Acts 13:49-50\u00a0 \u00a0“The word of the Lord spread through the whole region. But the Jews incited the God-fearing women of high standing and the leading men of the city. They stirred up persecution against Paul and Barnabas, and expelled them from their region.”\u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n
Two short verses which would be easy to pass over without a second glance.<\/p>\n\n\n
But look closer. There are some important truths illustrated here:<\/p>\n\n\n
1) When things are going well (“The word of the Lord spread”), opposition is right around the corner.\u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n
2) Being “God-fearing” doesn’t give you immunity against buying someone else’s lies or misdirection. (The troublemakers “incited the God-fearing women of high standing”.)\u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n
3) “Everyone is saying it” does NOT equal “It must be true”.\u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n
4) Outside opinions implanted in us can motivate just as powerfully as opinions arising from within.\u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n
5) In either case, that motivation can be 180 degrees in the wrong direction.\u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n
We all have plenty of opinions.<\/p>\n\n\n
On Politics. Religion. Our Boss. Our Co-workers. Even Complete Strangers.\u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n
It’s worthwhile to consider this question: “How many of my opinions are my own and how many were given to me?”<\/p>\n\n\n
Given by the media?<\/p>\n\n\n
Given by co-workers?<\/p>\n\n\n
Given by friends?<\/p>\n\n\n
Do you think even 10% of our opinions are homegrown? What’s YOUR opinion?<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Acts 13:49-50\u00a0 \u00a0“The word of the Lord spread through the whole region. But the Jews incited the God-fearing women of high standing and the leading men of the city. They stirred up persecution against Paul and Barnabas, and expelled them from their region.”\u00a0 Two short verses which would be easy to pass over without a […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-6387","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/stevegrossblog.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6387","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/stevegrossblog.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/stevegrossblog.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stevegrossblog.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stevegrossblog.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=6387"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/stevegrossblog.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6387\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":6388,"href":"https:\/\/stevegrossblog.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6387\/revisions\/6388"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/stevegrossblog.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=6387"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stevegrossblog.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=6387"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stevegrossblog.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=6387"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}