Whereas in the last post, I focused on the word salvation, today I want to focus on the word zeal (verse 139).
Zeal gets a bad reputation. I read the word zeal and I think of the word "crazy." Zealots are the fundamentalists who burn Korans and picket funerals. Zealots are dangerous and I would prefer not to be associated.
This is exactly the image of zeal that we are meant to conjure up. Systems and cultures, in any place, prefer to not change, and zeal usually is for some kind of change. And so the people with zeal are usually on the fringes. Think of Jesus, whose zeal for God's house led him to cleanse the Temple.
Yes, there are dangerous zealots out there. There are people's who zeal has so intoxicated them that they are disconnected from reality. But there is a different kind of zeal, that is grounded in reality and in the love of God. Think of how crazy you must be to love your enemies. Think of how crazy you must be to read a document millenia old for guidance in modern life. Imagine the craziness involved when you share Jesus' concern for the least, the last and the lost. Perhaps there is another kind of zeal- a zeal we are meant to have.
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