2 They will put you out of the synagogue; in fact, a time is coming when anyone who kills you will think he is offering a service to God. 3 They will do such things because they have not known the Father or me. 4 I have told you this, so that when the time comes you will remember that I warned you. I did not tell you this at first because I was with you. (NIV)
“Putting out of the synagogue” is the Jewish practice of excommunication, which had two forms. The lesser form, niddah, meant being expelled from the community (the community was equivalent to the church) for thirty days. For someone who still did not repent of their sin, a permanent expulsion or “setting apart” (herem) was imposed, but might take on different forms, all of which probably included the confiscation of the person’s property, including imprisonment, banishment, or death. The last instance is part of what Jesus has in mind when he adds, “anyone who kills you will think he is offering a service to God.”
The phrase “offering a service to God” involves the word latreia in Greek (λατρεία), an act of worship by means of a sacrifice. The excommunication would be bad enough. It would mean being expelled and banished from every place where there were Jews in the world, and being persecuted as heretics. But on top of that, Jesus adds, when (not “if”) they killed the apostles, the killers would think that their act of murder would be the equivalent of an acceptable sacrifice to God. Of the eleven apostles with Jesus at this time, only John himself would not suffer a violent death.
When our children are very small, we don’t coach them on how to turn into a spin when a car goes out of control, because they’re not ready to learn that yet. We don’t generally teach beginning swimmers the finer points of advanced lifesaving. And in the same way, Jesus didn’t tell his disciples about every danger they would face, since when he was still with them, they were under his protection. But now, within the next twelve hours, things were going to become very different. They would not instantly become fugitives, although they would act like it very soon.
We need to know that God is with us, no matter how bad things in our lives may get. We might face sword, famine or plague. We might face violence in our communities, hard financial times, a recession, rising medical and insurance costs, and it might feel like our nation is on the brink of a revolution. But God is with us now just as he was with us in 1968, just as he was with us during the Reformation, and just as he was with John, Peter, James and the rest in the Upper Room.
The Lord hears the needy
and does not despise his captive people. (Psalm 69:33)
Something extra:
Ecclesiastes 9:11-12
11 I have seen something else under the sun: The race is not to the swift or the battle to the strong, nor does food come to the wise or wealth to the brilliant or favor to the learned; but time and chance happen to them all. 12 Moreover, no man knows when his hour will come: As fish are caught in a cruel net, or birds are taken in a snare, so men are trapped by evil times that fall unexpectedly upon them. (NIV)
Nothing guarantees success in this lifetime. Solomon lays out five sure-fire ways to success and lets the facts of history and the truth of reality blast them all to smithereens: Swift? Strong? Wise? Brilliant? Learned? Bad circumstances can obliterate anything. Asahel was swifter than Abner, but Abner killed Asahel (2 Samuel 2:19-23). Goliath was stronger than David, but David prevailed (1 Samuel 17:48-50). The wise men of Egypt didn’t know what to do about the coming famine, but Joseph did (Genesis 41:8, 37-41). The brilliant Paul was caught and executed by the Romans. The learned Job suffered tragedy and loss.
In the same way, we know that being faithful to God and proclaiming the pure gospel will not always produce results that the world can understand. A missionary might spend years in a field and seem to produce no results at all until someone later goes and plants what seems to be a tiny seed, only to find a whole field ready for the harvest. We labor in the Lord’s vineyard, aware that the hour is late, that the time are evil, and that cruel nets have been set by the devil. But nevertheless, we labor on. We tell people about the truth of the gospel no matter how late in their life or ours it may seem, because the success of the gospel isn’t up to us. It’s up to God himself. And whatever falls unexpectedly on us, the gospel will still accomplish its miracle in the world. That’s the grace of God.
Pastor Smith serves St. Paul’s Lutheran Church in New Ulm, Minnesota. His wife, Kathryn, attended Chapel from 1987-1990 while studying Secondary Education (Theater and Math) at UW-Madison. Kathryn’s father, John Meyer, was also the first man to serve as a Vicar at Chapel.
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