Valuable hardships
This week is on Acts 5:40-42:
I think I taught on these before, but I was thinking more about them when I read them again. The apostles were arrested for evangelising, and thrown into jail by the religious police, who wanted them to be executed for preaching the gospel. The whole idea of a religious police seems absurd to an American like me, but there are places in the world where they still exist. In some Muslim countries, and in the lands controlled by ISIS/Daesh, they still have religious police. People get arrested and thrown in jail for stuff like not covering their heads, drinking alcohol, portraying clergy in a negative light, etc. So it's interesting to picture these verses as if they took place in a primitive context like what exists in Afghanistan or Syria right now.
Imagine you're a pastor and you're preaching to your church. You've seen some miracles take place, people are starting to come to know God, and Daesh gets word of it and rolls up in a pickup truck full of guns. They throw a bag over you guys' heads and drag you off to some safe house to make a beheading video of you. The cameras are set up, they've got the flag out and the masks on, and suddenly one of them gets superstitious and is like "No, killing them will just make them into martyrs, let's just beat them and make examples of them." So they go to town on you, whipping you with chains, beating you with pipes, and then let you go, all disfigured and broken. You'll never look good in a swimsuit again. You'll probably always walk with a kind of limp. Are you going to be happy that that happened? Are you likely to do more of the same thing that got you beat in the first place.
The disciples rejoiced and thought it was awesome that the religious police beat the living daylights out of them. They went out and did more. It made them bolder. Getting beaten didn't make God's truth less true. It didn't make the message less urgent. All it did was show that they were serious. It was a chance to prove that they were genuine in their beliefs. But who of us would look at it that way? How many of us would instead be like "Close call. Good thing I didn't get killed. I know better than to talk to those people about God again!" Or "Where is my God when I was getting beat?" How many people would have looked at the persecution and been like "God must not care about those people because their church is shrinking and the religious police are still in power."
In returning to the mission field, the disciples were saying that the only thing that matters is God's truth. Everything else is in relation to that truth. They weren't wrong for preaching. The beatings were a sign of how much less love the religious authorities had than God's people had. It was a test to show they were on target and the others were off the mark. It was good, in that sense, that they got beat because it showed that they were becoming Christlike, willing to suffer in order to bring freedom to other people. If they'd formed their own militia to fight back, it would have proved nothing. That's old testament. New testament is about love and sacrifice.
Sometimes hardship is a chance to grow closer to God, and to prove his word is stronger than other things. Pray for people in persecuted regions and situations, but also rejoice with them that they're getting a chance to experience God in ways we may never be able to.
His speech persuaded them. They called the apostles in and had them flogged. Then they ordered them not to speak in the name of Jesus, and let them go.
The apostles left the Sanhedrin, rejoicing because they had been counted worthy of suffering disgrace for the Name. Day after day, in the temple courts and from house to house, they never stopped teaching and proclaiming the good news that Jesus is the Messiah.
I think I taught on these before, but I was thinking more about them when I read them again. The apostles were arrested for evangelising, and thrown into jail by the religious police, who wanted them to be executed for preaching the gospel. The whole idea of a religious police seems absurd to an American like me, but there are places in the world where they still exist. In some Muslim countries, and in the lands controlled by ISIS/Daesh, they still have religious police. People get arrested and thrown in jail for stuff like not covering their heads, drinking alcohol, portraying clergy in a negative light, etc. So it's interesting to picture these verses as if they took place in a primitive context like what exists in Afghanistan or Syria right now.
Imagine you're a pastor and you're preaching to your church. You've seen some miracles take place, people are starting to come to know God, and Daesh gets word of it and rolls up in a pickup truck full of guns. They throw a bag over you guys' heads and drag you off to some safe house to make a beheading video of you. The cameras are set up, they've got the flag out and the masks on, and suddenly one of them gets superstitious and is like "No, killing them will just make them into martyrs, let's just beat them and make examples of them." So they go to town on you, whipping you with chains, beating you with pipes, and then let you go, all disfigured and broken. You'll never look good in a swimsuit again. You'll probably always walk with a kind of limp. Are you going to be happy that that happened? Are you likely to do more of the same thing that got you beat in the first place.
The disciples rejoiced and thought it was awesome that the religious police beat the living daylights out of them. They went out and did more. It made them bolder. Getting beaten didn't make God's truth less true. It didn't make the message less urgent. All it did was show that they were serious. It was a chance to prove that they were genuine in their beliefs. But who of us would look at it that way? How many of us would instead be like "Close call. Good thing I didn't get killed. I know better than to talk to those people about God again!" Or "Where is my God when I was getting beat?" How many people would have looked at the persecution and been like "God must not care about those people because their church is shrinking and the religious police are still in power."
In returning to the mission field, the disciples were saying that the only thing that matters is God's truth. Everything else is in relation to that truth. They weren't wrong for preaching. The beatings were a sign of how much less love the religious authorities had than God's people had. It was a test to show they were on target and the others were off the mark. It was good, in that sense, that they got beat because it showed that they were becoming Christlike, willing to suffer in order to bring freedom to other people. If they'd formed their own militia to fight back, it would have proved nothing. That's old testament. New testament is about love and sacrifice.
Sometimes hardship is a chance to grow closer to God, and to prove his word is stronger than other things. Pray for people in persecuted regions and situations, but also rejoice with them that they're getting a chance to experience God in ways we may never be able to.
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