Saturday, December 8, 2018

Tag: Great Leaders Search Out a Matter - Acts 21-22

Acts 22:30
But on the next day, desiring to know the real reason why he was being accused by the Jews, he unbound him and commanded the chief priests and all the council to meet, and he brought Paul down and set him before them.

Tag:  Search Out a Matter

The context of the above passage is the story of Paul, being rail-roadbed by the Jewish leaders.  He has come to Jerusalem to celebrate the advancement of the Gospel to the Jews AND the Gentiles.  This, as we read through Acts, offends the Jewish believer.  They treat the Gentiles like “dogs.”   The context is envy and resentment that someone is giving hope and grace to the Gentiles in the name of Christ - Someone the Jewish establishment hated because He claimed to be God’s Son.  

Before diving deeper into the above verse, however, note this passage from the pen of King Solomon:

Proverbs 25:2
It is the glory of God to conceal things,
but the glory of kings is to search things out.

Before the Council at Jerusalem (the Sanhedrin) wanted to beat and imprison Paul, they, at least, started to act like leaders.  (Regretfully, that would not last as the story unfolds.).  Good leaders don’t make rash decisions.  They don’t make decisions based upon emotion.  They don’t make decisions based upon “mob” mentality.   These leaders start out correctly ... searching out a matter.   But, regretfully, they would soon bend to the “fear of man.”   Note what Solomon says about this type of behavior:

Proverbs 29:25
The fear of man lays a snare,
but whoever trusts in the Lord is safe.


When leaders quit searching out matters and begin to bend to the fear of man, we see the disaster this will become.   Great leaders search out the truth.  They don’t allow “confirmation bias” to cloud their decisions.   Searing out a matter stops us from making poor, uninformed, bias decisions.   

No comments:

Post a Comment

The Mystery of Life Explained … A Little! Ecclesiastes 7-8

Ecclesiastes 8:14-17 (ESV) Man Cannot Know God’s Ways There is a vanity that takes place on earth, that there are righteous people to who...