God is still Jealous about His Name

Acts 12:19-25

Living all my life in a Republic with a Constitution and a Bill of Rights that gives all citizens freedom to live and to go and do whatever and to be whatever, is vastly different than what the apostle Peter is living under.  King Herod is the law, and king’s laws can change on the king’s desires and emotions.  But kings, like all politicians, want to be popular and Herod found that by killing the leadership of these who followed Christ put him in good standing with the religious Jews, so he ordered James the brother of John to be killed with the sword.  Seeing that it pleased the Jews to kill James, he then had Peter arrested and was going to execute him the next morning. 

But God, sent an angel to remove Peter who is well guarded, sleeping chained to two guards and with guards at the door of his cell, the impossible escape for man, but with God no big deal.  If you have the habit of placing yourself in the story, you may not choose to be one of those guards.  They had no hearing, no review board, when Peter could not be found, Herod examined the sentries and ordered that they should be put to death.

As an American, we can’t understand giving that authority to one man, any man, but if we had lived in Tyre and Sidon and found that Herod was angry with our country it would seem wise to try to appease him in that they depended on the king’s country for food.  People have not changed much over time, it matters not who is in charge when you have grown to be dependent on a person, a group, or a nation for your daily supply of energy or food, so the people ask for an audience with Herod.  We have no insight into what the group who came from Tyre and Sidon had planned but it took little imagination to see that the plan was to build the ego of this king who had the power of life and death.

As king Herod was delivering oration while dressed in his robes and seated on his throne, this is what took place.  “And the people were shouting, “The voice of a god, and not of a man!”  (Acts 12:22 ESV)  Now Herod, a man with all the power of life and death at his command, must have been absent when the priest were teaching on Deuteronomy 6:13-15,  ^“It is the Lord your God you shall fear. Him you shall serve and by his name you shall swear. ¹⁴ You shall not go after other gods, the gods of the peoples who are around you— ¹⁵ for the Lord your God in your midst is a jealous God— lest the anger of the Lord your God be kindled against you, and he destroy you from off the face of the earth.”  Our boy Herod liked what they were saying and had he given thought to the Scripture above the outcome might have been different, but this is Dr. Luke’s account; “Immediately an angel of the Lord struck him down, because he did not give God the glory, and he was eaten by worms and breathed his last.  But the word of God increased and multiplied.  And Barnabas and Saul returned from Jerusalem when they had completed their service, bringing with them John, whose other name was Mark.

(Acts 12:23-25 ESV)  Always remember, “But God!”

From the Back Porch,

Bob Rice