How often does this happen. I tell you I have seen it time and time again, and now I have stumbled onto this story reflecting that in relation to God and what He says, we have been running this scenario over and over and over, even in the days of Jesus.
Luke 22:36:
And He said to them, “But now, whoever has a money belt is to take it along, likewise also a bag, and whoever has no sword is to sell his coat and buy one.”
And now the assumptions:
Luke 22:49-51:
When those who were around Him saw what was going to happen, they said, “Lord, shall we strike with the sword?” And one of them struck the slave of the high priest and cut off his right ear. But Jesus answered and said, “Stop! No more of this.” And He touched his ear and healed him.
So where did they, or we, for that matter, go wrong. What did He mean? By human standards, when we are told to arm our selves with swords, aren’t we clearly suppose to use them? Where did we go wrong? Perhaps we just need to be more attentive to what He says, combined with who He is, rather than assuming He means something He did not say. I don’t have the answers, but this happened over and over with regard to God or Jesus speaking, and how humans take it. We not only tend to take things so literally, but we go one step further and then assume what we are to do next after the literal is carried out.
What I do see this saying is that, even when we take things God says, and interpret them wrong, you can trust Him to heal the brokenness we have caused by our assumptions, but we should also take a step back and ask Him to keep us from stepping ahead of Him and doing what He did not say to do. And we need to be more attentive in the future. Perhaps even the body, the church is needed, to help interpret what is being said.