So when they had come together, they asked him, “Lord, will you at this time restore the kingdom to Israel?” 7 He said to them, “It is not for you to know times or seasons that the Father has fixed by his own authority. 8 But you will receive power when the Holy Spirit has come upon you, and you will be my witnesses in Jerusalem and in all Judea and Samaria, and to the end of the earth. (Acts 1:6-8 ESV)
I was listening to a podcast of a sermon the other day. The preacher was talking about the prejudices of the 1st Century Jewish people towards the Samaritans. He was talking about the Jewish people of that time and their hatred of Samaritans, even of their loathing of the pagan Gentiles. The Samaritans as a race were a mixture, a combination of Jewish, Syrian and other Mid-east nations. The Jewish people considered the Samaritans unclean and generally avoided Samaritans. The prejudice and hatred was so deep seated that if an Israelite were traveling and their journey would have required them to go through Samaria to get to the other side, they would travel completely around Samaria. That might seem strange and antiquated to our “modern” ears, but I submit that it is still a common attitude in our modern era.
How many of us live in a city with pockets of deep poverty, heavy crime and racially mixed neighborhoods? How many times have you avoided driving through that area simply because of fear? Sometimes the concern is justified, yet sometimes, it is not. How many times have you walked to the other side of the street rather then be on the same side as a particular individual or group of people? See, we are not as different as 1st Century Israelites.
For years, when I considered the command of Yeshua in Acts 1 about being his witnesses in Jerusalem, Judea, Samaria, and to the ends of the earth it meant nothing to me beyond the command itself to preach the good news. Yet now, when you factor in the prejudices and fears of the 1st Century Jewish people, then Yeshua’s command to preach and be a witness might easily drive the disciples of that time into shock. Maybe even a big emotional shock. Preach to unclean Samaritans! Even to the heathen and pagan gentiles! Are you kidding me?
Yet, though scripture does not state that fact, it must have been the case. Witness the disciples and apostles unwillingness to obey that command. For months and years, the apostles, even after receiving the immersion of the Holy Spirit (Ruach HaKodesh) seemed unwilling to leave Israel. It took the persecution that erupted after the stoning of Stephen (Acts 8) to force them into obedience.
All this leads me to discuss an important point: Our tendency as followers of Yeshua to interweave and combine modern cultural norms with scriptural standards into our worship, our lives and our even into our interpretation of scripture. Not that it is necessarily bad (after all I am a Messianic Jewish follower of Yeshua), but we then treat the resultant combination as the gospel truth when it really is a combination of scripture, cultural ideas, norms and standards. Sometimes the gospel truth is, in reality, something different from what we believe or practice.
Is Yeshua speaking to us, as He did to His disciples and apostles, to leave our comfort zones and speak to people we consider anathema? Is our adherence to certain standards of walking with the Lord true scriptural standards or is it actually a combination of scriptural and cultural norms? Do we find ourselves unwilling to reach beyond our initial circle of friends to those we don’t know, care about or even loath?
I submit that we can all find ourselves in a place where we are deaf to certain commands of the Lord because we are unwilling to consider the possibility that He would ask us to do something that violates our deep-seated cultural/national standards, fears, prejudices, loathing and hatreds. Because we may have combined scripture with cultural ideas and standards, we then become unwilling to obey.
Yeshua’s command to preach not only to Jerusalem and Judea but also to Samaria and the rest of the gentile world was not only a command to preach the Good News of Yeshua. To the disciples of His century it was a call to leave behind their fears, prejudices, loathing and hatreds. Like the 1st century followers of Yeshua, we need to learn that lesson now, before the L-rd decides that persecution is the only way to force us to obey.
