Is it an insult to be called a religious fanatic? Most people would be offended if you called them that but at the same time take no offense at being called a football fanatic! The word fanatic means “inspired by a deity; marked by excessive enthusiasm and often intense uncritical devotion” (Webster’s New Collegiate Dictionary pg. 414). If one accepts the definition of a fanatic, it is a good thing to be called a religious fanatic. This is an individual who has excessive enthusiasm and uncritical devotion to his or her belief. Jesus addressing the church in Laodicea said, “I know your works, that you are neither cold nor hot. I would that you were cold or hot.  So then, because you are lukewarm, and neither cold nor hot, I will vomit you out of My mouth” Rev 3:15–16. This church had lost their fanatical enthusiasm (hot) and became (lukewarm), complacent, apathetic, and indifferent. Then the Lamb tells these people, “As many as I love, I rebuke and chasten. Therefore be zealous and repent” Rev 3:19. He is encouraging them to kindle the flame of zeal overcoming the lukewarm nature that permeates the church.

In John 2, Jesus found that the Lord’s temple had been turned into a house of merchandise. As He looked around to see the livestock roaming about and the moneychangers at work, He drove the livestock from the temple and overturned the money tables. His disciples remembered Psalm 69:9, “ZEAL FOR YOUR HOUSE HAS EATEN ME UP.” This zeal consumed Him to act against the greed and money lust of the occupants. When it came to the Word of His Father and the House of His Father truly Jesus openly displayed fanaticism. If we could only show the same zeal toward Christ and His church that we show toward the mundane and unimportant things of this world.

In chapter 4 of the book of Galatians, the apostle is warning the brethren of those who are trying to pervert the gospel of Christ with the law. Notice verses 17-18, “They zealously court you, but for no good; yes, they want to exclude you, that you may be zealous for them.  But it is good to be zealous in a good thing always, and not only when I am present with you.” Paul warns the Galatians of being zealous for the wrong things and then encourages zeal towards a good thing, “Christ formed in you,” 19.

In Titus 2:14, Paul writes, “who gave Himself for us, that He might redeem us from every lawless deed and purify for Himself His own special people, zealous for good works.” Our zeal for good works is motivated by the redemption we have in Christ.

Religious zeal without knowledge can be a dangerous thing. Paul lamented the fact that His kinsman, the Jews, had zeal for God but without knowledge. Their zeal was misplaced and misguided. Paul had once been diluted in his mind by the same thinking, Phil. 3:16. Yet knowledge turned him to right thinking, “Yet indeed I also count all things loss for the excellence of the knowledge of Christ Jesus my Lord, for whom I have suffered the loss of all things, and count them as rubbish, that I may gain Christ,” Php 3:8. Like Paul we should be zealous to obey Christ and seek His way. But I am just a religious fanatic!

Terry Jackson