Let's Go Back to the Bible

Are you beside yourself?

When Rhoda heard the apostle Peter knocking at the gate of Mary’s house, she ran back inside the house “and announced that Peter stood before the gate” (Acts 12:14). Notice the very next statement, “But they said to her, ‘You are beside yourself!'” All she did was speak the verifiable truth and she was accused of being out of her mind. When the apostle Paul stood before Festus and Agrippa and preached the death and resurrection of Christ, “Festus said with a loud voice, ‘Paul, you are beside yourself!'” (Acts 26:24). All he was doing was speaking the verifiable truth about the gospel and he was accused of being out his mind.

As Christians, most of us have been and all of us will one day be accused of being “beside ourselves” and crazy for believing in God, the Bible, Jesus, heaven, godly living, etc. Just for speaking and living the truth, people will say that we are out of our minds. May God help us to be like Rhoda, who “kept insisting that it was so” (Acts 12:15). May God help us to be like Paul, who kept right on “[speaking] the words of truth and reason” (Acts 26:25)!