Sword & Trowel 2016: Issue 1 BEWARE OF THE
And now I say unto you, Refrain from these men, and let them alone: for if this counsel or this work be of men, it will come to nought: but if it be of God, ye cannot overthrow it; lest haply ye be found even to fight against God (Acts 5.38-39).
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OME PEOPLE seem to think that Gamaliel was the only wise man in the whole of the
Bible! Whenever wisdom is needed to assess the latest strange idea or movement to penetrate the churches, we hear the famous ‘counsel of Ga- maliel’ quoted. We heard it often, for example, in connection with the ‘Toronto blessing’. We hear it especially when there is no scriptural support for something. When the rest of the Bible seems to say ‘No!’ – then the counsel of Ga- maliel comes to the rescue. Gamaliel is often preferred above
Paul. If the apostle clearly condemns something, his word is pushed aside in favour of Gamaliel’s. But Paul is not alone in this. Gamaliel is even wiser than the Lord Jesus Christ, in the estimation of some. Where Christ says, ‘Beware of false prophets,’ Gamaliel says, ‘Leave them be; just watch and wait. Say and do nothing. And if they survive and flourish, they will prove to be from God.’
A liberal appeal
A famous historical appeal to the counsel of Gamaliel was made by a
COUNSEL OF GAMALIEL! – by the Editor –
noted theological liberal in the USA named Harry Emerson Fosdick. In a sermon in 1922 (entitled, ‘Shall the Fundamentalists Win?’), Gamaliel is extolled as the personification of tolerance and magnanimity. Bible believers were urged to abandon their narrow and cantankerous un- reasonableness and to adopt the great Gamaliel’s intellectual liberalism. In recent decades, however, evan- gelicals too have been heard to press the counsel of Gamaliel as a reason for doing nothing about a range of trends, including contemporary music in worship, and charismatic ex- cesses. The ministry of warning has been strangled and the people of God exposed to wild experimentation, all helped by the wisdom of Gamaliel. Who, then, was Gamaliel? Was he a good and faithful and wise man? Did he speak from God? Is his cele- brated counsel as wonderful as many seem to think?
Gamaliel was a leading Pharisee, a doctor of the law, and a member of the Jewish Sanhedrin, who pos- sessed great influence among the Jews between AD 20 and 58. He believed firmly that God’s favour was secured by virtue of being born a Jew, and by meticulous obedience to the ceremonial law. As a leading Pharisee, he would have been full of self-righteousness, and vehemently
Beware of the Counsel of Gamaliel! page 37
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