When Jesus sent his disciples out to preach the Word, he instructed them only to go to villages and towns that were Jewish, and to avoid places that were not. When they found a house that was receptive to the Word, they were to stay there as a base to teach the rest of the town or village; but if they couldn’t find a house that was receptive, they were to shake the dust from the bottom of their feet as a warning to that place, and move on.

I’ve been doing a lot of foot-shaking over the past few years. God’s Word is becoming less and less welcome in more and more places. Even people I’ve given Bibles to, who at first accepted them politely, have since thrown them out.

It’s a hard lesson for born-again believers to walk away from people who don’t want anything to do with God and Jesus, especially if those people were raised in Christian homes. There’s a part of us that wants to keep trying to reach them, but that’s not what Jesus modeled. He preached and taught only where the Word was welcome, and we’re to do the same. That’s because people hear the Word by the Spirit of Truth, and only if they’re open to the Spirit of Truth. If they’re not open to the Spirit, you can’t reach them. They hear nothing you’re saying and are only tolerating you to be polite.

I would rather people throw shoes at me than just stand there being polite. At least they would show some spark of life, but normies (mainstream majority “normal” people) are for the most part devoid of life. They automatically gravitate to whatever the majority is doing, so that if the majority supports that men can be women and women can murder their children in the womb, that’s what they support. For normies, going against the herd is a fate worse than death.

And following Jesus is definitely going against the herd.

I grew up surrounded by normies. I never felt like I belonged, because I didn’t. I’m not a normie. In hindsight, feeling like an outsider was good training for being a born-again believer. I still don’t feel like I belong in the world, but at least now I understand why. I’m happy that I don’t belong in the realm of Satan. I’m happy that I feel like an outsider when I’m around normies. I’m happy when they reject me and treat me as an “other”, because that’s what I am. If they accepted me, I would start to worry. If they welcomed me, I’d know I was doing something wrong.

Mainstream Christian churches are filled with normies. They gravitate towards the largest congregations and go through the motions, the same motions as all the other normies. Christianity started to die when it became mainstream and was adopted by normies. Little by little, it became less about following Jesus and more about following the herd. That the herd is being steered by Satan doesn’t enter the thought processes of normies, because their thought processes don’t function. Normies don’t think, any more than a herd of animals thinks. Normies respond to base provocations like fear and desire and do what all the other normies around them are doing. That, to a normie, is life.

Jesus didn’t waste his time on normies. When he advised his disciples to shake the dust from the bottom of their feet as a sign against those who wouldn’t receive their message, he was talking about normies. Normies have never received the Spirit of Truth, not in Jesus’ day nor in ours. Christian churches are filled with people who reject the Spirit of Truth. That’s why they fall for false prophet after false prophet and remain lifetime card-carrying members of churches that are blatantly in violation of God’s Commandments.

They are Christian in name only, and only because they grew up in a Christian home or have Christian friends. But their concept of what it means to be a Christian is as far removed from Jesus as the Jewish normies were in the towns and villages that rejected the disciples. In spirit, they are the same herd of normies, just in a different time and place.

Scripture says that we should let the spiritually hungry come to us, we shouldn’t go to them. Jesus taught and preached only where the Word was welcome. He didn’t whitewash it, he didn’t water it down, and he didn’t twist or bend it so as not to offend anyone. He spoke God’s Word as God guided him to speak it, and so must we. Those who want to hear it will come to us, those who don’t, won’t.

It’s a sign that you’re on the right path when normies reject you. When that happens, don’t change your tune to try to please them; just shake the normie dust from the bottom of your feet, and move on.