Light And Smoke: Knowing When To Use Each

 Paul, looking intently at the Council, said, "Brethren, I have lived my life with a perfectly good conscience before God up to this day."  The high priest Ananias commanded those standing beside him to strike him on the mouth.  Then Paul said to him, "God is going to strike you, you whitewashed wall! Do you sit to try me according to the Law, and in violation of the Law order me to be struck?" But the bystanders said, "Do you revile God's high priest?"  And Paul said, "I was not aware, brethren, that he was high priest; for it is written, 'YOU SHALL NOT SPEAK EVIL OF A RULER OF YOUR PEOPLE.'"  But perceiving that one group were Sadducees and the other Pharisees, Paul began crying out in the Council, "Brethren, I am a Pharisee, a son of Pharisees; I am on trial for the hope and resurrection of the dead!" (Acts 23:1-6 NASB)

What sort of person, living what sort of life can stand before the elders of his people and claim he's lived his entire life in good conscience?  Of course, the word he used for "lived" is a Greek word derived from the same Greek word from which we get "politics". It typically refers to the conduct before God in Christian writings, but in normal usage among Gentiles it referred to living as a good citizen.  It's kind of a cool word which we don't have in English.

What the high priest understood he found offensive to some degree, so he had Paul slapped.  I'm not sure if it was Paul's reference to "brethren" including the high priest in that reference, or if something about claiming to live in good conscience was distasteful to him.  Paul seems to be offended by his response, and directs his venom at "him" whom I assume is the high priest.  He seems not to know he's addressing the high priest.  It's weird, really.  Paul knows who directed he be slapped, but not to know that person was the high priest.

Paul's response is to call the high priest a "whitewashed wall" and declare that God will strike him.  He points out that this person sits to judge and yet breaks the law himself.  But when those next to him point out that he's addressing the high priest, he backpedals.  He speaks with humility acknowledging this high priest to be the "ruler of your people" and that he was not to be spoken of in an evil manner.  It's an odd reversal.  But the next reversal is even more strange.

Then Paul declares that he's on trial for his "hope and resurrection of the dead."  This is true, in a sense.  But Paul's true "crime" is faith in Jesus, and His resurrection from the dead.  That is where Paul's hope finds its root, and with what these elders have a problem.  These are the ones who were responsible for the crucifixion and persecuting the followers after Jesus' ascension.  But Paul frames his defense this way because he perceives a division in the group he's addressing.  He perceives this because he is actually one member of one side of the debate.  He was once one of these people.

So, why frame it that way?  What does his hope have to do with his perfectly good conscience?  How does he get from his initial declaration to the verbal "grenade" with which he winds up?  Well, let's look at who said what.

Paul states that he is addressing "brethren", that he has a good conscience, that he has this good conscience before God, and that this good conscience has been until this day.  So, what about before he was blinded by God on the road to Damascus?  Does his good conscience go back beyond that?  The council had to be very aware of his change of heart.  It's not like he was addressing people who thought he was some new-comer, knowing nothing of his background.  It turns out he has family right there.  They knew him, and they would know the veracity or falsity of his claim.  It seems that something about what he said spurred the order for him to be struck.

Paul makes another claim.  Paul claims that his being struck was contrary to the law.  Interesting that no one denies this.  Instead they ask him if he will revile "God's high priest" which, for Paul is a hugely ironic question.  He gets the point though, and acknowledges that he is not to speak evil of the leader of the people.  He brings the issue down to "politics" in one sense.  He's not addressing "God's high priest" since that role is held by Jesus alone.  He is addressing "a high priest" and therefore the leader of the Jewish people, and therefore one of his leaders.  He relinquishes his "high ground" to the council.  But why?

I don't know exactly why, but I suspect that Paul realizes how this event will go for him.  The Roman commander called this meeting, which will immediately cause animosity among the council.  There is no way this will go well for Paul.  His presence is not at the request of the council, but by Roman command.  It had to be resented by the council.  That on top of what these men knew of Paul's rejection of their status among the people of Israel created an environment that could not be conducive to a fair trial.  He was a scary anomaly to their tight socio-religious world view.  He was living proof that they were not immune to this "sectarian view" he preached.  That one of them could follow such a path had to be unnerving.  They had already lost a few to it, but not like Paul.  He was fanatical, or had been.

So Paul lobs his verbal grenade into their midst.  He sees that some are Pharisees and some Sadducees, and sees that there were enough of each to spark a nice size debate.  What resulted was pandemonium, and he had to be "rescued" again by the Roman commander.  I suspect this was Paul's exit strategy rather than something he hoped to use to win his case.  I doubt he truly expected that the Pharisees would all support his position regarding Jesus, even believing in resurrection.  Had he thought that they would support his side in this case he would have said the "resurrection of Jesus" rather than simply "resurrection".  I think he caused the riot intentionally.

If I'm right, then what I see here is God leading one of His servants to be wise or circumspect in his dealings with people outside the Church.  It's not that God doesn't love Jews or Gentiles, but that Paul sees that his calling is not to persuade the council of the Jews that Jesus is their Christ.  He saves his best work for when he is before the Roman governors and a regional king.  Is it possible that I get so focused on God saving everyone, that I spend time where my Master is not working because I think these should be people He calls.  Part of the sovereignty of my Master is over who He calls.  He's not willing that any should perish, but is not working through me into everyone's life either.  He wants the sovereignty in my life to determine what I do and for whom.  Paul tried to begin a defense that may have led to his normal testimony about Jesus, but that quickly derailed.  So, he went with the flow, trusting that his Master was leading him a different way.

It would be good for me to be willing and able to spot those deviations of my Master, and follow them once perceived.  It would be good for me to stop trying to "guide" my Master to those to whom He should be working.  So, since He's the Master, all-knowing, and all that, perhaps I should let Him choose for me...

The Distinguished Panel of the Ridiculous

On the next day, their rulers and elders and scribes were gathered together in Jerusalem; and Annas the high priest was there, and Caiaphas and John and Alexander, and all who were of high-priestly descent.  When they had placed them in the center, they began to inquire, "By what power, or in what name, have you done this?" (Acts 4:5-7 NASB)

I couldn't pass this up.  This isn't the whole seventy of the Sanhedrin, but just the "upper crust" of the religious elite.  While Pharisees make up part of the Sanhedrin, these are the wealthy Sadducees who differ significantly from their "brethren in the faith".  One of those differences is in the belief that there will be no resurrection from the dead, a belief they support partly by limiting the Scriptures they hold sacred to the first five books of the Hebrew Scriptures, those attributed to Moses.  I'm not positive, but I think they traced their family lines to the Hasmonean's who were "priest-kings" in Judah between the Greek rule and Roman rule, the family who started and led the Maccabean revolt.  Don't hold me to that, but I think so.

But these are also some of the ones who arrested Peter, John, and the formerly-lame-man in the first place.  And it says they arrested them for speaking of the resurrection in the name of Jesus (see verse 2, or the previous entry in this blog).  So, how is it that they don't know "...what power, or in what name" the lame man was healed?  I suspect they just had heard, and wanted confirmation right from the source.  But these guys face an enormous dilemma.

If they have what they suspect confirmed, then what do they with the fact of this healed man standing before them?  They have reached one of those paradigm-destroying moments where closely held beliefs on which much of their lives had been founded are suddenly shown to be seriously flawed.  The choice is to shift their paradigm to align with this clear new reality, or do something to conform the reality to their paradigm. 

It seems that another limiting factor for them is the view of the people.  The people outside these chambers, living normal lives filled with normal struggles for existence, were glorifying God because of the event.  These leaders couldn't appear to be more obtuse than those they led.  They'd loose their following.  Yet they can't let go of their paradigm.  It's truly a conundrum.  And this is why their solution seems so "wimpy".

I see that I too need to hold lightly the paradigms I construct for myself.  I need to construct them, because they form a framework to address my life circumstances.  And I need to construct paradigms from Scripture, which keeps the reconstruction or renovations simpler.  But the moment that the "framework" I use to understand Scripture becomes more important than the Scripture itself, I'm in real danger.  I think I could learn a thing or two from my pastor about this.  He seems able to adjust his paradigm to Scripture, and has several times, to hear him tell it.  I consider that another of his remarkable and admirable qualities.  I just wish it were more common in church in general.

When I read in Scripture something that does not work with my mental framework, I have a choice.  I can either adjust my framework to accommodate the Scripture, or I can ignore or adjust what the Scripture says to make it fit my framework.  I clearly need to be doing the first rather than the second.  Here's one of the underlying problems though.  Much of my framework is inherited from my childhood religious experience.  At the time of my life when I least understood what was being said, I was forming a framework to understand the world around me.  I basically borrowed pieces of the framework of others rather than forming one on Scripture myself.  That's common, and it's not really the problem since I wasn't really able to form those constructs on my own then anyway.  The problem is how I used those construct in my adult life.

Now, having adapted myself and my framework to my circumstances, I have found that much of what I learned I have used for my own gain.  What I mean is that the wrong views of God, the Bible, what it means to be a follower of Jesus, and so on have been supported by the unsubstantiated paradigm.  What I find is that as I push through Scripture, flaws in my paradigm show up and I am at this crisis of faith.  Like the Sadducees, chief priests, scribes and so on, I am faced with something in Scripture that doesn't match my paradigm.  Like them, I have comforted my wrong beliefs with this framework.  Like them I have much invested personally in my wrong beliefs.  And like them, I have an uncomfortable choice to make. 

If you are looking for my paradigm re-alignment problem, just read tomorrow's entry.  It will be on the character of the early Jerusalem believers.  I have a lot invested in rejecting such an application of Scripture to my life.  Cultural differences are my main excuse, but there are economic ones, differences in their particular situation in life, and so on.  I can point to other examples where this attitude was not applied to other congregations.  But I also know Scripture enough to know these excuses are more lame than the guy healed at the gate was.  So what do I do?  I get out my hammer and I start pulling nails from boards.  I've got a point of view to adjust.

So, How Was Church Today?

As they were speaking to the people, the priests and the captain of the temple guard and the Sadducees came up to them, being greatly disturbed because they were teaching the people and proclaiming in Jesus the resurrection from the dead.  And they laid hands on them and put them in jail until the next day, for it was already evening.  But many of those who had heard the message believed; and the number of the men came to be about five thousand. (Acts 4:1-4 NASB)

In the variety of views of church, most deviate from a focus on the works of God.  Well, actually, most of the views in the United States deviate from a focus on the works of God.  In fact, sadly, even ones that claim to focus on exactly that, often tend to be focused on individuals work on God's behalf.  Yesterday, my pastor told me that people have made church about themselves, and I agree.  To an embarrassingly large extent, American church-goers have made church about themselves.  In fact, it seems the ones that deviate from an individual self-focus view are so unusual they stand out.  That should be embarrassing.

So what would happen if we attended church this Sunday (or better, during the week sometime), and right at the beginning, a man born unable to walk is healed by two strangers at the street corner as he held a cardboard sign begging for money?  You would think that it would be a fantastically positive event, but lets continue into the "worship service". 

And then tons of people gather because it's the only thing going in town right now.  And the two strangers who were involved stand up and point to the power of the name of Jesus, and preach a sermon convicting the people of sins against God and call for repentance in the name of Jesus; the power through which the man was healed.  Now we begin to be confused.  The sermon should be about what happened.  That's what people want to know, who did this, how did they do it, and can/will they do it again, let's see the show.  But the sermon isn't even done yet and the service goes totally off the rails.

Finally, right at the point of appeal to respond to Jesus, the police show up and arrest the ones who participated in the healing (including the guy healed) for public disturbance, because the church leaders - who actually belong there - complained to the police.  The press shows up to report on what happened, who saw what, who did what, when did they do it, where did they do it, yadda yadda yadda.  This is not a splendid end to a worship service.  There was no spectacle, no pizazz, no personality we can focus on to make us feel good about ourselves.  "It didn't really do anything for me."  Some guy was healed, but we're not even sure he was really sick, or really how he was healed, if he was.  Oh wait, he'd been on the same corner for years, and we saw him walking.  That was cool, but who did it again?  Who were the two strangers?

In our society, people would start to focus on the ones involved and see if they would heal again, as if that was the point; the healing.  In Acts 3 and 4, where the event is recorded, it doesn't end after the arrest.  After Peter, John, and the man-formerly-known-as-lame-from-birth are arrested, the numbers of men who follow Jesus swells to five thousand.  This is not the response of Americans. 

Now, don't get me wrong, there were people, lots of people, in that society who were more interested in the healing than in Jesus (see Acts 5:14-16).  It's just that I wonder if our view of church in this country would have the response of two thousand turning to Jesus after the service began with a healing and ended with the speakers and healed person in jail.  I admit that at times I feel free to judge the sermon, the music, the lighting, the other people involved in a service, as if they are to meet some standard of mine.  I realize I do that, and it really bothers me.  I should be focusing on my Master, not His servants!  And before you get too confident in claiming people are "distracting" laying blame on them, stop.  I don't believe any of us are victims of "distracting people", we allow ourselves to loose focus on Jesus, or may not have had it in the first place.

But wait, I believe it gets worse.  If there were a boat-load of people who did respond to Jesus, evidence that the Spirit of God was working in their lives, and clear indication that they were not seeking healing of anything but their souls, I fear that they would be outsiders since they didn't follow our mainstream pathway to Jesus.  They didn't find the path so familiar to us, the one we see provided every Sunday, the one presented by "professionals".  Their origins into a life with Jesus are suspicious, perhaps they are part of a cult.

I have actually heard such talk in a church.  Their conversion wasn't about us, so we begin to tear it apart under the guise of being "careful" with our theology.  I am afraid that the most unorthodox person in our church is the Spirit of God.  It sickens me to think that I and those I worship with have replaced the "orthodoxy of Scripture" with our own version that looks very little like what our Master intended.  It's human to do so, it happened in the early church a lot.  Paul wrote most of his letters to correct this very thing.  And like the church in those days, in our day, there are those to whom this does not apply; blessed souls who may be confused and saddened by what they see in those gathered to worship.

My goal is to jump ship and join those for whom this does not apply.  I want to be one of those for whom worship is a personal practice of expressing the value of the Prince of Life, the One Who made and sustains the Universe.  They understand the futility of fully expressing such a thing, and the joy and peace that comes from the attempt.  I want to defect and join their ranks.  I want to loose focus on myself, my ministers, my fellow worshipers, and instead be consumed in the presence of our Master.