The Zeal That Blinds
We’re on the road to Kansas to see our granddaughter. Oh, and her parents. Sherri is driving while I work. What an awesome wife I have!
One of the things I like best about my work is that it involves so much reading, writing, reflecting, and prayer.
Which leads me to the subject I’ve addressed in my most recent posts - I’ve been writing about the prophets, then and now. And as I’ve noted, prophets tend to be deep thinkers, constantly reflecting on their lives and world.
I’ve described prophets as seers. They see things that a whole lot of other people just don’t notice, often seeing things that others are blind to.
Jesus had a lot to say about this subject. Eyes to see. That’s what we need, and that’s what so many, dare I say it, Christians, lack today.
So many distractions. So many things to turn our eyes away from what really matters. As a result, we end up living in places quite far from God’s kingdom and the good news it brings into the lives of those who embrace its King.
It’s nothing new.
Think about the religious Jews in Palestine in the time of Jesus. Some, like the Pharisees, were preoccupied with their religious traditions and teaching, making sure their doctrine and beliefs were right.
Others, primarily the Sadducees but also the Herodians, sought to wield as much power and influence as they could over the existing government under Rome. In God’s name, of course.
Others still, followed the road of sedition and violence; they were called the Zealots.
As we read the gospels, we learn that there were deep divisions between these various religious camps. But there was one thing that they all had in common - they were all focused on the wrong things. And they were all wasting their time and energy on things that ultimately had nothing to do with God’s kingdom.
Jesus sought to open their eyes to the kingdom of God that was breaking into their lives and world.
To the doctrinally obsessed Pharisees, he said, “You study the Scriptures diligently because you think that in them you have eternal life, yet you refuse to come to me to have life.”1 He warned them that their practices and traditions, coming from centuries of rabbinical theological interpretation, were subverting, indeed, contradicting and nullifying God’s Word. “You have heard it said, but I say to you” was a call to understand the Scripture differently, to break free of religion that is long on doctrinal correctness, but short on kindness, compassion, and mercy.2
To the politically powerful Sadducees and Herodians, Jesus said, “Give to Caesar what belongs to Caesar, and give to God what belongs to God.”3 In other words, “You are so focused on political influence in the name of God that you’ve lost touch with what God really wants from you.”
Jesus warned his disciples of these adventures in missing the point. He referred to the leaven (influence) of those obsessed with doctrine and those seeking to wield political power and influence.4
Finally, to the Zealots, those who would tear everything down, somehow believing that violence would solve the problem, Jesus said, “Those who live by the sword die by the sword.”5 Violence begets violence.
There were those who heard and received Jesus’s words, Like Nicodemus or Simon, who left the Zealots and became one of the twelve. Or like the many priests we read about in the Book of Acts. And who could forget Saul of Tarsus, that Hebrew of Hebrews, Pharisee of Pharisees, who was blinded on the road to Damascus, only to have his eyes opened to the reality of God’s kingdom? And as a result, did a 180, preaching against the things he once embraced, and in the end, paying a high price for it.
Centuries have passed, but people haven’t changed. Neither has the call of Jesus to those who continue to substitute worthless pursuits in the name of God while blind to the nature of the Kingdom of Heaven. Their zeal without knowledge continues to leave them blind to what the call to follow Jesus is really all about.
In Christ,
Dan
John 5:39-40.
See John 15, Matthew 15, and Matthew 9:13.
Matthew 22:21.
Mark 8:15.
Matthew 26:52.