[OBW]

"All the people" would be those present at the trial immediately preceding the crucifixion. It would not be the people who were not there as part of the mob. With some noted exceptions, those who assembled for that trial and execution were those who wanted Jesus silenced. But it was also fear of "the people" who had prevented a more open arrest and daylight trial only a short time prior. So which "people" are we talking about?

John 1 reflects the general fact of Jesus' rejection. But it is like the opening dialog for a lengthy discussion. It is little more that a teaser of facts to come. Later we get the details that supports that statement. It was clear that it would be the Jewish status quo that would reject God. They had turned righteousness into a complex serious of formulas and God into not much more than an icon.

Surely the number of Jews that truly followed, both before and after the crucifixion/resurrection, was a minority of the people. And the religious leaders were masters a making Jesus' existence into something to fear with respect to the Roman overlords.

But the teaching of the apostles was from the temple. And the believers, almost only Jews because the open recognition of the extension of God's grace to the gentiles was yet to come, came to the Temple for teaching, and met together from house to house for more personal fellowship of all kinds.

And one of the things that has been overlooked in the whole "rejection by the Jews" issue is that the whole prophecy of the Messiah included rejection and even bruising/wounding. There God demonstrated the condition of even the chosen people under the existing regime (without God inside). Jesus was intended to be crucified, not by the worst, but by the best. That would restate yet again that all are fallen.

Then, with the resurrection, it all comes back again to the Jews, with the most dramatic one-day conversion at Pentecost, then eventually spreading to the half-breeds (the Samaritans), then to the Gentiles.

Yes, there are probably some principles about human nature seen in the progression of events from Adam all the way through to today. Unless our eyes are truly on the mark, we turn away from God. And sometimes even when we think we are following we are only following our notions of what God would be if he were us.

But when I read scripture, both the words and deeds of Jesus, the things recorded in Acts, and the things that Paul and the others recorded in the various letters, I see a constant charge to follow and obey. That requires less emphasis on what is not following and more on what is following.

It is said that those who do not study history are doomed to repeat it. But others have observed that history keeps repeating itself anyway. It almost does not seem to be avoidable. But the problem may be that it is not the details of history that need study, but the "times." Not so much the what, but the why. Under that assumption, I would argue that it is less the things that Christianity has done to get off the mark as it is the getting off the mark that has lead to the things it has done. It is not Mary, transubstantiation, the pope, indulgences, and prayer to saints rather than to God that is the source of the problem. The source was a heart that was off the mark and open to try something else to keep that religious thing (a negative kind of religious thing) going.

In other words, our focus needs to be more on what is right. What is the life of a disciple. What is obedience. What is "true religion" and true spirituality. The wrong focus is to look at what is not... This almost parallels those two trees back in Genesis. One was about knowing and it didn't really get us anywhere. The other was about life. Following is living. Obedience is living. I don't need to focus on what not to do if I know what to do and stick to that.