Abimelech conspires to make himself ruler over Israel. The lust for power is too strong in some
people and that lust will cause you to do many things to consolidate your
power. We can be greedy about many
things, not just money. Abimelech wanted
to be ruler and that desire made him willing to kill seventy of his brothers in
order to stand alone without rival claimants to the leadership. How, in the first place, did he come to
believe that this position was hereditary?
Such had not been so in Israel with judges, but he somehow believed that
because his father Gideon/Jerubbaal had been ruler he as his son should take on
that mantle. Jotham, his brother, hid
himself from the murderous rampage and speaks a prophetic word against
Abimelech and the men of Shechem who aided and abetted him.
John says that this first sign of water into wine at the
wedding feast manifested Jesus' glory and as a result the disciples believed in
Him. It was essentially a private sign,
it seems only the disciples and the servants knew what had happened. The servant who was to draw from the water
jar he had filled with water had to have been a bit concerned about what looked
like a practical joke. He knew what had
gone into the jar, water, because he had filled it, how surprised he must have
been when the master of the feast made his proclamation! Amazing the difference between the two men,
Jesus and Abimelech.
What could the council do?
The man who had been lame from birth stood there with John and Peter,
obviously healed, so even though they noted that the two apostles were
uneducated nobodies they had done something no one else had been able to
do. Does it make sense to prohibit them
from speaking in the Name of Jesus, the Name by which the man had been
healed? It is all they can think of but
the two men no longer fear them, they fear the One who has overcome death and
in whose Name this healing was done. Which
is more powerful, the council who had never healed the man or Jesus? We need to see that power in order to
overcome our fears of men and to lose our will to power.
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