Acts – a thessalonian man

Acts 17 is one of my favorite passages in scripture. If you’re not careful you can overlook it pretty quickly. Paul and Silas are in the town of Thessalonica and for 3 straight sabbaths they’ve met in the synagogue “explaining and demonstrating that the Christ had to suffer and to rise form the dead”. They were diving into the books of the Old Testament with one purpose – share with the Jewish believers that JESUS was indeed the Christ. It was a hard task and some of them were persuaded by Paul and Silas’ teaching.

But, as is often the case with Paul, some folks got a little upset with his evangelizing and success. They stirred up a hornets nest and next thing you know a full blown riot is breaking out in Thessalonica. Now a man in the community by the name of Jason (which is the greek way of saying Joshua, Yeshua or Jesus) has be
en offering his home to the followers of the Way. The mob races to the Jason’s House in full pursuit of Paul and Silas. When they don’t find the two “trouble-makers” they drag Jason and some of the believers out of the own house and take them to the court. The mob is demanding that the city officials stop this group of people who are changing the status quo throughout the Roman empire.
The charge is the captivating piece of this story. The mob come before the city officials and say “These people who have stirred up trouble throughout the world have come here too and Jason has welcomed them as guests!” Another translation says that they’ve “turned the world upside down!” These followers of Jesus – the followers of the WAY – have been so changed by the presence of Christ living within them that the very foundations of society are being challenged! Wow!

This past week, Joy and I flew to South Florida for the funeral and celebration of the life of her grandfather. It seemed that everywhere we went, folks would ask why we were there and after explaining they, complete strangers, would comment on the life of Papa Cheshire. His influence was felt by all manor of people in his city. During the funeral and viewing, we kept hearing about Papa’s integrity and that he was such a good strong faithful man. That was/is his legacy – a man of faith and integrity. In many ways, Papa was a Thessalonican follower of Jesus – he turned the world upside down!
I hope and pray that one day I will be accused of shaking the foundations of the world. I don’t want to do this in a rebellious, change for change sake, kind of way. I want my encounter and life with Jesus to make the kind of difference in me that others who know me will be drawn to Jesus and they too will want to shake society at it’s core. I want that kind of living epitaph – this guy was one of those guys who upset the world because he loved Jesus so much it changed things. May it be so of you and me!
grace and peace!

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