Have you ever wondered about the Pharisees? About what it must have been like for men so educated and pious to have their authority threatened by a blue collar nobody who eviscerated them every time there was an argument? To watch as the people whom you have dedicated your life to teaching and guiding cease paying attention to you and begin to focus instead on someone without even a hint of your pedigree, expertise or credentials? It doesn’t take much imagination to understand just how maddening it must have been. After all, what was all the training, study and discipline worth if any old carpenter from the backside of nowhere could just waltz in and turn everything upside down? Who did they think this fool must have thought He was?
But, here’s the thing: the Pharisees were wrong.
Read MoreMany of us have heard about how police investigators learn to spot counterfeit money. They do so not by studying the counterfeits closely, but by learning the real thing inside and out, like the backs of their hands.
But there’s an implicit reality to this metaphor that often goes unacknowledged and unapplied. It is so obvious that most of us think right past it.
Read MoreWhatever else the Bible might say about God’s involvement or judgment or sin or compassion in the midst of this outbreak, remember at least Christ’s call to repent.
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