{"id":8904,"date":"2021-10-22T02:13:00","date_gmt":"2021-10-22T02:13:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/stevegrossblog.com\/?p=8904"},"modified":"2026-10-02T01:34:38","modified_gmt":"2026-10-02T01:34:38","slug":"you-knew-the-job-was-dangerous-when-you-took-it","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/stevegrossblog.com\/?p=8904","title":{"rendered":"YOU KNEW THE JOB WAS DANGEROUS WHEN YOU TOOK IT"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Around the year I was born (1968), Saturday morning cartoons featured such notables as George of the Jungle and Tom Slick. (Those were the days!) A man named Bill Scott voiced both of those lead characters (as well as Bullwinkle J. Moose) and, one of my favorites: Henry Cabot Henhouse III.\u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Better known as &#8220;Super Chicken&#8221;.\u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n<figure class=\"wp-block-image\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" src=\"http:\/\/stevegrossblog.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/10\/Super-Chicken-1.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"780\" height=\"439\"\/><\/figure>\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">As he fought crime alongside his trusty sidekick, Fred the Lion, Super Chicken often found it necessary to remind Fred &#8211; as the theme song put it &#8211; &#8220;Fred, if you&#8217;re afraid, you&#8217;ll have to overlook it. Besides you knew the job was dangerous when you took it.&#8221;<\/p>\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">That line, memorized some 40 odd years ago, came to mind as I was looking at Matthew chapter 10.\u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">At the beginning of the chapter, Jesus is laying out to the disciples just how dangerous their &#8220;job&#8221; was going to be.\u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">They were told to &#8220;preach this message: &#8216;The kingdom of heaven is near'&#8221; and &#8220;heal the sick, raise the dead, cleanse those who have leprosy, and drive out demons.&#8221; (10:7)<\/p>\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Now, you would think a bunch of guys who were preaching that God&#8217;s kingdom was near and who were healing people left and right would be welcomed by all, perhaps even treated like celebrities.<\/p>\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">But Jesus warned them not to expect a hero&#8217;s welcome. Here&#8217;s what they could expect from this &#8220;dangerous job&#8221;:<\/p>\n\n\n<ul class=\"wp-block-list\">\n\n<li>Being turned away. (14)<\/li>\n\n\n<li>Speaking while others refused to listen. (14)<\/li>\n\n\n<li>Being sheep among wolves. (16)<\/li>\n\n\n<li>Getting handed over to local councils. (17)<\/li>\n\n\n<li>Receiving floggings in the synagogues. (17)<\/li>\n\n\n<li>Being brought before governors and kings. (18)<\/li>\n\n\n<li>Getting arrested. (19)\u00a0<\/li>\n\n\n<li>Having all men hate them. (22)<\/li>\n\n\n<li>Suffering persecution. (23)<\/li>\n\n\n<li>Hearing themselves called &#8220;Beelzebub&#8221;. (25)<\/li>\n\n\n<li>And maybe even being put to death. (28)<\/li>\n\n<\/ul>\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">If you are like me, you are wondering what the disciples are thinking as they hear this job description.\u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Did they really ask, &#8220;Where do I sign up?&#8221;<\/p>\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Apparently so. They took the job, even having been firmly warned of the dangers.\u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">They must have seen something incredible and real and deep in Jesus that prompted them to lay down their own lives, huh?<\/p>\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Have you and I seen it yet?<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Around the year I was born (1968), Saturday morning cartoons featured such notables as George of the Jungle and Tom Slick. (Those were the days!) A man named Bill Scott voiced both of those lead characters (as well as Bullwinkle J. Moose) and, one of my favorites: Henry Cabot Henhouse III.\u00a0 Better known as &#8220;Super [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":8905,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-8904","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/stevegrossblog.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8904","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=8904"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/stevegrossblog.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8904\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":8906,"href":"https:\/\/stevegrossblog.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8904\/revisions\/8906"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stevegrossblog.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/8905"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/stevegrossblog.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=8904"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stevegrossblog.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=8904"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stevegrossblog.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=8904"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}