Bibledoorajar: The Great Shift

When I was in Graduate School, we were taught theories about how we humans wind up doing what we do to cope with our neediness.  We learned about projection, the phenomena where we project our needs and difficulties on to someone else in order to get relief. And, we also learned about the theory of introjection wherein we adopt the ideas or attitudes of others in order to gain relief.

While God was in their midst the people projected all their needs on Him and said they would always follow Moses their deliverer. Remember, Moses wrote it down? And then Moses disappeared to Mt. Sinai for some personal time with the Lord and the people got antsy. Yesterday they saw Moses and today they did not. Thus, began the process of introjection. They began to look around for someone or something that would bring them relief. For them it was the memory of the gods of Egypt.

     "This is that Moses who told the Israelites, God

       will send you a prophet like me from your own

       people. He was in the church in the wilderness,

       and the angel spoke to him on Mount Sinai, and

       with our fathers; and he received living words to

      pass on to us. But our fathers refused to obey him.

      They told Aaron, ' make us gods who will go before

      us---we don't know what has happened to him!"

The martyr Stephen's address to the Jews in the Narrated Bible, Acts. 7

Bibledoorajar Looks Again at Life Journeys

     In Acts seven, we find the journey of Stephen recorded. The believers had multiplied and a need for additional leadership emerged. The Word says that Stephen was one of the men selected by the believers for the apostles to appoint to leadership.  He was to cover needs within the growing group that now included Gentiles. He was chosen from among men of whom there was an honest report and whom were full of the Holy Spirit and wisdom. This man started a journey that included being noticed by men in the synagogue. These men were not able to withstand his wisdom and the spirit by which he spoke. They became incensed with Stephen and began to persecute him. Finally, he was brought before them and accused of blasphemy. In his defense, Stephen tried to reorient the Hebrews to the history behind Jesus the Nazarene of whom they were really so envious. At one point in his speech he said:
                     "and Jacob begat the twelve patriarchs. The
                       patriarchs moved with envy, sold Joseph
                       into Egypt: but God was with him."
                                                                          Acts 7: 9 ff.

     We learn from Stephen's  story, that the men of the synagogue were no more able to handle his zealousness than the patriarchs were able to handle that of Joseph. Something about the "journey" of these men was too much for them to accept. I remember going on a mission outing in Virginia one time. The journey included our handing out announcements of a Bible meeting and interacting with people on the street about the meeting. Afterwards a trip to Williamsburg was planned. One brother, full of the Holy Spirit and zeal for the Lord, wanted the group to keep "working" in the area and to make more contacts for the Lord's work. But the majority of the group wanted to seek the recreation and soon the young man was made to look like one gone overboard in his zealousness: a misfit. I am now impressed with how he received this feedback with grace and humility although I must admit I was not mature enough at the time to realize what an ability God had given him.
     So Joseph was sold into slavery and purchased by Potiphar an officer and captain of the guard of the Pharoah of Egypt. Jacob's beloved son has been humiliated and sold into slavery in Egypt.

                "He who was in the form of God, made Himself of
                  no reputation, and took upon
                  Him the form of a servant."
                                                                       Philippians 2:ff.