Evil Good

Even when you do good, those who hate you or fear you will find fault with you for doing it.

Now in Jerusalem by the Sheep Gate there is a pool, called in Hebrew Beth-zatha, which has five porticoes. In these lay many invalids blind, lame, and paralyzed. One man was there who had been ill for thirty-eight years. When Jesus saw him lying there and knew that he had been there a long time, he said to him, ‘Do you want to be made well?’ The sick man answered him, ‘Sir, I have no one to put me into the pool when the water is stirred up; and while I am making my way, someone else steps down ahead of me.’ Jesus said to him, ‘Stand up, take your mat and walk.’ At once the man was made well, and he took up his mat and began to walk. Now that day was a sabbath. So the Jews said to the man who had been cured, ‘It is the sabbath; it is not lawful for you to carry your mat.’ But he answered them, ‘the man who made me well said to me, “Take up your mat and walk.” ’ They asked him, ‘Who is the man who said to you, “Take it up and walk”?’ Now the man who had been healed did not know who it was, for Jesus had disappeared in the crowd that was there. Later Jesus found him in the temple and said to him, ‘See, you have been made well! Do not sin any more, so that nothing worse happens to you.’ the man went away and told the Jews that it was Jesus who had made him well. Therefore the Jews started persecuting Jesus, because he was doing such things on the sabbath. But Jesus answered them, ‘My Father is still working, and I also am working.’ For this reason the Jews were seeking all the more to kill him, because he was not only breaking the sabbath, but was also calling God his own Father, there by making himself equal to God. - John 5:2-18

There were people in power who believed Jesus was the devil, because he was able to order demons out of people.  They could not see that he was from God, for surely only evil would do good to undermine the work and position of the righteous.

If you look at Jesus' actions through the eyes of the Pharisees and Scribes, that is what you see, a trouble-maker looking to break down the establishment, take power from those who enforce the laws.

But we, who believe in him, don't see Jesus that way, do we?

We find it hard to understand how everyone failed to see who he was and what his message was all about.

So, we have opposing views, those who focus on the laws broken, the orthodox, and we have those who see that orthodox view as blind and broken.

Today, many believe there is only one way to truly see the world, and that anyone who sees it differently is evil.

That sounds a lot like the way the Pharisees saw Jesus and his followers.

Paul was a believer who converted.  Maybe he would be able to show us how to see both sides.

More to come...