Do You Revile God's High Priest?

Daily Reading: Acts 23

Those who stood by said, “Would you revile God's high priest?”  And Paul said, “I did not know, brothers, that he was the high priest, for it is written, ‘You shall not speak evil of a ruler of your people.’” (Acts 23.4-5)

Devotional Thought: The Apostle Paul was standing before the chief priests and council who were outraged that Paul was preaching Jesus.  At one point in the proceedings, the chief priest, Ananias, ordered that Paul be struck in the mouth.  Obviously angry, Paul fired back:  "God is going to strike you, you whitewashed wall!"  Those at the hearing were furious that Paul would "revile God’s high priest."  At this point, Paul did something completely unexpected.  Even though he had been unjustly beaten, bound, humiliated, and reviled by the Jewish religious leaders, Paul apologized, recalling Exodus 22.28: "You shall not revile God, nor curse a ruler of your people." 

Do we have the same respect or show the same deference to our spiritual leaders?  I am afraid that our culture has fostered an attitude of defiance towards authority which has crept into our churches.  Our pastors and church leaders have a heavy calling: "Obey your leaders and submit to them, for they are keeping watch over your souls, as those who will have to give an account" (Hebrews 13.17).

I am not suggesting that our pastors and other church leaders are perfect and should never be examined or held accountable.  But they are God’s anointed and should be treated with respect and deference:  "We ask you, brothers, to respect those who labor among you and are over you in the Lord and admonish you, and to esteem them very highly in love because of their work" (1 Thessalonians 5.12-13).

Jenny Wade

Prayer: Lord, I thank you for those who are over me in the Lord, who keep watch over my soul.  May you bless them with every spiritual blessing in Christ.  Amen.

Psalm of the Day: Psalm 78.40-49

"How often they rebelled against him in the wilderness and grieved him in the desert! They tested God again and again and provoked the Holy One of Israel. They did not remember his power or the day when he redeemed them from the foe, when he performed his signs in Egypt and his marvels in the fields of Zoan. He turned their rivers to blood, so that they could not drink of their streams. He sent among them swarms of flies, which devoured them, and frogs, which destroyed them. He gave their crops to the destroying locust and the fruit of their labor to the locust. He destroyed their vines with hail and their sycamores with frost. He gave over their cattle to the hail and their flocks to thunderbolts. He let loose on them his burning anger, wrath, indignation, and distress, a company of destroying angels."