Where have all the Cowboys Gone? Part 1

I hope that you’ll forgive me the Paula Cole reference but I thought it was appropriate given that we’re going to start our two part series about zeal and lack thereof among today’s Christian men.

What is Zeal?
The English word zeal comes from the Greek word “zelos” and means fervor for a person, cause, or object. This is a fine definition to get us started. But the question that must interest us is what is zeal in the Bible? I would argue that Zeal is the urge we get that makes us want to take action when we see things that are out of line with God’s created order. That urge can compel us to do great things for God. Zeal can manifest itself in several ways. Maybe you want to start a bible study, help the homeless, or speak out against oppression. When the desire to serve God wells up inside of you, becomes too great to ignore, and compels you to action that is zeal.

Examples of Zeal
The Old Testament is filled with lots of examples of men and women zealous to serve God. However, to my mind, Nehemiah is the one that stands out most. Nehemiah was a displaced Jew serving the king of Persia as a cupbearer (Nehemiah 1:11). However, once he heard that the city of Jerusalem, God’s holy city, was in disrepair he couldn’t abide sitting idly by and doing nothing (Neh 2:3-6). Eventually, Nehemiah completed his task of repairing Jerusalem and left the care of Jerusalem to others. However, when he came back to see that the caretakers were not properly worshiping God he was not afraid to bust up some furniture to get his point across (Neh 13:6-10)!

Of course, the most famous example of zeal comes from the book of John. Jesus, approaching the temple in Jerusalem, saw that God’s holy place had been turned into a market house. The temple had become a place where greed and goods were worshiped more readily than God. Jesus, being filled with zeal and righteous (i.e. appropriate) anger, began to overturn tables and dump money changers coins on the floor (John 2:13-17). Jesus’ zeal for God made such an impact on John that he even mentions it reminded him of Psalms 69:9.

Here is a pretty good reenactment of what it might have looked like

Nehemiah and Jesus had this in common when acting on their zeal. Neither could stand the idea of a world where God was not being glorified in the way that he ought. So great was their love for God that the idea of not doing something was to unbearable. Nehemiah risked punishment from his king and Jesus risked punishment from authorities both civil and religious. But they didn’t care. Sin had distorted the goodness of God’s creation and they did something about it.

Now that we know what zeal is and we’ve seen some examples of it. Come back next week when we discuss misguided zeal, lack of zeal, and how to get our zeal back.

Did you like this article? Is there something I missed? Do you have opinions? I would love to hear them? So, put them in the comments section.