As Paul preached in Iconium there was a great response to the message. We read that the Jews of the area, those not convinced that Jesus was Christ, were jealous, reputed his message, and stirred up persecution against Paul and Barnabas. What I note here is that the reason they fought against Paul wasn't because they thought he was preaching false doctrine but that they were jealous. This reminds me that many times people's actions are motivated not by what they claim, in this case claiming Paul was teaching false doctrine, but they were jealous Paul was getting a following and they weren't.
We need to be aware that people's motivations for actions aren't always evident. We also need to make sure that if we are doing something, especially working against someone, there aren't other less honorable or even repugnant motivations driving us. God will judge our hearts and our motives. We may say, what I'm doing is good and it might be but when you stand before God it may be a negative because your motivation corrupted the action. By the way, evil motives always corrupt good works. ALWAYS.
Photo by Pablo Padilla on Unsplash
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