Tag: Riots

Posted on

Peace Planters

Reading Time: 2 minutes

But the wisdom from above is first of all pure. It is also peace loving, gentle at all times, and willing to yield to others. It is full of mercy and the fruit of good deeds. It shows no favoritism and is always sincere. And those who are peacemakers will plant seeds of peace and reap a harvest of righteousness. ‭‭James‬ ‭3‬:‭17‬-‭18‬ ‭NLT‬‬

James, brother of Jesus and one of the early church leaders, writes to the churches about living a faith-filled and fruit-filled life. It is not just faith, it is obedient and visible works.

In just a few short thoughts, James captures the true essence of the word wisdom. Wisdom is evident in the behaviors of peacemakers and peace planters! James writes the attributes of wisdom, which was exemplified in his brother’s entire life. Jesus, the essence and personification of wisdom loved and lived peace.

Wisdom is first of all, pure (hagnos) holy and sacred.

▪️It is peaceful (eirénikos) whole and joined or tied together.
▪️ It is gentile (epieikés) equitable, yielding and reasonable.
▪️ It is yielding (eupeithes) compliant, pre-disposed to come to terms.
▪️ It is filled with mercy (eleos) pity and compassion and produces good fruit (karpos).
▪️ It is impartial (adiakritos) indistinguishable, without uncertainty about fairness.
▪️ And it is sincere (anupokritos) without hypocrisy, pretending, acting or faking truth.

What a list of behavioral attributes! This is not only what wisdom looks like, it is what a wise person acts like! Pure, peaceful, reasonable, compliant, merciful, compassionate, equitable and sincere behaviors. Think of what takes place in our country’s highest level of court justice. Think of what takes place in our country’s lowest level of street justice. Do we see wisdom? Do we see behaviors of peace?

James admonishes true followers of Jesus to not only think wisely, but behave wise. James inspires us to be peace planters, yielding beautiful fruits of wisdom! What am I sowing on Sundays as believers gather? How can I choose to seed peace rather than seethe hate at the insta or TikTok water cooler? How can the wisdom and peace of God be the antidote to the fast-spreading social viruses of anger, hate, disunity and violence? James is a big fan of behavior over simply belief!

Prayer

Dad,

Action is far louder than belief, behavior is far more effective for change than just my quiet thoughts on what I believe or how I feel. Your word, your wisdom, is actionable towards us. Your thoughts towards us are proven through your behavior towards us. Your love, mercy and peace have been demonstrated through Jesus! And my life can show proof of Jesus’ life and the eternal change in me through my behaviors of wisdom and peace. Thank you for rescuing me and calling me to be a peace planter!

Posted on

What God sees.

Reading Time: 3 minutes

“When he saw the crowds, he had compassion on them because they were confused and helpless, like sheep without a shepherd. He said to his disciples, “The harvest is great, but the workers are few. So pray to the Lord who is in charge of the harvest; ask him to send more workers into his fields.” ‭‭Matthew‬ ‭9‬:‭36‬-‭38‬ ‭NLT‬‬

Matthew gives us a front row seat to understand the character of Jesus – which IS the character of God. He writes, “when he saw the crowds.” When Jesus sees, it lets me know what God sees. When Jesus is moved with compassion, it lets me know that God is moved with compassion. Is God still moved as He sees the crowd? Matthew tells us that Jesus saw the crowds as confused and helpless.

He used a couple of Greek words that may help us understand just how Jesus/God saw their pain. He uses a word that comes from “skulló” which means to skin, or figuratively to trouble. That’s right, the root word is “skylon” which is the word for skinning an animal pelt – properly, skin alive, mangle (flay)! Figuratively, to harass, or extremely annoy. The New Living Translation couldn’t possibly capture being “skinned alive” with the word “helpless.” Life with all its turmoil of political, societal and personal struggles gets EXHAUSTING! People felt it then and we all feel it now.

Matthew also used the word, “rhiptó,” to throw or cast off. This word is often used to describe throwing something down, like Judas throwing the silver coins down at the chief priests in the temple. Or, the demon throwing the man to the ground as Christ cast it out. Jesus saw the crowd and felt the gut wrenching pain of compassion (splagchnizomai).

The crowds were made up of more than just physically sick, blind, crippled or deaf – they all had the weight of this broken world on their shoulders. Jesus says this is what the harvest field looks like! This is where the seeds of sin and selfishness, loneliness and sufferings have come to fruition and are ready to be harvested to heaven or let to rot, falling to the field of death and destruction. Jesus saw humanity’s grief as opportunity to disperse mercy and grace. But it would require more of his followers to see what he saw. And, more of his disciples to feel what he felt so that more would be saved from being flayed and tossed down. Jesus obviously wants believers, his followers, to look at crowds and see differently. To see protesters, rioters, concert-goers, stadium sports fanatics at a much deeper level. I drive my city streets and see the crazed, naked, ranting madness and feel so helpless to do anything. What would Jesus see? What would he have me do? What does sending “workers” into our modern fields of ripe-chaos look like today? I do not know, but I am curiously challenged to figure it out.

Prayer

Dad,
I feel like such a chicken when I see the overwhelming craziness of our streets, our looters, our protesters. When I saw the woman screaming and ranting while I was at lunch with a Pastor friend, I did not know what to do. She was completely out of her mind! I would like to just say she was mentally ill, but it looked and sounded so much more demonic than just being sick! I do not think you would have hesitated to go and heal her of whatever it was that caused such torment in her. I could only muster enough compassion to feel sorry for her! Why can’t I be one of those workers you look for? Fear? Not wanting to look stupid or like some kind of religious freak myself? Oh, how I need your boldness beyond my compassion! If I were you, I would not have hesitated at all. However, even though I see…I am still just me!

Posted on

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.

Posted on

Finding God’s purpose for your life is not a linear process!

Reading Time: 3 minutes 
“All who heard him were amazed. “Isn’t this the same man who caused such devastation among Jesus’ followers in Jerusalem?” they asked. “And didn’t he come here to arrest them and take them in chains to the leading priests?” Saul’s preaching became more and more powerful, and the Jews in Damascus couldn’t refute his proofs that Jesus was indeed the Messiah. After a while some of the Jews plotted together to kill him.” Acts‬ ‭9:21-23‬ ‭NLT‬‬

Well, you know what they say, “if you can’t beat ‘em, kill them!”

For awhile back then Saul/Paul found himself despised by all and feared by believers. After, he comes in from his desert experience, Saul immediately starts preaching Jesus is the Son of God.

His life, his radical turnaround forces this question, “Isn’t this the guy that…?” Basically, this happens in all well known previously bad-human conversions even today. One’s transformation story is very powerful when people ask about the former life. Saul got his speaking groove down so well, that the Jewish religious elite just couldn’t refute his proof. So, rather than see truth or change their hearts, something more sinister took over their thinking. “Let’s kill him,” they said. What hubris, egregious hypocrites. They couldn’t deal with truth, so they ramp up a riot. Sounds like our modern political climate right now.

Saul continued to start with civil synagogue discussions in every town he visited. Yet, it just got increasingly violent, until finally he had to give up going to the Jews first. He believed he was called to the Jewish people! A little providence and a whole lot of death threats convinced him that maybe his calling wasn’t to the Jewish people.

This seems to happen when discovering God’s will. You think it should go one way but door after door continues to close until you realize- that’s not what God wants you to do! There’s something else out there. Paul shifted his focus solely on the Gentiles (non Jews) and then took that passion all the way to the Church leaders, convincing them that the gospel was ALSO for the rest of the world. Acts 15 was all about a fulfillment of God’s plan for Israel and his own favored people to be the ones who brought salvation to the whole world and not just to keep it for themselves. Israel always had a tough time with that idea.

Saul/Paul would go on to bring the message of Jesus to all the major regions of Gentile populations and plant churches (not synagogues) everywhere he went. Paul would come into town, set up his tent making, tent repair shop. Then he would make friends with all the local businesses leaders in the town through shoptalk. He led highly influential men and women to Jesus, then convinced them to use their nicely sized homes to meet in for church on Sundays. Many of those original business owners became church elders and pastors. Paul also ended up writing a large part (almost half) of what we know as the New Testament with thirteen letters, written to correct and encourage these new churches. I would say, all the death threats and riots resulted in explosive growth in the gospel going out to all nations.

Have you started any riots? Received any death threats? Are you struggling with what you think God has called you to do? Maybe there’s something else God has in mind?

PRAYER:

Dad,
Your calling, your purposes are not always the easiest to discover and even more difficult to accept. I have seen a very non-linear path in my own life, right? It’s seems like more of a scribble than a straight line! Yet, you have been faithful and patient. I am thankful for that. For many years, I never thought I would be any kind of first chair leader. There were hopes dashed and failed possibilities. I just settled into the fact that I would be a great second chair for the rest of my life. Then, SURPRISE, through an extraordinary turn of events, I get a callback to serve in my home church as the lead pastor, or Chief Servant Officer as I say. Who would have thought? So now I need your wisdom and favor more than ever before!