“Looking Dumb, but Being Smart” || Perception Vs. Reality || Week 5 (FINALE)

It’s the time everyone! Grab your box of tissues and some comfort food. It’s the finale of “Perception vs. Reality”. I know, it’s a sad moment. Out of the three series I’ve now written, this one has been my favorite. This one seemed to have a lot of good “one-liners”, a lot of in-depth scripture analysis, and it came from a unique mindset, but I’m procrastinating. Let’s dive into it. If you haven’t caught up on this series, I suggest you do so so that you can grasp an idea of what’s going on.

We wrap this series up by diving into Isaiah and Acts to talk about what I do best. Today’s message is called: “Looking Dumb, but Being Smart”. Let’s jump right into it.

Join me in Acts 4 as we read verse 13: “The Jewish leaders understood that Peter and John had no special training or education. But they also saw that they weren’t afraid to speak. So the leaders were amazed. They also realized that Peter and John had been with Jesus. “

Peter and John didn’t go to college for preaching nor did they go to seminary. There was no formalized training to make them a leader like the Pharisees. Yet, they were shocked by the ability to speak with fear. They weren’t afraid to talk about the Bible. They weren’t afraid to talk about Jesus. They weren’t afraid of any of it. They knew what they knew and had no fear of what learn from and about Jesus. Jesus taught them, and He taught us, to spread the Gospel to the far reaches of the world. Peter and John were doing this without any fear. I mean this is shortly after Jesus goes back up to heaven in Act 1 and the Holy Spirit coming over them in Act 2. How cool is that? It’s a really go inspiration story for us to go and share without. “But I don’t know what I’m talking about?” Go, learn, dive deep, research, study, and then share. Take him to understand it yourself and the best way you can see that you learned it is by teaching others. “But I don’t speak well?” Go look at Moses and the burning bush. Your excuses are answered. “But I’m not trained in doing this.” Go back to Acts 4:13. Go share the gospel without fear!

Let’s jump back to the Old Testament into probably the best-known prophet, Isaiah. We will be in Isaiah 10 and are reading verses 1 and 2: “Just look at those lawmakers who write evil laws and make life hard for the people. They are not fair to the poor. They take away the rights of the poor and allow people to steal from widows and orphans.”

Isaiah assigns reasons for God’s wrath again: inequities in administering the laws and harsh treatment of those in need. Isaiah is saying God’s wrath is coming back to the Israelites because of the lawmakers not applying the law equally. We see this, I feel, a lot today. We see people picking rules and laws and applying them to some and not applying it to others, or others not being held accountable from the laws that they’ve broken. It’s unfortunate to a major degree to see this happening, but I feel like we’re seeing a possible change in the accountability of how lawmakers and law enforcement enforce the laws. I’m just praying that the changes will be smooth, practical, and applicable to the wide range of people that it would affect.

The lawmakers are treating those that are in dire need of help terribly. We see in verse two that they’re talking about taking the rights away from the poor and steal from widows and orphans. That sounds harsh to me. The poor are already struggling financially, which could mean that they may not have enough food between paychecks or they may not have enough money to pay the rent. They’re already struggling enough as it is, and yet the lawmakers want to stress these people out to. I’ve told people with the pandemic and returning back to work and if the virus doesn’t take me, it’ll be the stress that’ll take me first. Stress doesn’t fix anything nor move anything, it makes a bad matter worse. The poor are struggling…and now they have to deal with unjust lawmakers. The same lawmakers that are stealing from orphans and widows. They’re stealing from a demographic people who’ve already suffered a loss of parents or a spouse and now they’re stealing goods, food, wealth, etc., from them! Ugh.

We’re seeing here that the perceptions of some affect the realities of others. The Jewish leaders perceived that Peter and John had no training, classes, degrees, or other special accommodations to do what they do, but the reality is that there was more to their skill, talent, and gift than just the requirements the law puts together. Jesus provides all that if we dedicated our lives to it. I mean, Peter and John were there with Jesus all three years of his ministry. If any people knew how to talk about the Bible and talk about Jesus is them! They had the experience with the requirements to do the same thing the religious teachers were doing. The reality of what the lawmakers did to the poor, widows, and orphans changes the perception of how the treatment of these demographic groups was doing and changes the reality of how morally corrupt the lawmakers were. We knew a change needed to be made because Isaiah stated that these reasons were why God’s wrath was coming…again. This happened before and history repeated itself. It’s taking the reality of what’s going on now to change the reality of the future. We all have our own perceptions of how this change should take place, but start with you. Then go to your family, your friends, your church, your city, county, state, then the world. Change starts small and it starts with you.

Thank you for joining me for this series. Stay tuned to whatever we have next. Stay blessed!