How Dangerous are We?

The creators of popular methods of entertainment and the editors of the popular pretense of spreading “news” are not afraid of the good news about the possibility of going to Heaven. They are afraid of low ratings, offending perverts, offending Muslims, and being unempowered by the exposure of their deceptive imagery and monolog. The scene resembles the moment in the movie “The Wizard of Oz,” when Toto the pup pulls back the curtain on the short man who is creating with machinery all the noise and fire and the huge image of the wizard.

By a massive contrast, everywhere the first servants of Jesus went preaching His Kingdom, leaders of any religions, political leaders, witches and idolaters were terrorized, or converted. They answered the revelation about His Kingdom with riots, murders, imprisonments, and mass conversions. In Acts 19, the response from the Ephesians to the Kingdom news  ranged from witches destroying documents and paraphernalia worth 50,000 pieces of silver, to idol-smiths rioting for hours, filling the city with confusion.

I suggest that we are not provoking much more responses than insults and mockery because we are preaching only good news about salvation, and ignoring the good news about the Kingdom. The two ideas are vastly different, both important, and both preached by the people of God in the first century. The more dangerous one is the one that indicates that Jesus is a King Who expects obedience and devotion.