Ignorance

 I know that you acted in ignorance . . . 

 - From Acts 3

<A note to the reader. For the past year, I have been re-posting blog entries from ten years ago, with comments from the present time. In 2011, my format was to read through both the Old and New Testaments, in parallel, a chapter a day, and reflect on some intersecting point between the two. As of today, I am running out of items that are ten years old, and will begin writing original reflections, in the present day. So, there are two formats: 1) Straight from the Lectionary readings, as I am doing today; or 2) The parallel Old and New Testament approach, which you have seen since about the first of this year (2021). 

Please help me out. Which format do you prefer? I will continue to re-post 2011 entries when they come up. But what would you like for the new content? Thanks!>

Peter, and the other Apostles, have started to preach in Jerusalem. It has only been a few weeks since they last saw the physical, resurrected Jesus among them. The events are more recent than the last snowfall is right now, to people in Southeastern Michigan, on April 8, 2021. They are on fire with the certainty of Christ being alive. They had the evidence we crave: He actually, personally, physically, truly, did all of these things, right there before them. From now on, faith will become more and more of a driving factor in the growth of the Church. 

Why, then, was there still this crowd of people, attacking this fledgling movement, based on unconditional love, healing, and personal freedom? Why were the people, so weary of being under the heals of Rome, and before that, Greece, Persia, and Assyria, so resistant to a movement that was based on freedom?

Why do people in 2021 resist freedom?

Why do they so easily follow the latest fad, the latest crowd, the latest GroupThink, the latest trend? Why did they aggressively oppose GMOs last year, while aggressively advocating RNA-oriented injections, into humans, in 2021? 

Why has a culture, that thrived so stupendously under freedom, free inquiry, and application of the Real Scientific Method; that created so much wealth and freedom . . . and safety . . . for so many, so quickly denounced all of that, in favor of dropping everything and doing what they're told?

Why do we mock and ridicule people, simply for asking questions, in a culture that was supposed to have highly prized such practices?

Peter hit the nail on the head. 

It must be ignorance. And ignorant people . . . simply . . . cannot . . . help themselves.