Tuesday, March 27, 2012

Acts 3:22-26, Just Like Moses

Peter finishes his speech. I know, I know, it sucks. Don't worry, it's not like Acts doesn't have more speeches...

"Moses said," said Peter,

"The Lord your God will raise up for you from your own people a prophet like me, which basically just means a lot of Hebrew children are gonna be slaughtered again. When you do find him - and how could you miss him? - you must listen to whatever he tells you, because everyone who does not listen to that guy will have to sit through long speeches by his disciples after he's dead. That reminds me...whatever you do, don't crucify him!"
Massacre of the Innocents
God's Sign that Jesus is Like Moses

It seems as if the words of Moses must always be supplemented with more words. And so Peter had more words...

"Any decent prophet that ever opened his mouth probably also predicted these days. That includes Samuel and those after him. I don't know why I mentioned Samuel by name. It just popped into my head.

"So anyway, you've been warned over and over. You don't really have an excuse because frankly that's all prophets ever prophesy, isn't it? 'Another one is coming, listen to him or it's your ass,' and so on.

"Don't forget, you are the descendants of the prophets and of the covenant that God gave to your ancestors, saying to Abraham, 'And in your descendents all the families of the earth shall be blessed.' When God raised up his serpent, he sent him first to you and let you fuck up, lest he bless you by turning each of you from your wicked ways."

"Servant." said someone in the crowd, "I think he meant servant. Not serpent."

"Shhh!" said another.

And the people thought "Are we not Jews? We all know about Abraham and we know about God's covenant. Is Peter trying to convince someone that he's really talking to Jews? Heyyyyy, wait a minute…are we on Candid Papyrus?"

And thus endeth Peter's long and confusing speech. Who among us wouldn't want him arrested after that?