The Green-eyed Enemy

Introduction

There were a couple different angles that this message could have taken. I could have dealt with turning the world upside down, I could have dealt with apologetics because Paul reasons with the people or I could have done study on the accusations made against Paul. All of these things will make it into the message somehow, but Luke reveals what he is truly talking about in this text because he just can’t seem to stop talking about it. In vs 1 we are told that Paul goes to the synagogue just like normal, then in vs 5 we see the Jews conspiring against Paul and persecuting them. but even when Paul goes to Berea, these specific Jews just can’t seem to stay out of the narrative. This entire passage is consumed with these Jews and we are left wondering What is wrong with these people?

You ever have a Karen come up to you and treat you like trash just out of the blue. Working fast food this was a daily occurence. I remember one time that I had a guest who wanted to order a regular chicken sandwich combo, but put the grilled chicken on it. You see what he was trying to do was get the grilled chicken sandwich combo for the cheaper price of the regular chicken sandwich combo. The chicken is the most expensive part of that meal so I explained that I could ring up the grilled sandwich and change the bun and toppings if he wanted. Well, he began to scream and yell at me because he wanted the cheaper price. Sometimes when you work in the food industry you see the worst of American society because everyone thinks they are entitled to something. But you are left wondering What is wrong with these people?

Why did these Jews go out of their way to cause problems for Paul? The simple answer is that they were jealous of Paul. Many of the problems that occur in the church pop up because of jealousy. So and so got to do something and I never go to. I am never considered to do this thing in the church. We grumble and complain, but never stop to ask ourselves why. Just like that CFA guest, we are often being unreasonable. We don’t consider why certain decisions were made and we don’t extend charity to just disagree with someone. This morning we are going to focus on the jealousy of the Jews.

Their jealousy is motivated by envy vs 5

In vs 1-4, Paul enters a new city: Thessalonica which was the capital of the second district of Macedonia. It was a major city and an influential city. They were officially a free city on really good terms with Rome. There was even a temple here to the worship of the Emperor. Paul and Silas enter the city and they do what they always do, they go to the Jews in the synagogue first.

For about three weeks, Paul reasons with them and presents the gospel. I think sometimes we give up on witnessing too easily. If someone disagrees with us we just move on. While that may be God’s will some of the time, it isn’t always the right course to take. Paul sits here and reasons with these people. The word reason comes from a word meaning to dialogue or debate. Debating isn’t good for normal everyday conversation but it has its place. Macedonia is very heavily Greek cultured and places and emphasis on logic.

Vs 3 shows us the logical pattern of Paul’s argument. If you took logic or Geometry, you might be familiar with what is called a syllogism. A syllogism has two premises or statements of fact and one conclusion based on those two facts. If both of those premises are true, then the conclusion must also be true. If either premise is wrong, the conclusion may not be true. Here is Paul’s syllogism:

Messiah must suffer for the sins of the people

Messiah must rise again from the dead

Jesus suffered and rose again from the dead

Therefore Jesus is Messiah

From passages like this we see that it is appropriate to reason with people about Jesus. I think of 1 Peter 3:15 “But sanctify the Lord God in your hearts: and be ready always to give an answer to every man that asketh you a reason of the hope that is in you with meekness and fear:” Not all of us are capable of giving such a response and reasoning with the lost, but we can learn to be better at it. Notice Paul takes them to scriptures. It wasn’t just merely reasoning. This is key because the authority doesn’t come from us, but also Paul grounded his argument in a common authority. Jews held to the bible so there was no need to establish the authority of scripture, but in our postmodern era, sometimes we must first establish that the bible is true and God’s word before we can claim that what is says is true.

Paul’s reasoning is not without effect. Vs 4 some of the Jews believed and continued with Paul, but a greater number of Greeks believed and important women.

Vs 5 is our main point here. The Jews seeing that so many Greeks believed are moved with envy. We often distinguish between jealousy and envy by saying that jealousy is wanting what someone else has but envy is trying to make sure they don’t have it. I don’t just want you not to have this opportunity, but I am going to get it taken away from you. The Greek word for the two is the same; so the only way we can distinguish is context, but in this chapter we do not see just some Jews sitting in a corner complaining. They actively are trying to hurt and take away the success that Paul and Silas have had.

I have known church splits to occur over just this situation. People who felt like they should be in authority lead a group of people out of the church with them because they were passed over or because they want their opinion to be the one that everyone follows. Jealousy can harm even the closest of friendships and we must be aware of it popping up its Green eyed head in church and our lives.

Their jealousy seeks to harm the messengers vs 5

The envy of the Jews motivated them to conspire to harm Paul and Silas.

Jealousy often leads people to slink around in the background, gossiping, complaining and trying to stir up trouble.

They lobby others to their side

jealous people are not content to just feel the way they do. They need to justify their feelings by convincing others to follow them and listen to them. These Jews get a core group of malcontents to help stir up everyone else. Lewd fellows of the baser sort- literally this phrase speaks of men who just stand around in the marketplace with nothing to do. They are low life’s and can be paid to cause problems. Most of the time we don’t go pay someone money to get them on our side, but we might go out of our way to befriend them so they will be swayed by our opinions.

I think of all these online marketing schemes that ladies get into. We have some friends on facebook who will out of the blue just start writing us one day, but by the end of the conversation it is an invitation to their pyramid scheme that they are involved in. They weren’t interested in us, they just wanted to use their friendship capital to use us. This is wrong and when it comes to stirring up trouble it is often the way people begin to act.

Others often get caught in the cross-fire

These Jews can’t find Paul and Silas so they take Jason his host and some of the other brethren and arrest them. Jason and his friends were not the primary target, but the Jews were doing everything they could to shut down Paul and Silas. When people are struggling with jealousy, they will often hurt innocent by-standers in the process. Jealousy often leads to bitterness. Imagine being jealous of someone so you can’t stop talking bad about them. You come across someone who you feel needs to know what you know about that person and so you spue. Your bitterness has just contaminated someone else’s heart. You have hurt an innocent bystander.

They twist the truth

Three accusations are leveled against Jason and his friends:

a. turn the world upside down- they are accused of creating chaos and distrusting things. There is truth here because sometimes when you choose to do whats right it upsets those who are doing wrong. But the person doing right is not really the problem here.

b. hospitality to a false teacher- Jason is accused of receiving Paul and Silas. The implication is that they had received a “false teacher” into their house. This is a half-truth. Jason had taken them in, but Paul and Silas were not the false teacher’s the Jews are making them out to be.

c. promoting allegiance to another king- this is again another half truth. Paul came preaching the Kingdom of God. This is a major theme in the book of Acts. It is the topic of Jesus last words on earth Acts 1:3 “To whom also he shewed himself alive after his passion by many infallible proofs, being seen of them forty days, and speaking of the things pertaining to the kingdom of God:” It was the message of Philip Acts 8:12 “But when they believed Philip preaching the things concerning the kingdom of God, and the name of Jesus Christ, they were baptized, both men and women.” It was the message of Paul in Acts 20:25 “And now, behold, I know that ye all, among whom I have gone preaching the kingdom of God, shall see my face no more.” and it is how the book ends in Acts 28:31 “Preaching the kingdom of God, and teaching those things which concern the Lord Jesus Christ, with all confidence, no man forbidding him.” It would be easy for them to jump to this conclusion that Paul was preaching allegiance to another king and thus teaching rebellion against Rome. But this is not the whole truth. Consider Peters words in 1 Peter 2:17 “Honor all men. Love the brotherhood. Fear God. Honor the king.”

Many times we allow ourselves to believe half truths or lies and it turns us against other believers. So many problems have been caused by people who only know half of a story and so they spread disinformation. Our response to other believers should be one of love and according to

1 Cor 13:5-7 “Doth not behave itself unseemly, seeketh not her own, is not easily provoked, thinketh no evil; Rejoiceth not in iniquity, but rejoiceth in the truth; Beareth all things, believeth all things, hopeth all things, endureth all things.”

Being so patriotic to Rome, this message was a great threat to them and stirred up the people. The require bail money of Jason and then let them go. The believers immediately send Paul and Silas away to safety in vs 10.

Their jealousy pursues the messengers at great distance vs 13

The next point comes from next weeks passage so we are just going to dip into one point. These Jews were not satisfied with causing problems in Thessalonica, they made it their personal vendetta to chase them down everywhere and cause problems. They sought to poison the well. These two cites are about 45 miles apart. That isn’t horribly far, but it is a considerable inconvenience to go out of your way to go here. This means these people stopped working for the day, paid for transportation, sat in the heat on the road and spent atleast half a day getting there.

Jealousy often causes us to stop thinking and just become consumed by our emotions. We will go out of our way to hurt those we are jealous of. Sometimes we will sit there and think who else needs to know this piece of dirt that I dug up. We justify it in the name of protecting others, but that is not really what we are doing. We will go out of our way to continue hurting them.

Jealousy caused these Jews to do a lot of crazy things. It did damage to the opportunities that Paul and Silas had in these cities, but more than that it did damage to themselves.

They were blinded by their envy to the gospel.

They expended their energy to persecute innocent people.

They were consumed by it so they couldn’t think of anything else.

Other more important things often fall by the wayside when we become consumed with these things.

Conclusion

Jealousy can be a good thing in a committed relationship when it causes you to fight for that relationship. After all God is jealous, but what we are really talking about here is a jealous envy of other people. The solution to this problem is to have a more biblical understanding of love and forbearance.

Love puts up with people’s problems.

Love doesn’t keep track of wrongs.

Love believes the best about people. They are innocent until proven guilty.

Love values truth and not just half-truths.

Forbearance is merely just love that causes us to put up with other people.

Consider these selected lines from Amy Carmichael’s poem If:

If I can write an unkind letter, speak an unkind work, think an unkind thought without grief and shame, then I know nothing of Calvary love.

if  I belittle those whom I am called to serve, talk of their weak points in contrast perhaps with what I  think of as my strong points;  if I adopt a superior attitude, forgetting “who made thee to   differ? and what hast thou that  thou hast not received?” then I know nothing of Calvary love.”

If I can easily discuss the shortcomings and the sins of any; if I can speak in a casual way even of a child’s misdoings, then I know nothing of Calvary love.

If I deal with wrong for any other reason than that implied in the words, “FROM HIS RIGHT HAND WENT A FIERY LAW FOR THEM. YEA, HE LOVED THE PEOPLE”; if I can rebuke without a pang, then I know nothing of Calvary love.

If I cast up a confessed, repented, and forsaken sin against another, and allow my remembrance of that sin to color my thinking and feed my suspicions, then I know nothing of Calvary love.

If I cannot keep silence over a disappointing soul (unless for the sake of that soul’s good or for the good of others it be necessary to speak), then I know nothing of Calvary love.

For a cup brimful of sweet water cannot spill even one drop of bitter water, however suddenly jolted.”

Heads Bowed and Eyes closed this morning. I know that this Green-eyed monster pops its head up in my life. I have chaffed when others got their way and I didn’t or when I am ignored and others are focused on. I have not been loving in my response and just like these Jews jealousy seeks to destroy my life. If you look into your heart and you see jealousy and bitterness toward another believer would you raise your hand this morning saying Pastor this is me and I don’t want this in my life.

We are blessed not to have any major issues in this church, but I know there are people who have bitterness toward others in the church. You might think that it doesn’t matter, but any issue that you cannot move past, any issue that keeps coming up in your mind is one that needs to be dealt with. You have two options:

Forbearance if you can get over it.

Loving confrontation if you can’t.

Lets all stand, heads bowed and eyes closed. As the piano plays lets come forward and confess our sin to God, but if you need to make things right with another brother grab them and take them to another room.