The Daily Guide-The Daily Devotional grow. pray. study. from The Resurrection United Methodist Church in Leawood, Kansas, United States for Thursday, 1 October 2015 - "One belief Paul, the former Pharisee, carried with him"
Daily Scripture: Acts 23:6 But knowing that one part of the Sanhedrin consisted of Tz’dukim and the other of P’rushim, Sha’ul shouted, “Brothers, I myself am a Parush and the son of P’rushim; and it is concerning the hope of the resurrection of the dead that I am being tried!” 7 When he said this, an argument arose between the P’rushim and the Tz’dukim, and the crowd was divided. 8 For the Tz’dukim deny the resurrection and the existence of angels and spirits; whereas the P’rushim acknowledge both. 9 So there was a great uproar, with some of the Torah-teachers who were on the side of the P’rushim standing up and joining in — “We don’t find anything wrong with this man; and if a spirit or an angel spoke to him, what of it?” 10 The dispute became so violent that the commander, fearing that Sha’ul would be torn apart by them, ordered the soldiers to go down, take him by force and bring him back into the barracks.
Acts 24:14 “But this I do admit to you: I worship the God of our fathers[Acts 24:14 Exodus 3:15] in accordance with the Way (which they call a sect). I continue to believe everything that accords with the Torah and everything written in the Prophets. 15 And I continue to have a hope in God — which they too accept — that there will be a resurrection of both the righteous and the unrighteous. 16 Indeed, it is because of this that I make a point of always having a clear conscience in the sight of both God and man.
17 “After an absence of several years, I came to Yerushalayim to bring a charitable gift to my nation and to offer sacrifices. 18 It was in connection with the latter that they found me in the Temple. I had been ceremonially purified, I was not with a crowd, and I was not causing a disturbance. 19 But some Jews from the province of Asia — they ought to be here before you to make a charge if they have anything against me! 20 Or else, let these men themselves say what crime they found me guilty of when I stood in front of the Sanhedrin, 21 other than this one thing which I shouted out when I was standing among them: ‘I am on trial before you today because I believe in the resurrection of the dead!’”
Reflection Questions:
Even before he met Christ, Paul (like most Pharisees) believed in the resurrection of the dead (based on passages like Daniel 12:1-3 and Isaiah 26:19). Scholar Craig Keener wrote, “The hope of the resurrection was central to Judaism, and many martyrs had died staking their hope on it. Paul’s views did not violate any central tenets of Pharisaism; he was now a ‘Pharisee plus,’ who taught that the resurrection had already been inaugurated in Jesus.” For Paul, Jesus grounded that faith in history and made it real.- Paul’s appeal to the common ground he shared with the Pharisees put them in an awkward position. They agreed with him in principle (and disagreed with the Sadducees) that there would be a resurrection from the dead. But they did not want to agree with Paul that Jesus had already risen from the dead. In what ways does the risen Jesus make an otherwise abstract idea real for you?
- The Jewish religious leaders did not agree on which points were key to their faith. Keener found that “Pharisees taught that Sadducees had no part in the world to come, because they did not believe in life after death.” How did their internal divisions interfere with their ability to effectively pursue even goals they might have agreed on? How can a “common ground” statement like the Apostles’ Creed help us avoid similar pitfalls today?
O Lord, your servant John Wesley asked, “If we cannot think alike, may we not love alike?” Give me a heart that loves all your children, when we agree and even when we disagree. Amen.
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