It's Always Something

Scripture: For John the Baptist has come eating no bread and drinking no wine, and you say, ‘He has a demon.’ The Son of Man has come eating and drinking, and you say, ‘Look at him! A glutton and a drunkard, a friend of tax collectors and sinners!’ Luke 7:33-34

Observation: Jesus is pointing out a basic fact - that the Pharisees and leaders rejected both John and himself, giving reasons that actually contradict each other. Something must be wrong with John because he fasts too much and doesn't drink wine ... and something must e wrong with Jesus because he drinks wine and doesn't fast. These judgments do not have anything to do with quantity, but rather they are simply both stating contradictory reasons for rejecting both of these two men.

Clearly, the true reason for rejected both John and Jesus has nothing to do with their diets. It has to do with their message. John and Jesus both have a message that is contradictory to the concepts of the Pharisees, however they cannot find the logical or legal means to attack the message. Therefore, they instead take any characteristic or action of the two men and attack that instead.

Application: This happens all the time professionally ... people who have good ideas rejected because the ideas conflict with the status quo and/or don't originate from the "right" person. However, do I ever do this to people personally? Do I reject people - not their professional ideas, but them as people, or the personal instruction they may pour into my life - simply because I don't like what they have to say or how they say it?

Probably. This is probably most true of people at church who I don't believe are "doing enough". I just had a conversation last night about someone who does not serve in any way at church, and thought to myself about how I didn't value their opinions. This is wrong of me. I need to consider everyone's opinions on the merits of the opinions, weighed against scripture, and independent of my attitude toward the person.

If the Pharisees had done that, they would have accepted Jesus as Messiah based on alignment to scripture. Jesus even points that out in this same chapter - when John's disciples ask Jesus about who he is, Jesus doesn't answer directly, but instead quotes prophecy to show he is Messiah.

And that's the key: I need to judge input from others based on scripture and truth, not on our opinion of the messenger.

Prayer: Lord, this aligns to my issues related to judging others. If I wasn't quick to judge others, I would be more open to correction and teaching and improvement. As I head into a season of massive learning, please do help me in ALL circumstances to be open and correctable by ALL people. Amen.