How Truth is Received by Power ...

It is perhaps our finest wish that once truth has been spoken to power, that power will be moved, perhaps transformed, and begin to pursue another course.  We are taught from a very young age that truth will win out in the end.  And so when we dare to carry the banner of truth into the world we face, we do so carrying hope that it will be received in the spirit of Love in which it is offered.  Not to condemn, but to point the way to the open doors of salvation and reformation that Jesus longs to offer us all.  But alas it is no small thing to maintain that hope, when time after time, power demonstrates it has no interest in truth or love, only in the maintaining of power.  And to that end power will deny what it should otherwise plainly see, or what it knows in its heart to be true, all for the sake of never losing a grasp on power.  If only this were a secular phenomenon never to be seen within the doors of the church.  But as power was never meant to be ours, when power is perceived within church walls, it behaves no differently.  Power becomes an infectious cancer, a weight to doom the souls who attempt to carry it, a sickness that perverts the thinking and transform the humble into the proud, and blind, and naked.

This is nothing new.  It is prologue.  The leadership of the one true church of God was once so caught up in it, that a new church of God had to be formed.  The new one, not so proud, not at all consumed with power, only with the transforming love that Jesus offers us all so freely.  Imagine that; the singular true church of God, who comes to a place to discard that God behind the church.  The first church was not discarded “by” God, it chose rather to walk away from God, than to embrace the name of Jesus Christ.  And still, it was not left, with no chance to repent, to change its mind, to embrace what was so clear to see with anyone who had eyes to see, or ears to hear.  Peter and John had healed a man stricken for more than 40 years that nearly everyone in Jerusalem had met or seen begging in front of the temple gates.  When the news spread, the people responded by praising God.  It becomes very hard for church leaders to claim that praising and worshipping Adonai is a bad thing.  Harder still to wish further misery on a man who was now lifting his voice in that same praise of Adonai and of Jesus the son of God.

But the temple leaders had no inclination to change now.  Power had heard the truth, and was determined to deny it still.  Luke picks up the account in his book of Acts in the fourth chapter starting in verse 13 saying … “Now when they saw the boldness of Peter and John, and perceived that they were unlearned and ignorant men, they marvelled; and they took knowledge of them, that they had been with Jesus. [verse 14] And beholding the man which was healed standing with them, they could say nothing against it. [verse 15] But when they had commanded them to go aside out of the council, they conferred among themselves,”  The first thing an assembly of academics and well educated men steeped in power notice, is that both Peter and John are nothing of the kind.  They are poor, unlearned, uneducated, and common folks.  Nobody of that ilk has ever dared to speak so in any kind of gathering of the elite of the nation and the church.  Common folks take direction, they do not offer it.  Being with Jesus has so transformed these common men, that they have become the most effective of evangelists.  Their words are not their own, but instead powered by the Holy Spirit within them.  As much as the Pharisees and Sadducees want to resist these words, it is like trying to resist the most powerful of all magnets.

Then there is the matter of the healed man, who continues to bellow praises to Adonai and to Jesus His Son.  The people all know about it.  The leaders are unable to deny it.  So they step outside to try to figure out what to do.  Luke continues in verse 16 saying … “Saying, What shall we do to these men? for that indeed a notable miracle hath been done by them is manifest to all them that dwell in Jerusalem; and we cannot deny it. [verse 17] But that it spread no further among the people, let us straitly threaten them, that they speak henceforth to no man in this name. [verse 18] And they called them, and commanded them not to speak at all nor teach in the name of Jesus.”  Normally, if you told a parishioner of the faith how to speak or what to say or not say regarding any tenant of the Torah, that parishioner would be fully compliant and respectful of the council.  But neither Peter or John were normal.  They had been with Jesus.  And now they were filled with Holy Ghost which never leaves a person just normal.  Those leaders could have threatened them all day and night with all manner of tortures and death.  It was like water off a duck’s back.  Someone else was running them.  Someone else was speaking through them.  And that is the point.  It is not up to you to “become” something to be used by God.  It is only up to you if you will let God use you when it is time to do so.  How your audience responds is not a reflection on you.  The appeal for salvation, for repentance, is the gift of God to your audience.

Luke continues in verse 19 saying … “But Peter and John answered and said unto them, Whether it be right in the sight of God to hearken unto you more than unto God, judge ye. [verse 20] For we cannot but speak the things which we have seen and heard. [verse 21] So when they had further threatened them, they let them go, finding nothing how they might punish them, because of the people: for all men glorified God for that which was done. [verse 22] For the man was above forty years old, on whom this miracle of healing was shewed.”  It becomes very hard to punish an entire city for praising God at the miracle His love sought to perform.  And Peter and John were only saying what they themselves had seen and heard, and calling on the only name by which salvation was offered.  The leadership hated all of this.  They railed against it.  Power did what power does, it threatens the very lives of those who would oppose it.  But when you understand where the value of life itself originates, it is hard to fear the death this world will surely one day bring to us all.  The length of our days is hardly worth an absence of God for even one of them.

Is it any wonder the Lord values our humility so highly?  When we see our state of affairs and recognize our need is so great, we realize how badly we need a Savior.  Pride and power work to counteract all of that.  Having achieved power (no matter the context) we become certain of ourselves, and see no need.  We push away that still small voice in favor of the loud bellowing one in our own heads.  We start telling others what they need to do.  After all, “we” are the ones who achieved power.  Just as in that church leadership meeting of old, we blind ourselves to Truth, in favor of our own ideas.  Our certainty robs us of humility.  We may ask to be led by God, as I am sure they did as well.  But the words are useless if our ideas are so grounded in the stone of our hearts that we have no intention to ever let them sink in and affect us.  Rather “asking God to lead” becomes a tradition we speak like saying “bless you” after a sneeze.  Nobody really knows why, and nobody really means it, it is just a tradition we speak at a rote response.  Asking God to lead for real, requires us to shut up and listen, not go right on speaking when God has not had the slightest chance to respond let alone the time and opportunity to speak through us.

Peter was a common man.  He was full of faults, weaknesses, bad habits.  He would not have ever deserved a place in the halls of the church leadership of his day.  Peter did not need to be perfect to serve.  He just needed to be willing.  He was.  Are you?  Are you willing to silence the ideas floating around in your head, and give God the time and space to speak through you, to the audience He picks, at the time He decides the need is now?  It doesn’t matter what it looks like to us.  It doesn’t matter if it makes sense to us.  It only matters if we decide to say yes, turn over control to the Holy Spirit, and become the vessel of His love to others.  If there is anything I have learned about me, it is that what I want, or what I think, is seldom aligned with what and how He thinks.  So perhaps better He runs my show for me.  And perhaps better I just give Him the keys and sit back and watch.

 

Speaking Truth to Power ...

Pilate once asked, “what is truth”?  Jesus once said, “I am the truth, the way, and the life”.  I wonder when we talk about speaking truth to power, are we talking about the ever popular “my truth”, or are we talking about “the Truth”?  Our society seems bent on creating a version of truth that finds its center in “me”, that is to say, in each of us.  It is as if facts, viewed through “my” lens of perspective, create a version of truth that could care less what anyone else thinks.  Somehow, we come to believe in “my” truth with near total certainty ignoring the possibility that an application of the slightest degree of objectivity might actually result in revealing “my” truth as being nothing more than an amplification of “my” selfish desire.  What “you” want does not matter to “me”, only what “I” want, since after all it is “my” life.  We then get pretty brazen about our discovery of this new personal truth and share it ad-nauseum with any who cares to listen.  But none of this is speaking any kind of real “truth” to any kind of real power.  It is just another form of narcissism masquerading as self-discovery.

The idea of being true to one’s-self, is tantamount to the idea of coming to accept ourselves “just as we are”.  Usually when this bright idea occurs to us, we are in a much less than perfect state.  Our failure to reach perfection just looks too permanent, it is just too hard to get there.  So instead of trying and failing over-and-over again, we just give up, and discover that being true to ourselves means accepting our shortcomings and just embracing them.  We usually take that a step farther in the spiritual domain, by insisting that since we accept us “this way”, that God too must accept us “this way”, after all He made us “this way”.  It is then easy to believe that since God can forgive us literally anything, we can just rely on that forgiveness, and somehow we can save changing until He remakes us at the second coming.  This philosophy then adds spiritual credence to the idea that “my truth” is surely “OK” with God as well.  But when Jesus said that He was the Truth, He never mentions anyone else in that same sentiment.  It is not like Jesus says He is the truth, even alongside Moses, David, or John the Baptist.  All of those patriarchs of the faith were famous for their service, and their messages, but none of them qualified to be “the Truth”.

Even though scripture is inspired by God, and is our best method of coming to know God, Jesus is higher than our scripture.  For Jesus did not say, the scripture is truth, and I am just the author of the words in that book of truth.  Keep in mind, the Pharisees had scripture, and still managed to miss Jesus (the inspiration, author, and God of scripture) entirely.  And what happens when our interpretations of scripture, wind up coming in conflict with what God wants?  Do we apologize, submit, and change our way of thinking?  Not when “my truth” is more important than “the Truth”.  Not when being true to myself stands in obvious conflict with the changes Jesus wants to bring into my life.  When I am not looking for a new way of thinking, anything that comes my way different from what I think, just makes me mad.  I would submit the angrier the response, the more mistaken the thinking is in conflict with “the Truth”. 

Case in point; the Pharisees put Jesus to death.  Despite all the evidence they were warring with God, they did it anyway.  They thought that would end it.  It didn’t.  And the miracles that followed Jesus, did not follow Him into the grave and stop.  Instead, they were back in full force from the followers of Jesus who merely used/called on the name of Jesus to see them done.  Ask yourself how hardheaded you have to be to keep fighting that fight after all those miraculous signs that just will not go away?  But then, before we get too critical, perhaps we should ask ourselves how hardheaded we have to be, to keep trying to find perfection by our own strength and will, failing every time, instead of letting Jesus do that work for us?  It is not perfection that is elusive, or giving way to “my truth”.  It is the means by which we go about pursuing perfection.  We keep allowing “self” to have a role in our salvation from ourselves.  This is not what Jesus needs.  He just needs your permission, your willingness to let Him change you however He sees fit.  That’s all.  If you are willing to let Him change it, it will change.  If you try to do it yourself, or try to help God out, count on failure in your future.

It might make you mad to read these words.  The Pharisees sure did not want to hear that Jesus could end even your desire to sin, that Jesus could make you free from sin, from the inside out.  Pharisees had the law of Moses.  They believed that you lived your life according to the Law, and that was “how” you got saved (and rich by the way).  If you sinned, that was on you to fix.  Having some upstart Nazarene Hippy come claim to release you from sin just by freeing your very desires, sounded like pure apostacy to Law keepers who wanted no other way to win, even when that method only showed them the failure of our lives.  The secret they could not grasp was the idea that the Law of God points out our need of a Savior, to write it on our hearts and minds.  The Law is not the method of salvation.  It is the results of salvation.  We keep it, because we want to, because we cannot imagine any other way to live, not because we “have to” in order to be saved.  The Pharisees did not want any part of that thinking, it was too radical a shift for them and would up-end their whole way of living.  So you can imagine when Peter and John perform a miracle in the name of Jesus, then preach in His Name, convert 5,000 folks, and don’t stop doing this.  The Pharisees were angry beyond belief.

Luke gives us the account in Acts chapter 4 picking up in verse 1 the story continues saying … “And as they spake unto the people, the priests, and the captain of the temple, and the Sadducees, came upon them, [verse 2] Being grieved that they taught the people, and preached through Jesus the resurrection from the dead. [verse 3] And they laid hands on them, and put them in hold unto the next day: for it was now eventide. [verse 4] Howbeit many of them which heard the word believed; and the number of the men was about five thousand.”  The Sadducees had only one main difference from the Pharisees and that was around the entire idea of resurrection.  They did not think it was part of Gods plan ever.  You lived, you died, end of story.  So having Lazarus be resurrected was a living, breathing, example that their doctrine was wrong.  Jesus doing it too, made it worse.  And all the others who were raised from the dead just kept putting nails in the coffin of this obviously mistaken ideology.  They did not respond, nor do we usually, by admitting they were wrong.  They did not apologize and embrace “the Truth”, because that Truth conflicted with “their” truth.  So they grab Peter and John and throw them into prison for the night.

But it didn’t matter. 5000 folks were converted by the power of the Holy Spirit moving through the words Peter said about Jesus.  The church leadership still hoped this might not be about Jesus.  They still clung to the idea maybe something new, or something else, was driving the miracle.  So on the next day they got together to flush out the details and find out what was going on.  Luke picks back up in verse 5 saying … “And it came to pass on the morrow, that their rulers, and elders, and scribes, [verse 6] And Annas the high priest, and Caiaphas, and John, and Alexander, and as many as were of the kindred of the high priest, were gathered together at Jerusalem. [verse 7] And when they had set them in the midst, they asked, By what power, or by what name, have ye done this?”  This was the last desperate hope that the Jesus thing was dead and gone in the grave.  But in their hearts, they already knew it was not.  The Roman guards at the tomb already told them the truth about the resurrection and there was no way around that truth.

Peter then responds, again He is filled with Holy Spirit, it picks back up in verse 8 saying … “Then Peter, filled with the Holy Ghost, said unto them, Ye rulers of the people, and elders of Israel, [verse 9] If we this day be examined of the good deed done to the impotent man, by what means he is made whole; [verse 10] Be it known unto you all, and to all the people of Israel, that by the name of Jesus Christ of Nazareth, whom ye crucified, whom God raised from the dead, even by him doth this man stand here before you whole. [verse 11] This is the stone which was set at naught of you builders, which is become the head of the corner. [verse 12] Neither is there salvation in any other: for there is none other name under heaven given among men, whereby we must be saved.”  Yikes.  Now that is an example of speaking real Truth to a room full of what we call power.  This was the head of the church, at least the head of the original one.  These men were rich, powerful, full of influence.  They could have Peter killed if they really wanted it.  And this was certainly NOT what they wanted to hear.  My guess, these old church leaders would have rather heard that Peter was on team Satan, than on team Jesus.  At least Satan could not claim to be the Son of God, well, without lying anyway.  Jesus had a rational claim, a claim that fulfilled scripture and prophecy, a claim steeped in truth and love.

Imagine yourself in that room of angry men.  Would you tell them the unvarnished truth?  Peter did not hesitate to remind these guys that “THEY” killed Jesus.  Peter does not blame the Romans.  Peter blames them personally.  As they all had personal accountability, and frankly so do we.  Each sin we embrace requires that blood fresh upon the cross of calvary once more, the nails driven into His hands and feet, by us.  And we know what we are doing.  That kind of truth demolishes the idea of “my” truth.  What Peter spoke was not just his own words, but because he was filled with the Holy Ghost.  And despite the criticism of them, or me, here was again another opportunity to repent and be saved.  Another chance to let go of my errors, and embrace His Truth.  To see that Jesus alone is Truth.  For those leaders to change, they would have had to admit they were wrong in the first place.  Not many of us are willing to do that.

But it was not certainty that fueled the obstinance of the Pharisees, or of us.  It is pride.  It is pride that refuses to admit the possibility of being wrong, of having someone else know something that we did not know first.  We sometimes harden into the core beliefs of our spiritual ancestors instead of building upon the foundation of faith they left us.  Our church forefathers in their day, were the champions of change, they endured more of it than we will ever allow ourselves to know.  But instead of treating the Word of God as a living breathing document, a wellspring of relevance that never runs dry – we treat it more the like the rocks upon which the Law was written, fixed, immovable, when in truth it is we who have become fixed and immovable.  Take the Sabbath being kept Holy for example, in the time of Christ, the church leadership had made the Sabbath so burdensome, that the miracle of healing someone on Sabbath was not celebrated, it was ruled as a means to kill the healer.  Jesus sought to change that.  Not just in what we do, but in how we think about loving others and how that does not take a holiday on Sabbath, instead it is supposed to be amplified on Sabbath.  Jesus was a radical change agent to the common thinking about the Law in His own day.  Why do try to put cement sandals on the Lord in our own day?

Let us not become so fixed in our positions, that we cannot accommodate the Truth when it knocks on the doors of our hearts.  Let us instead see ourselves as clay, ready to be molded into an image of the Truth who fashions us daily upon the craftsman’s wheel.  What He intends us to be is yet to be known to us.  But if we are to hold on to certainty, let it be certainty in the love of the Craftsman who remakes us into His own image, at our request.