A stranger recently approached me after watching me reading my Bible. He commented that the Bible is a great book. Of course, I agreed. After talking several minutes, he proceeded to tell me a story. I’m not sure why he relayed this story to me, but I found it fascinating.
The story was about ants. He said if you put red ants and black ants into a jar, very little will happen. But if you shake the jar, the ants will begin to fight—the red against the black, the black against the red.
This sounds a lot like the politics we see exhibited now. All it takes is a little “shaking up,” and the results looks like a major war.
There are times when a little shaking up is just what is needed. Jesus did that in Matthew 23. The Pharisees and Scribes had heard that Jesus silenced the Sadducees, so they gathered themselves together and began an attack. One of them, who was a lawyer, asked Jesus which commandment was the greatest. They weren’t really interested in which commandment was the greatest; they just wanted to stir the pot.
Jesus answered them, but then He asked them a question. It was His turn to stir the pot. He said, “What do you think about the Christ? Whose son is he?” (Matthew 22:43 ESV). They told Him that the Christ was the son of David, but Jesus told them that David calls him Lord, so how could He be his son? They had no answer.
After this confrontation, Jesus spoke to His disciples and the crowd that followed Him. He spoke seven woes to the Scribes and Pharisees, making plain the charges against these evil men. He accused them of telling the people how to live but not practicing what they preached. He accused them of placing heavy burdens on the people, but refusing to help carry them. They did everything to be seen by others, loving the places of honor at feasts and taking the best seats in the synagogue. They loved being called rabbi, teacher, or instructor; and none of them deserved such a title. They prevented men from accepting Christ. They defrauded widows; they pretended to be so devoted to God by praying long prayers. They made oaths; they used extreme measures in the payment of tithes. They made an issue of being ceremonially clean, yet Jesus says they looked legally pure but were full of extortion. He finally told them they were like whitewashed tombs, beautiful on the outside but full of all kinds of unclean things on the inside.
Jesus also called attention to the fact that there would be prophets, wise men, and scribes that would be sent to them; but their response to the great men would be to beat them in the synagogues, persecute them, even kill them. Jesus proclaims that “all the righteous blood shed on earth, from the blood of righteous Abel to the blood of Zechariah” would come to pass on them (Matthew 23:35).
In the case of the ants, it took someone to shake the jar to start the conflict. In the case of the Pharisees and Scribes, Jesus wasn’t trying to start a war. He was trying to expose evil. It doesn’t take courage for black ants and red ants to fight. It simply takes someone to shake them up. It takes a great deal of courage to expose error and evil.
What a blessing it would be for the cause of Christ if there were more shaking the jar of error and evil and less putting one group against another.
Sandra Oliver