Then he [Jesus] said to the man, “Stretch out your hand.” He stretched it out – and his hand was restored. The Pharisees went out right away and began to plot with the Herodians against Jesus, trying to find a way to destroy him. [Mark 3:5b-6 (NTE)]
Rather than a religious sect, the Herodians were a political group who favored Herodian rule over direct Roman rule. Unlike previous kings of Israel, the Herodian kings were appointed by the Roman emperors. It’s been said that “You can’t tell the players without a scorecard,” and it seems that way with the various Herods we meet in the New Testament. It was Herod the Great, ruler of Judea from 37 to 4 BC, who enlarged the Temple Mount and began rebuilding the second Temple around 20 BC. This Herod was the “king of the Jews” who questioned the Magi and sought to kill the Messiah by slaughtering boys under the age of two. [Jesus was born between 6 and 4 BC.] After Herod’s death, his kingdom was divided among his sons and Herod Antipas became tetrarch of Galilee and Perea. This is the Herod who ruled Galilee throughout Jesus’ ministry—the one who married the wife of his brother (Herod Philip II), beheaded John the Baptist, and sent Jesus back to Pilate.
The next king of Judea was Herod the Great’s grandson and Herod Antipas’ nephew, Herod Agrippa I. Ruler from 41 to 44 AD, his story is found in Acts 12. He put the Apostle James to death, imprisoned Peter (who was miraculously rescued from prison by an angel of the Lord), and met a horrible end when he was consumed by worms. The last of the Herodian line to be king was his son, Herod Agrippa II. Mentioned in Acts 25 and 26, this was the Herod who, after allowing Paul to testify in court, said he’d done nothing to deserve imprisonment or death. The main job of all these Herods was to keep the peace in Judea. They had to maintain a delicate balance by bending to the people’s will just enough to avoid being overthrown and yet not allow the Jews so much independence that Rome would step in and take full control.
Seeing Herod and his family as Judea’s salvation, the Herodians submitted to Rome out of political expediency. Afraid that Jesus would cause an uprising, they saw Him as a threat to keeping Herod on the throne. As long as the land remained peaceful, Herod would rule and the status quo would remain. Knowing that any insurrection would cause the Romans to respond with overwhelming force, they wanted to make a pre-emptive strike against any disturbance by killing Jesus.
Even though the Pharisees wanted a descendant of David on the throne and the Herodians wanted to keep Herod there, politics makes for strange bedfellows. Jesus’ miracles caused people to look to Him for salvation—something not on either groups’ agenda. When Jesus healed a man’s withered hand on the Sabbath, the Pharisees enlisted the Herodians to help in a plot to destroy Him. Although the Pharisees were popular with the people, they lacked the political clout to carry out their plans. As supporters of Herod Antipas, the Herodians held the political power and these rival forces came together to plot against their common enemy.
The Herodians were willing to settle for temporary salvation and peace but Jesus brought permanent salvation and peace. They looked to politics and people when they should have looked to faith in God!
Along with the Pharisees and Sadducees, the two other major sects or philosophies mentioned by the historian Flavius Josephus were the Zealots and Essenes. Religion and politics were one and the same in ancient Palestine and the Zealots movement originated with Judah/Judas of Galilee and Zadok the Pharisee. Their most basic belief was that any and all means were justified if it led to political and religious liberty for the Jews. When Judah was killed while leading a revolt around 6 AD, his followers fled to the desert and continued in guerilla warfare against the Romans.
If I mentioned the Rotary or Kiwanis clubs, used the acronyms AARP, NRA, or PETA, or referred to the #MeToo or BLM movements, today’s readers would understand my references but they’d be unfamiliar to a reader 2,000 years from now. That’s the difficulty we sometimes encounter when reading the New Testament. While the authors knew who they were talking about, the 21st century American often doesn’t.
If I read a novel simply by searching through it for a few choice sentences, I’d miss the whole plot! I could quote Scarlett’s last words “After all, tomorrow is another day,” but I wouldn’t know why she said it nor would I know why Rhett said he didn’t give a damn! If I picked out just a few sentences in A Tale of Two Cities, I’d never know why Dickens said, “It was the best of times, it was the worst of times,” or even the names of the two cities! While I might be able to quote Santiago’s belief that, ”A man can be destroyed but not defeated,” I wouldn’t know if that proved true without finishing The Old Man and the Sea. Reading only bits and pieces, I’d never know that it was an escaped convict, not Miss Havisham, who was Pip’s benefactor in Great Expectations, that Jane Eyre’s Mr. Rochester had a lunatic wife in the attic, or the identity of the killer in Agatha Christie’s And Then There Were None.
Every employee wants to have a good boss. Unfortunately, the CEOs of some large firms can be out-of-touch with many of their employees; the executive suite is a world away from the mail room or warehouse. While they may understand the bottom line, many CEOs have no idea how their businesses function on a day-to-day basis. In its 10th season, Undercover Boss is a television show in which high-ranking executives disguise themselves, assume an alias and cover story, and then work undercover in their own companies. Taking such jobs as cashier, line cook, delivery person, or maintenance man, the bosses learn what it is like for the rank and file in their large corporations. Later, they reveal their identities to the workers with whom they interacted during the week. Their experience usually results in better training and improved working conditions for the employees and a change of attitude for the executives. Reality TV, however, is a carefully planned and edited version of events and I wonder if that one week really makes a lasting impact on the bosses.
Just north of us are the winter estates of Henry Ford and Thomas Edison. Along with their homes, gardens, and laboratory, is a museum. It was there that I first learned of the unlikely friendship between automobile pioneer Henry Ford and naturalist and essayist, John Burroughs. After Ford introduced his Model-T car in 1908, Burroughs, who was concerned about its effects on nature, called it a “demon on wheels” that would “seek out even the most secluded nook or corner of the forest and befoul it with noise and smoke.” Upset by the naturalist’s censure, Ford sent Burroughs a letter explaining his view that the automobile would connect people to the land and allow them to explore it rather than destroy and pollute it. Accompanying that letter was a new Model-T! “Out of that automobile grew a friendship,” Ford wrote in his memoirs.
Devotions of the Heart 