Truth Twister

In Acts chapter 17, we see that Paul has entered into the city of Thessalonica. While there, Paul did what he normally did and went to the local synagogue and reasoned with the Jews about Jesus being the actual Messiah (v2). We are told that some of them were persuaded and joined Paul in his work (v4). This snowballed and more started believing. We are told that there were local Greeks that also added to their number. And as you can imagine, the Jewish leaders of this area would have none of this. They were not too happy that Paul was taking (in their eyes) Jewish people away to another religion. The bible actually says that they were jealous of Paul. To combat this they found some questionable characters and started a mob (v5). When the mob couldn’t find Paul, they did the next best thing and took someone named Jason who worked with Paul. They dragged him and some other christians before the authorities and said, “These men who have turned the world upside down have come here also, and Jason has received them, and they are all acting against the decrees of Caesar, saying that there is another king, Jesus.”

It is this part that I want to highlight in learning a principle about the tactics of our enemies. What they charged against Paul was not true. Nowhere in the passage are we told that Paul even mentioned Caesar, let alone saying Jesus was a king. Instead verse 3 says Paul was talking about Jesus being the Christ and why the Messiah had to die the way He did and that He rose again from the dead. The resurrection is what he was talking about. Jesus being the long awaited Christ is what he was talking about. Politics were not even a topic of discussion.

Now to give the benefit of the doubt, Christ is King. He is our Lord. Those who believe in Him submit to His authority over all else. But this does not mean we combat the current regime. Believers also are taught to submit to all governing authorities as long as it does not go against biblical teaching. We are not instructed to overthrow governments or cause civil unrest. See this mob took a true statement (Jesus is King) and twisted it into a narrative that was not true (acting against Caesar). They took the truth and twisted it. They took pieces of true statements and created a false impression. Why? What was the point? Simple; to silence them. Make no mistake, Paul and his followers were not misunderstood. These people were not trying to listen to what Paul was saying and made a mistake of not paying attention. No, they knew the truth, but just didn’t care. What they cared about was trying to stop them. And how they were going to do it was by bending the truth into something it was not. This would discredit them in front of their peers. Whatever it would take to stop Christianity from spreading. Even if that meant telling half-truths.

We need to heed this lesson for ourselves today. Nothing has changed. The enemy is still looking to silence us and will use our own beliefs to do it. He is the father of lies and so it should come as no surprise when he takes something that is true and twists it up into so many knots that we are silenced. The christian is not misunderstood. Our enemies know what we believe. They simply do not like it. And so, the enemy will twist our words to shame us, silence us, discredit us, vilify us and condemn us. Think about this common narrative right now: Christians are homophobic. Is this true? No. Where does this come from? Taking christian doctrine and bending it in a direction that puts us in a bad light. This is how they do it: Do we believe that homosexuality is a sin? Yes. Do we believe all sinners will go to hell? Yes. Aren’t Christians supposed to love our neighbor? Yes. So then how could we possibly be loving of anyone who claims to be a homosexual? See how they warp what we believe? And so the world will use this now to smear us or vilify us to then silence us. True genuine christians will be pressured into thinking that maybe they don’t show love as much as they thought. Doubt will creep in and the loss of confidence will slowly quiet our witness. Or as soon as it is known that you are a christian you are shut down. Your opinions do not matter. You are automatically dismissed because you are so “hateful”. When the actual truth is that showing real love is being honest and truthful with someone. It is not loving to enable someone to live a lie. We can disagree and still love, that's the truth. In fact we disagree because we love our neighbor. Who could say that they love someone if they allow them to go down a path that would be destructive for their soul?

But the world knows this. They don’t care to understand. Be careful not to succumb under the lies that they will tell us about what we believe. Do not buckle under their condemnation. For how they condemn us is based on a lie. This is called slander, not truth. Know your bibles well so that you will be able to spot the lies they spread. Do not submit to anything but the truth. The evil one is out there using our own words against us to silence us. Just as he tried to do with Paul in the city of Thessalonica.