God Running is a place for anyone who wants to (or even anyone who wants to want to) love Jesus more deeply, follow Jesus more closely, and love people the way Jesus wants us to.

Acts 19:21-27

Now after these events Paul resolved in the Spirit to pass through Macedonia and Achaia and go to Jerusalem, saying, “After I have been there, I must also see Rome.” And having sent into Macedonia two of his helpers, Timothy and Erastus, he himself stayed in Asia for a while.

Acts 19:21-22

Paul sent Timothy and Erastus, two of his disciples, ahead to Macedonia while Paul stayed in Asia for a while. According to Keener, it may be this Erastus who is serving Paul, is the same Erastus mentioned in Romans 16:23. We see in Romans 16 that Erastus was the commissioner of public works for the city of Corinth: another example of how the status of the world isn’t the same as status in God’s kingdom.

“. . . the last will be first, and the first last.” (Matthew 20:16)

About that time there arose no little disturbance concerning the Way.

Acts 19:23

This verse reminds me that the earliest Christians were known as the followers of “the Way”. It was the way of Jesus that the earliest believers were known for, which is to say it is the love of Jesus that the earliest believers were known for, which is to say it was the khesed of Jesus that the earliest believers were known for.

Which brings you and brings me to the question:

“What are you known for?”

And, “What am I known for?”

For a man named Demetrius, a silversmith, who made silver shrines of Artemis, brought no little business to the craftsmen. These he gathered together, with the workmen in similar trades, and said, “Men, you know that from this business we have our wealth. And you see and hear that not only in Ephesus but in almost all of Asia this Paul has persuaded and turned away a great many people, saying that gods made with hands are not gods. And there is danger not only that this trade of ours may come into disrepute but also that the temple of the great goddess Artemis may be counted as nothing, and that she may even be deposed from her magnificence, she whom all Asia and the world worship.”

Acts 19:24-27

Demetrius the silversmith was right about the idol Artemis’s popularity. At the time Artemis was widely celebrated and worshipped.

Demetrius was also right to worry about the followers of Jesus’ Way turning the world upside down, and ruining his business (which was to sell miniature silver images of the Greek goddess Artemis).

I just finished a book written by atheist historian Tom Holland. He set out to write about how his Western values are derived from ancient Greece and Rome (Holland’s favorite areas of history are ancient Greece and ancient Rome). He wasn’t looking for it but early on in his research he discovered that his values and the values of the West don’t come from ancient Greece or Rome. Tom Holland discovered his values and the values of the Western World come from Jesus Christ. The book is called Dominion: How the Christian Revolution Remade the World. In the book Holland writes about how the Roman Emperor Julian lamented that the Christians were doing good works and attracting followers while the traditional Roman pagan religion was dying out. Ultimately Julian’s efforts to revive paganism failed while Christianity grew rapidly.

We see a similar story in an epistle of Pliny to Trajan (I included the text in the notes below.) In his epistle, Pliny refers to Christianity as a contagion.

That’s what following “the Way” can do.

Following Jesus’ Way can turn the world upside down.

Following Jesus’ Way, loving God the way Jesus did and loving people the way Jesus did, can be disruptive.

It might ruin the economy for certain types of businesses.

It might start a riot.

It might even make friends of enemies.

But it’s the love of Jesus in us that makes the difference.

It’s the love of Jesus in us that can turn the world upside down.

Notes:

Craig Keener, The IVP Bible Background Commentary: New Testament, IVP Academic; 2nd edition, January 3, 2014, pp. 384-387

Tom Holland, Dominion: How the Christian Revolution Remade the World, Basic Books; Illustrated edition (October 29, 2019)

Pliny’s Epistle to Trajan, 10:96:

It is my custom, Sir, to refer to you in all cases where I do not feel sure, for who can better direct my doubts or inform my ignorance? I have never been present at any legal examination of the Christians, and I do not know, therefore, what are the usual penalties passed upon them, or the limits of those penalties, or how searching an inquiry should be made. I have hesitated a great deal in considering whether any distinctions should be drawn according to the ages of the accused; whether the weak should be punished as severely as the more robust; whether if they renounce their faith they should be pardoned, or whether the man who has once been a Christian should gain nothing by recanting; whether the name itself, even though otherwise innocent of crime, should be punished, or only the crimes that gather round it.

In the meantime, this is the plan which I have adopted in the case of those Christians who have been brought before me. I ask them whether they are Christians; if they say yes, then I repeat the question a second and a third time, warning them of the penalties it entails, and if they still persist, I order them to be taken away to prison. For I do not doubt that, whatever the character of the crime may be which they confess, their pertinacity and inflexible obstinacy certainly ought to be punished. *   There were others who showed similar mad folly whom I reserved to be sent to Rome, as they were Roman citizens. **   Subsequently, as is usually the way, the very fact of my taking up this question led to a great increase of accusations, and a variety of cases were brought before me. A pamphlet was issued anonymously, containing the names of a number of people. Those who denied that they were or had been Christians and called upon the gods in the usual formula, reciting the words after me, those who offered incense and wine before your image, which I had given orders to be brought forward for this purpose, together with the statues of the deities – all such I considered should be discharged, especially as they cursed the name of Christ, which, it is said, those who are really Christians cannot be induced to do. Others, whose names were given me by an informer, first said that they were Christians and afterwards denied it, declaring that they had been but were so no longer, some of them having recanted many years before, and more than one so long as twenty years back. They all worshipped your image and the statues of the deities, and cursed the name of Christ. But they declared that the sum of their guilt or their error only amounted to this, that on a stated day they had been accustomed to meet before daybreak and to recite a hymn among themselves to Christ, as though he were a god, and that so far from binding themselves by oath to commit any crime, their oath was to abstain from theft, robbery, adultery, and from breach of faith, and not to deny trust money placed in their keeping when called upon to deliver it. When this ceremony was concluded, it had been their custom to depart and meet again to take food, but it was of no special character and quite harmless, and they had ceased this practice after the edict in which, in accordance with your orders, I had forbidden all secret societies. †   I thought it the more necessary, therefore, to find out what truth there was in these statements by submitting two women, who were called deaconesses, to the torture, but I found nothing but a debased superstition carried to great lengths. So I postponed my examination, and immediately consulted you. The matter seems to me worthy of your consideration, especially as there are so many people involved in the danger. Many persons of all ages, and of both sexes alike, are being brought into peril of their lives by their accusers, and the process will go on. For the contagion of this superstition has spread not only through the free cities, but into the villages and the rural districts, and yet it seems to me that it can be checked and set right. It is beyond doubt that the temples, which have been almost deserted, are beginning again to be thronged with worshippers, that the sacred rites which have for a long time been allowed to lapse are now being renewed, and that the food for the sacrificial victims is once more finding a sale, whereas, up to recently, a buyer was hardly to be found. From this it is easy to infer what vast numbers of people might be reclaimed, if only they were given an opportunity of repentance.

Image of Christ washing the feet of Saint Peter via Lawrence OP on flickr — Creative Commons

Available on Amazon! Love Like Jesus: How Jesus Loved People (and how you can love like Jesus) Love Like Jesus begins with the story of how after a life of regular church attendance and Bible study, Bennett was challenged by a pastor to study Jesus. That led to an obsessive seven year deep dive. After pouring over Jesus’ every interaction with another human being, he realized he was doing a much better job of studying Jesus’ words than he was following Jesus’ words and example. The honest and fearless revelations of Bennett’s own moral failures affirm he wrote this book for himself as much as for others. Love Like Jesus examines a variety of stories, examples, and research, including:

• Specific examples of how Jesus communicated God’s love to others.
• How Jesus demonstrated all five of Gary Chapman’s love languages (and how you can too).
• The story of how Billy Graham extended Christ’s extraordinary love and grace toward a man who misrepresented Jesus to millions.
• How to respond to critics the way Jesus did.
• How to love unlovable people the way Jesus did.
• How to survive a life of loving like Jesus (or how not to become a Christian doormat).
• How Jesus didn’t love everyone the same (and why you shouldn’t either).
• How Jesus guarded his heart by taking care of himself–he even napped–and why you should do the same.
• How Jesus loved his betrayer Judas, even to the very end.

With genuine unfiltered honesty, Love Like Jesus, shows you how to live a life according to God’s definition of success: A life of loving God well, and loving the people around you well too.

A life of loving like Jesus. (Kindle, hardcover, and paperback now available on Amazon.)