Matthew 11:12, an overlooked verse in understanding the Master’s powerful personality, also calls Christians to imitate him. Called the Lion of Judah for a reason, he’s no Hollywood cat, representing a celluloid industry of myth and illusion, throwing off a couple harmless growls.
See him instead as a snarling, fang-exposed, claws-extended champion of God’s Truth against all satanic falsehoods. See him devouring entire societies and shredding entire cultures and nations as they defy the Living God. His people must be as forceful standing with him against everything in society that defies him, even when the one opposing him lives in our family or friendship circle. For example, a lady considered Jesus such a “sweet man” he would find some way to exonerate Judas. Her emotional wish collides with Christ’s rational, immutable condemnation of Judas Mark 14:20-21. The word translated as forceful in the NIV is also translated as violent in other versions. The Greek word occurs seven times in the Gospels, six as something violent, one as something pressing, as in pressing on something. Equivalent English words are strong, forceful, tough, potent, virile, vigorous. In a sense, translating it as violent is perfect—if we understand the spiritual context. Particularly if we see it as individuals appearing in a culture intending to move people and nations from one spiritual persuasion to another. Then you have a collision of two forces, one imbedded, the other even more potently original. Very much as Paul understood his change on the Damascus Road. He saw it, I Corinthians 25:8, as an abnormal birth—extromati, from which we get our word trauma—as equal to abortion. So...appropriately...something more VIOLENT than Saul’s obsessive HATRED of Christians changed him from one spiritual state to another Acts 9:1-9. Saul’s violence against Jesus demanded a greater, not an equivalent, violence from Jesus to prove a greater force than UNBELIEF existed. (Skeptics, take note.) All of that introduced by a LIGHT greater than the noonday Syrian sun that opened Saul’s mind as it closed his eyes. End Part I
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