Devotional Guide
For the week of March 20, 2005
THE PASSION OF CHRIST
Anti-sin, not anti-Semitic
To Read: 1 Corinthians 1-3
To Know:
"For I am not ashamed of the gospel: it is the power of God for salvation to
every one who has faith, to the Jew first and also to the Greek. For in it
the righteousness of God is revealed through faith for faith; as it is
written, "He who through faith is righteous shall live." (Rm. 1:16,17)
Mel Gibson's "The Passion of the Christ" was fiercely opposed. Anti-Semitism
and gratuitous violence were two charges against him. Every Christian winces
at the thought that proclaiming Christ has been the excuse some needed to
hate Jewish people. Except for Luke, Jews wrote the gospels. Every
thoughtful Christian knows that Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John could not have
been anti-Semites. The biblical account of Jesus' arrest, trial, and
execution tells how Jews and Gentiles, because they were sinners, were one
in their hatred for Jesus Christ. Luke wrote, "The chief priests and the
scribes stood by, vehemently accusing him. And Herod with his soldiers
treated him with contempt and mocked him; then, arraying him in gorgeous
apparel, he sent him back to Pilate. And Herod and Pilate became friends
with each other that very day, for before this they had been at enmity with
each other." (23:10-12) The gospel is not anti-Semitic; it is anti-sin.
Gibson chose not to subtitle the words that the crowd hurled into the teeth
of God as Pilate tried to wash the blood of Jesus off his hands. They cried
out, "His blood be on us and on our children!" (Matt. 27:25) The high priest
and the Jewish Sanhedrin, representatives of God, incited the people of God
to crucify the Son of God, by believing that it was the will of God. Matthew
left us the record that the people called down the curse of God upon their
heads and the heads of their children. The crowd was not doing something
Jewish; they were doing something sinful.
To Ask:
Father, protect Jewish people from those that twist the gospel to appear to
be anti-Semitic.
03215$-03215
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