The Lord is awe-inspiring, fascinating, intriguing, majestic, and full of splendor: breathtaking! Here is what I saw of him in Acts 23:6-8,
“Then Paul, knowing that some of them were Sadducees and the others Pharisees, called out in the Sanhedrin, ‘My brothers, I am a Pharisee, the son of a Pharisee. I stand on trial because of my hope in the resurrection of the dead.’ When he said this, a dispute broke out between the Pharisees and the Sadducees, and the assembly was divided. (The Sadducees say that there is no resurrection, and that there are neither angels nor spirits, but the Pharisees acknowledge them all.)
Leave it up to theologians to get into a scrap amongst themselves when they all came together to railroad Paul with false accusations. Theologians seem to be able to find differences, distinctions, and nuances that allow them to gravitate to their own camps to sling it at the many other camps about them. Paul knew this and, as the crafty apostle he was, he manipulated the greatest minds of the day in Israel into a bickering squabble for his own purposes.
While there was a legitimate point to be made by the Pharisees, who were correct in their view on resurrection, etc., Paul had his own agenda. He (and the Lord) used the squabble and his imprisonment to propel himself in front of the leaders of the day, both the Jewish leaders and the local representatives of the Roman domination of Palestine, eventually those in Rome and, hopefully, the emperor himself.
Paul did not have a school of theology to present to people but a person: the Lord Jesus Christ. He made it his ambition to take the message of Jesus Christ to all he could and particularly to people and places of influence to persuade them. King Agrippa tells Paul, “Do you think that in such a short time you can persuade me to be a Christian?” For Paul, the resurrection was all about knowing Jesus Christ, “I want to know Christ and the power of his resurrection and the fellowship of sharing in his sufferings, becoming like him in his death, and so, somehow, to attain to the resurrection from the dead.” Philippians 3:10-11.
Good theology is, of course, important. But when the debate appears to loose focus on the Lord himself somehow, recapturing him and placing him in the center of our attention always becomes the top priority!
Anything of the Lord capture your heart from Scripture today? Share your theme of worship with us from your Bible reading today. We’d love to hear from you!
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