Joe Rigney: Clarity amid confusion

NICK EICHER, HOST: Today is Tuesday, February 18th. Good morning! This is The World and Everything in It from listener-supported WORLD Radio. I’m Nick Eicher.

MARY REICHARD, HOST: And I’m Mary Reichard. Coming up next: following the Apostle’s example.

WORLD Opinions’ commentator Joe Rigney says we’re living in a time that might be called “the Great Unraveling.” Society’s center isn’t holding. Civilization is fragmenting, and various groups and ideologies are vying for influence and power—many accusing Christians of being nationalistic, theocratic, or insurrectionist.

How to respond?

JOE RIGNEY: In times like these, conscientious Christians frequently worry that our message—the gospel of Jesus Christ—will be confused and conflated with competing ideologies and programs. In the face of such confusion, how should sincere Christians speak and act? How should we approach the unavoidable confusion of the present time, with enemies and opportunists all around?

We can start by considering the way the apostles approached this problem in the first century. They too lived in the midst of a great unraveling. The mid first-century A.D. was a time of turmoil and unrest throughout the Roman Empire. The air was full of religious competition and political agitation, including even insurrection and rebellion. The New Testament is filled with evidence of political maneuvering and religious opportunism. Christ himself was crucified by an alliance of opportunistic religious leaders manipulating Pilate into ordering his execution with subtle political threats.

So then how did the apostles in the book of Acts navigate the confusion around the fledgling church and its message? Consider the confusion they faced.

Among the Jews, the apostles were thought to be the followers of a failed insurrectionist. Gamaliel’s counsel in Acts chapter 5 assumed that Jesus was a rebel against Rome—like Theudas and Judas the Galilean. He believed that the best course of action was to allow Christ’s followers to come to nothing after the death of their leader.

When the church continued to grow and expand, the Jewish leaders resorted to slander and false accusation tailored to different audiences. To hinder the apostle’s efforts among other Jews, they accused them of blasphemy against Moses and God, of hatred of the temple, and contempt of Jewish customs.

Before Gentile audiences, these leaders sought to run the same play on Paul that they ran on Christ: gather a mob, start a riot, and accuse the apostles of sedition and rebellion before the city authorities. In doing so, they twist a truth—that Christ is Lord—into a falsehood that Christians are revolutionary insurrectionists who completely disregard the decrees of Rome.

The Gentiles themselves were no less confused. The message of Jesus and the resurrection was heard as an encouragement to add two more deities to the Roman pantheon. After healing a cripple, Paul and Barnabas were mistaken for Hermes and Zeus and the Apostles were barely able to interrupt the attempted acts of worship. And, as if to illustrate the confusion of the times, immediately after, they were stoned by the same crowd…stirred up by Jewish leaders from Antioch and Iconium.

So how did Paul and the other apostles respond to these cases of mistaken identity? First, they refused to be distracted by it. They clarified their identity without being derailed and hijacked by false accusations.

More than that, the apostles took every opportunity afforded them to deliver their message and advance the kingdom of God. They regarded the confusion of the day as a stepping stone to witness. They refused to be steered by their enemies. False accusations about their attitude to Moses and the law did not keep them from preaching that Gentiles are free from the demands of Torah. Slander about their supposed revolutionary agenda did not keep them from preaching the Lordship of Christ over all men.

We should take a page from the apostolic playbook. Enemies and opportunists abound. But instead of spending all of our time differentiating ourselves from others, we ought to entrust our reputations to God. Our task is to be faithful, whether we are falsely praised or falsely accused. So keep calm and carry on. Christ is Lord.

I’m Joe Rigney

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