When Jesus is not Jesus

S: Acts 13:6-12

When Barnabas and Saul got to Paphos on Cyprus and shared the Gospel with Sergius Paulus, the sorcerer Bar-Jesus opposed them and tried to turn the proconsul from the faith. But the Holy Spirit filled Saul and had him say, “You are a child of the devil and an enemy of everything that is right! You are full of all kinds of deceit and trickery. Will you never stop perverting the right ways of the Lord? Now the hand of the Lord is against you. You are going to be blind for a time, not even able to see the light of the sun.”

As a result, Sergius Paulus believed in Jesus.

O: Recently Cristiano Ronaldo had a public dispute with the coach of Portugal’s national team, Jorge Jesus. Christiano accused Jesus of breaking his word twice, and there was quite a bit of public fall-out in the news.

In the above reading, Bar-Jesus (i.e. “Son of Jesus”) was clearly the bad guy, trying to stop Sergius from trusting in Jesus.

In modern times, we find a lot of people claiming Jesus but doing questionable things, especially in politics, but sometimes in other ways as well.

Paul, in 2 Corinthians 11:4 and Galatians 1:6–9, warned against people preaching a different Jesus and a different gospel.

Actually, the name Jesus is the same name as Joshua, but the fact that Jorge Jesus and Elymas Bar-Jesus happened to have that name spelled the same way, and Cristiano Ronaldo has the name of Christ, just highlights something: Someone can be called by the name of Jesus (or Christian) and not be following Jesus, or even be opposed to what Jesus wants. (Note that I’m not assuming who is right or taking sides in the Jesus vs Christiano dispute, just using the names as an illustration.)

A: We need to be authentically following Jesus if we are to call ourselves by His name, to be Christians. We must beware of others or even ourselves labelling our thing as Christian but not actually be in line with what Christ would want.

So we need to keep in fellowship with Him, read His Word, and accept correction from the Holy Spirit. Staying in fellowship with other believers who can encourage us and alert us to when we stray from Jesus is also important and helpful.

P: Lord make me like You.
Please make me like You.
You are a servant, make me one, too.
O Lord, I am willing, do what You must do
To make me like You, Lord,
Just make me like You.

Amen.

P.S. Speaking of names, it is interesting that from this point onwards, Luke refers to Saul as Paul (Latin Paulus).

Perhaps it was because of the Roman practice of adopting an adult they like and making their heir (see what happened to Judah Ben Hur after he rescued Quintus Arrius in Lew Wallace's Ben-Hur: A Tale of the Christ).

St. Jerome, the 4^th century theologian, historian and Bible translator, thought that Saul called himself Paul in honour of his first distinguished convert.

Other people think that Luke switched from calling him Saul to calling him Paul because he, being a Roman citizen, already had that Roman name in addition to his Hebrew name, and now he was concentrating on the Gentiles.

In all his epistles, he called himself Paul.