Biblical Burns

The Art of the Insult According to Scripture

The day of Pentecost was not your average day.

About a month after Jesus had died and come back to life, He ascended into heaven, promising to immerse^a the budding Christian movement in the Holy Spirit, so that, until He returns, they can be His “witnesses, telling people about [Him] everywhere—in Jerusalem, throughout Judea, in Samaria, and to the ends of the earth.”

And a week-or-so later, He does.

The Holy Spirit is a very big and confusing topic, but when He comes (on the Jewish holiday known as Pentecost), the first demonstration of His power is that suddenly the disciples have the ability to speak languages they’ve never learned^bc.

When the crowd, containing people from “every nation under heaven”^d, hears these Galilean Jews speaking about Jesus in their native languages, they are “astounded and perplexed”. Understandable.

But there are always detractors. Some in the crowd mock those who claim to be hearing these Christians talking in their native tongues.

“They’re full of new wine!” they claim.

At this point, Pete gets up and decides to give a rousing speech.

“Pay attention to my words,” he begins. “These people are not drunk, as you suppose.”

They seem to be listening.

“After all,” he adds with a smirk, “it’s only nine in the morning.”

Pete then takes the crowd on a oratorical tour of the Old Testament, and explains how Jesus fulfils it all. The sermon goes down well, and three thousand people^e decide to become Christians—wait, what! Three thousand people!

Like Jesus, Paul was Jewish. He called himself “a Hebrew of Hebrews”^[1]. He was even one of the Pharisees—a group of Jewish religious leaders that Jesus would regularly lambaste. So, understandably, he didn’t like Christians much—and by “didn’t like” I mean “heartily approved the murder of”.

But after a surprise visit from Jesus on the road to Damascus^[2], he changed his tune a bit—and by “changed his tune” I mean “would not shut up about the good news of this Jesus guy, becoming the most influential evangelist in history, and writing a bunch of letters that now form a large chunk of the New Testament”.

It was this not-shutting-up that eventually got him dragged before the Sanhedrin—a kind of Jewish high court. When Paul begins to defend himself, claiming good conscience before God, the high priest has him struck on the mouth. Paul, never one to back down, retaliates:

“God is going to strike you, you whitewashed wall! You sit there to judge me according to the law, yet you yourself violate the law by commanding that I be struck!” (Whitewash was commonly used on mud-walls and tombs^[3] to make them look nice—on the outside.)

The court is indignant: “How dare you insult God’s high priest!”

But now Paul is quick to apologise. You see, insulting the high priest was a big no-no for any Jew, even a Christian one.
   “Brothers,” Paul replies, “I did not realise that he was the high priest.”

Although, perhaps Paul’s apology contained more zing than his direct affront…