Jump Start # 1067

Acts 5:38-39 “So in the present case, I say to you, stay away from these men and let them alone, for if this plan or action is of men, it will be overthrown; but if it is of God, you will not be able to overcome them; or else you may even be found fighting against God.”

  Gamaliel was a well known and respected Jewish rabbi. His influence was huge and many sent their sons to be trained by him. The apostle Paul was one who had been taught by Gamaliel. Our verse today reflects some of his wisdom and advise. Peter and John had been in and out of trouble with the Jewish hierarchy in Jerusalem. They had been arrested for preaching that Jesus was the Christ. They were arrested and then released with a stern warning to hush up about those things and not to preach any more. Immediately, they preached. They were arrested again. Peter responded that we must obey God rather than man. The situation was getting out of hand and Peter was stubborn. Actually, Peter had conviction and was standing upon those.  The Pharisees were resolved to put an end to this. Their conclusion was to kill Peter. It seems that taking life didn’t bother the Jews.

Gamaliel thought otherwise. His words, our verse today, offers a kind resolution to this heated situation. Let them alone. Play it out. Watch. If they are not from God, this will fade out. He gave other examples of uprisings that quickly withered away. This is how he sees this “Jesus movement.” Give it time, it will get old, and it will go away. On the other hand, if they are from God, there is no stopping them. With God on their side, they will succeed. Gamaliel gives a hint that Peter and John might possibly be right.

On paper, what Gamaliel said makes sense. In reality, it’s not true. His theory is that false ideas will not last. They will be overthrown. Possibly, intending to imply that God would be the one that puts an end to that which is false. The problem with Gamaliel’s theory is that it isn’t true. There have been false religions around for a long, long time. Islam, Buddhism, Hinduism are three well known systems that worship a different god, have a different concept of Jesus and reject the New Testament. Those religions have existed for hundreds of years and they have huge followings. Putting Gamaliel’s ideas to the test, one could conclude that they must be from God because they have not been overthrown and it certainly doesn’t look like they will be overthrown any time in the near future. Are they from God? No. Are they acceptable? No. Are they part of the Biblical teachings? No.

The spirit of Gamaliel is alive today. It’s found in the theme of tolerance. It’s often expressed as, “I don’t agree with what he believes, but I don’t want to judge.” Or, “I wouldn’t do that, but I’m not one to say that he is wrong.” Let it alone. That was Gamaliel’s words. Leave Peter and John and their teaching alone. If it is not from God, it will go away. If it is from God, you cannot stop it.

Tolerance seems to be the way to go for most folks today. They certainly do not want to point fingers and tell anyone that what they are doing isn’t the Bible way. Just let it alone. Let them alone.

Now, there is some problems with the “letting them alone” thinking.

First, false things do not go away. Sorry, Mr. Gamaliel, you’re wrong. False things tend to hang around. Ignorance isn’t bliss. Ignorance is blind. The Bible way is to teach. Teach folks what the Bible does say. Teach so that they will know. Truth drives out error. Truth defeats error.

Second, allowing false ideas to exist, only gets more people confused and in a mess. Stepping back and just watching what will happen doesn’t help people. The more false things they believe, the deeper in trouble they get and the farther from God they go. Some die, many die, in error. They die, hoping for things that will never be. They die convinced that they are right, when they are not right.

Third, falsehoods seem to get worse with each generation. One generation sticks it’s big toe into error. The generation that follows, jumps right in. Consider the example of atheistic evolution. A few generations back it was being tested and considered. Theories were being put out concerning it. Not everyone in the scientific community was buying into it. There were many in Darwin’s time that couldn’t see his conclusions. But now, a few generations later, the thought on the street is that evolution has been proven. It hasn’t. It’s no more closer than it was generations ago. In fact, there are more problems and questions than before. But with each generation, error sinks a population deeper and deeper.

Leave them alone? Not good advice. We don’t practice that at home. When the kids believe something that is not true, we straighten them out. When they hear things from their friends, parents don’t take the approach, let’s just ride this out and see where it goes. Your sixteen year old daughter comes home from school and says that she wants to move in with her boy friend. He’s convinced her that marriage is just a piece of paper and that love is all that matters. As a parent do you say, “leave them alone. If this is not from God it will be overthrown. But if it is from God, there is no stopping it.” Is that the approach? NO. You have a little talk with the daughter and you have a REAL serious talk with Mr. boy friend. Tolerance is not peace. Tolerance is actually cowardice. Tolerance is closing your eyes and not getting involved. Tolerance assumes wrong and crooked views are just as good as right views. Tolerance believes everyone is right and no one is wrong. Tolerance is doing nothing. Because of tolerance, error fills the world. Because of tolerance the voice of God is silent today. Can’t offend those who disagree. Can’t offend those who differ. Can’t offend those who may get upset. So society silences God. His name is removed. His presence is stilled. Those in error are given a platform.

This was never the pattern of God. When Elijah confronted the false prophets of Baal, the messengers of error, he didn’t allow them to stick around and do their own work. He gave them a platform to prove themselves. When they failed, they were removed. When Paul witnessed all the false idols in Ephesus, he didn’t take the tolerance path. He didn’t say, “Let them alone.” He preached the one true God of the Bible.

The solution to error is not tolerance, it is teaching. Letting alone, doesn’t solve anything. It’s really not even being nice. Nice is to help someone see what is right. Nice is helping them out of the darkness of wrong and error. Nice is making a difference. Tolerance is based upon the concept that there is no absolute right answer. Everyone is right and no one is wrong. A person doesn’t get that after reading the Bible. God’s way is the only way. God is right. Always.

Those who want to drink the Kool-aide of error and dance to the moon to their delight will surround themselves with those who applaud them and are proud of them. They are deceived and confused. Error seems so right in the darkness of confusion. The light of truth exposes error. Truth never has anything to fear.

Help others see what is right, by standing for what is right and teaching what is right. That is the hope of God. That is our duty and our calling.

Roger

Jump Start # 911

Acts 5:38-39 “So in the present case, I say to you, stay away from these men and let them alone, for if this plan or action is of men, it will be overthrown; but if it is of God, you will not be able to overthrow them; or else you may even be found fighting against God.”

Acts 5, where our passage comes from today, finds Peter and John in prison for preaching Christ. They had been arrested earlier in the chapter. God got them out. They immediately returned to the temple and continued teaching. When found, they were brought before the council and reminded that they were ordered not to preach Christ any more. Peter replied that they were going to obey God and not man. That statement infuriated the council. They set to kill Peter. They had enough. This is where Gamaliel steps up with a statement. He is a respected teacher of the law. He has clout and influence. He reminds the council of other uprisings that soon faded away, especially after the leaders were killed. Gamaliel sees a parallel between those political uprisings and Jesus, who claimed to be a king. Like the other rebels, Jesus was killed. The advice of Gamaliel, is that the group Peter is associated with will soon fade away, since the leader is dead. If it is from men, it will be overthrown. If it is from God, you cannot stop them.

The advice sounded good to the council and they let Peter live.

Gamaliel missed it on several points.

First, he assumed the “Jesus movement” was similar to other uprisings. It wasn’t. Jesus was Heaven sent, prophesied and spiritual based. Gamaliel failed to look into the teachings of Jesus. He lumped it with all other radicals. Mistake one. It is easy for those on the outside to lump all religious activities or even all religions in the same group. College classes in religion will study Eastern religion and Christianity together. They are not the same.

Second, Gamaliel assumed that if a movement is from man then it will not survive. He failed to grasp that error can exist for centuries. The teachings of evolution did not begin with Charles Darwin. He was the one that popularized them. They had been around for hundreds of years before Darwin. The teachings of evolution are widely accepted and very popular today. Does that mean evolution is true. No. Error doesn’t fade away with the death of the leader. Error doesn’t disappear after time. The advice of Gamaliel would be devastating to a church today. He failed to see that God allows error to exist.

Third, Gamaliel advised the council to just leave Peter alone. Peter was a problem to the Jewish leadership. He taught a resurrected Christ. He taught that Jesus was the Messiah. That upset the Jewish mind. That was blasphemous in their eyes. Problems do not go away. Problems do not fix themselves. It is messy and hard to deal with problems. The Gamaliel approach is a popular one today. Many follow this advice without realizing it. They don’t want to deal with problems at home, in the marriage, at work or in the church. Just let it alone, or ignore it, and maybe it will be better. It never is.

Now there is a greater lesson in all of this. Gamaliel was a highly respected and profound teacher. His words were listened to, yet in this situation, his advice was wrong. He was wrong. People we respect can give us advice that is worthless. Advice can come from books, friends and family. Instead of looking into what Peter said, instead of let’s hear his proof and evidence about Jesus, instead of doing some homework, Gamaliel just wanted the council to leave Peter alone. It will either go away or remain and that will be the answer we need. Dumb advice.

People are quick to tell you, here is something that you really need or you just have to do this. Our friends can be very persuasive. Our families can be even more persuasive. If not careful, we find ourselves doing things that we would never do, only because someone advised us to do that.

What then are we to do? Do your homework. Look into what is advised. Study it out yourself.  Had the council chosen to look into what Peter was preaching, they would have seen that Jesus was the Messiah. They would have become believers. As it is, they listened to someone else. People do the same about buying things, raising children and even attending a specific church. A bad experience, a narrow perspective, a negative attitude, a closed mind can taint the advice that one gives. Things can be distorted and taken out of perspective. Someone making a decision strictly on the advice of someone else, can and often receives bad information.

All of us have Gamaliels’ in our life. They mean well. They are quick with opinions and advice. They seem to know but often they don’t. Examine things in light of God’s word. Be careful with advice from others. Be careful in giving advice. How many times will someone say, “Oh, I’ve heard…” and what they heard wasn’t the true picture. Check it out. Find out. Be sure. Know. Ask your own questions. Look for evidence.

Jesus said, ‘you shall know the truth and the truth shall make you free.”

Roger

Jump Start # 565

Acts 5:38-39 “So in the present case, I say to you, stay away from these men and let them alone, for if this plan or action is of men, it will be overthrown; but if it is of God, you will not be able to overthrow them; or else you may even be found fighting against God.”

Our verse today focuses upon the advice of Gamaliel, a famous Jewish rabbi in Jerusalem. He tutored Saul who later became the apostle Paul. He was highly respected among the Jews. The apostles, especially Peter and John, were preaching the Gospel of Jesus Christ in Jerusalem. They were arrested and threatened and then released. They immediately preached again. They were arrested again. During the night, an angel appeared and released them. The next day, they were again preaching Jesus. Again, for the third time, they were arrested. The crowd of Jewish authorities grew impatient and hostile by Peter’s continual accusations that they were responsible for the death of Jesus. That was a real twist. Before the crucifixion, these Jewish leaders told Pilate that he would be innocent in all this and let the blood of Jesus, be upon them. Now that it was done, they didn’t want fingers pointing to them. The Jewish leaders wanted to kill Peter and John.

That seemed to be the solution that they turned to so often when someone disagreed with them, kill them. They did that to Jesus. They wanted to do that here with Peter. They would do that later with Stephen. Silence the messenger instead of answering his arguments.

Gamaliel was present for these hearings against the apostles. He offered a calm voice to a riotous crowd. He reminded the audience of two other uprisings in recent times. One by Theudas and another by Judas of Galilee. They both had a following. Both men died and what they started died out and went away. Gamaliel sees a parallel between the examples of these two radicals and Jesus Christ. Jesus, like the two radicals, had a following. Like the radicals, Jesus died. Gamaliel’s thought was that this Jesus movement will die away as well. His advice, “stay away from these men” was based upon the idea that if the movement was from men it will be overthrown, however, if it is from God, nothing will stop it.

The audience listened to Gamaliel. Little did they realize that Peter and John were part of God’s eternal plan and indeed, it would not be stopped. God had established His kingdom and it would grow and fill the entire earth, just as He planned and purposed.

There is a part of Gamaliel’s advice that isn’t right. He thought that if something is not from God, then it would be overthrown and not survive. That’s not true and that advice has led some to think that God is behind things that He’s not.

• Error has been around for a long, long time. It hasn’t died out. There are some religious teachings that are as old as Christianity and they are not part of the Gospel of Christ. They are not correct Biblically. Leaving them alone is not the answer. Paul told the Ephesians not to participate in the deeds of darkness, but rather expose them. Error is not to be left alone. It will not go away. It needs to be rebuked and shown to be false. God has allowed “strange delusions” to exist for those who do not love the truth. Gamaliel’s advice doesn’t work with error.
• Sin has been around for a long time. Again, leaving it alone will not cause it to go away. Usually, just the opposite happens, it tends to grow and spread and affect others. Paul told the Corinthian church that a little leaven leavens the whole lump. Sin influences others to join in and welcomes all to walk in darkness. Sin hurts God, wounds our relationship with Him, and destroys the good that we are trying to do. Ignoring or tolerating wrong is never the right answer.
• Ignorance is another thing that just doesn’t go away. Spiritual or Biblical ignorance cripples the possibility that a church has and limits what it can do. The spiritually ignorant can’t teach a class, they don’t understand. The spiritually ignorant continually bring up ideas that are inaccurate and concepts that are not Biblically sound. Often, the Biblically ignorant can be very loud and vocal and their opinions thought to be as true as Scripture. Leaving such people in the darkness of ignorance is not the answer. Teach them. Show them. Explain to them. Enlighten them. That’s the answer. God’s call is for us to “go into all the world and preach the Gospel.”

The advice of Gamaliel isn’t true even though on the surface it seems good. That ought to tell us that the advice of others may not be any better than Gamaliel’s. Everyone has an opinion. Everyone thinks their opinion is the best. Often it’s not. Dumb advice is common. People will advise you about what you need to do with your money. They advise you about diets, raising kids, health tips, exercise plans, even buying cars and where to vacation. Everyone’s got an opinion. Some are good. Some stink. Some are right. Some are wrong. Some talk without thinking, advising others on things that they have never done themselves. Some haven’t thought out their advice. The consequences of what they advise can be dangerous and even unBiblical, but nevertheless, they are quick to tell others what to do.

This tells us that we need to measure what others say with God’s word. Advice from brethren, even preachers, need to considered in light of what God has said. Any one is capable of handing out dumb advice. That’s easy to do. We love to tell others what to do and how they ought to do it. Seems to me that if people put that same amount of effort into their own lives as they do other people, then they would be better off.

So we need to measure what advice that is given to us and we need to be careful in giving advice. Parents of grown children have a hard time with this. It’s hard to see your child as grown and often we parents get a bit too involved in things that aren’t our business anymore. Our advice can be as welcome and comforting as a cold winter morning. Who wants that? It puts a strain upon our the mates of our children because it is received as butting in and running their lives. Unless things are dangerous or Biblically wrong, parents have to take a deep breath and realize that their grown kids may do things differently than mom and dad. Be careful with the advice, especially if it is not asked for nor wanted. The good that you advise may cause more harm as it is perceived that you are sticking your nose where it doesn’t belong.

Notice today how much advice floats around. You’ll hear it at work, school, stores and at home. Some of it is good and helpful and can make a difference in your life. Some of it is dumb and the person giving it doesn’t know what they are talking about. Be thoughtful. Be kind. Speak as God would want you to.

Roger