And as he thus spake for himself, Festus said with a loud voice, Paul, thou art beside thyself, much learning doth make thee mad. Acts 26:24
A young woman lies on her back on a stone wall, her legs raised straight in the air, and she leans back to take an upside-down picture with an expensive camera. Directly below her is a drop of several hundred meters to the rocks below, and yet, this apparently unconcerned woman is clinging to the stone wall with only two fingers. This photo is one of 46 on a web page devoted to people who perform such death-defying stunts as skiing down perpendicular mountain sides, diving from great cliff heights into the ocean, and swinging on a trapeze on a hang glider. Most of us would never think of doing such things, and we often consider those who do out of their minds. And we might be quick to tell them so. We would be like Festus in his accusation against the apostle Paul in today’s text, as Paul gives his testimony before King Agrippa. But it is much more difficult for us to understand why Festus would accuse Paul of being mad. From our vantage point, Paul’s conversion was not insanity, but was the moment when he came to his senses. That’s not how the world views our salvation, though.
We all know families who live in a community for many years, fitting into the community activities, religion, and lifestyles just fine, until they are reached with the Gospel. At that point, as the family embraces the truths of Christian living, Assembly commitments, and Gospel outreach, the community begins treating them as though they had gone mad. The world often takes Festus’ view of Christians as unbalanced by their ‘religion’. It is not unusual for new Christians to be abandoned by most of their old friends, some of whom will regard them as having become unbalanced. This attitude becomes a serious barricade to our efforts to witness to people, especially people who knew us before we were saved.
Most people around us don’t take issue with us being Christians, as long as we leave them alone. The prevalent atmosphere of apathy means the most we will receive from any approach with the Gospel is a shrug and a ‘not for me’ rejection. But some, like Festus, will accuse us of insanity or worse, and will attack us. That is the world that we live in.
When we consider the world’s attitude about us, we can see from the perspective of the Scriptures that it is the world that is acting irrationally. We can understand the destruction that follows the sinful habits of the unsaved. We can see how immorality, drunkenness, and an obsession with pleasure are the delight of the devil as he leads his victims to perdition. We can see the wrong of profanity and filthy language. And most of all, we can see the great peril of neglecting and rejecting God’s great plan of salvation.
The world may consider us mad, but let us give thanks that we have been delivered from the madness of the unredeemed. -Jim MacIntosh