Three things were on the minds of everyone I spoke to today: Firstly, the global ramifications of the Russian invasion of Ukraine, secondly, the ongoing effects and restrictions due to Covid, and thirdly, the forced removal of the Covid mandate protesters from the New Zealand parliament grounds.
But good stories broke through too. One lady beamed over the coming marriage of her granddaughter, and one man proudly told me that the name tattooed on his cheek was that of his son.
Everyone is affected by that which moves along around them; such is life.
Rome was the superpower of Jesus’ day. All of the occupied nation-states under Rome needn’t have bothered scanning the horizon for a deliverer, no one was coming.
Though the Jews were waiting for a deliverer from within, they automatically rejected men like Jesus as any possible Messiah. Jesus failed to live up to their image of a great and powerful Warrior-King, and ‘their Messiah’ would start by dealing with the Romans and finish by restoring Israel to its former glory.
Instead, they encountered a Galilean carpenter who not only paid Roman taxes but also paid little attention to the politics of the day. Jesus expressed the limits of his political aspirations to Pilate with these few words: “My kingdom is not of this world” (John 18:36).
Christians are wise to know what is going on around them. Jesus warned his hearers to prepare for the coming destruction of Jerusalem (Matthew 24), and the message of the Book of Revelation pertained to events that were of immediate concern to its readers.
But as much as Christians may see wisdom in understanding the events of the day, they must take care not to be drawn into them at the expense of the church’s progress. The church suffers when Christians are more concerned about world affairs than church affairs. We do better when we focus on who is going into heaven over who is going into the office.
As life moves along…set your mind on things above!
John Staiger
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