Within three days of arriving in Rome, Paul sent someone to invite the elders of the Jewish community to meet with him. As he had done in city after city he would begin by preaching to his kinsmen. He would do his very best to show them the suffering Messiah in the Scriptures and explain how Jesus of Nazareth fulfilled those prophecies. And again, as had happened in city after city, as the day wore on some became convinced and some grew hostile. Many of the elders in that room would have memorized the entire Torah (first five books of the Bible), and in some cases, the entire Old Testament, so quoted passages would have been flying back and forth, meanings debated, and personal observations made about people they knew who had believed in Jesus. Then, when it became apparent that many had decided to reject his message and were preparing to leave, Paul issued a warning to them by quoting from words God spoke to Isaiah when He called him to become a prophet (Isa 6:8-13). God didn’t tell Isaiah he would have great fruitfulness. In fact, He assured him of just the opposite. He was calling him to a tough assignment. The people wouldn’t repent and the nation wouldn’t escape disaster. His ministry would actually leave his listeners in worse condition than before. And Paul was telling the elders that preaching to them was just like Isaiah preaching to his generation. He too, knew ahead of time that only a few would listen. But the point we need to see today is that Paul reached out to them anyway, knowing that no matter how patient or careful he might be, the majority would likely reject his message. He still invited them to meet with him and shared his faith. Why? With that kind of depressing outlook we might wonder why he would bother. Why not bypass the Jews and go straight to the Gentiles? They would gladly receive him. Why should anyone have to preach to people who don’t want to hear the truth?

The issue that lay at the heart of this debate between Paul and these synagogue leaders was the question of how God deals with sin. Paul was trying to convince them that God requires a payment to be made for our sins, one that goes far deeper than anything we humans could even provide. But most of those elders appear to have believed that God can simply ignore our sins if He chooses to. And that difference of opinion likely determined whether or not any elder believed what Paul was telling them: that God’s Messiah had to die. They were asking themselves: Is sin really a problem, or is it something God can dismiss with a wave of His hand? Probably everyone in that room believed that God would someday send the Messiah to save them, but they differed greatly on what they thought He would do when He arrived. Most had been raised to believe the Messiah would be an extraordinarily gifted human being who would rise up to lead Israel to world dominance. To support their position they could point to an abundance of promises in the Bible which picture the Messiah arriving in glory to destroy enemy armies, re-gather the people of Israel into their land, prosper them, and bring peace to the whole world. Paul, on the other hand, was showing them in passage after passage that sin always produces death, and unless that sin is transferred to someone else there can be no forgiveness. Then he would have shown them that God had appointed the Messiah to die for our sins, and also had promised that He would raise Him from the dead. Paul was trying to convince them that God cannot simply ignore human sin. His justice demands that our sins be paid for, not ignored. And if it isn’t, we stand condemned before God, and instead of blessing us, when the Messiah arrives in glory, He will have to condemn us. To make his point, Paul undoubtedly reminded those elders of all the images of blood in the Old Testament and explained that those symbols were intended to teach us about the cross of Jesus. He was doing with those elders in Rome the same thing Jesus did with two disciples on the road to Emmaus. Listen: “And He said to them, ‘O foolish men and slow of heart to believe in all that the prophets have spoken! Was it not necessary for the Christ (Messiah) to suffer those things and to enter into His glory?’ Then beginning with Moses and with all the prophets, He explained to them the things concerning Himself in all the Scriptures” (Lk 24:25-27). Later on, Jesus said this: “Thus it is written, that the Christ would suffer and rise again from the dead the third day, and that repentance for the forgiveness of sins would be proclaimed in His name to all the nations, beginning from Jerusalem” (Lk 24:46-47). Even after He rose from the dead Jesus had to talk to His disciples about this same issue. Do the Scriptures really say the Messiah must die, and if so, why? And if they do, why is it so hard for people to accept that fact? Let’s join this discussion and try to answer those questions.

So much of our testimony about what we believe is given in moments when we don’t realize we’re doing it, to people we don’t even know are listening. When we think about proclaiming Christ to others we usually picture someone talking about Him, but actually some of the most effective preaching is done wordlessly. It’s what people see when they watch us go through life. And you might assume that in order for someone to want our Savior, we would have to lead lives that are prosperous and trouble-free because if things went badly for us surely no one would be attracted to our faith. But amazingly, that’s not the case. In fact, you could almost say it’s the opposite, that it’s the way we suffer hardship that makes the most powerful impression of all. The reason is probably quite simple. When things are going well it’s easy to believe in God; it’s easy to be happy; it’s easy …at least it’s easier… to be nice to others. After all, you’re prosperous, you’re successful, you’re a “winner,” you can afford to be nice. But when we suffer, when we hurt, when we’re afraid, when we’re criticized the hidden things of the heart are exposed. We don’t have the energy anymore to hide our weakness. The depth of our faith gets tested. In this way suffering exposes the deepest, truest attitudes in all humans. And we all know that. So when someone suffers patiently, faces death fearlessly, treats their tormenters kindly, everyone notices. It’s unusual, it’s remarkable, it’s the most powerful witness of all.