Same story—Different place and time, different characters, but the same story. Nearly every drama written or watched on a stage includes good versus evil.  We find our inner selves cheering for the “good guy” and booing the “bad, obnoxious villain” who is the tormenter.  Right?!

It’s been the same story since creation when Adam and Eve made a choice.  They were placed in a perfect garden that gave them all they needed. They were given specific guidance for avoiding what was bad for them.  God who is Good, the only One who is Good loved them, wanted to walk with them in the cool of the evening in relationship with them.  But all too soon, they chose to fall for evil’s distraction and deception from what is good that led them away from all that is Good.  They both chose to follow evil. Because of their fall, we all fall and are fallen.

However, we have been given a Way out of this fallen condition.  We have been given a Way to combat and overcome evil with Good.  This Way is Jesus who defeated evil once and for all.  Ah, but evil does not give up easily.  Even though the war has already been won by Jesus the Victor; evil skirmishes with us daily with his old tricks of distraction, deception, with intent to destroy our relationship with God who is Good. 

We learn from Paul, and others committed to The Way, that “you can’t keep a good man down” who follows Good and avoids Evil no matter what is done to them as they preach Jesus.  We also learn that it is the love of God at the core of their being that drives every thought, word, and action.

How very much like Jesus they are becoming!  Jesus was the one sent to save the world and redeem us from all our sins by giving himself, who knew no sin, to be sin for us and take on our punishment for sins.  No one, not His eyewitnesses, not those who will continue to do His work in Jesus name, could provide this redemption—only Jesus.  Jesus is also the only Way to overcome evil and help us leave it for Good.  Jesus is the Way, Truth, and Life—all that is Good. 

“For God so loved the world that he gave his one and only Son, that whoever believes in him shall not perish but have eternal life. For God did not send his Son into the world to condemn the world, but to save the world through him.” John 3:16-17

Jesus was driven by Love.  This love of God, unlike the love the world conjures, mocks and is too fickle to imitate, becomes the core of our being when we decide to believe, repent, and commit to follow Jesus as we passionately pursue God—who is Good.

 Acts 21, The Message

Paul Under Arrest

^27-29 When the seven days of their purification were nearly up, some Jews from around Ephesus spotted him in the Temple. At once they turned the place upside-down. They grabbed Paul and started yelling at the top of their lungs, “Help! You Israelites, help! This is the man who is going all over the world telling lies against us and our religion and this place. He’s even brought Greeks in here and defiled this holy place.” (What had happened was that they had seen Paul and Trophimus, the Ephesian Greek, walking together in the city and had just assumed that he had also taken him to the Temple and shown him around.)

³⁰ Soon the whole city was in an uproar, people running from everywhere to the Temple to get in on the action. They grabbed Paul, dragged him outside, and locked the Temple gates so he couldn’t get back in and gain sanctuary.

^31-32 As they were trying to kill him, word came to the captain of the guard, “A riot! The whole city’s boiling over!” He acted swiftly. His soldiers and centurions ran to the scene at once. As soon as the mob saw the captain and his soldiers, they quit beating Paul.

^33-36 The captain came up and put Paul under arrest. He first ordered him handcuffed, and then asked who he was and what he had done. All he got from the crowd were shouts, one yelling this, another that. It was impossible to tell one word from another in the mob hysteria, so the captain ordered Paul taken to the military barracks. But when they got to the Temple steps, the mob became so violent that the soldiers had to carry Paul. As they carried him away, the crowd followed, shouting, “Kill him! Kill him!”

^37-38 When they got to the barracks and were about to go in, Paul said to the captain, “Can I say something to you?”

He answered, “Oh, I didn’t know you spoke Greek. I thought you were the Egyptian who not long ago started a riot here, and then hid out in the desert with his four thousand thugs.”

³⁹ Paul said, “No, I’m a Jew, born in Tarsus. And I’m a citizen still of that influential city. I have a simple request: Let me speak to the crowd.”

Paul Tells His Story

⁴⁰ Standing on the barracks steps, Paul turned and held his arms up. A hush fell over the crowd as Paul began to speak. He spoke in Hebrew.

WHAT DO WE LEARN—HOW DO WE RESPOND?

We stopped in mid-action at the high peak of the story!  Good versus evil is the storyline—very similar to what Jesus had to deal with before being crucified!  What did Paul say next?  Will this put a halt to the spreading of the Good News?

We will study that tomorrow!

We see readily that the apostles who want to be like Jesus in every way, will indeed, just as Jesus said, suffer for being known as His. Jesus warned his disciples early on that suffering will happen before He comes back—

“Watch out that no one deceives you. For many will come in my name, claiming, ‘I am the Messiah,’ and will deceive many. You will hear of wars and rumors of wars, but see to it that you are not alarmed. Such things must happen, but the end is still to come. Nation will rise against nation, and kingdom against kingdom. There will be famines and earthquakes in various places. All these are the beginning of birth pains.”

“Then you will be handed over to be persecuted and put to death, and you will be hated by all nations because of me. At that time many will turn away from the faith and will betray and hate each other, and many false prophets will appear and deceive many people. Because of the increase of wickedness, the love of most will grow cold, but the one who stands firm to the end will be saved. And this gospel of the kingdom will be preached in the whole world as a testimony to all nations, and then the end will come.” –Jesus, Matthew 24:4-14, NIV

 “I have told you these things, so that in me you may have peace. In this world you will have trouble. But take heart! I have overcome the world.”—Jesus, John 16:33

Paul, guided by God’s Holy Spirit, knew what he was getting into when he said yes to Jesus.  He will continue to trust and obey—for there’s no other way for Paul.  Paul writes this declaration of commitment of Christ in him to the churches—

“I want to know Christ—yes, to know the power of his resurrection and participation in his sufferings, becoming like him in his death, ¹¹ and so, somehow, attaining to the resurrection from the dead.” Paul, Philippians 3:10-11, NIV

So, as we live with Christ in us, for that is the secret to living well and good, (Colossians 1:27); we must pause to pray how we will respond to daily “offenses” and the unfair deeds done in this life.  How can we be more like Jesus in every way?  Pursue the Good and flee from evil.  Pursue God.  Trust God.  Listen to His Holy Spirit’s voice above all other voices clamoring for our attention.  Paul proclaims the Way to do this—

“So here’s what I want you to do, God helping you: Take your everyday, ordinary life—your sleeping, eating, going-to-work, and walking-around life—and place it before God as an offering. Embracing what God does for you is the best thing you can do for him. Don’t become so well-adjusted to your culture that you fit into it without even thinking. Instead, fix your attention on God. You’ll be changed from the inside out. Readily recognize what he wants from you, and quickly respond to it. Unlike the culture around you, always dragging you down to its level of immaturity, God brings the best out of you, develops well-formed maturity in you.” Romans 12:1-2, MSG

God is Good.  Trust Him.

Lord,

It’s not so much what is happening to Paul but who happened in Paul that helps him to respond to beatings and jailtime with joy, giving you the glory at all times!  We learn from Your teachings, dear Jesus, and we now learn for all who follow that you are Good and you help us in all the details of our lives as we follow you.  Thank you, thank you, thank you!  Keep our attention on you all day long!

In Jesus Name,  Amen