Even saying these things, with difficulty they restrained the crowds from offering sacrifice to them. But Jews came from Antioch and Iconium, and having won over the crowds, they stoned Paul and dragged him out of the city, supposing him to be dead. (Acts 14:18-19 NASB)If Paul measured success in the same ways we do today, he would have been very depressed most of the time in his mission work. He did experience lots of people responding to his preaching, but not always like he wanted. Some believed, and that was great! Some didn't and persecuted him and the other believers. Some believed something completely wrong, and responded in very wrong ways. That last option is the one the people in Lystra chose.
Paul sees a man lame from birth who is believing the message and has faith, so he speaks to him calling him to get up and walk. When he does, the people of Lystra think Paul and Barnabas are Hermes and Zeus. So, of course, they want to offer sacrifices to them, and the priest of Zeus comes out with a garland and bull for the party. Paul and Barnabas tear their clothes, run out, and attempt to prevent what is going on by explaining that they are men with a message from the True God.
The people of Lystra at least realize that what happened was divine, but they are not able to see beyond the divinity their normal paradigm. They love that they see this miraculous sign, but they are not ready to read it. They still want their own brand of religion; the brand where capricious gods are more like them than the God revealed through the Hebrew Scripture. They were struggling to look any higher than the world around them. When Paul and Barnabas were finally able to keep them from their act, instead of making the shift to the One True God, they were ripe to turn against the apostles, keeping their paradigm of limited vision.
There is a frightening paradigm shift required for belief in and acceptance of the One True God. It requires a belief in something much like a "fairy tale". There is a "Good Guy", a palace or powerful magical kingdom, there is an enemy, there is death, and there is life. Santa Claus has the North Pole, but El Shaddai has Heaven. El Elyon rules heaven and earth. He is the Maker and Sustainer of all matter in the universe. But, in some ways, like Santa Claus and so many other "mythical legends", God has an interest in us yet chooses to be in the realm of "faith" rather than "fact" (at least from our perspective). The difference is that this One is true.
Perhaps, it is my adult mind, my belief in myself and my own abilities, coupled together with my desire to be approved by others that makes such faith difficult. Jesus says in more than one gospel, that without the faith of a child it is not possible to enter the kingdom of heaven. Like the North Pole, Heaven is reserved for those with faith without sight. The difference is that heaven is real. The similarity is that we can't see either one. The danger is that, without the faith in what I cannot see, and the willingness to adjust my paradigm or accept a new one, I will not only die apart from my Maker, but will actively try to destroy His message.
I have to have the faith of a child in order to believe in what I can't see. But in this faith is peace and joy. Outside is stress and frustration. I believe I am made with a capacity to believe in such things as Santa, the Easter Bunny, Tooth Fairy, precisely because that same capacity is what is supposed to be filled by the One Who made me. When I relegate that capacity to childishness, reject it as foolishness, and seek instead for knowledge and reason of my culture and race, I miss a world with color and texture and savory smells and song. I trade that world for a colorless and tasteless world the size of my vision. At least I'm with everyone else, we're all together using the same language, seeing the same things, and sharing the same limited knowledge. But it's real, tangible, and able to be reproduced in a lab under controlled circumstances. How comforting...a lab, glass, stainless steal, and blinking red lights. Sounds...festive.
The only other option offered by my culture is to create an alternative where Santa is real, the Easter Bunny is real, and any god is of my own design, nice, kind, and does what I want. I choose the colors, textures, spices, and write the songs. The extent of the vision remains the same though, my horizon. The colors are limited by my imagination, the smells and tastes are limited by my tastes, the textures are limited to what I have at hand, the songs...well, let's just agree that will never work. I don't want to offer bulls and wreaths to men in the city gate of my own paradigm, calling them "gods". Someone else looks for me.
Now, I have, as a child, accepted and embraced this One. I didn't understand, and I still don't. I have tried to grapple with my faith, my understanding, my abilities to reason, and so on, but I always fail. It has always come down to faith. It has always come down to my inability to understand my Master. He has always remained immaterial, yet responsible for all matter. At least that was true until Jesus. Then He was material for 33 years or so. Now He's back to His throne, heaven, and He calls me there. There is somewhere real that I cannot see where I will one day live eternally. Let me just say that I willingly believe this tale regardless of what is conjured in a lab to the contrary. I believe I can safely say that because where I'm going doesn't fit in a lab, and the One calling me there is the One being studied in the lab (the scientists just way too often don't know it). Happy New Year!
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