The Boys who did not “Cry Wolf”

The boy who cried wolf, a classic story, which I will tell right now.

Once upon a time, there was a young shepherd boy who was bored as he was watching the sheep of the entire village. He thought it'd be funny and sang out, “Wolf! Wolf! The wolf is trying to kill all my sheep!” So all the villagers ran as fast as they could to help out the shepherd boy. But when they got there, there was no wolf. And they became angry and told him, “don't call us up here for nothing!” Then the villagers went back to their houses. The shepherd boy thought it'd be funny to do it again. So he did, and the villagers got even more angry and went back to their houses. Later, the shepherd boy saw a real wolf so he cried out as loud as he could, “WOLF! WOLF! AHHHHH! HE'S ATTACKING MY SHEEPZ!” Yeah, no one believed him so all his sheep got eaten up and the young shepherd boy got slaughtered.

Sucks for the shepherd boy, eh? But what does this have to do with Paul and Silas?

Read Acts 16:35-40

So when the magistrates wanted Paul and Silas to be released from prison, they didn't want their hands to be stained with innocent blood. After all, Paul and Silas were Roman Citizens as well as Christians. They didn't want to be released quietly...why? Because just like the shepherd boy, if they were released in secret, they would be branded as a troublemaker and a lawbreaker by the rest of the people in the area. But why would they make such a huge deal? Because they wanted the public reputation of the gospel and Christians to stay clean. After all, he realized that Christians were judged by their title, and it is still like that today.

So what are we to do? We are to live our lives as Holy People. Since we were justified through Christ's blood. We must strive for sanctification, which is an effort towards a holy life. We do this so that whenever we are out there in the world, they know that we are Christians just by the way we carry ourselves and the way we live our lives. We should not be the boy who cried wolf and be hypocrites because then our actions contradict what we believe and stand for.



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