Acts 21-24 and the Social Justice "Underdog" Tactic

The Conversations That Matter podcast. My name is John Harris. I realized after I recorded my podcast yesterday,

I never actually went through the scripture that I said I was gonna go through. Part of that was I think I just,

I have an internal clock now, and I realized when I should be wrapping up a podcast, and I wrapped it up.

I knew I had something else to talk about, and then right afterward, I was like, oh yeah, I was gonna talk about this story. So I decided to make this a whole separate podcast.

And I'm gonna include you. Leave a comment if you have an explanation for this, but the topic,

I was using Cruz Lenz's institute as an example, but the topic of the last podcast was more broadly speaking how social justice activists seem to always put themselves in the position of being the oppressed.

They're the ones that are, it doesn't matter if they have all the power, all the money, all the resources, all the influence, all the platforms, all the property, everything.

It doesn't matter if they're the darlings of the media and academia and every institution that has any power whatsoever, they are always the oppressed ones, always.

Doesn't matter. If those who are trying to shine a light on what they're doing, explain what they're doing, oppose what they're doing are people like me with little bitty podcasts and a webcam.

It doesn't matter if it's someone with hardly any actual institutional power, political power, any of that, they're always in the position of being the oppressor.

They could be impoverished. They could be living in the hills of Appalachia with nothing to eat and hardly any teeth because there's not a dentist around.

But if they oppose the revolution, they're the oppressor. And if they're against Bill Gates and such a nice man with the vaccines that he wants to give to everyone, he's the one in favor of social justice, he becomes the oppressed.

I mean, it's like, I'm giving you a ridiculous example, but I'm just telling you, it seems to almost like not even matter.

That's how it works. It's the oppressed oppressor designations are determined not by the things that they say that they're determined by.

They say it's all about social location. What it actually is though, is it's about whether or not you are in favor of the revolution, the egalitarian revolution, the equity, diversity, inclusion, et cetera, this utopia that needs to be created and a central authority is gonna smash all the hierarchies that are preventing it from taking place.

If you are in favor of that happening, the utopia being formed, then you, if there's ever a scuffle, you're the one who's the oppressed.

Nine times out of 10, that's how it works. Why is that? Why does it work that way in their minds?

And why, how can they say that with a straight face? Knowing it's not true. Knowing, I mean, last year, think back to COVID and think back to the

BLM stuff and try to remember the emails you got, the text messages you got, the streaming services you had, just everything, your job, the sensitivity training.

What message were you getting from every single institution about COVID and about the

BLM stuff? It was pretty much in lockstep unison, right? So it's, these are the social power institutions, right?

And they're all in favor of the revolution, quote unquote, at least on some level.

And yet they fashion themselves as all being for the oppressed. They're stepping over each other to be,

I'm more for the oppressed. I'm more for the marginalized, et cetera. And those who would stand in their way who don't have that institutional power, right?

The people who might've voted for Donald Trump who really have little power or little say in anything, they live their lives, they have their jobs, but they're not the governors of states generally.

They're not part of the swamp in DC. They're not in academia. They're not in the media as much.

They're not represented there. They're not in Hollywood. They just don't have that kind of power.

They're working in blue collar jobs primarily, or they're small businessmen and that kind of thing. They're the oppressors.

Somehow they're the oppressors. Why is that? It's just a question. It's a nagging question I have, and I can gander at an answer.

I mean, I think part of it is just they idolize. It's kind of like a martyr cult, right?

Think back to the early church and the martyr cults, if any of you have taken church history, and how they just kind of emphasized so strongly how important it was to suffer for Christ and Christianity and the gospel.

And it became, they went overkill, some of them, with it. That's why they were called martyr cults. And it was like if someone failed, they didn't suffer when they should have.

It was a shameful thing. And, but those who suffered the most, I mean, they were like, they were the saints, right?

And so it was like this obsession. It became an obsession to be a martyr.

There was like a godliness attached to it and stuff. So it was something that has a kernel of truth, but taken kind of like too far.

And it reminds me of this. Like social justice is kind of like a martyr cult. Like everyone's got, they're tripping over each other to be martyrs.

They're giving their lives for a cause. They have so much, it's a treasury of counterfeit virtue.

So much virtue, so much. We're gonna just virtue signal all over the place how great we are, but we actually never take a, we never make a sacrifice, and we can live as, was it

Patrice, I think, Cullors, the Black Lives Matter founder who has this mansion that's worth millions of dollars, you know?

But she represents the oppressed. That's the kind of thing I'm talking about. So we saw this kind of playing out in Crewe where you had this concern group who made a document shining a light on some of the social justice teachings they were concerned about.

They didn't really have institutional power, but they were condemned as the oppressors, as the powerful ones.

And Lenz's Institute, which made, according to them, they made the decision, their leadership, to shut down Lenz's in the

US. They're the ones that are persecuted. They were forced out because of these mean people who didn't have any actual power in the organization.

It's weird. It's strange. And it's, like I said, it's something that has happened before, but it seems almost like an anomaly.

Like that's, it's not how we as political conservatives, as theological conservatives, we don't tend to think this way.

We just don't, we don't go around being, thinking of ourselves as martyrs. We don't have this complex that we have to be persecuted in order to be virtuous or something like that, generally.

Even when we are persecuted, we generally don't, we're slow to even see it as that.

I mean, look at last year, how the church was treated in the United States and how slow it was for so many churches to realize what was actually happening.

And so anyway, one of the things that I wanted to read for you, cause it made me think of this kind of, is it's the end of Paul's third missionary journey.

And he goes back to Jerusalem and I'm gonna just read for you some of this.

Cause it's simple. It's not exactly parallel to what we're talking about, but there are some parallels. The way that the religious

Jews who persecute him treat him. So if there's a power disparity, right? Paul would be the one without the power, but yet they sort of blame him for all the problems that they caused.

That's like the, it's this sort of lack of taking responsibility and blaming it all on the person who clearly isn't the one who caused the issue.

So it's the end of his third missionary journey. He's sailing from Miletus or Milatus, I guess, depending on how you pronounce that.

And so there's a concern that if he goes to Jerusalem, it's gonna be really bad.

I think it's verse 11. This is what the Holy Spirit says. The Jews in Jerusalem will bind the man who owns this belt and it says a prophecy.

He's gonna be bound. It's gonna be bad. And then Paul replied, why are you weeping and breaking my heart for I am ready not only to be bound, but even to die in Jerusalem for the name of the

Lord Jesus Christ. And since he could not be persuaded, we became quiet remarking the will of the

Lord to be done. So Paul, they're saying, Paul, you're gonna go and you're gonna die. And Paul is saying, all right, that's fine with me. If that's what the

Lord wants, I'm gonna do it. And I can't quite say that I'm where Paul is on that. I hope when the time comes that the

Lord gives faith and is gracious because it is a hard thing, especially when you're used to the comforts of, and the blessings, really, they are blessings and we shouldn't be guilty for them.

But real blessings of living in the United States in the Western world, to give that up is hard. We don't want to.

That's one of the things I think holding so much, many of us back is we don't want to make sacrifices. But, because we just, we take those blessings and we just, we're used to them.

But it's not a foregone conclusion that we're always gonna have them. And Paul was ready to give his life for the

Lord. He's ready to be persecuted, ready to be vilified. And for those who are tired of being called names, you're tired of being called racist just because you love your country or you really love your region, or you draw inspiration from certain historical figures, or sexist, or homophobic, or whatever the pejorative is that's being thrown at you.

Realize what Paul went through is about a hundred times worse than anything that we can think of.

I mean, it's hard to conceive of that. And Paul is ready to go through with it. And so he arrives in Jerusalem and here's what happens.

It says that after we arrived in Jerusalem, the brothers and sisters received us gladly. They started following Paul. Let's see here.

Let's see. So good things happening. And then

Paul is seized at the temple. Verse 27, when the seven days were almost over, the Jews from Asia, upon seeing him in the temple, began to stir up all the crowd and laid hands on him.

Okay, who stirred up the crowd? The Jews in the temple. Crying out, men of Israel, help.

Men of Israel, help. He's beating all of us up.

Men of Israel, help. This is the man who instructs everyone everywhere against our people and the law in this place.

And besides, he has even brought Greeks into the temple and has defiled this holy place. Hey, look at the concern group and crew.

These are the people that are slandering. Good, good people and crew. They're the ones against crew. They're the troublemakers.

Help, help. They're coming after me, right? Apply it to the SBC or any organization that's dealing with this right now.

Help, help the conservatives who couldn't even get enough people to outvote the progressives at the convention.

Help, help. They're so powerful. Russell Moore, remember he portrayed them. It's the executive committee of the

Southern Baptist Convention. They're just holding back the progress that we wanna make on stopping abuse and racism and these kinds of things.

Help, help. We're in the minority. We're the persecuted ones. Meanwhile, they're the ones that are winning all. They have all the institutional power and they're winning the elections at the national meetings.

But it's help, help. We're the ones that are being marginalized. We're the ones being attacked. We're the victims.

I wish you could see some of the emails and messages that I've gotten. I mean, I've had death threats. I don't talk about this, but it's like, you know, what world are you living in when you think that even though you have, the wind of the world is at your back and you for some reason think that you're the one that's being persecuted by someone who clearly does not have the social power to really do much of anything to you.

They're not gonna deprive you of your living or anything like that.

You're gonna be able to survive. You're gonna be able to make some money. You're gonna be able to feed your family. Paul's risking all this kind of stuff.

He's going into real persecution here and he is the minority of minorities and they're saying, help.

Look at, this is the guy. Hey, he's the guy that's against us. So I continue.

Let's see. So they say, hey, he's the one that was previously seen in these other areas and he was doing horrible things.

Let's see. See, they brought him into the temple. The whole city was provoked and the people rushed together, taking hold of Paul.

They dragged him out of the temple. Immediately, the doors were shut while they were intent on killing him. And the

Roman cohort came in the confusion. They grabbed him and then as the story goes, the multitude of people kept following them, shouting away with him.

So you think that there's a power disparity here, right? The only reason Paul's alive is because the civil government was confused and came in and did something to say, okay, we're gonna break this up because we don't know what's going on.

Paul's brought to the barracks. He's questioned and Paul says, hey, I'm a citizen of Rome.

Let's see here. And Paul, standing on the stairs, motioned at the people with his hand and when there was a full silence, he spoke to them in Hebrew dialect and saying, and then we go to the next chapter, 22, brothers and fathers, hear my defense which

I now offer. So he gives them all the reasons for why he believes what he believes. He relates to them.

Look, I'm like you. I studied the law. I'm gonna skip through a lot of this.

And then the centurion is concerned because he's like, this guy's a Roman. And so he's,

Paul said, I was born a citizen of Rome. Therefore, those who were about to interrogate him immediately backed away from him and the commander also was afraid they found out he's a

Roman and because he had put him in chains. So they're saying, they're trying to back up because they're just like, we can't treat him the way, and by the way, if you wanna talk about a social system,

I'll just little aside here, that had clearly marked designations for how you treated Romans and how you treated everyone else, including things like slavery.

You don't have Roman citizens who are slaves, right? That would have been the times that the apostles and Jesus lived.

That's what they lived in. And see how they treated that, that partiality, as opposed to how it is being treated today in the

United States, where we don't have these firm designations. The United States is one of the most open countries in the history of the world for accepting people and treating them on an equal plane.

And yet the way it's vilified. Anyway, I digress. So Paul goes to, let's see, since he was accused by the

Jews, they released him to the chief priest. So he goes to the chief priest. And then he says, look,

I've lived my life. Paul is shrewd here, by the way, and we can learn a lot from this. Lived his life, he says, in good conscience before God, and the high priest

Ananias commanded those standing beside him to strike him on the mouth. Paul said to him, God is going to strike you, you whitewashed wall.

Do you sit to try me according to the law and in violation of law, order me to be struck.

But those present said, are you insulting God's high priest? And Paul said, I was not aware, brothers, that he is a high priest, for it is written, you shall not speak evil of the ruler of your people.

So Paul, even though he was unjustly treated, he still has this respect for hierarchy and authority.

It's just, it's interesting. It's so different than the social justice warriors today. So Paul, perceiving that one group were

Sadducees and the others were Pharisees, this is where he's shrewd, began crying out in the council, brothers, I am a

Pharisee, a son of Pharisees, I'm on trial for the hope and resurrection of the dead. When he said this, a dissension occurred between the

Pharisees and Sadducees, and the assembly was divided, for the Sadducees say that there is no resurrection, nor an angel, nor a spirit.

I mean, they were the liberals, but the Pharisees acknowledged them all. And so now the Pharisees are fighting with the Sadducees.

So Paul basically said something intentionally to get them to kind of like fight with each other.

It's a shrewd, and there's nothing wrong with the strategy that Paul takes. At least, I don't think there is.

There's nothing in the text that indicates it is. But on the following night, the Lord stood near Paul and encouraged him.

This is the thing that we can take heart in. The Lord said to him, be courageous, for as you have testified to the truth about me in Jerusalem, so you must testify in Rome also.

God is gonna use Paul. Moving forward. So the Jews form a conspiracy, it says, and put themselves under an oath saying that they would neither eat nor drink until they had killed

Paul. And there were 40 whom formed this plot. So the power disparity, I mean, you got 40 people.

They're not gonna drink any water until they kill you. And they say this to the chief priests, and they really wanna kill

Paul. And they wanna ambush him. And so Paul's warned, and Paul is moved eventually to Caesarea.

So in the next chapter, Paul goes to the governor. And this is the charge that's against him. This is what I wanted to read to you.

Since we have attained great peace through you, and since reforms are being carried out for this nation by your foresight, this is what they're saying to the governor.

We acknowledge this in every way and everywhere, most excellent Felix, with all thankfulness, but that I may not weary you further,

I beg you to grant us a brief hearing by your kindness. For we have found this man a public menace, and one who stirs up dissensions among all the

Jews throughout the world. It's a pretty lofty charge. And a ringleader of the sect of the Nazarenes.

And he even tried to desecrate the temple. So indeed we arrested him by interrogating him yourself concerning all these matters.

You will be able to ascertain the things of which we are accusing him. The Jews also joined in the attack, asserting that these things were so.

And the governor had nodded for him to speak, and Paul responded. So here's the thing. This is what

I wanted to read for you. Because this reminds me of a way the social justice activists are working today. This is the same kind of tactic.

Paul didn't start the riot. Paul's outnumbered. He's got 40 guys that are saying they're not gonna drink till they kill him.

There's a plot to kill him. They're saying, help, this one man, he's the problem.

Clearly, he's outnumbered. The power disparity is not in his favor. And yet they make out, they call him a public menace.

All these accusations. He stirs up dissensions. He's purposely offending them, just to offend them, desecrating their temple.

Of course, these things aren't true. They're twisting things to make Paul look bad.

And he's one man, he's such a small figure in this compared to all the political power that they wield.

And yet, he's the problem. They're in the position of needing the civil government to step in and offer them recourse from this man who menaces them.

Simply because he preached what he believed. He preached the gospel. And that's one of the things

I see today. I see people who, and Crewe's a good example of this, but people who wanna say, there's a problem here.

This is not in keeping with the gospel. Here's what the gospel says. And that's really all they say. They itemize, maybe they go into detail.

Here are the problems, doing so in a very rational way, doing so in a peaceful way. In fact, the

Crewe group, they didn't even release the document. I think they probably should have, but they didn't even release the document to anyone else.

They kept it secret. They wanted to go through the quote -unquote proper channels, et cetera. They're doing it in the most harmless way, the most innocent way you could possibly think to approach this issue.

And yet, they're being accused of, they're the aggressors, they're menaces. They stir up dissensions among the

Crewe group. A worldwide, our donors are dropping out and they're not giving to us as if Crewe is owed their money.

And look at this guy. Look at John Harris. Look at this guy, Will Hoyer, who made a video.

They wrote me into it, even though I'm not part of it. Look at these ringleaders who are leading the

Crewe group. It's such a farce. And then how does Crewe respond? How does the leadership respond?

We're so sorry for your hurt feelings. They take their side and it works for some reason.

It's amazing to me, but it shouldn't. And that's what I don't quite understand. But you see the same tactic being used in Acts 24.

So I wanted to offer that up. I wanted to point this out, that this isn't the first time that this kind of thing has happened.

And we should expect this kind of thing. Men are gonna say all kinds of evil against us for the sake of Christ.

And sometimes we wanna hear that it's in the name of Christ. We don't like the gospel, so we're going to persecute that person.

It's not gonna usually sound that way. It's gonna, he's a racist, he's a sexist, he's this. It's gonna be pejoratives.

It's gonna be like the way they treated Paul. He's against the people. He's a menace, that kind of thing.

So be encouraged, be encouraged. And if you want to read on more, you can read

Paul's response to all of them. But he says, even I cheerfully make my defense.

Cheerfully, he makes his defense as he's being accused of these things. That's hard to do, guys. That's hard to do.

How do you make a defense when you're being personally maligned and do so cheerfully? I don't think I've quite learned that one completely, but I want to.

And so he dismantles their arguments. You can go look it up. But I find some encouragement in this, and I think you can, too.

So I want to just leave that with you. When you feel that way, the next time that you feel that way,

I'm sure it'll happen at some point if you take a stand, and you don't really have any social power, you're just raising your hand and saying,

I think there's a problem here, and then you're called all kinds of names, and you're told that you're attacking people, and you're mean, and you're a bully when it's really the opposite.

It's all projection. Remember Paul. Paul went through the same kind of thing, and he persevered through it.