Daily Good News – The People’s Court
May 17, 2015 1499
“Some said, ‘He is a good man.’ Others replied, ‘No, he deceives the people’” (John 7:12).
Deceiving the people was a very serious charge. This was the equivalent of accusing him of being a false prophet, and the penalty for that was death for leading the nation of Israel away from God. The Gospel of John tells about several threats to Jesus’ life, and there was actually an attempt to kill Jesus by stoning.
How is it possible that people from the same area could be so divided over Jesus? There were the people who warmed to Jesus’ life, his works and his teaching. They based their views on what Jesus was doing: healing the sick, raising the dead, and forgiving sinners. They responded to the way he cared for ordinary people who were suffering, and they saw something divine in him that was missing in their religious leaders.
On the other hand, there were those who based their conclusions about Jesus on their own beliefs. They were threatened by Jesus’ teachings. In other words, their beliefs, and not Jesus’ teachings, were the standard by which ‘truth’ was judged.
Things haven’t changed a great deal, have they? What is your personal response to Jesus?
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