, kill and destroy!

Alexander, after a few tense hours, was able to appeal to their good senses, “Since this is an undeniable fact, you should stay calm and not do anything rash. You have brought these men here, but they have stolen nothing from the temple and have not spoken against our goddess.” He told them to settle the matter in the courts where real arguments and facts could be presented, where both sides could present their case. Novel idea right? Riots, mobs and protests don’t want court cases, those are driven mostly by reason. Mobs want emotionally driven outcomes that do not lead to change, they just do damage.

Prayer

Dad,
Wow, weren’t not just selfish and full of sin, we’re some fickle and a fragile non-thinking bunch. When we get worked up about something, it’s hard to see truth, hard to see right and wrong. And, certainly hard to make the necessary changes to create a good outcome for all. We are so influenced by each other’s emotions and behaviors. This is still true today. Isn’t it possible that the opposite is true? Wouldn’t our good behavior, our peaceful emotions be as viral as the bad? Like the mayor in this story, it seems that someone needs to address the situation and speak peace before things go to far.