The Biblical text for this blog comes from Acts chapters 3 and 4. This section of text starts off just after Peter gave his dramatic sermon after receiving the Holy Spirit, right at the start of the early church. As Peter and John are walking around Jerusalem (I imagine feeling pretty confident in their new gift), they come into contact with a lame beggar outside the gate to the temple. Although this does not seem uncommon for someone who is familiar with the Bible and the works of Christ, the people of Jerusalem at the time are astounded by these works done by Peter and John. Peter then goes on to deliver a great sermon at Solomon's Portico.
Fast forward to chapter 4 and Peter and John are standing before the religious leaders in Jerusalem after they were arrested for their preaching. The leaders know Peter and John have not committed a crime, but yet they try and find a way of shutting down the ministry of these apostles.
While going through this passage in Acts class with Dr. Randy Holm this year, he informed us of a word he made up to describe the actions of these religious leaders. He decided to call this word pistisphobia (if you understand Koine Greek, you'll know that this word, if it were a word, would mean the fear of faith). They are scared of the faith of Peter and John because they bring a new hope found in only in Jesus Christ.
To have hope is to desire something that is coming that is coming that will make a present situation better that it already is.
This hope scared the religious leaders of the time. Peter and John were not coming to say that their religious practices were not good enough, but rather that there is something even better than their Judaic law for people who accept Jesus as the Messiah.
This principle is same for Christians today as it was back then. We are supposed to be living with the hope of Christ's resurrection because that is the basis for all our beliefs. Yet, too often (myself included), we live as if this world were good enough. To live in a way that lives out Christ's living hope, we cannot get satisfied with our present living conditions. We always have to be looking forward, not only to heaven, but to every day that we can be walking closer with Christ. Living in hope requires a constant effort to better ourselves as an imitation of Jesus Christ.
People all over the place are looking for hope. We live in a world is filled with catastrophe and disaster, and it can at times seem like humanity is going to hell in a hand basket. This is where Christians are supposed to be different. We are supposed to be able to see the hope in the hopeless. This is what the world is looking for. They are not looking for people who scold them every time they do something wrong, but rather they need to see what is different about Christians.
Again, I am reminded of a story told by Dr. Holm. He had a relative named Harvey who was always being scolded by another relative (I can't remember exactly who) about how he wasn't a Christian and how he was going to hell. This was an ongoing criticism that Harvey received and one day he finally got fed up with all of this religious banter. He responded to this relative in haste, saying, "Give me a reason to hope, and then I might listen to you!"
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