Acts 28: spiritual privilege versus the poor in spirit

“The Holy Spirit was right in saying to your fathers through Isaiah the prophet:

[The Jewish leaders] disagreed among themselves and began to leave after Paul had made this final statement: “The Holy Spirit spoke the truth to your ancestors when he said through Isaiah the prophet:

“‘Go to this people, and say,
You will indeed hear but never understand,
   and you will indeed see but never perceive.
For this people's heart has grown dull,
   and with their ears they can barely hear,
   and their eyes they have closed;
lest they should see with their eyes
   and hear with their ears
and understand with their heart
   and turn, and I would heal them.’

“Therefore I want you to know that God’s salvation has been sent to the Gentiles, and they will listen!”

Acts 28:25-28

In Acts 28:14, Paul finally arrives in Rome.  He speaks first to the Jewish leaders - as is his custom (this is comparable to his practise of going to the synagogues first - not practical in his state of imprisonment).  But, again a common theme in Acts, some of the Jewish leaders would not believe, and Paul expresses his mission to preach to the Gentiles - the non-Jews.

What advantage was there in being Jewish?  It was not strictly an ethnic demarcation (there were those that became Jews through decision not birth), but one of religious practice - a religious practice God had given to tell people about himself: from the moral laws he gave people to live by, to the rituals which taught them about the seriousness of sin, of atonement, and of worship.  

One should be wary of drawing exact parallels where they do not exist.  However, I think there is, among many other things, a wider application to be taken notice of here for those of us who are neither Jews by background nor find ourselves in situations where others are preaching to us that being Jewish is seen as a necessary prerequisite to salvation.

Many Jews felt they were worthy of salvation due to their background.  We have Abraham as our father - they declared (Matthew 3:9. John 8:39) - and so felt that they inherited the promises the God made to Abraham in Genesis 12 and 15.  However as the New Testament makes clear, the offspring of Abraham are those that believe and love God, just as Abraham did, not his biological descendants.  Furthermore, many Jews felt they were worthy of salvation due to their practices.  The Jewish leaders in particular would have taken great pains to follow the commands set out by God in the scriptures.  Thirdly, the Jews may have felt they were worthy of salvation due to the revelation that they had.  God had revealed his plan and his word to the Jewish people - through the giving of the law through Moses, and through the prophets.

We may resonate with one of two of these feelings more than others.  We may have been baptised as a baby, we may follow the laws and practises that the Bible teaches, or we may devote our time to the study of God's word - we may be able to talk at length about the trinity, Christian doctrine, and what this may mean for our lives.  All of these can be good things, but they cannot save us.

Our society likes to talk about privilege.  There's a common idea that people who are white, male, able bodied, well-educated, etc, start from a more privileged position.  Their privilege does not make them immune from bad luck or mean that they do not have to work to move forward, but common doctrine says that privilege gives people a significant 'leg up'.  Now doubtless there's some truth in this, but I'm not here to debate the thorny issue of what to do about it.   The point is, however, is that if you look at things one way, there could be what could be described as various elements of 'spiritual privilege':  a background of learning about God, a culture and society centred around his teaching, and individual deep knowledge of the Bible.

One could argue that in the UK we have this kind of spiritual privilege - culture and legislation steeped in Christianity, daily acts of worship in schools, our weekly and yearly routines structured around days set aside for worship, Bibles in every hotel room and churches in every village.

But in the time of the coming of Jesus and the decades afterwards, those who had the most knowledge, best lifestyle, and should have been in the best position to receive Jesus, were the Jewish leaders.  And yet, Paul spoke the words of Isaiah to them:

You will indeed hear but never understand,
   and you will indeed see but never perceive.
For this people's heart has grown dull,
   and with their ears they can barely hear,
   and their eyes they have closed;
lest they should see with their eyes
   and hear with their ears
and understand with their heart
   and turn, and I would heal them.

Some of the Jewish leaders did accept Paul's message of Jesus Christ, but many did not.  Those who should have been in the best position to know God were the ones that rejected him, because they trusted in their own righteousness.

But we have a God who cuts through all that apparent spiritual privilege and who once sat on a hillside and taught 'blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the kingdom of God' (Matthew 5:3).  Jew or Gentile, churched or unchurched, British, Afghan, Chinese, Bolivian or anywhere in between, whether we know our Bibles inside out or struggle to remember the names of the four gospel accounts, whether  local charity hero, prominent business person, or convicted criminal serving time, those who will enter the kingdom of God are those who are poor in spirit - those who are aware of their own spiritual bankruptcy, and who come humbly to God, trusting not in their own righteousness, but in his grace and mercy.