Observation: When the Jewish officials united and charged Paul with a crime, he never even needed to defend himself because the Roman governor Gallio refused to hear the matter. In his declaration, he says that since the matter is not about actual rules of law, but about the Jew's own issues, then there is no crime to consider.
The very next thing that happens is that the Jews attack their synagogue leader Sosthenes. They do this opening, in public, and in fact in front of the legal authorities. Again, Gallio does nothing, because the matter is a Jewish matter and thus doesn't involve Roman law.
In this way, we see an example of what happens when the government declares that certain acts are within the law, and other acts will be ignored. This latter decision - to ignore a specific class of action - creates free reign to perpetrate acts that are within that classification. Certain assault was a crime in the Roman empire! However, once the governor said that the classification of actions related to Jewish customs was not his concern, Jews could assault Sosthenes and simply declare it a Jewish matter.
Application: We are in the midst of several legal debates, but whether we are talking about abortion, drugs, civil rights, hate, or property crime in underpoliced areas, we see a pattern ... people get hurt when the government basis law not on God's moral instructions, but rather on some classification system.
We have a lot of complicated problems, and I refuse to arrogantly give my solutions. However, I do know that, if we just tried to love each other and obey the Lord's commands, we would have much fewer problems. Many of the conflicting attitudes themselves would disappear before disagreements and conflicts even existed.
How close we must be to the time of lawlessness.
Prayer: Lord, while I want to great future life for myself and my family and my children and their friends, I can't help but also pray, come, Jesus. Amen.
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