Peer Pressure - Part 1

I challenge anyone to tell me that peer pressure is not a force at work in our lives at any and every age. I guarantee you that your grandpa feels pressure to pull his pants up just a little bit higher when he's around other grandpas with high pants. There's a crazy story in the Bible that is just chock full of the negative consequences of peer pressure. In Mark 6:17-28 is the story of a Jewish ruler named Herod.

Herod had sent soldiers to arrest and imprison John as a favor to Herodias. She had been his brother Philip’s wife, but Herod had married her. John had been telling Herod, “It is against God’s law for you to marry your brother’s wife.” So Herodias bore a grudge against John and wanted to kill him. But without Herod’s approval she was powerless, for Herod respected John; and knowing that he was a good and holy man, he protected him. Herod was greatly disturbed whenever he talked with John, but even so, he liked to listen to him.

Mark 6:17-20

Herod was put in place as the ruler over a large part of ancient Israel by the Roman government right around the time that B.C. became A.D. Herod had married Herodias, who was formerly his brother's wife. This was somewhat scandalous at the time because Herod's brother was still alive, and it's not totally kosher to romance your sister-in-law away from her husband to marry her yourself. John the Baptist made a lot of noise about how this was wrong, which made a lot of waves in Herod's house. Which leads to our first bit of peer pressure in this story:

Herod imprisoned John
The Bible says that Herod liked John and enjoyed talking to him, even though John criticized him for marrying his brother’s wife, but he arrested John and had him imprisoned because of pressure from his wife. Herodias, Herod's wife (Herod and Herodias...it's like a couple named Terry and Terri) was very put out by the constant criticism of her marriage and took matters into her own hands. Either Herod was a big sissy or his wife was a hugely annoying nag, maybe a combination of the two, but Herod bent to the pressure from his wife and did something that he knew was wrong. He threw John into prison. And that’s an important thing to remember – peer pressure almost always wants you to do something you know you shouldn’t do, and the people who are pressuring you know that you don’t want to do it but are pressuring you anyway.