I need more coffee.
One son is revising his cardiac anatomy for a test today and I am listening to him. Before I have to get dressed and fly somewhere else to talk about OCD. The joys of the job.
Most people would talk about the violence: how Jesus literally flogged the traders out of the temple. That violence or the potential for violence is one of the traits that make us human, and that righteous anger is no sin. That women who say they are not violence, when they demand the protection of the law, are in fact using violence, for the law works by the power of the sword.
But instead I want to talk about popularity.
The Passover of the Jews was at hand, and Jesus went up to Jerusalem. In the temple he found those who were selling oxen and sheep and pigeons, and the money-changers sitting there. And making a whip of cords, he drove them all out of the temple, with the sheep and oxen. And he poured out the coins of the money-changers and overturned their tables. And he told those who sold the pigeons, “Take these things away; do not make my Father’s house a house of trade.” His disciples remembered that it was written, “Zeal for your house will consume me.”
So the Jews said to him, “What sign do you show us for doing these things?” Jesus answered them, “Destroy this temple, and in three days I will raise it up.” The Jews then said, “It has taken forty-six years to build this temple, and will you raise it up in three days?” But he was speaking about the temple of his body. When therefore he was raised from the dead, his disciples remembered that he had said this, and they believed the Scripture and the word that Jesus had spoken.
Jesus Knows What Is in Man
Now when he was in Jerusalem at the Passover Feast, many believed in his name when they saw the signs that he was doing. But Jesus on his part did not entrust himself to them, because he knew all people and needed no one to bear witness about man, for he himself knew what was in man.
(John 2:13-25 ESV)
The trouble with following the crowd is that this leads to error. I quoted from this yesterday, but it applies as much here as then.
Most other women are looking at women higher up the status ladder to find out how to behave. They emulate each other rather blindly, even when it doesn’t make any sense or is self-destructive. Sort of the way they all chase after the same guys, even if those men don’t possess any desirable traits other than being the man being chased after. We can do nothing but stare bewildered and shake our heads. What in the world are they thinking? Nothing much, obviously.
We need to look beyond what is popular. Many big churches preach heresy: what the crowd wants, avoiding any cost to discipleship, and instead work by making a great “worship experience”.
The most popular of this time will not remain so. The period of popularity wanes, and they become but footnotes. In twenty years the currently popular music and movie stars will be footnotes — and the actors and musicians, if wise, will have moved from popular works to acting, character roles, or playing classics.
So mistrust your page hits and the praise of the mainstream media. Do not let them enrol you into the Borg. It is far better to be who you are supposed to be: that will take considerable effort, but that is a burden you can handle. Being asked to be what you are not will destroy you, turning you into a cardboard lie.
