Sermon Tone Analysis

One Way

How annoying when kids refuse any other way.

“I want to go to McDonalds...” and then every other option in the world is just the worst thing ever.

“No, I hate Parry’s!” “You loved it last week.”

“No, I have ALWAYS hated it.”

I did this myself.

Crying in the back seat because they didn’t choose “my” restaurant.

(You know those things you can’t really get mad at your kids for because you did them so bad yourself?)

Being that exclusive is gross.

I don’t like it.

Did everyone get their taxes done?

(It’s a little late if you haven’t).

Now there is an unavoidable thing.

I have friends, libertarian friends, who have tried VERY HARD to escape that particular “inevitability”.

The tax man finds you.

“Sure as death and taxes.”

And it is all so strict.

I have to use their form.

I have to send it to their address.

I have to be “honest” about what I owe.

It is so exclusive and I don’t like it.

But even though I don’t like it, it is the reality of the country I live in, and so I live accordingly.

“Give unto Caesar what is Caesars.”

Recap - Lame Preachers

Healed the blind man

Preaching pure gospel, the resurrected Jesus who offers forgiveness:

Acts 4 - Peter before the Council

The ruling council gets wind of this

They were “greatly annoyed”.

διαπονέομαι.

Irked.

Vexed.

It makes this sound “EEEEERRRRG!”

and of course they are annoyed.

“Seriously???”

The Sadducees in particular.

They are a political/religious party.

One of their notable beliefs is that they do not believe in the resurrection of the dead.

They think of salvation as being national, and they kind of live on or “are saved” through their children.

Immortality through descendants.

the Pharisees are the political/religious party that make their platform on physical, actual resurrection.

So they are annoyed at someone promising resurrection.

and they thought they had dealt with the whole “Jesus” thing.

Don’t these names sound familiar?

Annas?

Caiaphas?

That must have been some preaching.

Coming to the altar even while the preacher is being dragged away in handcuffs.

The next day they gather to set Peter and John straight.

How intimidating!

These are the very men who orchestrated the crucifixion of Christ.

In the courtyard of this same Caiaphas, Peter stayed out of the firelight for fear of being recognized and was intimidated by a middle school girl into denying the name of Jesus.

Now he is face to face with Caiaphas and all the family!

But this time...

Seriously?

What are we on trial for?

Healing a crippled man?

It is hard to persecute someone for doing good deeds… though certainly not impossible.

And for this moment the Christians are “well thought of” by the people in Jerusalem.

As James says “against such things there is no law”.

We are doing good deeds.

And he could have stopped there with just the “good deed” defense.

But Peter pulls no punches.

He has an opportunity to testify and even though it can only further irritate or “irk” these powerful men, he is going to speak the name of Jesus.

In the face of the “annoyance” of the authorities he claims:

He quotes from Psalm 118, one that Jesus quoted several times.

Originally with reference to Israel… so all the more offensive to these religious leaders of Israel to say that it’s original meaning (which they probably treasured as a promise) REALLY points forward to this Jesus, whom they already find so annoying.

So vexing.

The Aftermath

They were astonished

Nothing to say.

They are forced to give an empty warning, which Peter and John completely reject, kind of throw it back in their faces, and let them go.

Because the people were “all praising God for what had happened” (v.

21).

No Other Name?

Really?

That’s so Annoying!

So exclusive.

Close-minded.

Maybe even small-minded.

Is it like a child throwing a tantrum about which restaurant they want to go to lunch too?

There are so many restaurants!!!

Let’s look at the other options:

Pluralism (or relativism)

The idea that there are many ways to heaven.

There are so many religions out there, so many ideas about who God is, or what God is, or how many Gods there are or if there is a God at all!

With this incredible diversity of opinion, isn’t it small minded to think that any individual has the only way?

How could God be so small minded as to make only one way?

Like a child throwing a tantrum if it isn’t exactly “their” way.

This is the message of our world and our worldview… and I am a product of it every bit as much as you are… and so it sounds right!

It sounds wise or even noble because it taps into our best ideas of open-mindedness and compassion, of “fairness” and

Inclusivism

The idea that anyone who is “sincere” in their faith kind of comes to “Christ” in another way.

Jesus saves all ontologically (as a state of being or existence).

But he understands the sincerity of faith someone might have in, say Buddha, and kind of adopts someone as “his” by another name.

Frankly, I really like this idea.

And it has some things going for it.

Scripture often talks about the universality of Jesus’ work of salvation.

He saves the world, the cosmos, his work is universal in scale and scope.

In Romans Paul says “they shall be judged by the truth that they know.”

We hold these things in tension, but here we are at one of the “other” verses.

One of the “hard” verses.