An Ordination Celebration

  

DEVOTION

THE ACTS OF THE APOSTLES

AN ORDINATION CELEBRATION 

Acts 13:44-48

 44 On the next Sabbath almost the whole city gathered to hear the word of the Lord. 45 When the Jews saw the crowds, they were filled with jealousy and talked abusively against what Paul was saying. 46 Then Paul and Barnabas answered them boldly: "We had to speak the word of God to you first. Since you reject it and do not consider yourselves worthy of eternal life, we now turn to the Gentiles. 47 For this is what the Lord has commanded us: "'I have made you a light for the Gentiles, that you may bring salvation to the ends of the earth.'" 48 When the Gentiles heard this, they were glad and honored the word of the Lord; and all who were appointed for eternal life believed.

NIV

It is sad to see this “Us four and no more” mentality in the Jews and in fact, they were even abusive against the gospel message being told to Gentiles. It is unfortunate how people tend to judge others, without looking at their own faults first. This is like looking for a speck in another’s eye while having a log in their own eyes. They needed these words of salvation just as much as the Gentiles did and maybe even more, as they were the religious ones, attempting to find righteousness through the observance of the Law. The Gentiles did not have the law, although some of them, as we have been told, were God-fearing men who did come to the synagogue. It appears the Jews were fine with Gentiles worshipping God in the same manner they did or becoming like the Jews. But this gospel message was meant just for the Jews, at least that seems to be their understanding. So, when so many of the Gentile townspeople gathered to hear what Paul had to say, the Jews were upset, to say the least. However, as we are also aware, God does not show favoritism and although he came to the Jews, it was never God’s plan to remain hidden among the Jews. Jesus told his disciples to go into all the world and preach the good news to all creation. Paul is doing just that, even if he was not one of the twelve that Jesus told to go. Paul had a special visit with Jesus and now he is on a mission to follow Jesus to the ends of the earth preaching the good news. It is interesting when the Gentiles were glad to hear that God made Paul a light for the Gentiles and they honored the word of the Lord. The Greek word translated as honored can mean that very thing, however, it also means to glorify, to praise, extol and magnify. This gives us this idea of the Gentiles celebrating over the word of the Lord. It would seem difficult to remain sedate in celebrating the word of the Lord. Honoring, praising, glorifying, and celebrating must look like, “Happy times are here again” with dancing in the streets, and being glad of heart, smiles all around, and cheerful in appearance. We cannot understand how we can remain, stuffy old adults when we honor the word of the Lord and accept Jesus as our Lord and Savior, and be ordained to eternal life. How can we sit still and celebrate that God ordained us to eternal life because we believe in the one, he sent? We should be more like those Gentiles, being glad, and letting our whole being show it. We understand there are some churches that are more exuberate than others, in fact, some are so expressionless, that we wonder if they even know what glad means and if they are really excited about having eternal life. Being ordained to eternal life is something to celebrate, in fact, it is an ordination celebration.