Shake if off...

But when they resisted and blasphemed, he shook out his garments and said to them,”Your blood be on your own heads! I am clean. From now on I will go to the Gentiles.” Acts 18: 6

Shaking out the garments...dusting them, if you will. This passage is akin to Jesus telling the disciples to shake the dust off their sandals if a town would not listen to the gospel. (Luke 10:10-16) He told them that if unbelievers did not accept the disciples after they had shown His power by healing the sick and preaching to them, to shake even the dust off their shoes in protest to them. He said that those who would reject the love of God shown toward them and the gospel of peace, those would face a worse judgement than Sodom and Gomorrah!

So the apostle Paul has settled down in Corinth, making a living tentmaking (see the Youtube video on the Tentmakers of Cairo and you will never see tentmakers the same way again), living with refugees from Rome who had to flee for their faith (Aquila and Priscilla). When Timothy and Silas came to help him out, he devoted himself to the word. He began preaching and studying full-time in the synagogue. These guys would sit around and read and argue the interpretation of the scriptures. He devoted himself to teaching the Jews, and once they had heard enough, they not only rejected the Word and the word, they blasphemed. They cursed and reviled the name of Christ...they condemned Paul roundly and spoke not only their disbelief, but attacked the Son of God verbally. They fulfilled Christ's criteria for being “shook against” and Paul let them know it.

There are few times in life that we give up on people. We should hang in there and give people grace. We witness and get reviled, we love and are rejected. We tend to get mad at their rejecting us, or we sulk away hurt that they have rejected us when we should be more upset that they rejected God. It was obvious that it was God they were rejecting, and Paul shook even the dust of their presence from his clothes. When should we give up and shake against people? Wow...what a question. I guess I will say that there is anger and there is righteous anger. Those who have seen the love and beauty of Christ in us, who hear the Word spoken clearly, who instead of hearing it speak out loudly against it and take others away with them...those need the warning that condemnation stands at their doorstep.

There were people like Festus who were intrigued with the gospel and heard it...he did not necessarily accept it, but he didn't blaspheme against it or its messenger. There are the learned who will argue points with us in honest or prideful debate, but do not blaspheme against Christ. At least their minds are open to the possibilities.

Then there are those who are so filled with hatred that you just will be wasting your time and energy, and Jesus says to shake them off. Now mind you, Paul himself was one of these...he set out to destroy the church, and it took a direct revelation from God to turn his mind right. It took a long time for the disciples to trust him after his conversion. So for him to in essence not only give up on them, but verbally and physically pronounce judgement on them was quite a message.

I have seen several people even in the last year turn away from the gospel, from the church universal, and head off into sin. When given the choice to follow Jesus or the world, they found it too hard to stay the course. Something out there was irresistible, or the options seemed overwhelming, and when we are overwhelmed, we almost always see sin as the easier option (that sneaky devil makes it look like the only option). Have I given up hope and shook against them? No. Do I despair for them? Yes. I can go into a 3 month funk of prayer and despair for them. The mere thought of them consciously living in sin almost drives me to resent and turn from God, too. And then I remember that God is not to blame, that He searches for the lost sheep and brings them home eventually. It is amazing how Satan sets us up to look at God as unfair, unkind, unloving, and unworthy of our trust and devotion when he is the one who pulls people into these pits.

But those who would lead them there...those who know the choice they are making to reject and blaspheme, those we hand over to God for His judgement or mercy. To bring a sinner back home who is caught in sin is one thing, to argue with a blasphemer is quite another. Jesus didn't waste time hunting people down. He tried to persuade some with deeds and acts of kindness, He scolded the hard-hearted and self-righteous, and He poured His life into those who would listen (it took them a long time to “get it”, but they later understood all He had said). We should never want to shake anyone off, but sometimes people need to be warned that they have crossed a line. It was not out of ignorance that these men acted against Paul, but willful unbelief in light of all the evidence. Then and only then can we call a spade and spade and move on to hearing ears...the Gentiles...that would be the heritage of most of us...so thank God that he inspired Paul to move on and preach to us! It is God's job to pronounce the ultimate judgement, not ours, and we need to be careful lest we fall into sin when correcting others. If you are constantly shaking people off, check your own heart for hardness instead of love, but if the circumstances warrant and blasphemy is being served, do what you have to do. Flee when they drive you away, and then go back out to the mission field because God has someone waiting who will receive the gospel willingly.