“Do We Really Have to Cover This Again?”: Why Humanity Keeps Reaching for Fire Instead of Mercy

Hey, y’all. Have you noticed that people have not changed nearly as much as we like to think?

In the 1960s and early 1970s, people rebelled against authority, challenged the government, questioned old customs, and helped usher in what became known as the free-love generation.

Sound familiar?

Look around today. People are once again rebelling against authority, demanding change, questioning institutions, and redefining relationships and personal freedom.

What is this, wash, rinse, and repeat?

The clothes change. The slogans change. The music certainly changes. But the human heart keeps dragging the same old furniture into every new generation.

Every generation does not carry the same angst, and history never repeats itself in exactly the same way. Still, certain patterns feel strangely familiar.

Human beings keep being human.

So let us step back farther. Much farther.

Move beyond the 1960s, beyond our present arguments, beyond the slogans and movements of any one age. Let us go back to the New Testament. Then let us step back nearly a thousand years more, into the Old Testament.

Different centuries. Different covenants. Different people.

And yet, there it is again.

Look into the distance and you can see Nineveh, the old stomping ground of Jonah.

Now, I do not mean it was his hometown. I mean it was the city where he threw a fit so grand that God had to arrange a rather unusual time-out in the belly of a great fish.

Jonah wanted the city to burn. He wanted God’s wrath to reduce Nineveh to ashes.

God had other plans. He wanted Jonah to deliver His word so the people might turn their hearts and change their ways. Jonah wanted no part of mercy. All he wanted was punishment.

Jonah had appointed himself judge and jury, then expected God to serve as his executioner.

We all know how that ended.

Now let us step closer to our own time, though not too close. I am thinking of the New Testament.

Now we step into the New Testament.

Jesus and His disciples were traveling through Samaria when one village refused to receive them. James and John, two of the men closest to Jesus, did not take the rejection well.

They asked, “Lord, do You want us to command fire to come down from heaven and consume them?”

There it is again.

Jonah sat outside Nineveh waiting for fire. James and John stood outside a Samaritan village asking permission to call it down.

Different covenant. Different century. Same human heart.

Jesus rebuked them and moved on to another village.

I can almost hear Him saying, “Really, boys? Fire? That is where your minds went?”

We must remember that this was the Word made flesh. He had heard this spirit before, had seen it in Jonah, and knew it long before the before.

But I am getting ahead of myself. That is another piece for another time.

James and John allowed their emotions to outrun their understanding.

How dare these people refuse us? More importantly, how dare they refuse Jesus?

Their loyalty may have sounded noble in their own minds, but wounded pride had slipped quietly into the room. Rejection became insult, insult became judgment, and judgment began reaching for fire.

Luke 9:54–56

“Lord, do You want us to command fire to come down from heaven and consume them?”

Jesus turned and rebuked them. He had not come to destroy the world. He had come to save it.

That landed like a hammer beside my head.

There have been times when I became so irritated with someone that I said to those standing nearby, “That boy would make a good speed bump.”

Sure, it was said with humor. But when I looked more closely, I could see that I had appointed myself judge, jury, and executioner.

The Word had already shown us what God wanted. We saw what happened with Jonah, and still humanity missed the mark.

Then, in the New Testament, James and John bring us the lesson again. Different century. Different angle. Very similar heart.

What must our Savior have thought as He watched the same old impulse rise once more?

“Y’all, c’mon now. Do we really have to cover this again?”

I know my own mind. I know that someday, for one brief moment, the old speed-bump thought may cross it again.

And I can almost hear Christ saying to me, “Really, Braxton? Fire from heaven again?”

It sounds humorous, but the lesson is serious. Serious enough that, if left unchecked, that kind of judgment can harden the heart and do real harm to the soul.

If this piece gave you something to think about, I invite you to pick up your Bible and visit a local Church of Christ.

If you are in the Gladewater, Texas, area, come visit us at:

North Loop Church of Christ
1000 North Loop 485
Gladewater, Texas 75647