This is certainly one of the strangest conquests of a land
you will ever see. For six days the
Israelites marched round the city in procession and when they were done retired
to their camp. On the seventh day, they
marched round seven times and then were ordered to give a shout of victory with
the promise that the city was given to them for destruction. The people obeyed and the walls fell
flat. There is no explanation for this
except God did something. The only
things that escaped destruction were the gold and silver which were the Lord's
and were given to the treasury of the Lord and Rahab and whoever else she had
in her house with her. The spies were
sent to her and brought out her family to the camp, she was one of them
now. She is one of the first people of
peace we see in the Bible, and she ends up in the line of both king David and
then, necessarily, Messiah. She was
willing to align herself with God's purpose and plan and was richly rewarded.
In the midst of all His work of healing in Capernaum a
paralyzed man is brought by his friends, let down through the roof, and laid
before Jesus. Can't you just see a grin
on Jesus' face as he looks up to see this man being lowered down? His first words are, “Son, your sins are
forgiven.” He knows this will arouse
questions in the minds of those scribes, experts in the law, who are gathered
there and answers their unspoken objections by proposing a typical rabbinic problem, Which of these is greater than the other? The question was whether it was easier to
heal a man or pronounce forgiveness. Jesus answers His own question by saying I
will prove I can forgive sins by healing the man and commands the man to get
up, pick up the mat on which he had lain, and go home, which he does. All, we are told, marveled in amazement. I would suppose that to mean, even the
scribes. The faith of the friends, which
we are told Jesus observed in their act, was rewarded.
I think we have to take Paul at his word concerning not
knowing Caiphas was high priest. At that
time the office of high priest tended to switch back and forth between Caiphas
and a couple of others and, due to his travels, Paul may not have known who was
high priest. Calling him a whitewashed
wall was a bit over the top nonetheless and certainly offensive. Paul's reply indicates he was genuinely sorry
for his words. He finds his wedge issue
in the resurrection to divide his accusers and it worked like magic. The reality of the resurrection is a dividing
wall between the followers and believers in Jesus and the rest of the world
today. The resurrection is something
that has to be dealt with one way or another.
Great moral teachers and examples aren't necessarily risen from the dead
but that was always the claim of the church, that which caused the rest of the
world, both Jew and Gentile, to either accept or reject Him. It always comes down to faith, are we willing
to go that extra mile and believe that which seems impossible or are we staying
in the boat where it seems safe?
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