When he came to
Today’s Reading: Job 14-16; Acts 9:22-43
Ohhhh Buddy.
You couldn’t have paid me to accept Paul into the fam if I was one of the original disciples.
No sir.
He was a major enemy of The Way. He was the main cat going after them, trying to persecute them into abandoning the faith. And now this Johnny come lately is all of the sudden trying to be on their team? Is he a spy? What are his motivations?
This man is not to be trusted.
It makes me wonder... What in the heck did he say to Barnabas to sell him on the fact that he was trustworthy? I imagine that he had to put in substantial work to get in his good graces. He’d have had to sweep the floors, do some heavy lifting, clean the kitchen…
Man, he’d have had to really humble himself for a cool minute.
Of course he was doing what he was supposed to do so God made a way for him to enter the fam; but oh buddy would my intellect have gotten in the way of accepting him.
It’s a good thing that we don’t just experience life through the prism of the mind. We have our physical senses, our emotions, and most importantly our spirits.
Our intellect tries to interpret the world based upon knowledge… and knowledge, by virtue of the fact that it focuses on the past, is dead. Is there anything that we “know” that still “is”?
Things like love, trust, courage, and hope may be supported by our intellect and knowledge but when you think about it, knowledge is not the foundation of these things.
Faith is.
The most important things in life are not known, they are lived. And to truly live is to believe.
It is through faith that we can activate the core of who we are and engage in the now. Without this faculty we are limited to experiencing life through the view of the past. We are limited to viewing life through what we think we know, rather than what actually is.
Living in the present is a tall task. After all, there is more comfort in the predictability of the past.
But once we realize that this predictability, this sense of control, is an illusion; we can be free to open our hearts and spirits to the present and all of the magic that it contains.
Even if in that present we are challenged to accept a person or thing that doesn’t seem worthy of our acceptance…
Hello Man of God, I understand your stance of “not trussing”, however, there is another view that is totally being overlooked.
ReplyDeleteFor instance, in this passage of verse 22 states “ Yet Saul grew more and more powerful and baffled the Jews living in Damascus by proving that Jesus is the Christ”
How did Paul do this?
Apparently, he was making such an impact with his faith in action, that it begin to bring him to a place of notoriety, hence, some of those disciples who thought they has a lock down on the Gospel because they walked with Jesus, were really in fact clueless.
The Gospel of Christ is the power of God unto salvation, meaning that its available to everybody and anybody who is willing to believe it. No matter how scandalous of a life you lived before, God can and will use you if you are willing.
Oh I know, Paul was a hot mess....killin folks and all, but my point is:
This passage reflects what is typical of the church then and now to judge others based on where they came from and not accept one another based on the fruit of the work of Christ in each others lives. Yet each and everyone of those disciples “came out” of some mess.
Peace
You're kinda making my point... If i was dealing solely with the faculties of my mind there is no way that I could let him in and trust him. In regards to him moving folks with his oratory... he was on that program when he was on the other side as well. That's not new for him. His swagger was already certified.
ReplyDeleteIt's is only when we can let go of the mind that we can see what actually "is" in certain difficult situations... the situations that tend to matter the most.