Don’t Always Believe Official Narratives; Look For The Truth
Word-Of-The-Day: ‘(1) Meanwhile, Saul was still breathing out murderous threats against the Lord’s disciples. He went to the high priest (2) and asked him for letters to the synagogues in Damascus, so that if he found any there who belonged to the Way, whether men or women, he might take them as prisoners to Jerusalem. (3) As he neared Damascus on his journey, suddenly a light from heaven flashed around him. (4) He fell to the ground and heard a voice say to him, “Saul, Saul, why do you persecute me?” (5) “Who are you, Lord?” Saul asked. “I am Jesus, whom you are persecuting,” he replied. (6) “Now get up and go into the city, and you will be told what you must do.”’ (Acts 9:1-6)
With today’s media being untrustworthy, the Olympics starting amid terrorist activities, and our Capital being affected by pro-Palestinian/anti-Israeli protests, will God intervene? It is not new that the media of any given time was up to embellishing stories or rewriting the narratives of the day to suit the powers of their day or to promote or demote ideas. For example, back in the day in the 1600s, Galileo proved Copernicus right; the Earth revolves around the Sun. However, the Papacy was the preeminent power in the 1600s and the ‘official narrative’ of the Catholic Church was the Earth was the center of the known universe and forced Galileo to recent his work under the threat of corporal punishment for the act of heresy.
As it was, Galileo was sentenced to house arrest for the act of being ‘almost a heretic’. Pope John Paul II finally officially cleared Galileo, and admitted the ‘heliocentric’ or Sun-centered solar system was indeed ‘fact’. The theocracy of a nation led by a religion has often played a part of subverting Truth with the ‘official narrative’, and if one accepts ‘wokeness’ as a religion of sorts (or a subset of it, like ‘anthropologic climate change’ for example), we can make a correlation how today’s media can allow the ‘official narrative’ to overshadow the Truth. This occurred with the Jews of Jesus’ time, where He was wrongly accused of blasphemy and crucified by the Pharisees, and the persecution of Christians after Jesus’ Resurrection and Ascension.
Paul, then Saul, was ‘woke’ for his day; he was, in his own words, the ‘Pharisee’s Pharisee’. He was a rock star among the Pharisees, leading the persecution of Christians in Jerusalem, Israel, and beyond. He was there at the stoning of Stephen, being lauded by those laying their coats at his feet (Acts 7:58). Saul was likely very wealthy due to his stature, and thus when he promoted the ‘official narrative’ that Christians were heretical and evil, the people believed him without question. The opposing viewpoint of the Gospel – the Truth – was labeled ‘disinformation’.
It is likely any media source at that time (probably the synagogue priests, town-criers, and the gossip line) were given the message to promote, ‘Christians are wrong and needed to be harassed, doxed, and imprisoned’. As Stephen referred to in his trial in front of the Sanhedrin, the people persecuted prayed for relief from God; while his reference was the Hebrews in Egyptian captivity, the Christians also prayed for relief of the persecution from Saul and the other Pharisees.
Saul was about to expand this ‘official narrative’ to neighboring Damascus when ‘the Minister of Truth’, Jesus himself, gave Saul His ‘opposing viewpoint’, or what I like to call ‘the Spiritual 2×4 across the head’. Jesus directly got involved to end Saul’s involvement and to provide him the Truth. It took Saul going blind for 3 days, then having to seek a Christian (Ananias) to provide intercession to receive the Holy Spirit and regain his sight for him to receive and comprehend the whole Truth. The ‘Disinformation’ Saul was against previously, he was now promoting as the Truth, being renamed Paul (the 2×4 having knocked the S into a P).
The best way we can promote the Truth is to confront and counter the false narratives with it. We need not be obnoxious, and we need to use discernment but we will need to confront falsehoods directly. It may seem like we are facing Goliath, but if we approach Goliath like David did, in Faith and determination to serve God, we can win this battle! It is likely the early Church looked like it was going to be exterminated and Jesus would become a historical footnote, but instead through Faith and prayer Jesus intervened and took Saul from the chief persecutor to being Paul the chief evangelist to the Gentiles.
