Equally
Why do you do these things? We are also men of like passions with you Acts 14:15
Like Passions – The gospel message is very clear. We are all the same.
We don’t seem to have much trouble recognizing equality when it comes to our standing before God. We all admit we’re sinners. None of us is perfect. We all need forgiveness. But that’s not the end of the gospel message. Even after redemption, we are still all the same.
Paul and Barnabas healed a man in Lystra. The healing was spectacular. It caused a city-wide commotion. Men in Lystra considered this miracle a sign of the gods and they wanted to worship Paul and Barnabas. Paul intervenes with this amazing statement. “We are men of like passions.” The Greek word is homoiopathes. In Greek, this word means, “common desires, feelings and emotions.” Just think about this. Paul, the chosen emissary of Christ to the Gentile world, Saint Paul, held up by the Christian world as a great example of service to Jesus, says, “I am just like you. I have the same desires, feelings and emotions.” That’s the icon Paul telling these men of Lystra that he struggles with temptations for power, lust and control. That’s the icon Paul saying that he fights against depression, discouragement and anxiety. That’s the icon Paul proclaiming that he feels lonely, exhausted, rejected. Just like me. Just like you. His life is not somehow elevated about the human condition. He is a man, just like all other men.
Have you truly understood what this means? It means that Paul does not become a super-spiritual human being when he surrenders to Christ. It means that Paul is who he is because Jesus works through him. And that means that I can be like Paul. What one man can do, another man can do. That’s why Paul is able to say, “Be imitators of me, as I am an imitator of Christ.” It’s not by my strength or cunning or belief. I am just like those men of Lystra. I have all the same problems that they had. The same problems that Paul had.
“I can do all things through Jesus Christ my Lord” should perhaps be understood like this: “All the things that I can do are done through me by Jesus Christ my Lord.”
Are you living in Lystra, a place where spiritual sensitivity is mixed confusion? Then be like Paul, a man just like you and me. Let Jesus shine through you. That’s the only way.
I came to this older TW looking to see if Skip addressed any verses from Acts 14. I recently read it having the trinity issue in my thinking. When I saw from this passage how easily the Greeks believe the god-man concept, I wondered why Paul did not consider this as a golden opportunity so redirect his audience’s eager worship of him to the ‘real god man” -Yeshua. If Paul really wanted to teach the Gentiles that Jesus was God, wouldn’t this have been a great place to say so right out? His audience was already believing in such a possibility. But he does not say anything close to it. Acts contains so many places where Paul teaches and then says things like ….. I say this so that you may know that “Yeshua is……” (and he could write “God” there – but he does not – he says “Messiah.” Did anyone notice this passage in Acts 14 in the light of trinity support or lack thereof?
A profound observation, Jeni.
Profound.