The Wise Fool

Beware of Yeasty Priests

2012-01-27T07:07:00.000-05:00

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Background
After Jesus had fed 4000 people with only seven loaves of bread and few small fish, He worked His way around the coast of the Sea of Galilee where He was confronted by some Pharisees, and possibly some Sadducees, asking Him for a sign from Heaven. Jesus rebuked them for their request, and for not already understanding the signs of the times. Jesus and His disciples soon left there for another spot on the coast of the Sea of Galilee.

Beware of Yeasty Priests

There are a number of times in the Gospels when Jesus' disciples are presented as stupid, for lack of a better word. They appear to be classic literary foils, strategically placed there to make Jesus appear that much more perfect. Yet if that is the case, we may have to redefine "perfect," at least what it means for a student-teacher relationship. For example, consider the episode of when Jesus warned His disciples about yeast.

This is another episode where it makes sense to start with Mark, the earliest of the Gospels. In Mark 8:14-21, Jesus tells His disciples to beware of the "yeast of the Pharisees and that of Herod." His disciples, portrayed as being dumber than dirt, discuss among themselves that Jesus must be saying this because they forgotten to bring enough bread for their journey.

Why say that they appear dumber than dirt? Well, the bread that the Pharisees would have would be deemed Holy, and not available to distribute to the common people. As for Herod, it is unfathomable that they would even think of getting bread directly from their ruler. Clearly Jesus means something other than literal bread here, but what? It seems that the disciples were too distracted by the potential food problem to understand the absurdity of their own conclusion.

Jesus, sensing that the disciples did not understand what He had just said, does what any great teacher would do. He helped them understand... No. Wait, that is not right.

Instead, Jesus focused on the bread-shortage issue. He asks His disciples to remember about the miraculous feeding of the 5000 and the 4000 people, and then asks them if they still do not understand. These miraculous feedings have absolutely nothing to do with Jesus' earlier statement about the yeast of the Pharisees and Herod. Instead, Jesus seemed to be reminding His disciples that they should not worry, because God will provide for them, just like He had said earlier in the Sermon on the Mount.

And that is it. Mark's account ends with no explanation about this mysterious yeast, which is obviously not really yeast. Fortunately, Matthew fixed that issue when he copied the story in Matthew 16:5-12. Matthew's version is mostly the same as Mark's, with a couple of notable exceptions.

In Matthew 16:6, Jesus tells His disciples to "guard against the yeast of the Pharisees and Sadducees." So Matthew changed Herod to be the Sadducees. Christian commentators generally waive this discrepancy because Herod had sided with the sect of the Sadducees over the Pharisees, and so, in a manner of speaking, he represented the Sadducees. That is certainly possible, but then Mark's use of a general term (Pharisees) to refer to a group and then a specific term (Herod) to instead represent a different group in the same sentence and context is linguistically awkward.

The other notable difference is in Matthew 16:12, where we finally discover what this mysterious yeast is:

Then [the disciples] understood that [Jesus] was not telling them to guard against the yeast used in bread, but against the teaching of the Pharisees and Sadducees. NIV

Note Jesus had not actually told His disciples what He had meant by "yeast." Matthew's account followed the same pattern as Mark's, switching to a questioning of whether or not they understood the fact that God would provide food for them if they needed it. No, the disciples had figured out this meaning on their own.

Jesus was said to be a teacher, and good teachers must often try to nudge their own students (disciples) into figuring things out for themselves to promote true understanding. Students must be able to conceptually add two plus two, instead of just memorizing that the answer is four. So we should not be too hasty to judge Jesus for not explaining everything ad infinitum, but, at the same time, when you are dealing with less concrete concepts than basic mathematics, when you are dabbling in the language of metaphor, it is pretty important that you verify your students come up with correct understanding; that which we find in Luke.

Luke 12:1 does not give the episode which we found in Matthew and Mark, but it does have the same concept at heart, as you can see in an excerpt from that verse:

... Jesus began to speak first to His disciples, saying: "Be on your guard against the yeast of the Pharisees, which is hypocrisy." NIV

Luke's version shows Jesus to be a better teacher, where Jesus gives the metaphor and explains the symbolic meaning enough to be easily understood. Hypocrisy is the "yeast," and if only a little yeast gets into a pure flour dough, the yeast will spread throughout it. So stop hypocrisy as soon as you find it, or else it can spread. It is a good metaphor and a good teaching.

There is just one problem; both Matthew and Luke cannot be right. OK, well, technically they could both be right, but it seems extremely unlikely. Matthew claims that the teaching is the yeast. Luke claims that the hypocrisy is the yeast. In the most common way in which "hypocrisy" is used, it is not a condemnation of the rules, ideals, or teachings, but rather condemnation of people who espouse rules, ideals, or teachings yet do not abide by them. In fact, for Jesus to claim that hypocrisy is the yeast, it could be claimed that it is a tacit approval of what the Pharisees were teaching.

Did you notice that Luke dropped the reference to the Sadducees? One of the primary divisions between the Pharisees and the Sadducees is that the Pharisees had a concept of the afterlife, but Sadducees rejected that notion. In that way, the teaching of the Pharisees was in alignment with the message of Christianity.

But wait! (Objectors scream.) Jesus had condemned the teaching of the Pharisees earlier in the Gospels as being the teachings of man!

Yes, well, Luke was a bit of an editor when it came to creating his Gospel. As was discussed in an earlier study, Matthew 15:1-20 and Mark 7:1-23 are the sections accusing the Pharisees teaching man-made law, and they are the only parts of the Gospels to do so. Luke 11:37-41 took that same message and rewrote it as an attack on the hypocrisy of the Pharisees. The earlier study contains a strong suggestion about why Luke may have felt the change was necessary; essentially to prevent Jesus from, Himself, appearing to be a hypocrite.

So we find Matthew to be consistent with his view, and Luke to be consistent with his own view as well, but, together, they represent contradictory aspects, and thus must prompt doubt of accuracy between the Gospels.

The Signs of the Times

2012-01-20T07:02:00.000-05:00

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Background
After rebuking some Pharisees and contradicting God's Law, Jesus took a side trip to the region of Tyre and Sidon. There, He reluctantly healed a woman's demon-possessed daughter after He called her, and her people, dogs. Soon Jesus left that region to go back to Galilee, where He fed 4000 with seven loaves of bread and few small fish.

The Signs of the Times

To a large extent for us today, Biblical veracity comes down to prophesy. None of us were around to witness Jesus, and many of us lack the "feeling" of the presence of God, or the feeling we had once felt no longer exists. The only evidence which should be incontrovertible is prophesy. If words written long prior to Jesus accurately reflected His life and times, then faith can be renewed and even the most bull-headed skeptic must bow in contrition (at least if they are honest). Unfortunately, that is not what we find, such as we will see in this study.

Mark is theorized to be the earliest Gospel, and Mark 8:11-13 is a good example of why. There, the Pharisees test Jesus, asking Him for a sign, to which He tells them no sign will be given to this generation. Of course that is dead wrong based on the Biblical accounts of Jesus working many miraculous signs, but at least Mark's message is simple and short.

Matthew 16:1-4 records the same confrontation, but Matthew added the Sadducees to the group, and said that only one sign would be given; the oh-so-problematic sign of Jonah. But Matthew did not stop there. Proving himself to be somewhat of an aggregator of knowledge, Matthew spliced in a condemnation of the Pharisees and Sadducees; that they could interpret the weather yet could not interpret the signs of the times.

Luke does not exactly cover this episode, but Luke does contain Matthew's same condemnation about knowing the weather yet not knowing the signs of the times. If we remember from a previous study, it appeared as though Luke had edited the "sign of Jonah" the first time Matthew had mentioned it. It may be that Luke edited this anecdote as well due to the reference to the "sign of Jonah" again, and so we see in Luke 12:54-56 that he skipped the Pharisees' request for a sign and instead directed the condemnation at the crowds following Jesus:

He said to the crowd: "When you see a cloud rising in the west, immediately you say, 'It's going to rain,' and it does. And when the south wind blows, you say, 'It's going to be hot,' and it is. Hypocrites! You know how to interpret the appearance of the earth and the sky. How is it that you don't know how to interpret this present time?" NIV

Wrap your head around this: Jesus, speaking to a highly illiterate crowd (literacy rates were well below 10% back then), calls these people hypocrites for knowing how to interpret the weather signs (which they would have encountered every day of their lives) but not knowing how to "interpret this present time" (which is an implied reference to prophesies in the Scriptures). These people had to rely on the Pharisees, Sadducees, and scribes to tell them what was in the Scriptures and to inform them what were the prophesied signs, if any, occurring in their times, but here we see Jesus berating them for not knowing something which they were obviously not taught. Luke made a major blunder here.

Now, we are in the meat of the text! I hope you are hungry, because there is a 24 ounce (0.68 kilogram) porterhouse steak of prophesy coming your way!

Going back to Matthew's version, where instead Jesus focuses His attack more rightfully on the Pharisees and Sadducees, it appears that Jesus had expected them to realize "the signs of the times," which implies a connection to prophesies not only about Jesus, but about the events which were then occurring at that time.

So which prophesies might this implied reference refer to? John Gill, one of the great Christian Bible scholars, suggested these signs in his exposition on this verse:

"the ending of Daniel's weeks, the various miracles wrought by Christ, the wickedness of the age in which they lived, the ministry of John the Baptist, and of Christ, the great flockings of the people, both to one and to the other, with divers other things which were easy to be observed by them"

Working from the end to the beginning, we have already discussed the inaccuracies in the prophesies of people flocking to Jesus, some of the issues with Jesus' ministry, and the issues with John the Baptist leading and preparing the way and representing the foretold reappearance of Elijah. The charge that the times were wicked enough to warrant being a sign is the essence of subjectivity. The recorded miracles of Jesus, such as the feeding of the 5000 and walking on water, have proven to be highly questionable. That brings us to "Daniel's weeks."

The reference to "Daniel's weeks" comes from a prophesy in Daniel 9. The big picture is in Daniel 9:24:

"Seventy 'sevens' are decreed for your people and your holy city to finish transgression, to put an end to sin, to atone for wickedness, to bring in everlasting righteousness, to seal up vision and prophecy and to anoint the most holy." NIV

The word for "sevens" is literally the word for weeks, but the content which follows makes literal weeks an obviously wrong translation. Another interpretation of "sevens" is years, making this a prophesy about 70 years, but given the lack of everlasting righteousness being established so soon after the building of the Second Temple, this interpretation seems wrong. So in this case, the context makes it reasonably clear that these weeks are actually sets of seven years according to the day-year interpretation. All of these things are supposed to be accomplished by the end of seventy sevens, or 490 years.

The phrase "to put an end to sin" is literally just that, and is applied specifically to the Jews as the phrase "for your people" establishes. How can we be certain? Minus the "weeks" timeline, this concept is echoed in other prophesies, such as Ezekiel 36:24-36 and Ezekiel 37:21-28. These prophesies state that the Jews (Israelites) will never sin again after some certain point of time, among other things.

The phrase "to anoint the most holy" sure appears to be a reference to Jesus, right? There are a couple problems with that interpretation. The first is semantics based, because "most holy" comes from a pair of Hebrew words which refer to a holy place or a thing, more like a temple, a sanctuary, or even the city of Jerusalem itself, than a god-man. The word "place" should come after "most holy." Coincidentally, this couples well to the coming Third Temple which was prophesied in Ezekiel 40-46. The second problem is even bigger...timing.

The Times
Daniel 9:25 tells us specifically that the starting time of the 490 years began from when the decree was given to rebuild Jerusalem. The Persian leader Cyrus the Great made that decree. Being extra generous, we will use the date in which the Second Temple of Jerusalem was completed, 516 BCE, although the decree was probably around twenty years before that.

So add 490 years to 516 BCE and you get 26 BC, that "BC" stands for "Before Christ" in Christian lingo. According to Daniel's prophesy, it was before Jesus that transgressions and sins would end, atonement would be made, and there would be everlasting righteousness. This is an epic prophesy failure.

These dates come from secular historians, but Jewish history states that the decree to build Jerusalem came much later, around 370 BCE, and vehemently maintain that the Second Temple stood for 420 years. Add 490 years to that and you get 120 CE. If you subtract seven years, 113 CE is when a foreign power conquered Israel. And since 120 CE, the Jews have never sinned and have had everlasting righteousness. Wait, that is not right either. Is this the actual prophesy failure?

No. Strangely enough, Jewish scholars, apparently contradicting their own Scriptures, suggest that the timeline instead begins with the destruction of the First Temple, and that Cyrus the Great was the anointed leader to come after 49 years. This trick aligns that fateful last seven years of prophesy with the start of the reign of the tyrannical High Priest Alexander Yannai (103 BCE). The problem is that Yannai's reign lasted twenty seven years, not seven, and we are again lacking an everlasting righteousness.

You might think that with all of these mixed up dates, Biblical scholars would shy away from associating this prophesy with Jesus, but they cannot do that, given that Jesus Himself referenced this specific prophesy in Matthew 24:15-20, Mark 13:14-18, and (a slightly modified version in) Luke 21:20-24. Jesus uses it to point out signs yet to come...

That leads to one more timeline theory: According to Nehemiah 2, Artaxerxes gave a commission to rebuild Jerusalem in 444 BCE (Jehovah's Witnesses claim 455 BCE instead, while Seventh Day Adventists claim 457 BCE). Add 490 years to that and you get 46 CE (or 35 CE according to the Jehovah's Witnesses or 33 CE via Seventh Day Adventists). Despite this timeline being essentially useless to Daniel such that it hardly seems to be an answer to his prayer (Daniel 9:20-23), at least this is in the right range. So let us review the signs.

The Signs
Daniel 9:25-27 is the rest of the prophesy; the events leading up to the perfection achieved at the end of those 490 years. These verses are written so haphazardly as to make it extremely difficult to assemble the proper meaning and timing, especially when translators throw in punctuations which are not in the original Hebrew. Here is how I would render it as clearly as possible:

From the time when the order is given to rebuild Jerusalem, in 49 years there will be an anointed leader (a.k.a. a messiah), and the city will continue on for another 434 years during turbulent times. After those 483 total years, the anointed ruler will be cut off. A foreign leader and his people will capture the city, and will rule it for 7 years until his per-ordained fate. He will make cooperative promises with many of the people during that time. Yet rebellions and blasphemes will be frequent during his reign. Approximately 3.5 years into his rule, he will stop the Temple sacrifices and set up an abomination in the Temple which will last until the end of his reign. At some point, he will destroy the city and the Temple, like a flood, in battle.

Where did Daniel come up with these numbers? Of course, it is difficult to say. Some secular scholars and liberal Christian scholars have suggested that this is an ex eventuex prophesy written after the events sometime in the second century BCE, and that it (the last week of the prophesy in particular) aligns to the time of Antiochus IV Epiphanes and the associated Maccabean Revolt (171 BCE), but this requires Daniel to be really bad with dates; off by around 70 years in his timeline even with the most-favorable timeline given above.

I think that there may be a better fitting, but completely overlooked explanation.

If the authorship of the prophesy is much older than the second century BCE, written closer to the time when Daniel supposedly lived, maybe even by Daniel himself, I would suggest instead that it could be an echo of the Old Testament history. The 49 years could represent the time from when David was anointed to become the future king (1 Samuel 16:13) up to the end of his forty-year reign (1 Kings 2:10-11), but there is no specific date given for his anointing to be certain. More precise, however, is that from Solomon's reign to the time when the Babylonians captured Jerusalem was approximately 433.5 years according to the chronology in 1 Kings and 2 Kings, which is pretty darn close to 434 years. It could be that Daniel was forecasting that history would repeat itself. However this time, after a seven year tribulation period instead of a seventy year exile, the cycle of repeated history would end, and everlasting righteousness would be established.

Now, onto the signs:

An anointed one (a messiah, a.k.a. a ruler chosen by God and anointed with oil, reference Exodus 29:7, 1 Samuel 10:1, 1 Samuel 16:13) will rule in 49 years
There are anointed rulers for the next 434 years
The anointed ruler will be cut off, replaced by a foreign ruler (or at least a non-anointed ruler)
That foreign ruler will rule for seven years (Romans ruled it for well over seven years)
That foreign ruler will make promises to many
That foreign ruler will put an end to sacrifices and offerings in 3.5 years (Sacrifices continued to the Temple destruction in 70 CE)
That foreign ruler will set up an "abomination which causes desolation" in the Temple which will remain there until his preordained end.
Jerusalem and the Temple will be destroyed at some point by this foreign ruler's people
At the end of this seven-year rule, God will make atonement for the Jewish people, put an end to sin, and establish everlasting righteousness.

Collectively, this is one huge failure of prophesy. Yet with so many tempting elements, and with Jesus Himself referencing this specific prophesy in Matthew 24:15-20, Mark 13:14-18, and (a slightly modified version in) Luke 21:20-24, Christians cannot ignore it and cannot accept that is it a failure. The product of this contradiction results in some of the most contemptible attempts at Biblical scholarship you will ever find.

For example, one scholarly view is that Jesus was the ruler of the final seven years, where the anointed Jesus was cut off (killed) during that seven years, He had made a covenant with many people, His sacrifice put an end to sacrifices, He had made atonement, He had established an everlasting righteousness, and the Temple was destroyed...eventually (30+ years later).

Contrast this with another popular Christian scholarly view where the ruler during that final seven years is actually the Antichrist, who will rule after the Church is Raptured. It is the Antichrist who will make a covenant with many, will stop the sacrifices and offerings (even though Jesus had already made them unnecessary and somehow even the Rapture of the Church does not convince the Jews enough that the Christians were right to make them stop sacrificing on their own), and will attack Jerusalem and the Temple. This view holds that the first 483 years of Daniel's prophesy has already happened (culminating with Jesus) and did happen sequentially, but that this final set of seven years is (obviously) still yet to occur, which makes absolutely no sense other than making people feel better about a failed prophesy.

For Christian scholars to study the same four verses of prophesy and come up with both Jesus and the Antichrist being represented in the same words is simultaneously hilarious and sad. Yet this shows you the lengths that believers will go to in order to mold these Old Testament prophesies into what they want them to be instead of simply believing what they are actually saying.

Toss It to Their Dogs

2012-01-13T07:03:00.000-05:00

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Background
We have come to a point in the Gospel storyline where Matthew and Mark continue on alone for a little while. Jesus fed the five thousand men, plus others, and then walked on water to meet His disciples on the Sea of Galilee. This was followed by a confrontation with some traveling Pharisees over hand-washing, where Jesus rebuked the Pharisees for teaching contrary to God's Law, only for Jesus to give His own teaching which was contrary to God's Law regarding being clean and unclean.

Toss It to Their Dogs

Jesus is often portrayed as being humble, merciful, and generous; assuming a lowly position, opting not to condemn but rather save, and healing all who came to Him. It is a nice picture, but it is not the whole story. There are other, more controversial, aspects which crop up as you explore the Gospels in their entirety. Take, for example, the episode where Jesus is approached by a Canaanite.

Matthew 15:21-28 and Mark 7:24-30 record a journey of Jesus into the region of Tyre and Sidon, coastline cities to the north of Israel. Allow me to repeat that for emphasis, this is outside of Israel. Why is Jesus outside of Israel? Well, Mark, the earlier-written of the two Gospels, seems to imply that Jesus either on the run, or was looking for a little private relaxation, because Mark 7:24 reveals that Jesus was trying to keep His presence there a secret. Matthew did not want his version of the Messiah sneaking around, so he left off the secrecy in Matthew 15:21, which also leaves off any kind of indication of why Jesus would go there.

I know. Right now you are thinking: "You Fool, Jesus was sent to the Jews and the Gentiles. That is why He was there." Is that so? Hmm. Let us see what Jesus has to say about that a little later.

Despite the secrecy of Jesus' visit, or lack thereof, news of His presence spreads. This was Jesus' first recorded visit to the region, but supposedly His fame had already reached the region and had earlier enticed some of its denizens to go see Jesus while He was in the region of Galilee (Mark 3:8, Luke 6:17). So, naturally large crowds gathered... No. Wait. Just one woman. One woman came to see Jesus while He was there, because she had a demon-possessed daughter. She begged Jesus to help her daughter (Matthew 15:22, Mark 7:25-26).

Naturally, you would expect Jesus, the epitome of love and virtue, endowed with unlimited powers of healing and exorcism, and overflowing with compassion for everyone, to jump at the chance to free this woman's daughter of the evil spirit, just like He had done literally countless times before for other people. You would be wrong. Matthew 15:23 records that Jesus would not even waste His breath to speak to her until He was prodded by His disciples to do so because she was bothering them. When Jesus finally did say something, it was far from what would be expected, as we see in Matthew 15:24:

[Jesus] answered, "I was sent only to the lost sheep of Israel." NIV

According to this line, Jesus was sent only for the Jews, according to the will of God the Father (the implied sender of Jesus). No Great Commission (Matthew 28:18-20, Mark 16:15, Luke 24:45-47). No inclusion of Gentiles. Maybe. Let us take a moment to birth this pregnant statement.

This could be a relic of a time when the Jesus story was exclusively for the Jews. With the above-noted Great Commission (the commission to preach Jesus to all of the world) being at the end of the Gospels, they could easily be a late addition to the story at a time when it seemed that the Gentiles had become interested in Jesus. In fact, the oldest manuscripts of Mark do not include this Great Commission. (Those versions end at Mark 16:8, with an empty tomb but no eyewitnesses to a risen Jesus.) Of course, there is also the curious fact that Saul/Paul was specifically designated as the Apostle to the Gentiles in Acts 9:15, which would not have been necessary if the surviving eleven Apostles had been given a commission to go out to all of the nations. Finally, and in connection to the point above, we should also consider that the "all of the nations" in the Great Commission may not have actually meant all the nations of the world. In the Old Testament, such as in Zechariah 11:10, "all of the nations" was also used (although rarely) to mean exclusively the Jews, as each of the Twelve Tribes of Jews had a "nation" of their own^* within the greater nation of Israel. So it is possible that the Great Commission, even if it was included in early Gospel drafts, may not have been all that great in scope.

On the other hand, Jesus could just be saying that God the Father's specific orders were for Jesus to spread the message to the Jews, and for believers to subsequently spread the message to the rest of the world. Then Jesus' statement would seem to be an indication that He placed following the commands of God the Father first and foremost, so He could not heal the woman's daughter because it was outside His God-given scope, and yet He healed the daughter anyway just a handful of verses later. Plus, if Jesus was only sent to the Jews, what on earth was He doing outside of the nation of Israel? It makes no sense for Jesus to travel to Tyre or Sidon. It is like going to Norway to help the people of Sweden.

The story really does not get better as it continues. The woman begs for help again (Matthew 15:25). From here on out, Matthew 15:26-28 and Mark 7:27-30 have essentially the same content, but there is one peculiar difference.

Matthew 15:26 is similar to Mark 7:27, but Mark adds a qualifying statement (highlighted in bold below) in Jesus' reply to the woman:

"First let the children eat all they want," [Jesus] told her, "for it is not right to take the children's bread and toss it to their dogs." NIV

If you were reading Mark's version alone, you may not really know what Jesus means by "the children." That is probably why Matthew touched up the story when he copied it for his Gospel, adding the part discussed above regarding the lost sheep of Israel. Jesus is saying that the Jews should get first dibs on healing miracles and exorcisms, and possibly on interaction with Jesus. Of course, again, this leads to the question of why was Jesus in the region of Tyre and Sidon if such preference was to be given to the Jews?

Jesus' statement suggests that there is a limited quantity of God's blessing.

Also, you should note that to use the reference of dogs here, referring to this woman and her people in general, was a pretty big insult. This is not exactly the kind of language you would expect from Mr. Compassion.

Do not think that the statement implies that it was a Jews-first, then Gentiles sentiment either. The metaphor is children verses dogs. They were not equal in Jesus' eyes, and not even worthy of sitting at the table. The concept through the metaphor is that maybe, just maybe, some compassion may spill over for the Gentiles, but it is far from guaranteed.

Finally you should note that this is the same Jesus who had earlier instructed His own Disciples to freely give of their powers of healing and exorcism when sending them out on their first mission (Matthew 10:8). This is no free giving. This is a test of endurance against intentional discouragement, rendering Jesus a hypocrite in the classic sense.

The woman, unfazed or perhaps desperate beyond any other hope, pleads one more time, continuing in Jesus' metaphor to suggest that she would gladly take any crumbs which dropped from the table. This persistence finally won over Jesus' compassionate side, and so He exorcised her daughter remotely (Matthew 15:27-28, Mark 7:28-30). Allegedly the daughter is healed, even though there are no witnesses in Jesus' party to verify that fact, given that the daughter was not present at the time.

Perhaps it is for these very serious issues that Luke, the Editor, opted not to include this episode in his Gospel.

* - That each of the tribes had their own nation is not 100% accurate. The Tribe of Levi, a.k.a. the Levites, did not have their own nation, but were rather scattered through each of the other Jewish nations serving as priests. Nevertheless, there were still considered to be twelve nations, as the Tribe of Joseph was considered to be split into the Tribe of Manasseh and the Tribe of Ephriam. See this map for reference.

Curiously, you will see that the map actually includes Tyre and Sidon as part of the territory of the Tribe of Asher as defined in Joshua 19:24-31. Yet as 2 Samuel 5:11 later indicates, Tyre had a Gentile king. Neither Tyre nor Sidon were ever captured and populated by Jews or fully incorporated into their kingdom, but Tyre was often portrayed as having a friendly, almost vassal-like relationship for some time with the Jews (2 Samuel 5:11, 1 Kings 5:1, 1 Kings 9:11-12). Yet at some point in time, the relationship with Tyre turned sour, causing God to condemn it (Isaiah 23, Ezekiel 26).

Are You Still So Dull?

2012-01-06T07:05:00.000-05:00

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Background
Matthew and Mark had Jesus feed the five thousand, followed by a walk on the waters of the Sea of Galilee before the anecdote in this next study. Luke also had Jesus feed the five thousand, but skipped the aquatic jaunt. Luke does not include the content of this study until much later in his Gospel timeline, after Jesus was accused of being Satanic, spoke about the sign of Jonah, and spoke about the eye being the lamp of the body. Previously we discussed how John showed Salvation is by invitation only, but John skips this next topic entirely.

Are You Still So Dull?

When examining Scriptures, there should be a balance in concentration on the message and the details. In many ways, the message is the most important part; what you need to remember to guide your life and see the overall purpose. Yet details are also important, even critically important, to establish the credibility and authority of the message. Details are the foundation which can support or refute any alleged message from God. Let us examine how details can erode the foundation of a message.

Matthew 15:1-20 and Mark 7:1-23 both similarly record an anecdote when some Pharisees from Jerusalem visiting the region north of the Sea of Galilee found that Jesus' disciples were eating without first washing their hands, transgressing the tradition of Jewish elders. The Pharisees asked Jesus why His disciples were transgressing the custom (Matthew 15:1-2, Mark 7:1-5).

Jesus counterattacks, asking the Pharisees why they break the commands of God in favor of their traditions. In example, Jesus says that God commanded for non-parent-honoring children to be put to death, but the Pharisees instead teach that it is acceptable for the children to choose to devote their gifts to God as opposed to their parents (Matthew 15:3-6, Mark 7:9-13).

This may just be the most confused passage in the Synoptic Gospels. Take a moment to think about what Jesus said here. Jesus is complaining that they are not obeying God's Law to put certain children to death. That should be strange enough to anyone who thinks that God is abounding in love and mercy. But did you also notice the what the Pharisees were allowing instead?

It is not that the Pharisees were completely ignoring this law. It is not that they were giving a free pass for children to curse their parents. It was that the Pharisees were allowing children to choose to devote gifts to God as opposed to their own parents. The Pharisees were allowing the children to put God, their heavenly Father, first and foremost. And Jesus had a problem with this teaching, despite His own teaching that serving God was more important than serving family.

Jesus also mentions how Isaiah had prophesied about the Pharisees; how they honored God with their lips but not their hearts, and taught teachings of man over those of God (Matthew 15:7-9, Mark 7:6-8). Yet if you look at the context of Isaiah 29 surrounding the quoted verse of Isaiah 29:13, it appears that the quoted verse is not prophesy at all, but rather a condemnation of the status of Jerusalem (referred to as "Ariel" in this text) in the time of Isaiah, and the actual prophesy is about how God will have all of the other nations attack Jerusalem to humble the Israelites, only to have God eliminate the forces of the other nations in an instant in order to shock the Israelites into worshiping God in purity.

So, now that Jesus has blasted the Pharisees for not completely obeying God's Law, you may expect Jesus to next give them a further lesson about that God had said about washing or cleanliness. If so, you would be wrong. Instead, Jesus teaches something completely different to God's Law, stating that nothing a man eats makes him unclean, and instead it is what a man says which can make him unclean (Matthew 15:10-11, Mark 7:14-15). The teaching itself is good, but it contradicts God's Law in Leviticus 11 regarding acceptable animals to eat, and completely ignores the other ways which God said that a person could be come unclean, such as if they simply touched anything unclean (Leviticus 5:2-3) (which may have been the source for the ritual washing), if they get a skin disease (Leviticus 13:3), if a man has a nocturnal emission (Leviticus 15:16), if anyone has sex involving a discharge of semen (Leviticus 15:18), or a woman has her period (Leviticus 15:19), among other causes.

There is a school of thought that Jesus contradicting these cleanliness laws is acceptable, because these laws belong to a subset of God's Law known as ceremonial laws. Some scholars posit that the ceremonial laws were fulfilled and thus nullified through Jesus, among other things. Being clean or unclean affected whether or not you could participate in festivals and worshiping God in the Temple, and so often Christian scholars take the position that these cleanliness laws were a metaphor, of sorts, to show how God could not tolerate to be around sin, and thus why Jesus' sacrifice was necessary. However, as is clearly seen in the examples above, some forms of uncleanliness came simply from natural biological functions; functions which nobody has control over. So the analogy of uncleanliness representing a state of sinfulness falls apart, if you are willing to consider the details.

Moving on, Matthew 15:12-14 contains a semi-unique thought, where Jesus' disciples tell Jesus that the Pharisees were offended. Jesus replies that they are blind guides who should be left alone to guide the blind. (Luke 6:39 also mentions the blind leading the blind, but not in connection with the Pharisees.) This is a rather interesting teaching, as Jesus is effectively saying "go ahead and let other religious teachers misguide other people." That is great news for religious tolerance, but it does not portray an attitude that God loves everyone and wants them to be saved.

Matthew 15:15-20 and Mark 7:17-23 both conclude the episode with Jesus' disciples asking Him to explain this "parable," which is not much of a parable. Jesus, being the great teacher that He was, asked them "Are you still so dull?" Are you really that stupid? Are you truly that slow-minded? You know, it is the kind of question you would expect from a merciful, humble, meek, and omniscient teacher. Not.

Anyway, Jesus goes on to explain that food does not affect or portray the morals of a person, but what people say can reveal all sorts of evils within their hearts. Again, this is a good teaching, so good you have to wonder why an omniscient God would not have included it from the beginning instead of messing around with apparently artificial cleanliness.

Here is the kicker: Jesus' disciples had already been breaking this hand-washing tradition, presumably for some time, but Jesus did not bother explaining to His own disciples why they were breaking this tradition until now. At least, that is what you should believe according to the text. In reality, however, this is a give away that the whole episode is a fictitious construct crafted to support a particular teaching; the teaching that it does not matter what is within your belly, but rather it is what is within your heart that matters to God.

As we have seen, there are many issues within this anecdote which make it questionable, at best, if not a flat out fictitious fable. Perhaps that is why Luke, the Editor, re-imagines the story differently. In Luke 11:37-41, Luke has Jesus invited for dinner to the house of a Pharisee, where that Pharisee questioned Jesus Himself why He did not wash His hands before eating. Jesus replies, blasting the Pharisees in general for being concerned with the appearance of outside cleanliness despite themselves being wicked and greedy on the inside. Jesus then tells him to give what is in the dish to the poor, and then everything will be clean for him. Thereby, Luke effectively circumnavigates the issues present in Matthew and Mark version. Now if only there was a demonstration that the Divine knew that personal hygiene, such as washing your hands before eating, was also a good thing, perhaps we could give God a little more credit.

By Invitation Only

2011-12-30T07:02:00.000-05:00

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Background
After walking on water to meet up with His disciples on the Sea of Galilee, Jesus arrives in Capernaum. Shortly thereafter, some Jews (who had eaten at the feeding of the five thousand) caught up with Jesus there; sparking a conversation where Jesus gets a little tangled up in His own metaphorical language. This study continues on with that same conversation, but with a special focus on exclusivity.

By Invitation Only

Often times, Christians will point to the freewill as an excuse for the way things are; such as why there is evil in the world (a consequence of humans choosing to works acts of evil on their own free will) or why God is justified in the eternal damnation of certain humans (because they have chosen to reject God's Salvation by their own free will). It is such a convenient argument that Christians completely ignore the Scripture which states the contrary. For there is one will which will always trump human will, and that is God's will.

Previously, we saw Jesus having a conversation with some Jews, where He explained that He was the "bread of life" sent by God to give eternal life, and people would have to eat His flesh and drink His blood to live (John 6:25-59). During that conversation, another theme emerged: exclusivity.

John 6:37-38 states that Jesus will accept anyone who is sent by God, the Father, which naturally implies that there are those not send by the Father, and therefore not destined for Salvation. The truth of exclusivity is more clearly claimed in John 6:44-45 where Jesus says:

"No one can come to Me unless the Father who sent Me draws him, and I will raise him up at the last day. It is written in the Prophets: 'They will all be taught by God.' Everyone who listens to the Father and learns from Him comes to Me." NIV

So you must be drawn by God to the "bread of life," Jesus, to be Saved. There is a little ambiguity which seems to imply that God may speak to some people who do not listen to Him, but that apparent loophole will be closed soon enough. After all, who can resist the will of God?

With God selecting and drawing specific people to Jesus, it appears that any follower of Jesus is Saved, but that is not the case. After Jesus tells the Jews about how they must consume Him for Salvation, some of His own disciples are offended by His teaching (John 6:60). Jesus replies to the disciples in such a way that "many of His disciples turned back and no longer followed Him" (John 6:66).

(Note: Be careful when reading the Gospels, because "disciples" only means "students," not necessarily the Twelve Disciples/Apostles which are often thought of when the term "disciples" is used.)

What did Jesus say which turned many disciples away? Jesus reply in John 6:61-65 is, in a word, confrontational. In John 6:61-62, He starts by mocking their whining and attacking their lack of faith in His authority. Jesus begins His next thought with the "Spirit gives life; the flesh counts for nothing," and states that the words which He had spoken were Spirit and life (John 6:63). Jesus knows, however, that some of them do not believe Him (John 6:64), which is why we find these parting words in John 6:65:

[Jesus] went on to say, "This is why I told you that no one can come to Me unless the Father has enabled him." NIV

Take just a moment to reflect on what this teaching means. You can choose to follow Jesus, out of your own free will. Yet you will not be able to believe in Jesus in a manner which leads to Salvation unless God also chooses to let you believe. The flesh, your choice, counts for nothing.

This teaching is a natural consequence of the teaching that God, the Father, is the one who chooses people for Salvation, because if God is the one leading people to Jesus, how could anyone subsequently leave Christianity, making God's actions result in failure? The solution to that conundrum is to establish the theological concept that some people will choose to become Christian, but are not really Saved, because God did not choose them. This is predetermined fate, not an outcome of freewill. God chooses who will be saved and who will perish, not us. This same sentiment is echoed in Romans 9:16-21:

It does not, therefore, depend on human desire or effort, but on God’s mercy. For Scripture says to Pharaoh: “I raised you up for this very purpose, that I might display my power in you and that my name might be proclaimed in all the earth.” Therefore God has mercy on whom He wants to have mercy, and He hardens whom He wants to harden.

One of you will say to me: “Then why does God still blame us? For who is able to resist His will?” But who are you, a human being, to talk back to God? "Shall what is formed say to the one who formed it, ‘Why did you make me like this?’” Does not the potter have the right to make out of the same lump of clay some pottery for special purposes and some for common use? NIV

Funny how you do not hear much about this teaching in modern pulpits. It is psychologically much easier to blame a person for rejecting God, than to blame God for rejecting that person.

Crumby Teaching

2011-12-23T07:05:00.000-05:00

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Background
After Jesus fed five thousand men with a little food, He had a rendezvous with His disciples, where He walked on the Sea of Galilee to meet up with them. Then John veers off from the other three Gospels, back into the doctrine-rich speeches and dialogs with Jesus found so often in John.

Crumby Teaching

When you start to delve into the world of metaphors for illustrative purposes, depending on the complexity of the message, it can take near-genius-level brilliance to do so in a way which is not self-contradicting, or subject to other adverse implications. Surely an omniscient God could navigate these expansive waters with precision. That is why we find the Gospel of John running into some difficulties.

John 6:25-59 imparts to us a dialog in which Jesus refers to Himself as the bread of life. However, this does not appear to be a dialog in the sense of an actual recorded conversation, but rather a dialogue in the sense of the literary style used by Greek philosophers to advance their arguments, like we find in Plato's The Republic.

The episode begins with the people who Jesus had fed (during the miracle where Jesus had fed five thousand people with a little bread and a couple fish) catching up to Him in Capernaum. Jesus tells them that they are looking for Him because they had eaten for free, not because He had worked miracles. He then tells them to work for food which will yield eternal life, which is given by the God-endorsed "Son of Man" (John 6:25-27). (Of course, Jesus meant Himself by the "Son of Man," making it a rather odd conversation by having Jesus speak of Himself in the third person, but it is not uncommon with what we see elsewhere in the Gospels.)

These people reply, asking Jesus what work does God require. He replies that they must believe in the one God has sent (John 6:28-29). Again, Jesus replies in the awkward third-person perspective. Yet, this is good news! All you need to do is believe Jesus and eat His magic food to be Saved!

Can you guess what they would ask Jesus next? Would it be the logical "so, are you the one God has sent?" Or how about "can you tell us who this 'Son of Man' is that we may believe in Him?" Or maybe even "can you give us this food for eternal life?" Well, it is none of the above, but somewhat close to the first question. In John 6:30-31, we find:

So they asked Him, "What miraculous sign then will you give that we may see it and believe you? What will you do? Our forefathers ate the manna in the desert; as it is written: 'He gave them bread from Heaven to eat.'" NIV

It appears that they have have managed to conclude that Jesus is talking about Himself, so they ask Jesus to perform a miracle to prove Himself, yet supposed they are the ones who had already experienced a miracle from Jesus first hand, being part of the feeding of the five thousand. That does not make sense, unless, for some unknown reason, nobody mentioned to them that five thousand men (including themselves) had been fed with only five loaves of bread and two fish.

However, it is equally unlikely that they mention the manna given to the Israelites by God during their Exodus (Exodus 16). Implicitly, this is a suggestion of a sign that Jesus could do to prove Himself. However, manna was not a sign, but rather a test given by God to see if the Israelites would obey Him (Exodus 16:4).

So we have a doubly unlikely response, at least if this is real dialog, but because it is a philosophical dialogue instead, their reply provides a convenient segue for Jesus to touch on the Old Testament teachings. Jesus tells them that Moses did not give them the bread from Heaven, but God gives the true bread in the form of the He who comes from Heaven to give life (John 6:32-33). Jesus is essentially saying that the Law of Moses will not grant eternal life, in highly figurative language.

They forget about needing a sign, and simply ask Jesus to give them "this bread" from now on (John 6:34). Far from being lost in the metaphor, they seem to have picked up on the fact that "this bread" of life is some sort of new teaching or law from God.

Jesus replies that He is the bread of life from Heaven, and that those who seek Him will never be hungry or thirsty. However, He knows that they do not believe Him (despite following Him around and asking for the bread of life). Jesus comes to do the will of God; that is to grant eternal life on the "last day" to whoever God sends to Jesus to believe Jesus (John 6:35-40). So Jesus is essentially telling them that because they do not believe Him, they will not receive the bread of life, just not in a very clear way.

Instead of being indignant about their exclusion, they grumble about Jesus asking He could have come from Heaven when they knew His earthly family (John 6:41-42). They got hung up on this saying now, despite the fact that Jesus had just effectively stated the same fact in the previous reply in John 6:33. So we go from them apparently understanding Jesus to not understanding Him, but that is not as interesting as another slip in the reply...

This group of people are now called "the Jews" (John 6:41). So we have a supposedly Jewish eyewitness recording an event which happened within a Jewish population in a Jewish town, and yet feeling the need to specify that "they" were Jews. That would be like an U.S.A. native news anchor speaking of an event in Washington D.C. and specifying something that "the Americans" said. It is a tell of another authorship, who is likely not Jewish.

Moving on, Jesus tells them to stop their whining, and reiterates that He will only Save whoever God sends to Him (which was not what they were grumbling about). Jesus goes on to say that those who listen to God will come to Jesus, that only He has seen God, and that He will Save all who believe Him (John 6:43-47).

It is important to take a moment to highlight that Jesus is telling "the Jews" this information despite knowing that they do not believe Him, which, as He knows, means that they are not led by God to Jesus and therefore not destined to be Saved. So Jesus is essentially giving them all of this information to spite them, rubbing their noses in the fact that they will not partake of the bread of eternal life.

Jesus continues in His reply with information more fitting of the Jews' previous question regarding miracles and manna. He tells them that their forefathers ate manna, but they died. However, Jesus is the bread from Heaven, of which if anyone eats His flesh, they will live eternally (John 6:48-51).

Obviously, even the Saved will die physically. So by Jesus contrasting those who ate manna as being dead versus those who eat His flesh having eternal life, the implicit message their dead forefathers do not have eternal life, meaning that nobody who lived before Jesus' time can be Saved. Yet we find the manna-eating Moses surviving contemporaneously in eternal life in the Gospels (Matthew 17:3, Mark 9:4, Luke 9:30).

The Jews grumble again (John 6:52).

Jesus reiterates that they need to eat His flesh and drink His blood in order to have eternal life (John 6:53-56). Jesus lives because of God, and people who feed on Jesus will also live, forever, as opposed to those who ate the manna (John 6:57-59). So the message is concluded with text that clearly indicates that the eating of Jesus is not a literal task, despite tying in the literal example of the Israelites eating manna. No transubstantiated communion wafers are required for Salvation.

John's message of Jesus' message here is that you need to seek out Jesus with the same level desire and necessity that you do your daily nourishment, if not greater, because then you will be rewarded with eternal life. Presumably, because John wanted to make Jesus appear other-worldly, or somewhat cloaked in divine mystery and possessing a higher knowledge, he instead chooses to butcher a message which could have written so simply that anyone could have understood it.

Walking on Fluid Myth

2011-12-16T07:02:00.000-05:00

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Background
John the Baptist was beheaded, and/or Jesus gave some circular logic to the Pharisees, leading into the miracle of the feeding of the five thousand men with just a little bread and two fish, which unites all four Gospel accounts. But only for an instant. Matthew, Mark, and John continue on together, while Luke skips the following tale entirely.

Walking on Fluid Myth

Give a man enough rope, and he will hang himself. That common proverb I take to mean that if you let a guilty man continue to speak and act, he will incriminate himself. The same could be said of the Scriptures, and the guilt is that they have been constructed from fiction as opposed to the facts which they claim to have. Often times, this can become obvious with just the smallest amount of scrutiny, such as we see in the anecdote of Jesus walking on the water. Of course, it is also possible that this truth was not meant to be factual, so we will conclude with a slightly different perspective to make it real again.

The anecdote of Jesus walking on the water is found in Matthew 14:22-36, Mark 6:45-56, and John 6:16-24. They are all a little different, as you might expect from three different witnesses, but the differences are a little too divergent to be the tales of actual witnesses. Let us take a look, one by one, starting with Mark.

Mark 6:45-47 states that "immediately" after the feeding of the five thousand, Jesus sent His disciples on a boat on the Sea of Galilee to head towards Bethsaida in the evening. Meanwhile, He dismissed the crowd and prayed on a mountain top. Next, in Mark 6:48-50:

He saw the disciples straining at the oars, because the wind was against them. About the fourth watch of the night He went out to them, walking on the lake. He was about to pass by them, but when they saw Him walking on the lake, they thought He was a ghost. They cried out, because they all saw Him and were terrified... NIV

So Jesus was walking on the water; quite a miracle! Consider that walking on anything requires some serious physics; namely "normal" force and friction.

Gravity keeps you on the surface where you are walking, but that surface also must hold you up, pushing you in a force equal and opposite to your weight. This force is known as the normal force in engineer-speak, which is impossible for water to do in a liquid state when it is free to be displaced, at least when we are speaking of a supporting a human foot at walking speed.

Friction is what prevents your feet from sliding out from underneath you when you walk and allows you to propel yourself forward. If you have ever tried to walk on ice, you know what happens when you have little friction. How much friction do you think the water of a lake has at its surface? Not much. Water does have considerable fluid friction which allows you to swim, but it is very difficult to swim just by skimming your hands across the surface.

I know, I know, it is a miracle, so physics do not apply. Yet they are still important to consider. Why? Because walking on water requires a complete abatement of physics. It is not that Jesus was magically lighter, or the surface of the water became solid for Him, it is that He was locomotive in an impossible manner for humans. So Jesus may as well have been flying out to them, flapping His arms like a bird, as opposed to walking.

Flying would have been a more logical transport method too, given that the verses tell us that strong winds were blowing which made the surface of the lake very rough (John 6:18). Assuming that Jesus did walk on the water, it must have been like trying to walk on a giant water bed which had an internal wave machine. It would have been a miracle just to stand upright in that tumult, let alone walk in a coherent fashion.

Physics aside, Mark has Jesus about ready to walk right by the disciples as they struggled in the boat! It appears that He would have done so too, if it was not for the fact that seeing Jesus scared the disciples enough to yell in fear.

Mark 6:50 continues on with Jesus calming down His disciples, leading to the next pair of interesting verses in Mark 6:51-52:

Then He climbed into the boat with [the disciples], and the wind died down. They were completely amazed, for they had not understood about the loaves; their hearts were hardened. NIV

The "about the loaves" is a reference to the feeding of the five thousand. According to Mark, the disciples did not understand that the feeding was a miracle from God; that Jesus wielded the power of God and that they should have faith that God would provide for them. Why? Because their hearts were hardened. That is, the hearts of the disciples, the guys who had given up life to follow Jesus! Mark is the only Gospel to suggest that the hearts of the disciples were hard, doing so here and Mark 8:17.

It is hard to imagine that the disciples would have hard hearts keeping them from understanding Jesus' power and incarnation, given that, according to Mark, Jesus had previously exorcized a demon (who yelled that Jesus was Jesus was God's Holy One), healed many people including Simon's/Peter's mother-in-law (Mark 1:29-34), healed a leper, healed a paralytic man, healed a man with a shriveled hand (Mark 3:1-6), calmed a storm, sent demons into swine, and raised a girl from the dead. Beyond that, Jesus also had given the disciples power to drive out demons and heal people when they went out on their first mission!

The storm is immediately calmed when Jesus is in the boat. Mark 6:53-56 closes out the story with the boat landing, and people coming from all around to be healed by Jesus. Those who even only touched Jesus' cloak were healed as well.

In Matthew's version, Matthew does not mention Jesus being about ready to walk past His disciples, but other than that, the story is basically the same up to when Jesus approaches the boat (Matthew 14:22-27). Then it changes completely.

In Matthew 14:28-31, Simon/Peter calls out to Jesus, who then tells Peter to walk out to Him. Simon/Peter does start walking out, but then has doubts, sinks into the water, and yells for Jesus to save him. Jesus grabs Simon/Peter's arm and scolds him for doubting.

OK, so, it is important to remember that Simon/Peter was a fisherman who knew how to swim (Matthew 4:18, Mark 1:16, Luke 5:5, John 21:7). A fisherman afraid of drowning is about as likely as an eagle being afraid of heights. This little snippet seems to be utter fiction. The question is why?

The answer may come from Matthew 14:32-33. In bold contrast to the hardened hearts found in Mark's disciples, Matthew's disciples worship Jesus as the Son of God after He got back in the boat and the winds calmed down. It could be that Matthew had a copy of the story which was similar to Mark's, but he did not like the idea of the disciples having hard hearts. So instead, Matthew paints the scene as a budding of the faith of the disciples in Jesus.

Matthew 14:34-36 then concludes exactly like Mark 6:53-56.

John's version of the miracle is abbreviated, lacking details about the time bracket when Jesus came to His disciples, the hard hearts, Simon's/Peter's wet walk, and the generic healing miracles at the end of the tale, which is replaced by focus on the crowd which was left behind (John 6:22-24). This odd focus on the crowd left behind is a mark of fiction, because the eyewitnesses of the Gospel accounts were with Jesus. These differences will also come to mind a little later in this study.

John does add one more miracle, in that as soon as Jesus gets in the boat, it immediate appears on the shore where they were heading (John 6:21). (I need to get a Jesus installed into my car!)

It is interesting to note that Luke not only edited this anecdote completely out of his Gospel, but also went so far as to stage the feeding of the five thousand in Bethsaida (Luke 9:10) to avoid needing a boat trip. Perhaps Luke found this story a little too far fetched as well, or perhaps Jesus flaunting His power by working non-beneficial miracles was too far out of His character for Luke to accept.

A Different Perspective
There are some scholars throughout history which have claimed that the stories of the Gospels were never meant to be taken as literal history. Instead, they were supposed to be read as allegories. If so, we would expect for the stories to have some gaps in logic and incongruities within a literal context (which there are sometimes) and the appearance of symbolism (which there is sometimes). If so, the truth which they were meant to convey was transcendent of any specific, real event.

Consider that according to Matthew 14:25 and Mark 6:48, Jesus went out to His disciples during the fourth watch. In Roman security, there were four, three-hour watches for the night. So the fourth watch is the watch just before daybreak, just before sunrise, just before the epiphany of realization brought about through the light.

Jesus, after meditating in prayer alone (Matthew 14:23, Mark 6:46), came down to the disciples in a fully enlightened state, able to walk on water; water being a symbol of the fluidly transient spiritual world, as opposed to the solidity of the material world. In fact, Matthew 14:26 and Mark 6:49 even go as far as claiming the disciples thought Jesus was a true spirit, in the form of a ghost.

In Mark's version, the disciples are simply amazed, because, as the fourth watch time reference implies, they were on the cusp of enlightened, but not quite there yet. I suspect Matthew's scene with Simon/Peter was an insertion into the story by a later author who may not have been in tune with the allegory. However it could be that Matthew more specifically makes the case that the enlightenment regarded absolute faith in God, and that Simon/Peter was just shy of achieving it due to doubts creeping in.

The disciples had struggled to make any headway against the winds on the lake (Matthew 14:24, Mark 6:48), but when Jesus gets into the boat, the winds immediately calm down (Matthew 14:32, Mark 6:51). So the disciples, still very much as material men, struggled greatly to make progress on this spiritual journey by themselves. However, with Jesus, with the guidance of someone who had already attained this enlightenment, the journey became much easier.

You may have noticed a lack of references to John's account here. There are some critics who have suggested that the Gospel of John was written partially with the purpose of fighting the growing Gnostic movement, which had held to concepts that the message of Jesus was about enlightenment, and special knowledge had been attained by the disciples once they had attained a certain level of spiritual consciousness. Curiously, and in support of that theory, we find most of the spiritual enlightenment symbolism vacant from John; Jesus does not pray on the mountain, there is no reference to the fourth watch (and actually it appears as though it would be more like the young side of the middle of the night), there is no mention of Jesus being thought to be a ghost, and, finally, Jesus does not make the journey easier, He makes the journey over as soon as He gets in the boat. The spiritual message is effectively neutered.

Fishy Bread

2011-12-09T07:05:00.000-05:00

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Background
Jesus was rejected in His hometown. Then He got more bad news, John the Baptist was beheaded. At least that is according to Matthew. Mark and Luke record that Jesus sent out the Twelve Apostles on their first mission and then relay the story of John the Baptist losing his head. John records Jesus snubbing some Pharisees with circular logic prior to this study, where all four Gospels then unite to tell the following fish tale.

Fishy Bread

How does a miracle happen? God makes it happen, of course. By that very nature, or super-nature, there certain details which we would not be expected to know about the execution of a miracle, yet other details would be obvious. For example, how did God part the sea during the Exodus? A strong wind blew throughout the night before, driving the sea back (Exodus 14:21). These mechanical details flesh out a miracle into something believable, but without them, miracles can seem a little suspect. Take the miraculous feeding of the 5000 men, for example.

Matthew 14:13-21, Mark 6:30-45, Luke 9:10-17, and John 6:1-15 all record the miracle in essentially the same way. Jesus has compassion on a bunch of people who have come to listen to His teaching and to be healed. He asks His disciples what food they have to share with the crowd, and they answer that they have five loves of bread and two fish. (John's version has the bread and fish being supplied by a little boy; apparently he was the only one smart enough to pack food for a trip.)

So, how did Jesus feed 5000 people with a little bread and even less fish? Matthew 14:19-20 records it essentially the same as Mark 6:41-43 and Luke 9:16-17:

And He directed the people to sit down on the grass. Taking the five loaves and the two fish and looking up to Heaven, He gave thanks and broke the loaves. Then He gave them to the disciples, and the disciples gave them to the people. They all ate and were satisfied, and the disciples picked up twelve basketfuls of broken pieces that were left over. NIV

The question still remains; how did Jesus feed 5000 people with a little bread and even less fish? Sure, it was a miracle, but what happened exactly? Did the loaves and fishes multiply right when Jesus gave thanks? Did the little broken bits of bread grow before their eyes? Did it rain manna from Heaven? Did the disciples realize that there was magically more food they were distributing than there should have been?

We have three supposedly-different accounts of a miracle without one of them describing what actually happened. Is that strange to anyone else?

John's account makes a miracle possible. In John 6:11, we find:

Jesus then took the loaves, gave thanks, and distributed to those who were seated as much as they wanted. He did the same with the fish. NIV

As you can see with John's version, it seems as though Jesus is the one distributing all of the food Himself. That fixes the problems of the disciples knowing exactly when the miracle happened and seeing the bread multiply.

However, John's version has its own issues. After the feeding, John reports that the people took to heart the miracle so much that they thought Jesus was the Prophet prophesied by Moses, and they wanted to make Him their king (John 6:14-15). Yet just a scant eleven verses later, Jesus claims that those very same people are only following Him for the free food (John 6:26)!

So miracle of the feeding of the 5000 has an odd lack of details in the Synoptic Gospels, while John appears to contradict himself, but the story is not over yet. Who could forget the later miraculous feeding of the 4000?

Matthew 15:29-39 and Mark 8:1-10 both record an additional miraculous feeding, this time of 4000 people. Yet again, both accounts leave out the details of how exactly the miracle happened (Matthew 15:36, Mark 8:6-7).

It is so very strange that all of the record of these two miracles lack what should have been the most memorable detail, namely the miracle part! I cannot help but wonder if there is an alternative explanation, a less miraculous origin; or if the miracle changed in the telling. Here is a theory:

Each of these accounts record how many basketfuls of food were collected after everybody ate (Matthew 14:20, Mark 6:43, Luke 9:17, John 6:13, Matthew 15:37, Mark 8:8). Jesus and His disciples were not working, but instead were traveling the country. They needed food. They needed to survive based on offerings from others. Perhaps the original miracle was the large quantity of food all of the people left behind for the disciples; in a sense it was God providing for them. Yet that was just not awesome enough, so very soon afterward the story got jazzed up Jesus multiplying the food, but poor literary vision prevented the author/editor from inserting the appropriate miraculous details.

Beheading a Legend

2011-12-02T07:03:00.000-05:00

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Background
Recently in our studies, Jesus was rejected in His hometown, and John had Jesus deliver convoluted truth while condemning some Pharisees. The event in the following study happens after the hometown rejection, according to Matthew that is.

Beheading a Legend

It is difficult to come up with a good, believable story. If you focus too much on the plot, the plausibility of the story can suffer as unreasoned details strike against the credibility of the tale. Take the beheading of John the Baptist, for example.

Matthew 14:1-12 and Mark 6:14-29 similarly record the story: King Herod had put John the Baptist in jail because John the Baptist had kept telling Herod that he should not have married Herodias, Herod's brother's wife. On Herod's birthday, the daughter of Herodias danced for Herod. She was such a good dancer that Herod promised to give her whatever she wanted. Her mother told her to ask for the head of John the Baptist on a platter. Herod, begrudgingly bound by his promise, had John the Baptist beheaded. Now, Herod thinks that a local miracle worker (Jesus) is John the Baptist who has come back from the dead.

It is a good story, for sure, but it is not very believable. Why? Well, let us take a look at some of the details.

The first, and possibly weakest, objection is the simple question of who witnessed this event? Obviously, none of Jesus' disciples were there, and it is unlikely that John the Baptist's followers were invited to Herod's birthday party either. Yet if such a spectacle did really happen, I am sure that the rumors would have spread quickly, so this episode could have been relayed by word of mouth. That can work, but Mark 6:22-25 records both public dialog between the king and the daughter and private dialog between the daughter and her mother. (The fact that this occurs in the Gospel of Mark is extra odd because Mark rarely has more details than the other Gospels.) To have such detail suggests embellishment at best, or downright fiction at worst.

Next, consider why John the Baptist was in jail. Matthew 14:3-4 and Mark 6:17-18 both say that he was arrested because he had been telling Herod (repeatedly and in person) that his marriage to Herodias was sinful. This is certainly possible, but very unlikely. Herod was a king living in a palace. John the Baptist was supposedly a prophet preaching in the desert in order to fulfill prophesy (Matthew 3:1-3, Mark 1:2-4, Luke 3:1-6, John 1:23). Why would Herod travel out to the desert to see John the Baptist, repeatedly, when John the Baptist kept accusing Herod of having a sinful marriage? Flavius Josephus records a more believable version of history, recording that Herod had John the Baptist killed because the people flocked to John the Baptist like a leader, and Herod was concerned that he might start a rebellion.

Next, consider the wild promise Herod made to this dancing girl. Matthew 14:6-7 suggests that, because of her dancing, Herod promised to give her anything she asked for. This might seem like hyperbole, and that Herod had not intention of giving her anything she wanted. But with the qualifier of “up to half of my kingdom” in Mark 6:22-23, it does seem that Herod had full intention of granting this girl nearly any desire. Just for that one dance. One dance. Not a promise to become his love slave, his concubine, his next wife, etc. Not even a promise for her to “keep him company” later that evening. It was just one dance, and the dance was already done. For Herod to give such a rich and boundless offering for the sake of some temporary and already complete entertainment seems highly unlikely.

Perhaps it is for these reasons that Luke edited out these questionable details from his version of the story. In Luke 9:7-9, you find a much more abbreviated tale where Herod had heard of the activities of Jesus and wondered who this was, because he had beheaded John the Baptist and some other people thought it was perhaps the resurrected John the Baptist. Very limited hearsay testimony. No strange imprisonment. No dancing girl. No silly oath.

Yet Luke does not escape all of the oddity seen in Matthew and Mark. Matthew 14:1-2, Mark 6:14-16, and Luke 9:7-9 show that Herod puzzled about who Jesus may be. Matthew and Mark explicitly, and Luke implicitly, show that Herod was thinking that this may be John the Baptist resurrected. That would be plausible if Herod was just some guy on the street, but Herod, as king, would have access to people who report the news to him (which is kind of important as a king). People with eyewitness accounts would be sharing what Jesus was doing, what His back story was, and what he looked like (as in He looks different from John the Baptist and is noticeably missing the scars of a beheading).

Finally, we will close out with yet another significant oddity. This is one point where the storyline of the Synoptic Gospels merge again. After this note about the beheading, all three continue on to the story of Jesus feeding the 5000 men.

Before these three Gospels come together, Mark and Luke had already synchronized with the sending of the Twelve Apostles on their first mission. So for Mark and Luke, the events which Herod hears about is (presumably) in relation to the work of Jesus and the Apostles on this mission. And right after this tale of beheading, the Apostles return to report to Jesus what they had accomplished on their mission (Mark 6:30, Luke 9:10).

Matthew, on the other hand, records Jesus' hometown rejection immediately prior to this, which makes Herod's inquisitiveness regarding Jesus seem misplaced. Yet it becomes even more anachronistic as Matthew's story continues. Matthew 14:12 records that right after John the Baptist was beheaded, John the Baptist's disciples told Jesus what had happened. Matthew 14:13 states:

When Jesus heard what had happened [regarding John the Baptist's beheading], He withdrew by boat privately to a solitary place. Hearing of this, the crowds followed Him on foot from the towns. NIV

This feeds right into the feeding of the 5000 men, as they were the crowds who were supposedly following Jesus.

Did you catch the time loop? Herod thinks some teacher/miracle worker is possibly John the Baptist resurrected, implying that some time and events had passed since the beheading. Yet as the beheading story, and the rest of Matthew, continues, it reads as though the beheading had just happened, to which Jesus reacts by looking for a little alone time. Quite a tangled web.

Circular Logic

2011-11-25T07:03:00.000-05:00

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Background
We have just studied Jesus being rejected in His hometown. In our studies, we have been following the timeline as it is laid out in Matthew, but we are going to take a small diversion now to cover a section of John. The Gospel of John covers a two year (at least) ministry of Jesus (based on the explicit mention of three separate Passovers), whereas the other Gospels seem to suggest a ministry of less than one year. This makes it impossible to fit John into the timeline of any other Gospel, especially when roughly 90% of the material John covers is unique to John. So the other Gospels must instead be put into John, but there is a lot of gray area in determining the right way to do so.

According to John, before the speech we will study today, Jesus healed an official's son remotely and then later heals an invalid man who was waiting by a pool for a miraculous healing (John 5:1-15).

Circular Logic

The Gospel of John is always a bit of an enigma. John records no exorcisms, despite exorcisms being one of the most common miracles performed by Jesus according to the other three Gospels. John records no parables, despite the fact that Jesus supposedly did not speak to the crowds without using parables. John records Jesus giving many lengthy explanations about Himself, often using figurative language, which are not in any other Gospel. These explanations are very useful for fleshing out Christian theology, which is probably why John became part of Biblical canon despite such a contrast from the other Gospels. Yet along with the helpful verses come puzzling ones as well.

John 5:1-15 records how Jesus healed a lame man on the Sabbath, which angered the Pharisees. Jesus then told them that His Father also works on the Sabbath, which really pissed them off, inciting them to try “all the harder to kill Him” (John 5:16-18). For John, this is the first mention of the Pharisees trying to kill Jesus, so it appears that any effort in that direction would be counted as trying harder. :-)

Despite the Pharisees trying to kill Jesus, He manages to get a long-winded, and somewhat confused, response to them in John 5:19-46. Below are conceptual highlights from that speech. I think that the absurdity is pretty self-explanatory, but please do not hesitate to raise a protest if it seems logical to you. I could be wrong...

Jesus can do nothing by Himself (John 5:19, John 5:30)
Jesus does only what He sees God doing (John 5:19)
Whatever God does, Jesus also does (John 5:19)
God judges nobody (John 5:22)
Jesus has been entrusted by God to judge everyone (John 5:22)
Jesus judges based only on how God tells Him to judge (John 5:30)
Jesus will not judge the Pharisees (John 5:45)
Moses will judge the Pharisees (John 5:46)

God gives life to people (John 5:21)
Jesus gives life to whoever it pleases Himself to give it to (John 5:21)
Jesus seeks only to please God instead of Himself (John 5:30)

If you do not honor Jesus, you do not honor God (John 5:23)
Jesus does not accept praise from men (John 5:41)

Jesus' testimony about Himself is not valid (John 5:31)
The work which God has given Jesus is doing testifies for Jesus (John 5:36)
God testified about Jesus (John 5:37)
The Scriptures (divinely influenced by God) testify about Jesus (John 5:39)
Who ever hears Jesus' words and believes God will be saved (John 5:24)
Jesus and God are one (John 10:30) (OK, I did have to reach outside this section for that one.)

John the Baptist testified about Jesus (John 5:33)
Jesus does not accept John the Baptist's testimony (John 5:34)
Jesus mentions John the Baptist's testimony so that the Pharisees will be saved (John 5:35)
The Pharisees would accept the testimony of someone else (John 5:43)
The Pharisees do not accept Jesus (John 5:43)

The Pharisees believe only in the Scriptures (John 5:39)
The Pharisees do not believe the Scriptures (John 5:47)

That last set is probably the only thing which needs a little further explanation. According to Jesus, the Pharisees thought that the Scriptures (John 5:39), and the scriptures supposedly written by Moses in particular (John 5:45-47), held the key to eternal life (which they clearly do not). Jesus claims that the eternal life they reference is through Jesus, which Moses wrote about (John 5:46).

Moses supposedly wrote Genesis through Deuteronomy, the first five books of the Bible. The best Christian scholars have come up with for prophesies concerning Jesus from Moses are Genesis 3:15 (the curse applied to the snake from the garden of Eden), Genesis 12:3 (God says that all people will be blessed through the Jews), Numbers 21:9 (where Moses made a bronze snake on a stick), and Deuteronomy 18:14-20 (where God will provide a prophet who is explicitly not God and should be proved). The way Jesus speaks, you might expect Moses to have said “the son of God will come to you and make atonement for the sins of all of mankind and offer eternal life to everyone,” but that is very, very far from the truth. The message is cryptic at best, with a biased eye, and non-existent for those who tend to be a little more skeptical.

Altogether, this is just a tangle mess of confusion.

The Hometown Frown

2011-11-18T07:03:00.000-05:00

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Background
Jesus had a very busy day recently, which included being called Satanic, revealing the one unforgivable sin, revealing that the only sign to the wicked would be the sign of Jonah, disowning His biological family in favor of His spiritual one, and speaking a bunch of imperfect parables with the explicit purpose of keeping unwanted people out of the Kingdom of God. After a day like that, it is no wonder that Jesus was looking for a little hometown comfort.

The Hometown Frown

When you try to make sense of the chronology of the four Gospels, you can find some rather amusing anachronisms. It is too bad we do not have a WABAC machine to figure it all out with certainty. What is a WABAC? It is a time machine from a verbose, recurring segment in the 1960's cartoon The Rocky and Bullwinkle Show. We are going to need to do a little virtual time travel in our study today. So, Sherman, set the WABAC machine to 30 AD, give or take a few years, as we begin the study with Luke 4:16-30.

According to Luke, right after Jesus was tempted by Satan, Jesus returned to the region of Galilee, and particularly the town in which He grew up, Nazareth. On the Sabbath, He went into the synagogue there, “as was His custom.” There, He read a prophesy from a scroll containing Isaiah 61 in front of everyone, reading verse Isaiah 61:1 and part of Isaiah 61:2, and then told everyone that that prophesy was now fulfilled (Luke 4:16-22).

Isaiah 61 is a rather interesting eleven-verse prophesy. Take a look, and you will find such highlights as ancient ruined cities being rebuilt (Isaiah 61:4), Gentiles doing manual labor for the Jews (Isaiah 61:5), Israel feeding off of the wealth of other nations and boasting in those riches (Isaiah 61:6), and subsequent generations of Jews being acknowledged by Gentile nations as being a people blessed by God due to God rewarding them (Isaiah 61:9). So you see, this prophesy exactly matches what happened with Jesus showing up, except for all of the details.

Continuing, Jesus goes on to chat about how the people of His hometown will disrespect Him, how a prophet has no acceptance in his hometown, and how Elijah and Elisha both helped out Gentiles despite there being a need for help among the Jews (Luke 4:23-27).

This angered everyone in the synagogue, so they tried to throw Jesus off a cliff outside of town, but Jesus somehow escaped right through the crowd (Luke 4:28-30). And that is it. Luke never records Jesus being back in Nazareth again, and apparently for good reason, if they were on the hunt to kill Him!

OK, so let us get back to the future, er, past, to catch up with Matthew's chronology. After Jesus was tempted by Satan, gathered disciples, gave the Sermon on the Mount, healed a leper, healed the Centurion's servant, healed others for prophesy, told a follower to leave behind his family obligations, calmed a storm, sent demons into pigs, healed a paralyzed man, snubbed some Pharisees, resurrected a dead girl, told His Disciples to remind God of the urgent need for harvesters, sent the Twelve Disciples out with instructions for their first mission, confirmed to John the Baptist that He was the Messiah, described how John the Baptist led the way and was Elijah, revealed that He could have saved Sodom if He had wanted to, revealed that God hides the truth from the learned, revealed God's selectivity in Salvation, called His “yoke” easy, inaccurately spoke about King David's sins, healed others again for prophesy, got called Satanic, revealed the unforgivable sin, spoke of the sign of Jonah, rejected His mother, and spoke in parables to keep people from understanding, yes, after all of that, He went to His hometown of Nazareth.

In Matthew 13:53-58 (and its parallel in Mark 6:1-6), you find Jesus just walking right into the synagogue and teaching on the Sabbath. Now, based on Luke's much earlier episode, you might think that the people in the synagogue would have immediately tried to detain and kill Jesus upon seeing Him in that very same place again, but that is not what happened. Matthew and Mark record that the audience was amazed at His wisdom and were asking rhetorically if this was really the same local man they all knew, as opposed to asking “hey, is this the guy we tried to throw off a cliff a while ago?”

Also in contrast between the Matthew/Mark account and the Luke story is that Luke, as noted above, stated that Jesus was a regular worshiper at the synagogue, and was learned respected enough to the point where He was handling Scriptural scrolls Himself and teaching from them, yet in Matthew/Mark the people in the synagogue cannot understand where He has gotten His knowledge of the Scriptures as if they had never heard Him discuss the Scriptures before. Clearly, this is a contradiction beyond just the botched chronology.

Matthew 13:57 and Mark 6:4 both state that Jesus said a prophet is without honor in his hometown and in his own house, with “his own house” obviously referring to the prophet's own family not honoring him. This is a confirmation of the earlier study where Jesus rejected His own biological family because they did not believe in Him. Meanwhile, Luke, the editor, drops the reference to the family, instead just noting that a prophet lacks hometown acceptance in general (Luke 4:24).

The Gospel of John is not completely left out. In John 4:44, Jesus says that a prophet gets no honor in his own country. The entire country! It appears John had a little scope creep. (Although note that the word interpreted as “own country” is sometimes used for hometown too.)

On a final note, Matthew 13:58 says that Jesus “did not” do many miracles there because of their lack of faith. Mark 6:5 says that Jesus “could not” do any miracles there other than healing and laying on hands. Logically, it appears that Jesus did not do many miracles because He could not due many miracles due to their lack of faith. Imagine that! God's omnipotence is powered by our willingness to believe that He is omnipotent.

Imperfection in Parables

2011-11-11T07:04:00.000-05:00

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Background
In the Synoptic Gospels of Matthew, Mark, and Luke, after Jesus gave the parable about sowing seeds on different kinds of soil, He revealed that the reason that He spoke in parables was to keep people from understanding His words, to keep them from repenting, as it was (incorrectly) prophesied. That leads into a string of even more parables.

Imperfection in Parables

From Christian pulpits, there is a tendency to exalt Jesus' parables to a status of perfection. They marvel at how effectively and accurately Jesus was able to explain the Kingdom of God to people through the use of parables. However, as we just learned, the reason that Jesus spoke in parables was to prevent certain people from understanding. So half of that position is wrong. What about the other half? Were the parables perfectly accurate representations? The interpretations of unexplained parables vary based on the scholars you refer to, so that is some proof to the contrary right there. We can go a step further and easily find ways in which the parables fall apart, and maybe have a little fun in the process.

In Matthew 13:24-30 is the Parable of the Tares, which is unique to Matthew. It says that the Kingdom of Heaven is like a farmer who sows wheat in a field, only to have an enemy come a sow tares in that field while the farmer is sleeping. The farmer instructs his servants to wait until harvest time to pull out the weeds to avoid uprooting the wheat. The weeds will be pulled out first, and burned, and then the wheat will be harvested.

In the explanation of the parable in Matthew 13:36-43, God (Jesus) is the farmer and Satan is the weed-sowing enemy. The way that the parable is worded would suggest that Satan had planted the weeds unknown to God. That is a problem if God is really omniscient. So to be more accurate, the parable would say that the farmer sat and watched His enemy sow weeds in the field and did nothing to stop him. And in that case, you really have to question the farmer!

Also interesting is that, according to the parable, the weeds are gathered first before gathering the “sons of the Kingdom.” This creates a problem for people expecting a Rapture event where the good guys will be called up to Heaven prior to God unleashing His wrath on the world.

Switching over to Mark, he follows the Parable of the Sower with the Parable of the Growing Seed in Mark 4:26-29; a parable unique to Mark. The Kingdom of God is like a farmer who sows some seed, observes the crop growing all on its own, but he does not know how it grows, and then harvests the crop when it is ready. Because there is no given explanation for this parable, interpretations vary. However, it seems to suggest that very little effort at all would be needed to spread the faith and thereby enlarge the Kingdom, which is quite a contrast to the reality, which is presently a multi-billion-dollar affair requiring tons of effort.

Matthew 13:31-32 and Mark 4:30-32 then converge with the Parable of the Mustard Seed, which Luke 13:18-19 also records after Jesus healing a cripple woman on the Sabbath. The Kingdom of Heaven/God is like a tiny mustard seed growing into a tall shrub. So you see that that Kingdom start tiny, but grow large, but it would not be the only plant around, nor the strongest, nor the biggest, nor the most useful, etc.

Matthew 13:33 and Luke 13:20-21 then give the short Parable of the Leaven, a.k.a. Yeast. The Kingdom of Heaven/God is like a woman who mixes yeast into a large quantity of dough. Yeast, a bacteria, converts sugar (the sweet stuff of life) into alcohol (which clouds judgement) and the waste gas of carbon dioxide. Oh, maybe that parable is perfect after all. ;-)

There is a brief interlude where Matthew 13:34-35 and Mark 4:33-34 say that Jesus never spoke to the crowds without a parable. Mark says Jesus only explained the parables to His disciples in private, while Matthew misquotes Psalm 78:2. If you look at Psalm 78, the author is trying to tell everything, not hide anything through parables, so that the next generation will put their trust in God (Psalm 78:6-7). What makes this reference even funnier is that this Psalm was obviously written in a time before the concept of the afterlife existed, as can be seen by Psalm 78:39, which is given as the reason for God restraining His anger at the recurrent rebellion of the Israelites:

[God] remembered that they were but flesh, a passing breeze that does not return. NIV

Matthew continues in parables alone from here. In Mathew 13:44 is the Parable of the Hidden Treasure, in which the Kingdom of Heaven is a treasure which a man finds in a field, hides it again, and then buys that field from its owner, who is presumably unaware of the treasure. In other words, do whatever you can to get the Kingdom, even through deceptive means.

In Matthew 13:45-46 is the Parable of the Pearl. A pearl merchant finds a pearl of great price, and so he sells everything he has to get that pearl. Presumably unwilling to part with it, the man probably dies naked and starving clutching that pearl. Sméagol loves the pearl, oh yes, my precious...

Finally, in Matthew 13:47-52 is the Parable of the Net. The Kingdom of Heaven is like a big fishing net which caught all kinds of fish. After hauling it in, the fishermen separated out the good from the bad. If the Kingdom of Heaven is the net, then clearly some people who do not belong are going to make it into the Kingdom of Heaven, and then get kicked out. So, how sure are you of your Salvation? It is also pretty strange that God would call people into the Kingdom of Heaven who do not belong there, given that only those drawn by God will go (John 6:44).

This was all really just a fun exercise, but I believe that it effectively illustrates that not only are these parables far from perfect, but also without the proper interpretation given to the people who heard these parables would have been clueless to the truth when coming up with their own interpretations, which is apparently exactly how Jesus wanted them to be.

Why Jesus Spoke in Parables

2011-11-04T07:01:00.000-04:00

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Background
Just prior to the topic of this study, according to Matthew and Mark, Jesus disowned His own mother. However, according to Luke, Jesus disowned His mother after the events in this study. For Luke, the topic of this study was preceded by a sinful woman anointing Jesus (Luke 7:36-50), and Jesus wandering from village to village with His Twelve Apostles (Luke 8:1-3).

Why Jesus Spoke in Parables

“When its twigs are dry, they are broken off and women come and make fires with them. For this is a people without understanding; so their Maker has no compassion on them, and their Creator shows them no favor.” Isaiah 27:11 NIV

“Many will be purified, made spotless and refined, but the wicked will continue to be wicked. None of the wicked will understand, but those who are wise will understand.” Daniel 12:10 NIV

There are many divisions in the body of Christianity, but one of the more fundamental divisions is whether or not a Christian believes that the opportunity for Salvation is inclusive or exclusive. The inclusive perspective holds that God makes sure that, by some means, everybody is at least presented the option of Salvation, and their Salvation is usually based on their free will acceptance of it. The exclusive perspective is that Salvation is really only available to a subset of people, the Elect, and God will make sure that only and all of the Elect will attain Salvation. The inclusive perspective is the most fair, but the exclusive perspective is the most accurate to Scripture, as we can see through Jesus' telling of parables.

Matthew 13:1-9, Mark 4:1-9, and Luke 8:4-8 all recount Jesus telling a parable to a crowd regarding a man who sows seeds indiscriminately, ultimately resulting in only the seeds which had fallen on good soil producing fruit.

In each account, Jesus ends the parable with the essentially same line; "He who has ears, let him hear." From the context, it does not appear that Jesus added this remark in its literal sense; this was not a message for everyone who physically had ears. Instead, it appears that Jesus meant that only certain people would be able to understand this parable, and that they should take heed of it. It appears that Jesus was only really talking to select people, and that appearance would be immediately confirmed by the Scripture.

The three accounts vary slightly about what happens next, but they are all a variant on Jesus answering the question posed by Jesus' disciples in Matthew 13:10:

The disciples came to [Jesus] and asked, "Why do you speak to the people in parables?" NIV

Jesus' reply in each of these three Gospels is a demonstration of each author's perspective. Mark, which many scholars believe is the earliest of the four Gospels, is raw and terse. Matthew clearly tries to aggregate additional information to the recorded data. Luke appears to edit out an unsavory verse. Let us take a look at each reply, starting with Mark 4:11-12:

[Jesus] told them, "The secret of the Kingdom of God has been given to you. But to those on the outside everything is said in parables so that,
" 'they may be ever seeing but never perceiving, and ever hearing but never understanding; otherwise they might turn and be forgiven!'" NIV

According to Jesus' own words, His parables were not brilliant metaphors which helped the masses understand the Kingdom of God. No. They were deliberate enigmas meant to keep unwanted people out of the Kingdom of God by keeping them from repentance by keeping them from understanding. Only Jesus' disciples were given the secret, true meaning of the parables, which is subsequently illustrated for this parable in Matthew 13:18-23, Mark 4:13-20, and Luke 8:11-15.

That last bit about “otherwise they might turn and be forgiven” seems especially harsh, making it appear that God did not want to forgive everyone. Plus, it sets up an interesting paradox where it appears that God would be bound to keep His promise, but keeping His promise is against His will. The concept of God doing anything against His own will is troublesome. These issues are probable reasons why Luke, being a bit of an editor, left off that line in Jesus' reply in Luke 8:9-10, which is otherwise essentially the same reply as Mark 4:11-12 above.

Matthew, on the other hand, continues in his trend of aggregating pieces into the story, expanding Jesus' reply by quite a bit before going into explaining the actual parable. In Matthew 13:10-17 we find the same theme main theme, that the parables are meant to occlude knowledge from non-disciples. We also find that those who have understanding will be given more while those who do not have understanding will be even more befuddled, we see a greatly expanded prophesy quote, and we have a reminder that Jesus' disciples are fortunate to have this knowledge that prophets and righteous men had longed to know.

So why did Jesus speak in parables? Biblically speaking, it was to condemn people in their lack of understanding. It was a type of mockery. It was as if Jesus felt obligated to tell everyone about His Kingdom, but He also felt like He had fulfilled that obligation if He were to do so in a foreign language, fully aware that most of His audience would never understand His words.

Regarding the Prophesy
This is yet another case of mangled prophesy in the New Testament. Jesus' reply appears to be centered around Isaiah 6:9-10. However, it does not quite fit.

Isaiah 6:9 says "...Be ever hearing, but never understanding; be ever seeing, but never perceiving," in hearing→seeing order, as opposed to how Mark and Luke reference a seeing→hearing order.

Isaiah 6:10 does have a seeing→hearing order which we find in the latter half of the verse with "...Otherwise they might see with their eyes, hear with their ears, understand with their hearts, and turn and be healed," but you notice that it is not in the same sense of how Mark and Luke quote it (which is a closer match with Isaiah 6:9). As you can see above, Mark also quotes an interpretation of the last phrase of Isaiah 6:10, but has skipped the “understand with their hearts” phrase completely.

Alternatively, some scholars suggest the seeing→hearing order comes from either Jeremiah 5:21 or Ezekiel 12:2, but how Mark would then mash together these verses with only the very last phrase of Isaiah 6:10 is a real puzzle.

Matthew 13:14-15 more-fully quotes Isaiah 6:9-10. However, the supposedly Jewish Matthew quotes this passage from the Septuagint, a Greek interpretation of the Old Testament, as opposed to the original Hebrew source, as you can see here. By doing so, Matthew propagated an error in that particular translation which substantially changed the intent of the original words.

What was the original intent? Well, I encourage you to look at Isaiah 6 for yourself. It is a mere thirteen verses, so it will not take you long. In there, you will not find a prophesy regarding Jesus or any other Messiah. Instead you find a God who is exasperated by the continual cycle of backslide-repent-backslide of His people. Therefore, God wants to afflict them with a harsh punishment “until the Lord has sent everyone far away and the land is utterly forsaken.” This is a pre-exile prophesy.

The exile was meant to be a shocking blow to get the Jewish nation back on track, eventually, because they had been ignoring God's more-mild disciplinary actions, like drought and disease. Presumably, God did not want them to repent for the moment only to backslide again a few years later, as had been the case many times before. That is why God gave the command to Isaiah to curse the people so that they would not understand or perceive until their nation had been decimated and displaced.

Jesus' Family

2011-10-28T07:04:00.000-04:00

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Background
In our progression through the Gospels, we saw how Jesus was accused of working for Satan when He cast out demons, how the one unforgivable sin is blasphemy of the Holy Spirit, and how the story of Jonah was twisted into a metaphor for a sign which would be given to this generation. Mathew 12:43-45 then talks of how this generation will be like an exorcised man who subsequently gets re-possessed by that same demon and seven more wicked ones. Luke 11:24-25 also references the re-possessed man, but without the condemnation of this generation, and before Jesus had told the Pharisees about the sign of Jonah. Also interesting are the two verses which follow that, Luke 11:26-27, because they probably make Catholics shudder in denial as Jesus turns the focus away from His mother, but that pales in comparison with what Matthew and Mark cover next, and what Luke covered long before that...

Jesus' Family

In the popular version of the Ten Commandments, the fifth commandment in Exodus 20:12 states:

"Honor your father and your mother, so that you may live long in the land the Lord your God is giving you." NIV

This “honor” appears to be in the sense of respecting and obeying your dad and mom, as opposed to the sense of bestowing them with accolades. As you can see, there are no qualifiers. It does not say “if your parents are good, then honor them.” Nor does it say “honor your parents until you have your own family.” This is a lifelong duty you owe your parents. Considering that it appears as though the Law was only fully in effect when children reached the full age of culpability, 20 years old, this commandment was intended even more for adults than for children. With Jesus being God, and carrying out God's will so perfectly, we might expect Jesus to have set a shining enacting example of this fifth commandment. If so, our expectations will be seriously unfulfilled.

Matthew 12:46-50, Mark 3:31-35, and Luke 8:19-21 all record an event where Jesus' mother and brothers arrived to confront Jesus, but they could not get to Him because of the crowd. So they sent someone to let Jesus know that His mother and brothers were outside and wanted to talk to Him. Jesus' reply is recorded essentially the same in Mark 3:33-35, Luke 8:21, and Matthew 12:48-50:

[Jesus] replied to him, "Who is My mother, and who are My brothers?" Pointing to His disciples, He said, "Here are My mother and My brothers. For whoever does the will of My Father in Heaven is My brother and sister and mother." NIV

To the believer, this is just a proclamation that fellow followers of Christ are to be like family to one another, and that may be true, but that is not the complete picture.

Jesus says that whoever does the will of God is His family, and so at the same time it appears as though He is disowning His own biological family, presumably because they are not obeying God's will. Thus it appears as though Jesus is dishonoring his biological mother's request to speak with Him, and thus breaking God's commandment to honor your parents.

That is a bold claim, I know. Right now I am sure any believers reading this reject the notion completely. However, the truth is revealed when you look at the motivation of Jesus' family's visitation. This motivation is only captured in the earliest-written Gospel, in the usually ignored verses of Mark 3:20-21:

Then Jesus entered a house, and again a crowd gathered, so that He and His disciples were not even able to eat. When His family heard about this, they went to take charge of Him, for they said, "He is out of His mind." NIV

If you do believe your Son is the Messiah, on a mission from God, you probably are not going to think that He is crazy, and you certainly would not try to “take charge of Him.” Clearly, despite angels from God proclaiming to both Joseph and Mary that their Son would be the Messiah (according Matthew and Luke only), Jesus' real family had issues accepting Him as the Messiah. So from that perspective, it makes sense that Jesus was dishonoring and disowning His family for not heeding God's words, even if it does not make sense for Him to break a commandment and somehow remain sinless.

Consider how well this meshes with Jesus' earlier statement about how He had come to set family members against each other. Consider also how well this aligns with later statements where Jesus encourages leaving parents and children to follow Him (Matthew 19:29, Mark 10:29-31, Luke 18:29-30).

But that is not the whole story, because there are examples, primarily in the Gospel of John, where Jesus does seem to promote honoring your biological mother. Jesus (begrudgingly) made miraculous wine at His mother's request, hung out with His family (John 2:12), and entrusted the care of His mother to John before His crucifixion (John 19:25-27).

It just does not add up. It is as if Jesus has multiple personalities, or as if there is some fabrication involved in these stories.

The Order of Events
As covered in a previous post, one of the easiest ways to prove the fallibility of the Gospels is just to look at the order of events. The Gospel writers, despite the supposed ability to consult with hundreds of eyewitnesses to get the story correct, could not agree on when things happened. Of the three synoptic Gospels, Matthew, Mark, and Luke, usually scholars will claim that Luke spent the most concerted effort to write everything down in the right order, while Matthew and Mark only concentrated on remembering the most important details and cared less about chronology. The problem is that you cannot give Luke the crown for an accurate timeline without completely ignoring some of the text in the other Gospels.

For example, this episode begins with Matthew 12:46 stating:

While Jesus was still talking to the crowd, His mother and brothers stood outside, wanting to speak to Him. NIV

“While Jesus was still talking to the crowd” is a phase of sequential conjunction. It unequivocally ties this event into Jesus' last message according to Matthew, which was in Mathew 12:43-45 when Jesus spoke of how this generation will be like an exorcised man who subsequently gets re-possessed by that same demon and seven more wicked ones. Preceding that, according to Matthew, Jesus spoke about the sign of Jonah, which was preceded by Jesus being accused of using Satan's powers.

Luke give us an entirely different, incompatible timeline across multiple chapters. Even the setup is different. According to Luke, Jesus gave the parable of the Sower. (Luke 8:4-15, which Matthew places right after this on the same day in Matthew 13:1-23) Then Jesus gave the parable of the lamp on a stand. (Luke 8:16-18, covered by Matthew in the Sermon on the Mount in Matthew 5:14-16) Then Luke 8:19-21 parallels the account from Matthew regarding who Jesus' mother and brothers are.

From there, Luke covers lots of ground, including these highlights:

Jesus calms the storm. (Luke 8:22-25, covered by Matthew 8:23-27)
Jesus sends out the Twelve Apostles (Luke 9:1-10, covered by Matthew 10)
Jesus feeds the 5000 (Luke 9:10-17, covered by Matthew 14:13-21)
Jesus is Transfigured (Luke 9:28-36, covered by Matthew 17:1-9)
Jesus sends out seventy-two other disciples on a mission (Luke 10:1-12, not mentioned at all by Matthew)
Jesus teaches the "Lord's Prayer." (Luke 11:1-4, covered by Matthew 6:5-13)

Then, finally, Luke gets to where Jesus is accused of using Satanic powers to cast out demons (Luke 11:14-20). That is followed by the Pharisees asking Jesus for a sign, to which He replies that they will get the sign of Jonah (Luke 11:29-32). According to Luke, this was followed by the parable of the lamp of the body (Luke 11:33-36) and Jesus playing the ultimate rude house guest by condemning the Pharisee who had invited Him to dinner because of his good sanitation practices (Luke 11:37-53).

So the next time someone comes to you and claims that the Bible is infallible and inerrant, ask them to produce a timeline of Jesus' life which is in perfect harmony with the four Gospels before you will believe them. Then, do not be surprised if you never hear from them again. ;-)

A Fishy Fisherman's Tale

2011-10-21T07:03:00.000-04:00

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Background
We are progressing through the Gospels, where we recently examined when Jesus was accused of using Satanic power to cast out demons, and discovered that the one unforgivable sin is saying anything bad about the Holy Spirit. This next study follows immediately after Jesus saying that people would be condemned or acquitted based on their words.

A Fishy Fisherman's Tale

Have you ever made a reference to something to draw a more vibrant mental image, yielding a deeper meaning to your words? For example, instead of saying “my father is very frugal,” you might instead say “my father acts as frugal as if he had lived through the Great Depression.” But if you misapply such a reference, it can make you look like you are out of touch with reality. For example, let us look at Matthew 12:38-42.

The passage begins with the Pharisees asking Jesus to perform a miraculous sign (Matthew 12:38). Presumably, these particular Pharisees were asking for Jesus to prove to them that He was operating as a prophet with God's blessing. Jesus makes the bad reference shortly into His reply. We find in Matthew 12:39-40:

[Jesus] answered, "A wicked and adulterous generation asks for a miraculous sign! But none will be given it except the sign of the prophet Jonah. For as Jonah was three days and three nights in the belly of a huge fish, so the Son of Man will be three days and three nights in the heart of the earth." NIV

Quickly, let us discuss the word “generation” in Jesus' reply, so we know who Jesus is talking about. The word “generation” comes from the Greek word transliterated as “genea,” which can denote a family, a race of people, a nation, a period of time (an age), or people living during a particular time. So while Jesus was replying to the particular Pharisees who were confronting Him at that moment, He is speaking about a much larger group in His reply; perhaps the people of that region, perhaps all of the Jews, or maybe even to everybody living at that time.

Next, note that Jesus states that no sign will be given to this group of people other than the sign of Jonah. This is in huge contradiction to the rest of the Gospels. Jesus has already worked miracles in front of other Pharisees in that same region of Galilee, such as healing the man with the shriveled hand earlier in this same chapter (Matthew 12:9-14)! The miracle of the few loaves and fishes feeding thousands would happen in the same region after Jesus had made this proclamation (Matthew 14:13-21). Plus, the entire chapter of Matthew 24 is full of various signs of the times which would supposedly come to pass (and would be visible to everyone), including the proclamation in Matthew 24:34 that all of those signs would come to pass before that generation passed away. There is no way to reconcile Jesus' words here with the rest of the Gospels.

Now, what about that reference to the “sign of the prophet Jonah?” The story of Jonah is in the small, four-chapter book of Jonah. You can read the entire book for yourself starting here in about 20 minutes, or read my chapter-by-chapter summary in about 5 minutes. In my opinion, it stands out as being the one books in the Bible which were most likely to be written as purely allegorical, yet Jesus references it like it is fact, so we will too for this study.

So according to Jesus, the sign of Jonah was Jonah being swallowed by a whale, or a big fish, for three days. As mentioned above, a miraculous sign would be used to indicate that God authenticated a prophet present God's message to a particular people.

However, when you look back at the story of Jonah, you find that Jonah being swallowed by a fish was not a sign at all, but rather it was a slight punishment and big route correction. God had told Jonah to deliver a message to the people of Nineveh (located in present-day northern Iraq) (Jonah 1:1-2), but Jonah tried to run away on a boat headed in the opposite direction (into the Mediterranean Sea, leaving roughly from present day Tel Aviv in Israel) (Jonah 1:3). God had made the sea so rough that the men in the boat cast Jonah over board in an attempt to pacify God's rage (Jonah 1:14-15). With Jonah overboard, God “provided” a big fish to swallow him whole for those three days and nights (Jonah 1:17). The fish then barfed him up onto dry land (presumably still in Israel) (Jonah 2:10). God then told Jonah again to go to Nineveh with a message, and this time Jonah obeyed God (Jonah 3:3).

The people of Nineveh never saw this “sign” of Jonah, but they did repent when they heard Jonah's message from God according to Jonah 3:5. Jesus cites this repentance in His next sentence as if Jonah's prophetic message had completely turned the people of Nineveh onto the right path (Matthew 12:41).

The funny thing is that God supposedly continued to pronounce judgements against Nineveh. The three-chapter book of Nahum is essentially one long prophesy that God will destroy Nineveh in the process of restoring the Hebrews to their former glory, and in Zephaniah 2:13 God says that He will make Nineveh desolate. Curiously enough, the actual history suggests that the city was sieged in 616 BC, and destroyed in 612 BC, leaving the city essentially desolate. So if the people of Nineveh did repent, then either God destroyed them anyway (via the army invasion prophesied in Nahum 2), or their repentance was only halfhearted and they soon went back to their old ways. If it was a halfhearted repentance, then it does not make sense that somehow the men of Nineveh would stand in judgement of anyone like what Jesus suggests in Matthew 12:41.

All of this evidence suggests that by making this reference to the Jonah/Nineveh tale, Jesus was out of touch with reality. Technically speaking, that should be impossible, so believers should discredit these verses as false. If these verses are false, then which other ones are untrue, and are the other Gospels tainted? (I hope you have got a sled, because the slope is looking long, and rather icy.)

Speaking of the other Gospels, you should know that John omits this episode altogether.

Mark 8:11-12 does cover the Pharisees asking Jesus for a sign from Heaven, to which Jesus replied that there would be no sign at all for this generation (not even the sign of Jonah). Mark's anecdote happened right after Jesus had fed a bunch of people with a little bread and fish. Curiously, Matthew's Gospel repeats the request for a sign after feeding those same people too, but again Matthew says that there will be the sign of Jonah (Matthew 16:1-4).

And we cannot forget Luke. Luke 11:29-32 parallels the Matthew 12:38-42 account, and is placed in roughly the same timeline presented by Matthew; right after Jesus had been accused of using Satanic powers. However, as noted in other studies, Luke appears to be a bit of an editor. Here it seems that he had recognized the issue created by claiming that the sign of Jonah was Jonah being swallowed by a fish, and so Luke recast that the sign of Jonah as simply Jonah preaching to the people of Nineveh (Luke 11:30). Unfortunately, Luke did not research far enough to know that God had still directed the devastation of the entire city of Nineveh, so he also makes the claim that the people of Nineveh will stand in judgement of this generation (Luke 11:32).

Yet again, the credibility of the Gospels is diminished when you look into the details.

The Unforgivable Sin

2011-10-14T07:01:00.000-04:00

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Background
Matthew mangled a prophesy to associate Isaiah's metaphorical Suffering Servant with Jesus. Then we came upon the story where Jesus is accused of casting out demons through the power of Satan. Jesus could not think of a good reason why Satan would do such a thing, despite knowing that Satan is a top-notch deceiver. The topic of this study is directly hooked to this blaspheming of Jesus by Matthew and Mark, but Luke tucks it away in a different location.

The Unforgivable Sin

The gift of divine forgiveness is unfathomable. There is nothing you can do which cannot be forgiven by God through the blood of Jesus. That goes anywhere from garden variety sins all the way up to world changing evil. Hitler, the man most frequently referenced as evil incarnate in our times, could have been forgiven by God though Jesus. After all, who knows if he finally saw the light of God and repented of his sins in those final moments in the bunker? Whether or not God would have accepted such a last-minute repentance would be up to Jesus, but we know that through Jesus anything can be forgiven. Well, almost anything...

You see, there is one thing which really gets under God's skin, if He has skin to get under. Matthew 12:31-32 and Luke 12:10 both capture this pet peeve similarly to the more-blunt-and-concise Mark 3:28-29:

"I tell you the truth, all the sins and blasphemies of men will be forgiven them. But whoever blasphemes against the Holy Spirit will never be forgiven; he is guilty of an eternal sin." NIV

You can torture and slay a thousand people and still enter heaven. You can scream at God for being a wicked despot and still enter heaven. You can call Jesus an hypocritical zombie and still enter heaven. However, if you merely mention that the Holy Ghost is just a tramp in a white bed sheet, then you lose all hope of Salvation, because that sin cannot be forgiven.

The idea that the words you say, even if just said once, can condemn for eternity is difficult to accept from a loving and patient God who perfectly understands the emotional roller coaster that is human life. In fact, the believers of the more-loving version of God which I have encountered reject such a notion. Instead, they try to recast this as a statement saying that this pertains only to who reject God continually throughout their lives.

However, that liberal interpretation is not supported by Matthew and Mark, because this statement is tied to the Pharisees (Matthew 12:24) or teachers of the Law (Mark 3:22) accusing Jesus of casting out demons through the power of Satan. While it is only an implicit connection in Matthew, it is explicitly claimed in Mark 3:30:

[Jesus] said this because [the teachers of the Law] were saying, "He has an evil spirit." NIV

By Jesus' words, these teachers' words had just condemned them for all eternity. That is why you find Jesus saying just a few verses later in Matthew 12:37:

"For by your words you will be acquitted, and by your words you will be condemned." NIV

Interestingly enough, this attitude is somewhat consistent with what we find in the Old Testament. As part of the popular version of the Ten Commandments, you find God say the following in Exodus 20:7:

"You shall not misuse the name of the Lord your God, for the Lord will not hold anyone guiltless who misuses His name." NIV

Not holding anyone guiltless is the same as saying that the guilty will never be forgiven. Jesus tweaks the message to be a little more tolerant here, making it forgivable to blaspheme God the Father or the Son, but not the Holy Spirit. Even so, with all of the wicked and perverse things that people are capable of doing, it seems illogical that the one sin which could condemn you for eternity is a mere slip of the tongue or a voice of protest.

In fact, the concept of being able to speak ill of our leaders is so important, and considered such a fundamental right, that it is included as the very first amendment in the United States Bill of Rights. It is interesting and revealing that one of our most celebrated and basic human rights is the one thing which can be exercised to yield eternal damnation, according to the God of the Bible.

Jesus Versus Shakespeare

2011-10-07T07:04:00.000-04:00

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Background
In our progression through the Gospels, Jesus and friends broke the Sabbath by eating, and then Jesus broke it by healing (Matthew 12:9-14, Mark 3:1-6, Luke 6:6-11). Thereafter, Matthew let us know about a prophesy regarding Jesus, which did not really seem to be a close match upon further inspection.

Jesus Versus Shakespeare

If there was a showdown of wits between Jesus and any man, Jesus would win. At least, He should win. He is God, and part of that status means the endowment of all knowledge; what is, what was, and what will ever be. So I figured it would be a good idea to pit Jesus against Shakespeare to demonstrate Jesus' clear superiority. Funny thing though; it did not quite work out that way.

In case you are in doubt about just how smart God/Jesus is, a good place to start would be Job 38 and Job 39. There, God brags to Job about how superior His knowledge is to that of any man. You can sum is all up with one verse from an earlier chapter, Job 22:2:

"Can a man be of benefit to God? Can even a wise person benefit him?" NIV

Basically, not even the smartest man could teach God anything. Given that Jesus is God, the same goes for Him. And now, on to the battle of wits!

Matthew 12:22-28, Mark 3:22-26, and Luke 11:14-20 all record an incident where Jesus was casting out demons. The Pharisees got angry, and accused Jesus of casting out demons by the power of Beelzebub, the prince of demons; a.k.a. Satan. Mark 3:23-26 gives us the memorable quote below, which is similarly echoed in Matthew 12:25-28 and Luke 11:17-20:

"How can Satan drive out Satan? If a kingdom is divided against itself, that kingdom cannot stand. If a house is divided against itself, that house cannot stand. And if Satan opposes himself and is divided, he cannot stand; his end has come." NIV

Pretty smart, huh? If Satan went around casting out demons, how could he rule his kingdom? (It is interesting to note that Satan's kingdom implicitly relies on people being demon possessed; that is by Jesus' logic anyway.)

Now let us offer up our human sacrifice, the immortal words of the mortal Shakespeare. The following quote comes to us from Act II, Scene iii of the play Othello. The villain Iago is secretly looking for a way to destroy the life of the black Moor, Othello, largely because of a rumor that Othello had slept with his wife. Iago's “friend,” Cassio, had fallen out of favor with Othello due to a drunken brawl, and he is desperate to restore his reputation. Iago counsels Cassio to have Desdemona, Othello's white wife, plead to Othello to forgive Cassio. It seems like good advice, but Iago plans to tell Othello that Desdemona secretly desires Cassio for herself in order to spur on jealousy. Speaking of the “good advice” he had offered, Iago says:

"When devils will the blackest sins put on, they do suggest at first with heavenly shows,"

In case your Olde English is not up to par, what Iago is saying is that when devils want to commit the most grievous kinds of evil acts, they start by deceiving their victims by doing something good; gaining their trust to fully enact their wicked plots.

Iago's, or more accurately, Shakespeare's words suggest that Satan, embodied in some possessed human, would benefit greatly by casting out a few demons here and there. In that way, people would revere his miraculous powers and treat him like a messenger from God. That is powerful and dangerous deception!

OK, time to check the scoreboard! Who won this battle of wisdom?

Jesus	Shakespeare
0	1

Oh, sorry about that, Jesus. It seems that your response just seemed a little naïve upon deeper reflection, especially compared to Iago's words. I am really surprised you messed that up, given that you know that Satan is the father of lies (John 8:44), and that you know that many false messiahs and false prophets will work miracles in order to try to deceive people (Matthew 24:24, Mark 13:22). Well, better luck next time.

Misquoted and Misguided

2011-09-30T07:02:00.000-04:00

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Background
Recently, Jesus and His disciples were confronted by the Pharisees for picking and eating grain on the Sabbath. Jesus explained that, just like how David broke God's Law by eating the consecrated bread and it was OK, what He and His disciples were doing was OK too. The Jesus healed a man with a shriveled hand on the Sabbath, which prompted the Pharisees, and possibly the Herodians (see Mark), to begin plotting to take Jesus' life (Matthew 12:9-14, Mark 3:1-6, Luke 6:6-11).

Misquoted and Misguided

Prophesy. It has become my favorite point of contention with Christianity, perhaps endearing me to the Jews. :-) For all of the contradictions in the Gospel accounts can be rationalized by believers, and all of the Old Testament absurdities and harsh punishments under God's instruction and control can be swept aside as things which God needed to say or do at that particular time in order to orchestrate the climax of the story; the Salvation though Jesus. However, the prophesies which the New Testament authors employed for support are often so twisted and cherry-picked from their original content that anyone with scruples enough to turn an honest eye on them would be forced to recognize the indelible fingerprints of man, not God, such as we will see in this study.

Jesus had angered the Pharisees by healing on the Sabbath, so they sought to kill Him. Jesus knew this, so He fled the scene. Crowds of people followed Jesus, and Jesus healed them and told them not to tell anybody who He was (much like He did with His exorcisms). This was all to fulfill the words of Isaiah (Matthew 12:15-17). Which words? Matthew 12:18-21 misquotes Isaiah 42:1-4. Here they are side-by-side in the NIV:

Matthew 12:18-21	Isaiah 42:1-4
"Here is My Servant whom I have chosen, the one I love, in whom I delight; I will put My Spirit on him, and he will proclaim justice to the nations.	"Here is My Servant, whom I uphold, My chosen one in whom I delight; I will put My Spirit on him and he will bring justice to the nations.
He will not quarrel or cry out; no one will hear his voice in the streets.	He will not shout or cry out, or raise his voice in the streets.
A bruised reed he will not break, and a smoldering wick he will not snuff out, till he leads justice to victory.	A bruised reed he will not break, and a smoldering wick he will not snuff out. In faithfulness he will bring forth justice;
In his name the nations will put their hope."	he will not falter or be discouraged till he establishes justice on earth. In his law the islands will put their hope."

First, notice that it is somewhat difficult to directly correlate what Jesus had just done with the words of the prophesy, regardless of which version you look at.

More importantly though, I have made a mistake in saying that Matthew misquoted Isaiah. He completely changed the text with a biased intent to tie the prophesy to Jesus. This is most clear in the last verse of the four. For a detailed look, examine Isaiah 42:4 and Matthew 12:21 in the Bible Lexicon.

Matthew leaves off the part about establishing justice on earth. He uses “In his name,” implying in Jesus' name, as a substitute for the Hebrew word “torah,” which can mean instruction or precept, but is most commonly used to designate God's Law. He uses the term “the nations,” which, in the original Greek, the word was commonly used to designate people other than the Jews (and so is also rendered “the Gentiles” in other translations) in place of the Hebrew word for coastlines or islands. Matthew altered, twisted, and forged the prophesy until it was bent to his will; to bolster the claim that Jesus was the Messiah while dismissing the more common ideas of what the Jewish Messiah was to do.

I know. You are not convinced. Well, then, let us have a look at the full prophecy of Isaiah 42. This prophesy was supposedly written at a time after the Babylonians had conquered the lands of Israel and Judah. Many of the surviving Hebrews were scattered; some had fled to other countries while others were captured and taken back to Babylon. In effect, there were small islands of Hebrews scattered in the seas of Gentile nations, which is most likely the reason for the island metaphor used in verse four of the prophesy. These islands would have been indeed hoping for a day when they could return to their homeland and worship God, and obey His Law. That is what I would suggest, but let us keep reading to see if that is accurate.

In Isaiah 42:5, God just talks about Himself; how He made everything and makes everyone live.

Isaiah 42:6-7 sure sounds like it is about Jesus. God is saying that He will make this Servant a “covenant for the people” and a “light for the Gentiles” (with the Hebrew word “goy,” meaning foreign nation, being interpreted justifiably as “Gentiles”), as well as how the blind will see and prisoners in darkness will be released. A less obvious alternative interpretation is that the word “covenant” is often used in close association with God's Law in the Old Testament, and the idea might be that when this Servant establishes God's Law again, the wisdom of God's Law will shine out to the Gentiles. That may seem like a stretch now, but let us keep reading.

In Isaiah 42:8, God says that He will not share His glory with anyone, which simultaneously supports and refutes the idea of Jesus.

Isaiah 42:9 speaks of how the former things have taken place, and now God is proclaiming new things before they happen. One way you could look at this is that the time of the Old-Testament-style divine interaction will come to an end and this prophesy has to do with what is coming through Jesus. Another interpretation is that previously prophesied things have come to pass (the conquering and scattering of the Hebrews) and that God is just proclaiming a new prophesy.

In Isaiah 42:10-12, God says that the whole world should rejoice and praise God, which may again be tempting to side on supporting this as a prophesy for Jesus. Or it could be a general call for everyone to praise God because, well, He is God.

Up to now in the prophesy, there is a relatively strong case for suggesting that this is all really about Jesus. However, this is where it all turns around and the truth is more clearly revealed.

In Isaiah 42:13-15, God says that He has been quiet for a long time now, but will soon sound the battle cry and triumph over His enemies, laying them to waste. That is very different than Jesus on earth. At best, from a New Testament perspective you could associate that with Judgement Day, but let us keep reading.

Isaiah 42:16 continues with how God will lead the blind and those in darkness down unfamiliar paths into the light. But, as Isaiah 42:17 continues, those who worship idols will be shamed. The first part of that you could have associated with Jesus, but idol worship was not a big concern Jesus had in His ministry. In fact, you will not even find the word “idol” in any of the four Gospel accounts.

Now: the coup de grâce on the Jesus theory. Let us read Isaiah 42:18-19 together, where God says:

"Hear, you deaf; look, you blind, and see! Who is blind but My Servant, and deaf like the messenger I send? Who is blind like the one committed to me, blind like the Servant of the Lord?" NIV

Yes, the Hebrew word for “servant” here is “ebed,” exactly the same word used in Isaiah 42:1. For the same author to use the same word in the context of the same chapter and prophesy, there is no reason for us to think that they are different in meaning. So, was Jesus blind and deaf? The answer is obviously no. No in the literal sense of the words, and no in the metaphorical sense, which is subsequently described in Isaiah 42:20-25. There, you find God lamenting how the Hebrews had not obeyed His Law or paid heed to the punishments which He bestowed upon them.

Everything falls into place. The exiled and scattered Hebrews, Hebrews who were God's chosen people, His chosen servant, were the ones who were blind and in darkness, who God was going to lead to the light down unfamiliar paths; the light of His Law, in the path of obedience.

We have now seen how evident it is that Matthew twisted words and cherry-picked the prophesies to build a case of support for Jesus. If Jesus was the real thing, then such perverse methodology would not have needed to be employed to support the truth.

Sourdough Sabbath

2011-09-23T07:03:00.000-04:00

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Background
Jesus revealed that it is God's pleasure to keep things hidden from certain people, and that He is selective about to whom He shows God. Then Jesus claimed that obeying and following Him was an easy burden and a light yoke, but the reality seems quite the contrary. Next, we move into a couple anecdotes about the Sabbath.

Sourdough Sabbath

If anyone should know what is in the Bible, it is God. The Bible is called the Word of God for a reason. All but the most liberal believers consider the content of the Bible to be at least divinely inspired, if not divinely dictated. It is no surprise, then, that Jesus should know the Bible well, given that He is part of God. The Gospels even record the authority with which Jesus spoke about the Scriptures (Matthew 7:29, Mark 1:21-22, Luke 4:31-32). So what are we to think when Jesus gets it wrong?

Matthew 12:1-8, Mark 2:23-28, and Luke 6:1-5 all record the story of how Jesus and His disciples were walking through a field of grain one Sabbath. The disciples were hungry, so they picked some grain and ate it. Coincidentally, some Pharisees happened to be around to see this act, and they confronted Jesus because they thought that gathering grain on the Sabbath was against God's Law.

The response Jesus provided varied a little, depending on which Gospel account you read. However, Matthew 12:3-4, Mark 2:25-26, and Luke 6:3-4 all strike on the same chord as part of the reply. As Matthew 12:3-4 renders it:

[Jesus] answered, "Haven't you read what David did when he and his companions were hungry? He entered the house of God, and he and his companions ate the consecrated bread—which was not lawful for them to do, but only for the priests." NIV

It is interesting to note that in Jesus' response, He implicitly confirms that the work involved in picking the grain would indeed be against God's Law. As we learned in Numbers 15:32-36 where God commanded for a man be stoned to death for gathering wood on a Sabbath, God takes such a transgression very seriously. Yet here, in this case, Jesus seems a little more lenient.

It is also interesting to note that neither David nor Jesus' disciples were to the point of starving to death when they made this transgression. At least that is not the way either story is framed. Besides, Jesus had previously reminded everyone that man does not live by bread alone but by God's will during a 40 day period fasting when He was tempted by Satan. That is a great reminder that this religion promotes fasting! So for Jesus' disciples to skip eating grain to honor the Sabbath should have been no big deal at all!

Yet, perhaps the most interesting parts of this whole affair is the story which Jesus references and the way in which He does so. If you did not know anything of the story, you might get the impression that David walked into the temple and took the sacred bread because he and his companions were hungry. That is not at all what happened...

In 1 Samuel 20, Jonathan, David's beloved friend and one of King Saul's sons, discovers that Saul is planning on killing David. So at the end of the chapter, David is fleeing. Fleeing by himself.

The part which Jesus references is in 1 Samuel 21:1-9. In the town of Nob, David seeks out Ahimelek the priest. Ahimelek is surprised to find David traveling alone. David lies to Ahimelek, saying that he is on a secret mission given to him by the king, and that his men are in a secret meeting spot. David does not say “I am hungry, do you have anything to eat?” Instead he demands five loaves of bread, or whatever Ahimelek can find. Ahimelek says that the only bread around is the consecrated bread (reference Leviticus 24:5-9) which David and his men could have, provided they had kept themselves from women! David continues the lie, saying that his men's bodies are holy (thus implying that having sex with women, even their own wives, would have made them unholy!).

Before leaving the temple, David took the sword of Goliath there, which was further proof that he was not with companions, as anyone would have given a leader, such as David, a weapon. According to 1 Samuel 21:10-15, later that same day David fled to the presence of Achish, the king of Gath, where David (all by himself) pretended to be insane for his own protection.

Jesus was wrong. David did not share the bread with his companions. David was fleeing for his life alone. How is it possible that Jesus does not know the Word of God? Furthermore, David procured this consecrated bread by lying to one of God's anointed priests, which is not exactly a good example to follow.

Finally, from the way in which Jesus made the reference to this story, you may think that anything David did, be it against God's Law or not, was OK to do. If so, you would be right, almost. Check out 1 Kings 15:5:

For David had done what was right in the eyes of the Lord and had not failed to keep any of the Lord’s commands all the days of his life—except in the case of Uriah the Hittite. NIV

Jesus claimed that it was against God's Law for David and his imaginary companions to eat the consecrated bread. God said that David upheld all of His commands (implicitly including God's Law) except for the case of Uriah. (Uriah was Bathsheba's husband. David had Uriah killed in battle after David impregnated Bathsheba. Reference 2 Samuel 11.) Who is right, God or Jesus?

It turns out that they are both wrong. Jesus was wrong about David's companions. God was wrong because of David eating the consecrated bread and because David had many wives, something prohibited according to Deuteronomy 17:17. How many many wives David had is not certain. He had three before becoming king (1 Samuel 25:42-44), he had some other random wife Eglah (2 Samuel 3:5), then he “took more concubines and wives” after becoming King of Judah (2 Samuel 5:13), then upon becoming King of all of the Israelites he took King Saul's (unnumbered) wives (2 Samuel 12:8), and, of course, he married Bathsheba (2 Samuel 11:27).

That, my friends, is a double strike against both Biblical inerrancy and divine omniscience. When Jesus gets the Bible wrong, and God does too, you have pretty good evidence suggesting that, at best, there are errors recorded in the Bible, and, at worst, that it is all make believe and man-made.

An Easy Yoke

2011-09-16T07:01:00.000-04:00

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Background
Jesus has just revealed that it is God's pleasure to keep things hidden from the wise and the learned, which was most likely a reference to the Pharisees and scribes. Jesus also explained that He is selective about to whom God is revealed.

An Easy Yoke

As we well know, there are many schisms within the body of the Christian church today. Beyond the major Catholic-versus-Protestant divide, there are so many variations and denominations available that Christians can practically customize the message they hear every Sunday (or Saturday) to their individually tailored beliefs. However, there is a Christian sub-culture movement seeking to put the focus back on what Jesus wants instead of what they want. They prefer to identify themselves as Christ-followers instead of Christians, as if “Christian” has been tainted. What might it mean to be a true Christ-follower? We will take a look during this study.

In Matthew 11:28-30, Jesus said:

"Come to Me, all you who are weary and burdened, and I will give you rest. Take My yoke upon you and learn from Me, for I am gentle and humble in heart, and you will find rest for your souls. For My yoke is easy and My burden is light." NIV

We have three ideas to consider here. First and fast, the bit about taking on Jesus' yoke and learning from Him is exactly what Christ-followers are pursuing. In a sense, they seek to mimic Jesus; everything but the divinity, of course. In that respect, it is a more pure type of Christianity, and something which does not mesh at all with the Religious Right.

Next, let us take a brief moment to consider how Jesus is “gentle and humble in heart.” When preachers cover this verse, they give the requisite reference of how humble Jesus was when He washed His Disciple's feet (John 13:3-17), meanwhile leaving out the less-gentle, less-humble episodes like when Jesus stormed the Temple courtyard with a whip, overturning tables and chasing out the people who provided the animals for God-mandated sacrifices (John 2:12-17).

We should not forget that when Jesus says that He is gentle and humble at heart, He is claiming that God is gentle and humble at heart. However, there are scarce few examples from the Old Testament of God demonstrating how gentle He is, and there are no examples of God being humble there. Instead, you find a God full of harsh wrath, such as the plagues on Egypt, and a God who begins His list of commandments by telling the Israelites how jealous He is, and later ordered death for those who did not choose to worship Him. Last I checked, it was fairly impossible to be both jealous and humble, but, hey, all things are possible with God. Right?

Finally, how about that easy yoke and light burden? Let us take a moment to review the yoke described thus far:

Obey all of God's Law.
Do not hate.
Do not have lustful thoughts.
Do not swear an oath or vow.
Let people beat you up and take advantage of you.
Pray only in private and do charitable acts secretly and anonymously.
Love the people who actively mistreat you, threaten you, steal from you, or try to kill you, a.k.a. your enemies. (Matthew 5:43-48)
Forgive anyone for anything they do to you, or to anyone else. (Matthew 6:14-15)
Fast, but do not look like you are fasting. (Matthew 6:16-18)
Do not pursue any earthly wealth, store wealth, or even be concerned with what you will be able to eat or wear the next day.
Do not be hypocritical in your judgement.
Do not preach the Gospel to intractable sinners.
Know and be comfortable with the fact that the overwhelming majority of the people who have lived, are living, and will ever live are destined for eternal damnation.
Do not commit to following Jesus if you are going to look back at all.
Pray for needs God already knows about and should be doing anyway.
If some people do not listen to your Gospel witnessing, condemn that entire household or town.
Fear God, not man.
Know that your own parents and children will turn against you, possibly even having you killed (Matthew 10:21).
Compared to following Jesus, have complete disregard for your own family, and even your own life. You should give up all of your possessions too.

Sure, several of these things are pretty easy, but many of them are anything but an easy yoke or a light burden. It makes Jesus' words in Matthew 11:28-30 inaccurate at best, and flat out wrong at worst. Perhaps that is why the Gospel of Matthew is the only one claiming that following Jesus would give you rest.

As I have pointed out in other studies, it appears that the author of Matthew has a tendency to aggregate little sayings and deeds which had come to be associated with Jesus; sometimes doing so well, like with the Sermon on the Mount, and other times aggregating poorly, like with the instructions to the Apostles for their first mission. I suspect that this is just another case where we find Matthew's folly. It seems very unlikely that Jesus would have claimed that following Him was easy.

Selective Election

2011-09-09T07:06:00.000-04:00

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Background
In this part of the Gospels, Jesus was full of condemnation. He likened the generation of people living in His time as a bunch of fickle, unsatisfiable children (Matthew 11:16-19, Luke 7:31-35). He condemned Korazin, Bethsaida, and Capernaum for not repented from His miracle shows, and He reveled the fact that God was preventing the wise and learned people from understanding God's hidden things.

Selective Election

Some would say that God gives everyone a fair chance at Salvation. However, the truth of the matter is that the Scripture does not support such an open invitation. As we will see, God is selective about who will be allowed the opportunity of Salvation.

We need to start by setting the proper context. In the previous study, we observed how, in Matthew 11:25-26 and Luke 10:21, Jesus praised God for preventing the “wise and learned” from understanding the hidden “things” of God. It was God's “good pleasure” to keep them in the dark. The verse we are examining comes right after that notion of praise in both Matthew and Luke, but is not mentioned by either of the other two Gospels. Matthew 11:27 has Jesus say:

"All things have been committed to Me by My Father. No one knows the Son except the Father, and no one knows the Father except the Son and those to whom the Son chooses to reveal Him." NIV

Luke 10:22 is nearly identical. It just adds “who” and “is” for clarification, as in “...No one knows who the Son is except the Father...”

For this to be true, we have one of two things happening here. Either: 1) There is a double-filtration occurring, where God opts to keep some people from understanding and Jesus opts not to reveal God to other people. Or: 2) The “good pleasure” God found in keeping the wise and learned from understanding God's hidden things is the pleasure of letting Jesus make all of the decisions on who will have the opportunity to know God, and who will not.

One thing is certain though: Salvation is not available to everyone. It is only for whoever God/Jesus chooses. The Elect. If you do not have an invitation from Jesus, you do not have the option. Salvation is not a freewill decision, but rather it is a choice made for you; at least the invitation level, if not deeper. It may even be the case that if you are not chosen, there is no hope for you at all, because God will actively prevent you from attaining Salvation, as the preceding verses suggest.

Hidden from the Wise

2011-09-02T07:05:00.063-04:00

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Background
At this point in the Gospel storyline, Jesus is on a roll of condemnation. With disdain, Jesus described the generation of people living in His time as a bunch of fickle, unsatisfiable children (Matthew 11:16-19, Luke 7:31-35). He then condemned Korazin, Bethsaida, and Capernaum for not being convinced to repent by His miracles; miracles which would have made Sodom repent so much so that they would have still existed to that day. There is one more bone to pick.

Hidden from the Wise

The portrait of Jesus many Christians would like to present is full of light, love, and mercy. There are certainly verses to support such an ideal being. However, those who consider all of Jesus' words honestly are forced to face the fact that Jesus had a darker side, dwelling in hate and vengeance, such as what we will see in this study.

In Matthew 11:25-26, like Luke 10:21, we find Jesus saying these interesting words:

"I praise You, Father, Lord of Heaven and earth, because You have hidden these things from the wise and learned, and revealed them to little children. Yes, Father, for this was your good pleasure." NIV

What exactly did Jesus mean here? This is a little difficult to discern, because in the context immediately surrounding these verses neither Matthew nor Luke provides much insight. It appears to be an island; a little anecdote which neither author could fit in to an appropriate location.

And it is no wonder there is difficulty. The verses, if literally true, meant that only young children seemed to understand Jesus' message. However, while there were children involved, it seems that the majority of people who were following Jesus were adults. So “little children” is more likely to be a metaphor for something else than referring to actual children.

What are “little children” like? Innocent and naïve, lacking a broad wisdom of the world, not yet educated. To people with these qualities, God has revealed the hidden things. Or, as I have seen some skeptics paint it by playing off the contrast from “the wise and learned,” that only the stupid, or perhaps rather, the more gullible, believed Jesus. But this skeptical slant goes a little too far, because God has no problems with wisdom, as long as it is the right kind of wisdom, like the Proverbs 1:7 kind:

The fear of the Lord is the beginning of knowledge, but fools despise wisdom and instruction. NIV

God's kind of wisdom is the Psalm 19:7 kind of wisdom:

The Law of the Lord is perfect, refreshing the soul. The statutes of the Lord are trustworthy, making wise the simple. NIV

So let us take a quick look at the other side of the equation. Who are “the wise and learned” supposed to be? We do not know what these hidden “things” are, but the implication is that they are related to God and Jesus, which in turn would imply that “the wise and learned” are people like the Pharisees and scribes, and perhaps their disciples, who had studied the Scriptures to the point of having their own understanding and knowledge of God and His prophesies. As we know based on Jewish customs and recorded concepts in the Gospels, that learned class had sometimes extrapolated well beyond the Scriptural text in their version of understanding God.

Now that we have a sense of who Jesus was speaking about, let us take consider the meaning of Matthew 11:25-26 and Luke 10:21. Jesus is praising God for finding pleasure in hiding these “things” from people who have devoted great effort into studying God, while instead revealing them to people who have not studied about God much.

While the use of “little children” appears metaphorical, the act of God hiding the hidden “things” from “the wise and learned” is decidedly not a metaphor. Jesus is not saying “thank God these people cannot figure out the truth on their own.” Jesus is instead saying “thank you, God, for preventing these people from understanding the truth,” because the act of preventing their understanding was a “good pleasure” for God. To revel in the fact that certain people cannot understand God is an act of hate, not love.

Contrary to Matthew 18:14 and 2 Peter 3:9, God and Jesus are not only willing that some would perish, but they actually derive pleasure in the thought of some perishing in their ignorance; an ignorance held upon them by God Himself. It is God's thirst and pleasure for vengeance without a chance of Salvation which seems to be hidden from many, otherwise wise, Christians today.

If you think that last statement is a bit overreaching, consider the history of confusion bestowed by God:

In response to the Tower of Babel, God confused language (Genesis 11:7)
God confused Pharaoh's army troops. (Exodus 14:3, Exodus 14:24)
God prevented the Israelites from fully understanding what God was doing while they wandered the Wilderness (Deuteronomy 29:4)
God promised to confuse the nations which were occupying the Promised Land before the Israelites. (Exodus 23:27, Deuteronomy 7:23, Joshua 10:10, 1 Samuel 14:20)
God promised to confuse the Israelites if they turned away from Him (Deuteronomy 28:20, Deuteronomy 28:28, Isaiah 6:9, Jeremiah 51:34, Micah 7:4)
There are repeated Scriptural prayers for God to send confusion to enemies (Psalm 35:26, Psalm 40:14, Psalm 70:2, Psalm 71:24)
God closed the minds of the people who were mocking Job (Job 17:4)

Wanting Judgement

2011-08-26T07:05:00.073-04:00

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Background
John the Baptist, upon hearing about Jesus preaching and working miracles in Galilee, sent messengers to question whether or not Jesus was the Messiah. Jesus performed some more miracles and preached to the poor as proof of who Jesus was for those messengers. Jesus then explained to the crowds around him that John the Baptist was Elijah, who had been prophesied to return to prepare the way for God. Then Jesus described that generation as being like a bunch of fickle children who could never be satisfied (Matthew 11:16-19, Luke 7:31-35).

Wanting Judgement

One of the crafted, and heavily promoted, images of God in modern Christianity is of a loving father. God's love is so great for us all, that He sent His son to die for us (John 3:16), and He is not willing that any of us would perish (Matthew 18:14, 2 Peter 3:9). Such strong love and devotion! We will surely see that God is doing everything He can to save each and every one of us! Or will we? Let us take a closer look.

Matthew 11:20-24 (and the parallel in Luke 10:13-15) tells us about how Jesus condemned the cities of Korazin, Bethsaida, and Capernaum, just like He had instructed the Apostles to do. Why would Jesus condemn them? Because Jesus had worked miracles there, but they still did not repent.

I am not sure about you, but if I was God, in the form Jesus, or a burning bush, or whatever shape du jour, I can think of some rather incredible miracles with which I could prove beyond a shadow of a doubt that, well, that I was God. When you are not subject to the laws of nature, when you can bend time at your will, when the most solid matter is nothing but primordial ooze to be formed and spirited according to your desires, you can be very influential.

Who knows? Maybe Jesus worked these kinds of truly incredible miracles which only God could do, and yet the people did not repent. Maybe He did do all that He could do, not willing that any should perish. Or maybe he just worked the type of miracles discussed with John the Baptist's messengers; healing people, the kind of miracles which could easily be faked with the right setup of some planted accessories and corroborators, the kind of miracles which happen on a daily basis in modern hospitals at the hands of doctors. That is not to say that such acts would be unimpressive, just that they are, shall we say, lesser miracles in the grand scope of what would be possible for God.

Regardless of what miracles they were, Jesus clearly thought that they should have been enough to turn their hearts. In Matthew 11:21/Luke 10:13, Jesus says that had those same miracles been performed in Tyre and Sidon, they would have repented. (God had Tyre and Sidon destroyed per the prophesy of Zechariah 9:1-7.)

What? Tyre and Sidon could have been saved with a little divine intervention? And God knew this? Why would God not have stepped in to save them then? Who knows? God is omniscient. Maybe God knew that Tyre and Sidon would have soon backslid, and would have perpetrated some greater evil on the world if left unstopped. Let us give God the benefit of the doubt here, until a couple verses later...

In Matthew 11:23, we find Jesus saying:

“...If the miracles that were performed in you had been performed in Sodom, it would have remained to this day.” NIV

Sodom had been so wicked that God did not wait to send an invading army in to capture them, like He later did with Tyre and Sidon. Instead, Sodom, and a similar city named Gomorrah, were so bad that God personally obliterated them with raining burning sulfur from “the heavens” (Genesis 19:24-25). Yet here in the New Testament, Jesus said that had there been a little divine intervention, a little showing of some miracles, Sodom would have repented so much that they would still have existed to the times of Jesus.

Apparently, God is indeed very willing that some should perish. Maybe Sodom perished with a purpose, and that through Sodom's destruction, many more were moved to repentance than would have otherwise, perhaps even outnumbering those who were in Sodom and those who would have been there in later generations. Maybe. But this shows God to use a motivation of fear, not love. It demonstrates that God has a Machiavellian ends-justify-the-means type of modis operandi. Plus, it proves that God is willing to let some perish under the right circumstances, displaying a moral relativism.

Quickly, we should ponder the condemnation of towns themselves. As discussed in the study about Jesus telling the Apostles to condemn towns, this implies an immediacy to the coming Judgement. Over long periods of time, the residents of the towns change completely. It would be unfair for Jesus to condemn the great grand-daughter of someone who was not impressed by Jesus' miracles, so Jesus' city-wide condemnation carries with the implication that Judgement Day will occur within one generation.

Extra Credit: Textual Study
Luke was an editor. Or, at least the author of Luke was an editor. While he was not an eye-witness to Jesus, it is suggested by believers and Luke 1:1-4 that his Gospel was derived from investigative reporting of eye-witness accounts. Who was that, or who were those eye-witnesses, nobody knows, but some people of faith make the case that there are enough differences to suggest that neither Matthew nor Mark were direct sources for Luke. From this perspective, there are several unique eye-witness accounts to give inherent credibility to the Gospel story. However some Christian scholars, and skeptics as well, theorize that both Matthew and Luke were assembled using the Gospel of Mark and perhaps some version of another non-extant document, often referred to as Q. Why would they think this? Take a look at these passages for an example:

Matthew 11:21-23 (NIV)	Luke 10:13-15 (NIV)
"Woe to you, Korazin! Woe to you, Bethsaida! If the miracles that were performed in you had been performed in Tyre and Sidon, they would have repented long ago in sackcloth and ashes. But I tell you, it will be more bearable for Tyre and Sidon on the day of judgment than for you. And you, Capernaum, will you be lifted up to the skies? No, you will go down to the depths...	"Woe to you, Korazin! Woe to you, Bethsaida! For if the miracles that were performed in you had been performed in Tyre and Sidon, they would have repented long ago, sitting in sackcloth and ashes. But it will be more bearable for Tyre and Sidon at the judgment than for you. And you, Capernaum, will you be lifted up to the skies? No, you will go down to the depths.

Of the 75 words, 67 words are identical, with only eight different words (in bold). The differences are easily explained:

The word “sitting” added in Luke is a clarification. The “I tell you” in Matthew is a kind of a flavor phrase, if you will, not at all altering the meaning by its absence in Luke. Matthew's “on the day of judgment” is essentially the same as Luke's “at the judgment,” and really only demonstrates Matthew's preference for the phrase “day of judgment,” with Matthew's Gospel being the only one to use the words “judgment” and “day” in the same sentence, and he used “day of judgement” multiple times (Matthew 10:15, Matthew 11:22, Matthew 11:24, Matthew 12:36).

For the words, their order, and their sentence structure to match this closely, with the minor exceptions of the preferences of the authors, it strongly suggests that both parties got there information from a single source. That source could be actual eye-witness memory of what Jesus said, or it could be a single document.

Memory is notoriously faulty, but you have to remember (wink) that back in those days, when paper was still a luxury and there were far fewer everyday distractions, memory was relied on to a much greater extent than now. As with any regularly practiced skill, memory of the general population was probably more acute back then. It is possible that eye-witness memory could have been that precise, especially in the context of a highly unusual event, like God becoming a man for example. ;-)

However, memory is undermined by itself in this case. First, the context Matthew wraps around these verses is that Jesus has sent out the Twelve Apostles on their first mission, and so Jesus had been wandering around Galilee alone, preaching and working miracles. According to Luke, the Twelve Apostles had gone out on and returned from their mission, Jesus fed five thousand people with five loaves of bread and two fish, Peter identified Jesus as the Messiah, Jesus got Transfigured, Jesus exorcised a demon from a boy, Jesus was rejected in Samaria, and (finally) we find these verses where Jesus was giving instructions for 72 other disciples to go out on a mission. Matthew does not mention the mission of these 72 disciples at all. So we are expected to believe that the eyewitnesses could remember the words perfectly, but the memories of the events leading up to and the surrounding context of those words were a little hazy.

Second, if this was from such a precise memory, how is it possible that Luke version completely omits the content in the second half of Matthew 11:23 as well as all of the content of Matthew 11:24 in regards to how Sodom would have repented, which was part of this same speech from Jesus? It is unlikely that an eye-witness simply did not remember, having remembered the preceding so perfectly.

So the eye-witness memory theory seems unlikely. What about the Q source document theory? What if this Q document was just a collection of random events, sayings, and episodes associated with Jesus which the authors of Matthew and Luke had to puzzle together into some cohesive story? What if this snippet of Jesus condemning cities had no surrounding context in that Q document, leaving it at the author's discretion as to where it fit? Under the Q theory, the precision of the words are no mystery, nor is it surprising that this section would show up in completely different locations in these two Gospels.

Even with the Q theory, one mystery still remains: Why did Luke skip out on the last part of the message regarding Sodom? One answer is that it may not have been in the Q, but was added by Matthew. Another answer is that the author of Luke edited out those lines based on the theological difficulties which we discussed above, because it clearly demonstrates that God could have saved people but chose not to do so. I lean towards the second answer, based on the fact that Luke appears to have edited other parts as well, such as the verses regarding Jesus' condemnation of divorce. Matthew 19:3-9 and Mark 10:2-12 record that Jesus said that Moses was the source of permission of divorce, which was not accurate to the Scripture which clearly has God establishing that divorcement. Luke sidesteps this difficulty by trimming the passage down to a one-liner (Luke 16:18) which avoids mentioning Moses at all.

Elijah-On

2011-08-19T07:05:00.075-04:00

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Background
Jesus sent the Twelve Apostles on a mission while He continued to teach and perform miracles in Galilee. This prompted John the Baptist to ask if Jesus was really the Messiah. After proving His powers to John the Baptist's messengers, Jesus went on to explain that John the Baptist is the prophet spoken of in prophesy who was to prepare the way for God.

Elijah-On

Picture this: You are in a restaurant for breakfast, and you order a glass of fresh-squeezed orange juice because you had heard that this place had amazing orange juice, perfectly sweet and tangy, and extra high in vitamin C too! When the waiter returns, he sets down a single-serve bottle of apple juice. When you ask the waiter about it, his reply is “this is the juice which was to come.” Something is obviously not right. We will see a similar case of mistaken identity in this study of the Bible.

After Jesus spoke about just how wonderful John the Baptist was, He dropped some peculiar verbiage about how since John the Baptist had been active, people were forcing their way into the Kingdom of Heaven (Matthew 11:12, Luke 16:16). It is hard to know the exact meaning here, but I think it may be best rendered like this: “Since people have started learning about the Kingdom of Heaven, they are doing everything they can to ensure that they get into it.” The words speak of a much more dramatic change than simply believing something new, and may also imply a dire urgency to make such a conversion, as if the end of the world was nigh.

Then, much like the previous tying of John the Baptist to prophesy, in Matthew 11:13-14 Jesus goes one step further to try to remove all doubt:

“For all the Prophets and the Law prophesied until John[ the Baptist]. And if you are willing to accept it, he is the Elijah who was to come.” NIV

You should know that in the original Greek text, “he is the Elijah” is actually rendered “he Elias.” Elias is another name for Elijah, so there are no problems there. The words “is” and “the” were added by interpreters. The “is” is no big change, as that state of being Elijah is implicit. However, the “the” is a major change found in the New International Version (NIV), and a dishonest one at that. It is dishonest both because the Greek language had a definite article which would have been put there if it was needed to be accurate, and because it changes the meaning to suggest that John the Baptist is not actually Elijah, but rather a prophet similar to Elijah, thereby implying that that was the original intent of the prophesy from Malachi 4:5.

Enough quibbling about words. Who was John the Baptist supposed to be, or be like? Who was Elijah? He was only one of the greatest prophets EVER! Check this out:

Elijah first appears in the Bible in 1 Kings 17, and he makes an impressive entrance! In 1 Kings 17:1, God uses Elijah to announce a three year drought, and gives Elijah the power to make it rain on command during that drought. Being a rather unpopular announcement, God directs Elijah where to hide, and has ravens bring him meat and bread (1 Kings 17:2-6)!

After the water source dried up in the hiding spot, God directed Elijah to stay with a widow and her son. The widow said that they did not have enough flour and oil for themselves, let alone Elijah. So Elijah reveals to her that God has promised to keep her flour and oil jars full throughout the drought. And presto! They had unlimited flour and oil (1 Kings 17:7-16).

When the widow's son later became deathly ill and died, she accused Elijah of reminding her of her sins and killing her son! Elijah, knowing that God caused all death, questioned God as to why He would kill this widow's son when she was hosting Elijah, and asked God to bring the child back to life. God God must have realized that the situation was not a fair, and He did want to support Elijah, so He brought the widow's son back to life. Then the widow knew that Elijah was a man of God for sure (1 Kings 17:17-24).

In the time of Elijah, Ahab was king of Israel. (This is not to be confused with the entire Promised Land. There had been a schism which split the land into two kingdoms; Israel/Samaria and Judah.) Ahab was pretty evil in God's eyes, which in no small part was due to him marrying Jezebel and converting to Baal worship (1 Kings 16:29-32).

Anyway, God commanded Elijah to confront King Ahab, and so Elijah went to Ahab and told him that the king himself has caused great trouble to fall on Israel for promoting Baal worship. He tells the king to summon all of the prophets of Baal and Asherah to a showdown on Mount Carmel. Amazingly, the king summons them without protest (1 Kings 18:1-21).

Once all of the prophets are at Mount Carmel, Elijah challenged them to prove that their god was real with a contest. They would prepare a bull for an offering, and Elijah would do the same. Then they would each call for their god to consume the offering with fire. The god who does this would be proven to be the real God. The other prophets agreed. They prepared their bull, and solicited Baal to torch the chopped carcass. After about half a day without an answer, Elijah taunts them, telling them that they should shout louder in case their god is busy or sleeping. After a full day without an answer from Baal, Elijah ups the stakes. He prepared a fire pit with wood, lined it with stones, put his bull pieces on the wood, and then had the prophets of Baal pour water on his offering until the fire pit was flooded. At the appropriate time, Elijah stepped forward and prayed to God to consume this sacrifice to convert the hearts of the people of Israel to worship God again. With that, fire pours down from the sky, consuming the bull, the wood, the water, and even the stones lining the pit! The people repented. Flush with victory, and with support of the people, Elijah had the prophets of Baal rounded up and slaughtered (1 Kings 18:22-40).

Then, Elijah made it rain, thereby ending the drought (1 Kings 18:41-46).

Jezebel wanted to kill Elijah for slaughtering Baal's prophets. So Elijah fled. God feeds Elijah bread and water (despite Elijah's request just to let him die) until he had enough strength to travel to Mt. Horeb (1 Kings 19:1-9). There, God showed Himself to Elijah, although it is unclear whether or not Elijah actually saw God. After a little discussion, God gives Elijah the task of anointing the next king of Aram, the next king of Israel, and the man who would become Elijah's successor, Elisha. He grabs Elisha first (1 Kings 19:10-21).

Later, Ahab and Jezebel have a man named Naboth killed under false charges in order to take his vineyard. Because of this, God told Elijah to tell Ahab that God says dogs would lick his blood in the same spot that Naboth was killed, Jezebel would be eaten by dogs, and God would kill all of Ahab's lineage. Ahab humbled himself, donned a sackcloth and fasted, and went around meekly. God then told Elijah that because Ahab had humbled himself, He decided that He would wait until Ahab's son was ruler to kill all of Ahab's lineage (1 Kings 21). Ahab later gets killed battle, and dogs lick up his blood as prophesied (1 Kings 22).

Ahab's son Ahaziah took over as king of Israel (a.k.a. Samaria). He had a bad accident, so he sent messengers to the prophets of Baal-Zebub to ask if he would recover. God had Elijah intercept the messengers, and told them to tell the king that he will not get up, but would instead die in his bed because he had consulted Baal-Zebub instead of God. The messengers relayed this, and the king asked who this man was. The messengers replied that he was a man with a garment of hair (or perhaps just a very hairy man) and he had a leather belt. The king recognized him as Elijah (2 Kings 1:1-8).

Ahaziah sends a captain and 50 men to go get Elijah. When they find him on a hill and request that he go with them, Elijah asks God to consume these men with fire, which God does. Ahaziah sends another captain and 50 men to go get Elijah. When they find him on a hill and request that he go with them, Elijah asks God to consume these men with fire, which God does again. Ahaziah sends yet another captain and 50 men to go get Elijah. When they find him on a hill, the captain pleads for Elijah to spare their lives and go with them. Elijah gets a message from God to go with them. When Elijah meets with Ahaziah, he tells him that Ahaziah will die because he wanted to consult with Baal-Zebub. Ahaziah dies without an heir (2 Kings 1:9-18).

At some point in time, Elijah also sent a letter to Jehoram, who was king of Judah at that time. In the letter, Elijah told him that God was very mad at him for how sinful he was, and that God would strike a “heavy blow” to everything of his (including his wives and sons) and that he himself would be afflicted with a festering disease which would cause his bowels to fall out (2 Chronicles 21:12-15).

Closing out the story of Elijah, on his way to being called up into Heaven, God led Elijah to Bethel, Jericho, and finally to the Jordan River. Elisha insisted on going with him despite being told to stay behind 3 times. At the Jordan, Elijah rolled up his cloak and struck the water with it, causing it to part so that Elijah and Elisha could walk across on dry ground. Elijah asked Elisha if there is anything he can do for him before going up to Heaven. Elisha asks for a double portion of Elijah's spirit. Elijah says that will be difficult, but if Elisha sees him after he has gone to Heaven, then it will be so. Then a chariot of fire, with horses of fire, appeared and took Elijah up to Heaven in a whirlwind (2 Kings 2:1-12).

Elijah never died. He just went right up to Heaven, even without the blood of Jesus to wash away the stain of his sins. If he never died, then, it stands to reason, that he could come back at any time (as himself) like what Malachi 4:5 seems to suggest.

OK, so now the time has come to see just how closely John the Baptist resembled Elijah:

	Elijah	John the Baptist
Birth Legend	None	Foretold of by Gabriel (Luke 1:5-25), related to Jesus (Luke 1:36), John leaped in womb upon hearing Mary pregnant with Jesus (Luke 1:39-45), father was mute until John was named (Luke 1:57-80)
Food	Bread and meat brought by divine help, plus normal food	Locusts and honey (Matthew 3:4)
Clothing	Hair garment with leather belt	Hair garment with leather belt (Matthew 3:4)
Miracles Performed	Controlled rain, made never-empty oil and flour jars, resurrected a dead boy, called fire from the sky multiple times, parted the River Jordan, and rode to Heaven on a chariot of fire.	None
Purpose	Confront the wicked leaders of that time	Ready the people for Jesus
Biggest Impact	A showdown with the prophets of Baal, whereby great numbers of people converted back to worshiping God.	Water baptism for the repentance of sins of those who already worship God.
Type of Prophesy	Planned punishment for sins	Call for repentance to avoid the “coming wrath”(Matthew 3:7-10, Luke 3:7-9), identification of Jesus (Matthew 3:11-12, Luke 3:15-17, John 1:29-34)
Men Killed	450 prophets of Baal and over 100 of Ahaziah's soldiers	None
Divine Protection?	Yes	No
Imprisoned	No	Yes
Death	Wanted to die, but God kept him alive. Never died.	Beheaded because of a foolish vow (Matthew 14:1-12, Mark 6:17-29)

Other than their fashion sense and working for God, Elijah and John the Baptist were nothing alike. This certainly makes it difficult to accept Jesus' words that John the Baptist was Elijah, or “the” Elijah for that matter. Elijah was fresh-squeezed orange juice compared to John the Baptist's reconstituted, bottled apple juice.

Have you ever noticed that Elijah sounds a lot like “he lied yeah” all smushed together?

Preparing the Way Out of Context

2011-08-12T07:02:00.072-04:00

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Background
After Jesus sent out the Twelve Apostles on there first mission, He worked alone in Galilee preaching and performing miracles. When John the Baptist heard about this, he sent messengers to ask if Jesus was the prophesied Messiah for which all of the Jews were anxiously waiting. Jesus told them to tell John the Baptist what they had seen Jesus do.

Preparing the Way Out of Context

Context. It is the most useful tool in determining the intended meaning of words in a sentence, or the meaning of a sentence within a .paragraph, or, Biblically speaking, the real meaning of a prophesy. Ripped out of context, a single verse of prophesy can be bent to the will of the quoting authority. Yet if the original context still exists, we can come to the true meaning, as we will in this study.

Matthew 11:7-11 and Luke 7:24-28, in nearly identical wording, record what Jesus began to say after John the Baptist's disciples left. According to Jesus, John the Baptist was a prophet, but not just any prophet. John had a specific purpose. In Matthew 11:10/Luke 7:27 Jesus reveals that purpose:

“[John the Baptist] is the one about whom it is written:
'I will send My messenger ahead of you, who will prepare your way before you.'” NIV

Wow! John the Baptist was spoken about in the prophesies! How exciting it must have been for people living in those times, seeing prophesy fulfilled! So if Jesus has identified a specific applicable prophesy, and the specific person attached to that prophesy, it seems that we should be able to look at that prophesy for a match of what happened around the time of Jesus, especially as it pertains to John the Baptist and Jesus. That sounds reasonable, right?

You may remember from a previous study, regarding John the Baptist leading the way for Jesus, that this quote originates from Malachi 3:1. At a length of four brief chapters, Malachi is a small book in the Bible attributed to a prophet by the same name. More importantly, based on both content and structure, the entire book appears to be a contiguous revelation from God through Malachi, with the possible exception of the first five verses. Let us take a closer look into this book.

Malachi 1:1-5 speaks of how God chose Jacob (the Israelites) over Esau (the Edomites). Consequently, God's wrath will forever be against the Edomites, which will prove to the Israelites that God is great.

In Malachi 1:6-14, we find that God is pretty angry with the priests because they are sacrificing crippled and diseased animals to Him. God also reminds us that every place will eventually burn incense and make pure offerings (implicitly animal offerings) to Him because His name will be great among all nations. All nations are to fear God.

Malachi 2:1-9 continues on that theme, with God promising to make the priests despised and humiliated for breaking the covenant that He had made with Levi (Exodus 32:27-29, Numbers 3:5-10), and for not obeying God's Law and showing partiality in the Law's execution. This admonition will come so that the covenant that God had made with Levi can be preserved.

(You caught that, right? God was doing this to preserve the covenant with Levi, or in other words, to preserve the Levitical priesthood! If so, there would be no use for the priest of the order of Melchizedek described in Hebrews 5:5-10, Hebrews 6:19-20, and Hebrews 7)

Now in Malachi 2:10-16, God rebukes the general populous of Judah. In the metaphorical language of marriage, God claims that they are having an adulterous affair with a foreign god while still trying to worship Him. They should stop weeping at the altar over the fact that God no longer accepts their offerings. Their polytheism is the reason God no longer accepts their offerings.

Malachi 2:17 is a “by the way” message from God that He is tired of them complaining that God appears to be pleased with evil-doers, and complaining that there is no justice from Him.

Now, up the line which Jesus (partially) quotes. In Malachi 3:1, God will send a messenger before Him, and then suddenly the God they are seeking will come to His Temple. From the previous context, we remember that the Israelites had been seeking God the altar of the Temple of Jerusalem, and mourning because God had not accept their offerings. God is reassuring them that He will be back there.

Malachi 3:2-4 states that the day when God comes, he will purify the Levites so that God will have men who will bring offerings in righteousness, so that the offerings of Judah and Jerusalem would again be acceptable, just like they had been in the old days. (Line up the bulls and goats!)

Malachi 3:5 says that when God does show up, it will be in judgement of sinners.

All of this is not going to just automatically happen. According to Malachi 3:6-7, God does not change, so if the Israelites will obey His decrees and return to Him, then He will return to them.

How are the Israelites to return to God? In Malachi 3:8-12 God gets them started down the right path by telling them to stop stealing... from God. God has cursed the whole nation because they have not been giving all of the appropriate offerings and tithes which are owed to Him. If only they would give what the Law directs them to give, then God would “throw open the floodgates” of blessings from Heaven (including keeping their crops pest- and rot-free) and make it so that all nations consider their nation blessed.

Then, in Malachi 3:13-18, God provides reassurance for those who are weary of following God's Law without receiving any benefit for their good behavior, while the wicked prosper without punishment. God knows who they are and will spare His loyal followers and bless them. They will again see a distinction the wicked and the righteous. (“Again,” as in like it had been before.)

The message in Malachi 4:1-3 explains that distinction a little more. The day when God shows up, He will consume the wicked like a fire and will help the righteous people trample the wicked ones down.

Malachi 4:4 is a brief reminder to obey God's Law.

Wrapping it all up, in Malachi 4:5-6 God implicitly identifies the messenger from Malachi 3:1 as Elijah. Elijah will turn peoples hearts towards their own families, or else God will strike the land with a curse.

OK, now a quick and concise recap. As you read this, think of whether or not this is applies to Jesus' Salvation and the New Testament story:

God will forever demonstrate His wrath against the Edomites to show the Israelites His great power. God is angry with the priests for sacrificing defective animals, for not fully obeying God's Law, and for showing partiality. God will rebuke the priests with humiliation in order that the Levitical priesthood can be purged of impurity, and then the priesthood promised to the Levites could be continued by righteous Levites.

God is angry with the Israelites for trying to worship idols and God, for saying that God is withholding justice and rewarding the wicked, and for not giving all of the tithes and offerings which they should be giving. If they correct these sins and obey God's Law, then God will return to them. At that time, God will accept their offerings just like He did before and richly bless them. There will come a time when all nations burn incense and make offerings to God.

The day when God returns to the Temple in Jerusalem, He will come with punishment for those who persist as evil-doers, and He will help those who are righteous to take down these wicked people. God will send a messenger, Elijah, ahead of God's re-appearance. Elijah will turn people's hearts to their own families, or else when God returns He will strike the entire land with a curse.

That is the full prophetic context of John the Baptist, at least according to Jesus. At best, you could gleam some loose parallels with the Gospels. John the Baptist did warn about about the coming divine Judgement, which to him seemed imminent, but he is not recorded as saying anything which would turn the hearts of fathers to their own children, nor children's hearts to their fathers. Jesus said you must be ready to forsake your entire family in preference to Him, and Jesus did not appear with a Judgement Day, although He too preached it was imminent. Malachi's prophesy speaks of earthly and temporal reward and judgement, whereas Christianity holds that Jesus' message was about compensation in the afterlife. Far from preserving the covenant God had made with the Levites, Jesus terminates that promise. As opposed to perpetuating the system of burning incense and animal offerings, Jesus supersedes it all. These, and many more incongruous points of this prophesy, are an ill fit.

Is it really any wonder why the Jews expected something other than what Jesus was offering? No, not when you look at the context.

Are You the One?

2011-08-05T07:03:00.084-04:00

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Background
Jesus sent out the Twelve Disciples on their first mission, to convert the Jews, with a lot of instructions. In summarizing those instructions, He reminded them to do good in order to not lose their reward. With those Twelve Apostles gone, Jesus continued on His mission to spread the good word.

Are You the One?

Will the true story of Jesus ever be known? It is unlikely, especially when there are points within each of the four Gospel accounts which disagree with and discredit each of the other Gospel accounts. We will see a shining example of this conflict, and grab one more piece of that puzzling character, John the Baptist. Buckle up, this very detailed study is a bumpy ride.

While the Twelve Apostles were on their first mission, Jesus was busy teaching and preaching in the towns of Galilee (Matthew 11:1). John the Baptist had been put in prison when he angered the ruler, Herod (Luke 3:19-20), but John the Baptist's own disciples were ministering to him and keeping him informed of the events in the world while he was in prison. Those disciples told him about what Jesus was doing (Matthew 11:2), which prompts John the Baptist to send messengers to Jesus to ask, in Matthew 11:3:

“Are you the one who was to come, or should we expect someone else?” NIV

If you remember our study of the baptism of Jesus, you may remember that God had opened up Heaven and proclaimed in the hearing of John the Baptist, and others, that Jesus was the Son of God. So this question becomes a bit of an enigma to determine its motivation. The classic Bible commentaries yield a myriad of possible reasons:

The question was on behalf of John's doubting disciples.
This was just a tool to better acquaint John's disciples with Jesus.
Because John was having a lapse of faith in Jesus in prison.
Because John was getting impatient while in prison waiting for Jesus' promised judgment and deliverance.
Possibly John was wondering if someone else may be scheduled to bring in the events associated with the Second Coming.
Because John, like the majority of Jewish scholars at the time, thought that the Messiah would rule a temporal kingdom, and was wondering why He had not yet seized power.

John the Baptist was human, subject to all human faults, so all of these explanations are at least plausible, but they are not likely. You have got to keep in mind John's character according to the Gospels. From within the womb John the Baptist had recognized Jesus (Luke 1:39-45), they had grown up as cousins (Luke 1:36), John had devoted his life in service to God as a prophet while wearing camel hair and eating bugs (Matthew 3:4, Mark 1:6), he recognized his role to prepare the way for God (John 1:23), and he recognized that the one coming after him was worthy of absolute and unquestionable respect (Matthew 3:11, Matthew 3:13-14, Mark 1:7-8, Luke 3:16, John 1:26).

All of that circumstantial evidence could be swept aside in a moment of human weakness, if not for one more tidbit. John 1:29-34 testifies that John the Baptist knew exactly who Jesus was, and what His purpose was. John the Baptist proclaims that Jesus is the Son of God, and that Jesus will baptize with the Holy Spirit and take away the sins of the world. John the Baptist identifies the source of this information as none other than God Himself. To question Jesus, to doubt that Jesus was the one, was to doubt God's own word; an action which simply does not agree with his character.

Now, add to that the passage of John 3:22-36 where John the Baptist rejoices that his mission is now complete, explains that God put everything in Jesus' control, and ultimately explains that Jesus will bring Salvation including eternal life. You have the picture that John the Baptist fully understood that Jesus was here to establish the eternal Kingdom of the afterlife, and that Jesus would do things whatever way that He wanted to do things. This again makes John the Baptist's question unrealistic, and thus makes the accuracy of the Gospels doubtful.

From the skeptical perspective, there is an easier fit for John the Baptist's question than any reason suggested above. What if this episode comes to us from a time which was earlier in the construction of the overall legend of Jesus; a time before John the Baptist was identified as Jesus' cousin, a time before the anecdote of Jesus' baptism was a part of the story, a time before John had heard from God that Jesus was the one and the Son of God? If the recorded story of Jesus involves fabrication, and this episode is an artifact of its construction, we would expect to find a tie made to prophesy by the author to bolster the credibility of Jesus' story.

In Matthew 11:4-6, we find Jesus' reply:

"Go back and report to John[ the Baptist] what you hear and see: The blind receive sight, the lame walk, those who have leprosy are cured, the deaf hear, the dead are raised, and the good news is preached to the poor. Blessed is the man who does not fall away on account of Me." NIV

So basically Jesus says to tell John the Baptist about all of the good things He is doing, and blessed is the man who does not lose faith because he thinks that Jesus is doing the wrong things. That reply supports the ideas that John the Baptist was asking out of impatience, or out of expectation for Jesus to set up an earthly Kingdom, which, again, appears to counter the perspective given within the Gospel of John. It also supports the theory of John's question being an artifact of fabrication.

John the Baptist's disciples were not just supposed to be relaying words, but rather their actual experiences. This implies that in their presence, Jesus was preaching to the poor, performing these healings, and raising the dead. It seems odd that no accounts outside of the Bible speak of a man, Jesus or otherwise, performing all of these healings or raising the dead at that time.

Note that Jesus' list of good deeds is not arbitrary. At least three of them are tied to prophesy regarding the Salvation of the Messiah; giving the blind sight, hearing to the deaf, and preaching the good news to the poor.

Hearing and sight are a reference from Isaiah 35:5. Indeed, the chapter of Isaiah 35 speaks of God coming back with vengeance to save a people. The wastelands will be transformed into inviting and prosperous lands. God will take His redeemed and ransomed people there. However, as Isaiah 35:10 explicitly says, these people will be returning to this land. Taken within the full context of the Old Testament, this can be none other than the Promised Land, Zion, the combination of the lands of Israel and Judah; and if people are returning to it then that people can be none other than the Jews.

Preaching the good news to the poor is a reference from Isaiah 61:1. Indeed, the chapter of Isaiah 61 speaks of God comforting those who now mourn and endowing them with righteousness. God will make an eternal covenant with them and bless them with everlasting joy. However, Isaiah 61:4 speaks of rebuilding the ancient ruins of cities, Isaiah 61:5 speaks of non-Jews being the source of their manual labor in the restored land, and Isaiah 61:9 speaks of these blessed people having descendants and offspring for generations to come. Obviously this conflicts with the Christian concept of the afterlife.

One final question regarding Matthew's account of this interaction: Who was there to record it? The Twelve Apostles, including Matthew, were off on their First Mission. How could we know that Jesus' words were accurately recorded, or John the Baptist's words for that matter?

Here is where it gets funny. The author of the Gospel of Luke, who was not an eyewitness to Jesus, also happens to record this incident of John the Baptist questioning Jesus. Amazingly, you will find that Luke 7:18-23 records what Jesus and John the Baptist said almost word-for-word with what Matthew recorded, and Luke adds details to the story such as the precise number of disciples which John the Baptist sent to Jesus.

Yet perhaps what is most funny about Luke's account are the circumstances around it. Specifically, according to Luke this happens while all Twelve Apostles are still with Jesus. Luke does not send the Apostles out on their mission until two chapters later in Luke 9.

Neither the Gospel of Mark nor of John record this episode. It is just between Matthew and Luke. If we give credence to Matthew over Luke, Luke is clearly a fabricator of details and someone who appears not to be concerned with the accuracy of what he writes. If we give Luke the priority, then he accuses the actual eyewitness, Matthew, of either being a liar or being someone with such a horrible memory that he could not even recall if he was present for an event in history which he recorded!

And to think, some people still consider the Gospels inerrant.

Underlying Motivation

2011-07-29T07:06:00.034-04:00

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Background
We are coming to the final instruction which Jesus gave to the Twelve Apostles before sending them out on a mission to convert the Jews. Just before this, we saw how Jesus had told everyone that if they did not forsake everything in the world, even their own families and lives, then they were not worthy of Him. This final teaching is a little less controversial, but significant all the same.

Underlying Motivation

From many of Jesus' teachings, particularly some of the ones given in the Sermon on the Mount, some Christian theologians suggest that one of the biggest issues Jesus was combating was mechanical religion, or religion by the letter. That is, doing what God requires of you because God said to do it as opposed to obeying and worshiping in the spirit. What exactly doing something in “spirit” means is somewhat nebulous, but I have heard it said that it is associated with a love of good and a love of God. It is like the difference between following the rules to avoid being punished versus obeying them because you want to be good. The motivation is key, and we will take a closer look at a motivation in this study.

In Matthew 10:40-41, Jesus gives us the concept of a vicarious reception and reward; a kind of receive-a-messenger-of-Jesus,-get-Jesus-for-free program. What exactly is meant by “receive” is up for debate, but I am sure that I would rather receive a messenger of Jesus than have to give up everything I have. ;-)

Tacked on the end of this vicarious business is a rather curious verse in Matthew 10:42:

“And if anyone gives even a cup of cold water to one of these little ones because he is My disciple, I tell you the truth, he will certainly not lose his reward.” NIV

Let us skip the larger implication of this statement for a moment in favor of examining motivation. Motivation; as in why would you be giving cold water to one of these children? Because they are hot? Because they are thirsty? Because of courtesy? Because of kindness? Because of general love you feel for them? No. None of the above. Because you are a disciple of Jesus. Implicitly, because that is what Jesus would do. And if you do so, you will not lose your reward.

There we are. Right back where we started. We are doing things because God/Jesus wants you to in order to be rewarded. Just like in the Old Testament, blessings and curses are doled out based on obedience, except that you will have to wait until after you die to reap this reward.

Ordinarily, this would be a laudable sign of consistency, if it were not for the fact that a large part, if not the overwhelming majority, of modern Christianity adheres to a doctrine of grace (Ephesians 2:4-5). God's grace, as the story goes, means that your eternal reward does not hinge on your individual actions because God is granting you something which you do not deserve. There is nothing you can do to earn this reward (Romans 11:6, Ephesians 2:8-9)... unless you happen to actually pay attention to Jesus' words.

The moment you are Saved, you have an eternal reward waiting for you, but, as we see in this verse, once promised a reward is not forever promised reward, and once Saved is not forever Saved. It seems that God's grace has its limits; that, at a certain point, the works you do or do not do will assure or deny your access to the promised reward.

On a final note, you may remember from a couple of earlier studies of the mission instructions that the author of Matthew appeared to be an aggregator; someone collecting different snippets of sayings and anecdotes associated with Jesus who then pastes them together into one (hopefully) coherent story. We saw how Matthew mistakenly records Jesus telling the Twelve Apostles not to worry about what to say when they confront Gentile leaders on this Jew-only mission and how Jesus told them that He would return (as in the Second Coming) before they got done traveling throughout Israel.

Well, in Matthew 10:42 is possibly another aggregation gaff. Back at the start of this speech, Jesus had called the Twelve Apostles together to privately give them these mission instructions (Matthew 10:1). Yet in Matthew 10:42, we see Jesus say “one of these little ones,” as if they were in the presence of children, like what we see in Matthew 18:1-6. This is only a possible gaff, because it could be that there were children in the general vicinity, and Jesus just pointed or otherwise gestured to them in the distance as He made this comment. Yet with no mention of the gesture, and with two prior, and more serious, mistakes already made, odds are that this is a cut-and-paste error too.

Forsake All but One

2011-07-22T07:06:00.034-04:00

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Background
The Twelve Apostles were sent out in their first missionary capacity prior to Jesus being crucified. Jesus prepared them for the mission with a speech including instructions, precautions, and reminders, and we are nearing the end of that speech in our studies. Recently we observed how Jesus' message would not bring peace, but rather division, even among family members, which was odd for the so-called Prince of Peace.

Forsake All but One

There were Twelve Apostles, so the story goes, but the Apostles were also known as disciples. Disciple was a title open to all, and sometimes used in this general sense in the Gospels. Disciple means student, or pupil; and in the Biblical context usually means a follower of Jesus. That is not just someone who walks behind Jesus, going where He goes, but rather a person who has learned from Scripture and from Jesus, and put that learning into practice. These Christ-following disciples would today be known as Christians. Really, really good Christians. Or would they?

In Matthew 10:37, Jesus tells us that anyone who loves their parents or their children more than they love Jesus is not worthy of Jesus. Basically, if someone held Jesus and your mom hostage and gave you the choice to kill one in exchange for the other one's freedom, you have to opt to save Jesus, despite the fact that Jesus has supposedly conquered death.

OK, so maybe that is not exactly what it means, but the point is that Jesus should take priority in you heart over anything and anyone. Those who cannot do that are not worthy of Jesus, according to the Man Himself.

Jesus goes on to say in Matthew 10:38 that anyone who will not take up his cross (metaphorically the heavy burden of following Jesus' teaching) is not worthy of Jesus. In Matthew 10:39 Jesus concludes His thought by saying anyone who “finds his life” (that is, finds a type of fulfillment in this world in this life, like The Purpose Driven Life) will loose that life, but people who loose their life for Jesus will find eternal life as a reward. In summary, Jesus is saying that you had better be ready to suffer and die for your faith to be considered worthy of Salvation, but simply being prepared is not the full meaning here...

This passage in Matthew has its parallel Luke 14:25-27, which speaks in an even stronger tone:

Large crowds were traveling with Jesus, and turning to them He said: "If anyone comes to Me and does not hate his father and mother, his wife and children, his brothers and sisters—yes, even his own life—he cannot be My disciple. And anyone who does not carry his cross and follow Me cannot be My disciple. NIV

First you will note that contrary to the Matthew 10:37-39 passage where Jesus is addressing the Twelve Apostles, here Jesus is speaking to the large crowd following Him, but the message is essentially the same. So this is not some special instruction given for the Twelve Apostles only, but rather a global message to anyone who would follow the ways of Jesus; to anyone who would like to be worthy of Salvation.

As mentioned, Luke's version is in stronger language, for sure. Now, instead of simply preferring Jesus over your own immediate family, you are required to hate your own family members, and your own life. Biblical scholars spin this as not so much “hate” of others (especially in light of the Sermon of the Mount where Jesus equated hate with murder), but instead see it as rather a very, very strong priority and preference for the ways of Jesus over all else.

Adding this up provides a clear meaning: Forsake all of the world and follow Jesus. This is not a message about becoming securely and comfortably couched in your belief that Jesus is the Savior while maintaining all other things constant. This is a message about complete submission, and leaving everything about the life you knew before you knew Jesus; everything from your job to your family.

To drive this point home, Luke's parallel continues on with a couple of parables. In Luke 14:28-33, you will find Jesus saying that deciding to be a Christ-follower is not something you do halfheartedly. Instead, you need to do some reckoning and make sure you are fully prepared to follow His ways, with the kind of serious deliberation that you would use when planning to build a tower or wage a war. Jesus closes the parables with this thought in Luke 14:33:

“In the same way, any of you who does not give up everything he has cannot be My disciple.” NIV

Give up everything to follow Jesus. Only then will you be worthy of Salvation. Leave your garden. Leave your job. Leave your wife. Leave your kids. Obey God and spread the Word. Is such a person really a good Christian, or would you rather expect a Christian to fulfill his responsibilities and stand by his obligations?

This kind of all or nothing philosophy is only practical if the Kingdom of Heaven truly is near; if very soon after Jesus' resurrection there would be His glorious return. After all, what good could come from propagating broken homes and unemployment for 2000 years?

Thankfully, this is one teaching from which the church has deviated.

Prince of Division

2011-07-15T07:04:00.006-04:00

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Background
As Jesus was sending the Twelve Apostles out on their first mission, He provided with them with some instructions and teaching in preparation. We are at the part of the preparatory speech where Jesus has just reminded them that they should fear God, and that God controls the death of everything.

Prince of Division

Jesus is known as the Prince of Peace, among other illustrious titles. Have you wondered why? It comes from a prophesy in Isaiah 9:1-7, where Isaiah tells us that there will be no more gloom for the distressed. God will honor the Gentiles (according to one interpretation). People in darkness have seen a great light. God has made the nation bigger, increased joy, and lifted peoples burdens. War-bloodied clothing will be burnt. A son is born who will rule and be called Wonderful Counselor, Mighty God, Everlasting Father, Prince of Peace (Isaiah 9:6). His peace and government will know no end, and he will rule from David's throne in justice and righteousness forever.

If you are a Christian, you probably thought that this prophesy matched Jesus pretty well, but did you notice the verb tense? It speaks of a hope which had already dawned at the time of Isaiah's writing, and will come to fruition with a ruler on David's throne, the throne of the nation of Israel. Not exactly a match with Jesus. The last part, about the ruler's peace, government, and ruling lasting forever, that does sound like Jesus, but we should keep in mind that eternal kingship was promised to David as well, and only meant that David's descendants would rule on the throne of the nation (2 Samuel 7:8-16).

So what about the actual synonym? Jesus, the Prince of Peace. Is that a match? Well, how about we let Jesus explain it Himself in Matthew 10:34-36:

“Do not suppose that I have come to bring peace to the earth. I did not come to bring peace, but a sword. For I have come to turn 'a man against his father, a daughter against her mother, a daughter-in-law against her mother-in-law; a man's enemies will be the members of his own household.'” NIV

So Jesus tells us that He did not come here to bring peace, but rather to turn members of your own family into your enemies. Luke 12:51-53 essentially says the same thing. That is just about the opposite of what I would expect a “Prince of Peace” to do. While Isaiah paints a picture of a lineage of rulers whose peace would be ever expanding, Matthew and Luke show Jesus to create turmoil in our very homes.

Some may say that the peace which Jesus brings is a spiritual peace; a calm despite all of the afflictions and uncertainty of the world around us. To that sentiment, I ask who is at spiritual peace when his or her enemies are his or her own parents?

Others may say that this peace refers to when Jesus will come back and rule the earth for 1000 years, but that is time-limited and so it cannot be forever in agreement with the prophesy.

Still others claim that this peaceful kingship is only referring to the kingdom of the afterlife and the great peace Jesus will bring there, but this would seem to be inaccurate because Isaiah says that war-bloodied clothing will be burnt. What would war-bloodied clothing be doing in the afterlife?

Christianity has yielded a lack of peace, both on the macro-scale, with events like the Crusades, and on the micro-scale, with division lines among families drawn on dogmatic beliefs. If Jesus is the Prince of Peace, I would prefer a different kind of peace, thank you. No, Jesus, based on His own words, is the Prince of Division.

The Fall of a Sparrow

2011-07-08T07:02:00.011-04:00

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Background
We are continuing through Jesus' instructions for the Twelve Disciples on their first-ever mission to spread the Gospel to the Jews. In the previous study, we observed how Jesus told them to fear God, not man. This study picks up right were that one left off.

The Fall of a Sparrow

“There is special providence in the fall of a sparrow. If it be now, 'tis not to come; if it be not to come, it will be now; if it be not now, yet it will come—the readiness is all.” Hamlet, Act 5 Scene 2, Shakespeare

One of the things I find fascinating about the works of Shakespeare is how they have eloquently encapsulated the Christian beliefs of an era gone by. In this quote, Hamlet is telling his good friend that God is in control of whether or not he will die that day. This type of belief still exists, but it seems to be modified in the Christian culture of our times. One of the sources of this belief, and the inspiration for Hamlet's line, is Matthew 10:29-30:

“Are not two sparrows sold for a penny? Yet not one of them will fall to the ground apart from the will of your Father. And even the very hairs of your head are all numbered.” NIV

The meaning is clear. God is in control of everything from how many hairs you have on your head to exactly when you (and every other creature on earth) will die. In Matthew 10:31, Jesus goes on to explain that the Disciples should not worry because God thinks that they are more valuable than sparrows. Luke 12:6-7 echos all of these words too.

Modern Christianity does recognize this Godly control, but the extent to which it is recognized varies greatly across denominations and churches because of its implications. If not a single sparrow dies except by the will of God, than surely not a person dies except according to God's will. That means that every death of every person is through God's will.

Every person to die from age-related degradation, trauma, electrocution, poison, accident, fire, disease, cancer, parasites, thirst, hunger, a fall, a birth defect, cold, heat stress, radiation, asphyxiation, wild animal attack, lightning, tornado, earthquake, volcano, tsunami, hurricane, or whatever the cause, that person dies by the will of God. God controls death. All death.

If you do believe, if you are a Christian, you do not have an excuse for thinking that God does not control the carnage from natural disasters or that God does not kill people through cancer, and it is your challenge to reconcile this with the concept of good.

Finally, because God does control all death, then there should be no talk of God conquering death or Jesus' victory over death. It is a hollow victory to affect what you have absolute control over.

Fear God

2011-07-01T07:04:00.043-04:00

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Background
In preparation to send the Twelve Disciples out on their first mission, Jesus provided an interesting set of instructions for their work. We have seen how Jesus wanted them to condemn stubborn towns, how they would be given words to say to Gentile kings on this Jew-only mission, and how the “Son of Man” would come before they finished traveling to all of the towns in Israel. What wise words are next?

Fear God

Let us begin this study with a really good Bible verse, 1 John 4:18:

There is no fear in love. But perfect love drives out fear, because fear has to do with punishment. The one who fears is not made perfect in love. NIV

The context surrounding that verse, 1 John 4:7-21, is one of the most beautiful sections of the Bible. John tells us that God is love, and if we love one another then God lives in us and His love is perfected in us. Because of that love, Christians will have no fear on Judgement Day. As the verse above attests, love drives out the fear of punishment, and the fearful do not have the full love of God. But John's version of God is very different from the God in the remainder of the Bible, and even different from the God about which Jesus preached.

When preparing His Twelve Apostles for their first mission, Jesus gave them a warning that violence and persecution would come when spreading the Gospel message (Matthew 10:21-25). Then Jesus tells them not to be afraid men who persecute them, but rather to speak the Gospel boldly (Matthew 10:26-27). In Matthew 10:28, Jesus' message of motivation takes a sobering turn:

“Do not be afraid of those who kill the body but cannot kill the soul. Rather, be afraid of the One who can destroy both soul and body in Hell.” NIV

Luke 12:4-5 offers a slightly more robust version of the same saying from Jesus:

“I tell you, My friends, do not be afraid of those who kill the body and after that can do no more. But I will show you whom you should fear: Fear Him who, after the killing of the body, has power to throw you into Hell. Yes, I tell you, fear Him.” NIV

Diametrically opposed to the words of James, Jesus tells His Disciples that they should fear God, precisely because of the punishment which God is able to administer.

The fear of God is a fairly consistent view throughout the Bible. There are at least 130 Old Testament (OT) and 19 New Testament (NT) references to the fear of God (searching fear+God and fear+lord-God). In fact, in Genesis 31:42 and Genesis 31:53, the word “Fear” is used in place of the word for God.

Compare this to the 29 OT and 39 NT commands to love God (searching love+God and love+lord-God). That is a fear-to-love ratio of 2.19 overall, 4.48 for the OT and 0.49 for the NT. It is clear that God promotes fear over love, and that the NT is a departure from the original message.

The concept of “God is love” is farcical, because the words of 1 John 4:18 are true; there really is no fear in perfect love. Yet God's message, and Jesus' message as we see here, is based on a platform of fear, not a foundation of love.

It is a shame, too. I really liked John's version of God.

Here Comes the Son?

2011-06-24T07:05:00.056-04:00

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Background
The first Christian missionaries ever were the Twelve Disciples. According to Matthew, this was a mission only to save the Jews. Jesus sent the Apostles out with a set of instructions, including when to condemn entire towns and why they should not worry about what to say to Gentile kings on this Jew-only mission. Matthew 10 is a chapter's worth of instructions, and we continue along studying them.

Here Comes the Son?

Let us say that you know something is true, beyond a shadow of a doubt. Then you read some other resource which directly contradicts that truth, and yet you know that what you have read is also true. What then? How can white be both black and white simultaneously? That is an enigma, for sure; one common to Christian apologists. The solution typically involves redefining the terms; white and black both become shades of gray, and thus mesh together perfectly while still maintaining their original definitions. It is a neat trick. Let us take a look at one of these tricks to see how it is done.

In Matthew 10:21-22, Jesus warns His Twelve Apostles that Jesus' message is going to cause family members to kill each other, and that everyone will hate them because of Jesus. Why would the Gospel cause such a violent reaction?

You reap what you sow, and God Himself seeded this violence. Read through Deuteronomy 13:6-11 and you will see God's command that if any of your family members tries to get you to worship a different god, that person must be put to death by the community, and you are to be the first one to throw a stone. Have zero tolerance. Jesus was portrayed not as a different god, but rather part of the same God they had always worshiped. However, because neither the Israelites of Jesus' day nor their ancestors knew anything about Jesus (as being part of God), He would be considered a foreign god and thus warrant the killing of Jesus-following family members according to God's own words.

In Matthew 10:23, Jesus wisely tells the Disciples to flee such persecution, and continues with a rather conspicuous line:

“When you are persecuted in one place, flee to another. I tell you the truth, you will not finish going through the cities of Israel before the Son of Man comes.” NIV

What does “Son of Man comes” mean? The most intuitive interpretation aligns with verses like Matthew 16:27-28, where it speaks of Jesus' Second Coming, establishing the Kingdom of God and rewarding everyone with what they deserve. There is only one problem; that event has not happened yet!

So now the game is played to redefine truth. Apologists know that the Second Coming has not happened yet, and they know all Scripture to be true, so that must mean that there is some other, less obvious, interpretation which makes it all true again.

The classic Christian commentaries explain that, in this case, the coming of the Son of Man meant Pentecost (the outpouring of the Holy Spirit) according to Matthew Henry, John Gill, and Barton W. Johnson. Or maybe it meant Jesus' resurrection, according to Matthew Henry, John Gill, and John Lightfoot. Or possibly it meant the destruction of Jerusalem, according to Jamieson, Faussett, and Brown, Barton W. Johnson, McGarvey and Pendleton, and John Wesley.

Now, it should be a red flag that there is disagreement amongst scholars between three completely different concepts for the same four words, and that none of those three concepts really have anything to do with Jesus showing up somewhere. Something is rotten in the state of Galilee. The text of the Gospels not only proves the fallacy of their arguments for the Pentecost, Jesus' resurrection, and the destruction of Jerusalem, but also proves the author of Matthew guilty of more haphazard aggregation, as we have seen in the previous study.

Jesus sent out these Disciples on their mission after giving them instructions (Matthew 10:5, Mark 6:12-13, Luke 9:6). Mark and Luke both state that they completed their mission and reported the results to Jesus a little later (Mark 6:30, Luke 9:10)! Matthew does not have this end-of-mission report, but shows the Disciples to have returned to Jesus as early as Matthew 12:1, but certainly by Matthew 14:28 when Peter is mentioned specifically by name.

So the mission is over. They have gone throughout Israel. Yet there was no Pentecost, Jesus was still alive, and Jerusalem was still intact. Oh, and there was no Second Coming. What happened?

Matthew, the aggregator, happened. Just like we saw in the previous study in regards to the Holy Spirit telling the Apostles on this mission what to say to Gentile kings, Mathew has cut-and-pasted this snippet into the story where it did not belong.

The misplaced snippet itself is incredibly interesting, because in some version of the story of Jesus, it did belong, and quite likely belonged with the more-intuitive definition of Jesus' Second Coming and the establishment of His eternal Kingdom. Was that a version where, after Jesus' resurrection, the Great Commission was limited to Israel instead of to the entire world? Was that a version without a crucifixion, where Jesus was just promising that He would go away and then come back with Godly power, wielding eternal judgement? God only knows. ;-)

Verses Out of Rhythm

2011-06-17T07:05:00.027-04:00

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Background
Before sending the Twelve Apostles out on their first missionary trip, to spread the Gospel to the Jews, Jesus prepared them with instructions. Mark's and Luke's instructions were brief, but Matthew's version has a chapter's worth of details. All three discussed how entire towns were to be condemned if they were not welcoming to the Good News. We continue our exploration of those instructions.

Verses Out of Rhythm

In a classic song by Simon and Garfunkel, called “The Dangling Conversation,” is a set of verses which go “Like a poem poorly written / we are verses out of rhythm / couplets out of rhyme / in syncopated time.” It is a sad song about a married couple, in that most intimate of relationships, yet completely out of tune with one another. Sadly, the Bible has similar verses in intimate relationship with each other, and yet are discordant as a fiddle and a gong, such as in the instructions which Jesus gave the Twelve Disciples for their first mission.

Matthew 10 is completely devoted to the instructions which Jesus had given the Apostles for the mission. In Matthew 10:18-20, Jesus told them that when they get brought before the local authorities, they do not have to worry about what to say, because God's Holy Spirit will speak through them. That seems like good news, but there are some discordant details in Matthew 10:18 which just do not make sense:

“On My account you will be brought before governors and kings as witnesses to them and to the Gentiles.” NIV

For those of you who are somewhat familiar with the Bible, in considering this verse your mind may begin to wander to the book of Acts. There, starting with Acts 16 and continuing through to the end of the book, Paul is passed from authority to authority, including appearance in front of King Agrippa II, but hat is more than you should permit you mind to wander. Paul was not one of these Twelve Apostles, meaning that he was not one of the ones receiving these instructions from Jesus.

More significantly, however, is that Jesus had so limited the scope of this mission as to make the words of Matthew 10:18 impossible to fulfill at this time. In Matthew 10:5-6, we read:

These twelve Jesus sent out with the following instructions: "Do not go among the Gentiles or enter any town of the Samaritans. Go rather to the lost sheep of Israel." NIV

Jesus forbid His Disciples from going to the Gentiles or Samaritans. At most, they could have spoken with King Agrippa I (a.k.a. Herod Agrippa), but still they would fail to completely fulfill the words of Matthew 10:18 on this mission.

Matthew 10:18-20 is completely out of rhythm with the purpose of the instructions Jesus was providing at that time. Those verses would only make sense in a different context, one of general instruction to the Disciples to inform them of the future ahead instead of specific instructions for a particular mission which could never come to pass. Curiously enough, that is exactly how Luke 12 frames the conversation, with the bit about the Holy Spirit coming in at Luke 12:11-12.

What does this tell us? Nothing for sure. However, it suggests something very significant; that the author of Matthew was not an eyewitness, nor was it a tale directly originating from one eyewitness.

It suggests that the author of Matthew was an aggregator. The author “Matthew” was taking little snippets and anecdotes, and perhaps an early version of the Gospel of Mark, and combining these pieces into one conglomerate mass of a Gospel. Sometimes, Matthew did a pretty good job, like with the Sermon on the Mount (which, by the way, is probably why you do not find that epic sermon mentioned in any of the other Gospels, but rather find parts of it scattered elsewhere). Other times, like what we see here, his craftsmanship is less than adequate.

This, in turn, weakly suggests that the Gospel of Matthew is, at least in part, fictitious. Weakly, because it does not mean that each of those little snippets never happened despite their haphazard assembly into a Gospel. Yet if author of Matthew could not be concerned enough to consult actual eyewitness for the proper assembly, you have to wonder just how much scrutiny he applied to ensure the veracity of those episodes. Because of that, you should be skeptical of any doctrine which is exclusively held in the Gospel of Matthew.

Damnation by Association

2011-06-10T07:02:00.056-04:00

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Background
In the previous study, we observed how Jesus oddly told His disciples to pray to God to send more people to help in the harvest of souls, even though God (as Jesus, and being omniscient) already knew that more harvesters were needed. From there, Jesus sent out His Twelve Apostles to preach about the soon-coming Kingdom of God/Heaven to the Jews.

Damnation by Association

Sometimes, the place you choose to live can have dire consequences to your very life. Floods. Tornadoes. Earthquakes. Nuclear radiation. In an instant, your life as you know it can be changed forever, or even cease to be, all because of an unfortunate coincidence of where you are and where a disaster occurs. Did you realize that, Biblically speaking, the same holds true for the fate of your immortal soul? Let us take a close look at what Jesus told the Twelve Disciples when He was sending them out on a mission.

The missionary instructions for the Twelve Apostles are given in Matthew 10, Mark 6:7-13, and Luke 9:1-6. The mission objective? Spread the word to repent because the Kingdom of Heaven/God is near (Matthew 10:7, Mark 6:12, Luke 9:2). This first mission was to the Jews only (Matthew 10:5-6).

Presumably to make these disciples more convincing to the Jews that they were indeed carrying God's message, Jesus grants them with the ability to heal sick people, resurrect the dead, clear up leprosy, and exorcise demons (Matthew 10:8).

Wait, what? Resurrect the dead? So twelve guys roamed the country bringing dead people back to life, and yet nobody, secular or otherwise, records this spectacle outside of the Bible? Even the Bible does not record any specific resurrections on this first mission. At best, you could claim Matthew 11:5 is a reference to these resurrections (although Luke 7:22 has Jesus say the same thing right after He had raised someone from the dead), but it still stands oddly in contrast that neither Mark nor Luke mentions the Apostles' ability to bring people back to life connected with this mission.

(The Gospel of John ignores this missionary story completely. Much, much later in the storyline, Acts 9:36-42 has Peter raise a girl from the dead and Acts 20:7-12 has Paul raise a young man from the dead, but no such resurrections are mentioned in any of the Epistles, and the power to raise the dead is not included in the list of spiritual gifts given in Romans 12:3-8 and 1 Corinthians 12:4-11.)

Back on task, here. Just a little later in the instructions, we find that Jesus told the Disciples that, upon entering a town, they should try to find someone willing to let them live at their house for a while. If they are not successful, they are to condemn the entire household, or possibly even the entire town. Mark 6:10-11 and Luke 9:4-5 too briefly explain what Matthew 10:14-15 divulges in more detail:

“If anyone will not welcome you or listen to your words, shake the dust off your feet when you leave that home or town. I tell you the truth, it will be more bearable for Sodom and Gomorrah on the Day of Judgement than for that town.” NIV

In Jesus' words, God had a special plan of torment for the households and towns which rejected the Apostles. Keep in mind, this was not every single person in the town rejecting the Apostles, nor every single person in the household being unwilling to listening to the Gospel. The men had the say over admission of household guests, and any small group of men from the town could have started persecuting an Apostle, causing him to flee to another town in obedience to Jesus (Matthew 10:23). Thus, a handful of stubborn, closed-minded, aggressive men could damn an entire town of people.

Thank God that no man ever gets angry when his long-held beliefs are challenged, so I am sure that no households or towns were actually condemned. ;-)

That brings us to the final point in this study; specific households and towns were to be condemned. That means that timing is a factor; that Jesus did indeed think that Judgement Day was near. After all, if more than a generation or two passed on before Judgement Day, than those who were specifically cursed (namely those in a specific house or town at the time of Apostle's rejection) would be long dead.

By this example, Jesus is setting a precedence. You get one chance to believe to believe in Him. If you choose disbelief, to Hell with you. (Oh, and by the way, that decision may be made for you by others.) From that example, you can see the love, grace, and forgiveness of Jesus shine right through.

I Am the Law

2011-06-03T07:01:00.392-04:00

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Background
God gave His Law, recognized as 613 laws, decrees, commands, rules, precepts, instructions, regulations, statutes, and stipulations, to the Israelites after their Exodus from Egyptian slavery, before they entered the Promised Land.

That is worth repeating. Before the Israelites entered the Promised Land, God gave them His Law, and He expected it to be obeyed to the letter. It would seem that the Promise was tied to obedience, but let us not get ahead of ourselves. In this very detailed study, we will review God's opinion of His Law.

I Am the Law

The Old Testament authors also had a lot to say about God and His Law. While most Christians are at least somewhat familiar with the New Testament teachings on the Law, scarcely few have examined God's foundational perspective of the Law found in the Old Testament. A good place to start such a study is Psalm 119, but let us go deeper into God's word in the Old Testament, asking some very important questions:

What is the purpose of the Law?
Does the Law reflect God?
Will the Law ever change?
How long will the Law be in effect?
Does the entire Law need to be obeyed?
Is it possible to obey the Law?
What if you do not obey the Law perfectly?
If you obey God's Law, will you live?
What worldly influence does God expect the Law to have?
What is the connection between the Law and the covenant of an eternal Kingdom?
Can you summarize all of this information concisely?

Exodus 18:20
Teach them His decrees and instructions, and show them the way they are to live and how they are to behave. NIV

What is the purpose of the Law?
We do not have to guess the purpose of the Law. God has two reasons spelled out for us.

First, Deuteronomy 4:5-8 states that this Law will show other nations the wisdom of God, thereby demonstrating that the Israelites worship the one true God.

Second, Deuteronomy 6:20-25 explicitly states that the meaning of the Law is for the Israelites to obey it in order to prosper in the Promised Land. Such obedience will be righteousness.

As Psalm 105:42-45 renders it, the whole point of the Egyptian Exodus and inheritance of the Promised Land was “that they might keep His precepts and observe His laws.”

Deuteronomy 32:4
He is the Rock, His works are perfect, and all His ways are just. A faithful God who does no wrong, upright and just is He. NIV

Does the Law reflect God?
The Law is a work of God, which, by the verse above, is perfect, but is the Law a valid representation of God's character? Deuteronomy 12:28 makes it pretty clear:

Be careful to obey all these regulations I am giving you, so that it may always go well with you and your children after you, because you will be doing what is good and right in the eyes of the LORD your God. NIV

In case there is still some doubt, consider that the Law has been described as just, right, good, perfect, trustworthy, wise, radiant, firm, righteous, great, glorious, and eternal (Nehemiah 9:13-14, Psalm 19:7-9, Isaiah 42:21, Psalm 119:160). These attributes all reflect God's Biblically labeled character. Furthermore, as we see in Deuteronomy 28:9:

The LORD will establish you as His holy people, as He promised you on oath, if you keep the commands of the LORD your God and walk in obedience to him. NIV

obedience to the Law will permit the people to be holy.

Psalm 119:96
To all perfection I see a limit, but your commands are boundless. NIV

Will the Law ever change?
If the Law is perfect, we would never expect it to change. Indeed, Deuteronomy 4:1-2 and Deuteronomy 12:32 both say that nothing should be added to the Law, and nothing should be taken away from it either.

Psalm 119:160
All Your words are true; all Your righteous laws are eternal. NIV

How long will the Law be in effect?
God intends for His Law to be in effect forever (Psalm 119:152). It should be obeyed always (Deuteronomy 11:1). It is everlasting (Psalm 103:17-18), part of an everlasting covenant (Isaiah 24:5).

Numbers 15:39-40
You will have these tassels to look at and so you will remember all the commands of the LORD, that you may obey them and not prostitute yourselves by chasing after the lusts of your own hearts and eyes. Then you will remember to obey all My commands and will be consecrated to your God. NIV

Does the entire Law need to be obeyed?
There are well over a hundred references to the call to obey God's Law. A subset of at least thirty-two of those commands specifically says to follow all of the Law; Exodus 15:26, Leviticus 19:37, Leviticus 20:22, Leviticus 26:14-15, Numbers 15:39-40, Deuteronomy 5:29, Deuteronomy 5:31, Deuteronomy 6:20-25, Deuteronomy 11:8, Deuteronomy 11:22, Deuteronomy 11:32, Deuteronomy 12:28, Deuteronomy 13:18, Deuteronomy 15:5, Deuteronomy 17:18-20, Deuteronomy 19:9, Deuteronomy 27:1, Deuteronomy 28:1, Deuteronomy 28:13-15, Deuteronomy 28:58, Deuteronomy 29:29, Deuteronomy 32:46, Joshua 1:7-8, Joshua 22:5-6, 1 Kings 6:12, 2 Kings 21:8, 2 Kings 23:24-25, 2 Chronicles 33:8, Nehemiah 10:28-29, Psalm 18:21-22, Ezekiel 18:19, and Ezekiel 18:21.

Take note that this is not simply obeying all of the Law in spirit. With the phase “all the words of this Law” found in Deuteronomy 17:18-20, Deuteronomy 28:58, Deuteronomy 29:29, and Deuteronomy 32:46, it is crystal clear that God is referring to obeying each and every meticulous detail in the Law. As we see in Deuteronomy 32:46:

[Moses] said to them, “Take to heart all the words I have solemnly declared to you this day, so that you may command your children to obey carefully all the words of this Law.” NIV

Psalm 103:17-18
But from everlasting to everlasting the LORD’s love is with those who fear Him, and His righteousness with their children’s children— with those who keep His covenant and remember to obey His precepts. NIV

Is it possible to obey the Law?
When you see how often God pleads for His people to obey the Law, there should be no doubt. Why would God tell His people to do something which they could not do? In fact, this opinion is explicitly given. Deuteronomy 30:11-14 says this in respect to obeying the Law:

Now what I am commanding you today is not too difficult for you or beyond your reach. It is not up in heaven, so that you have to ask, "Who will ascend into heaven to get it and proclaim it to us so we may obey it?" Nor is it beyond the sea, so that you have to ask, "Who will cross the sea to get it and proclaim it to us so we may obey it?" No, the word is very near you; it is in your mouth and in your heart so you may obey it. NIV

God had given the Law to them, instructed that it be spoken about continuously (Deuteronomy 6:7-9), and placed the Law in their hearts so that it would not be too difficult to obey.

There is an entire book of the Bible devoted to a man who perfectly upheld the Law. His name is Joshua. Of course, there are several other references to such complete obedience too, such as Job 23:12 (Note: Some scholars suggest that Job lived prior to when the Law was given), Psalm 18:21-22, Psalm 99:7, and Psalm 119:44. As we see from 1 Kings 8:61 (and 1 Chronicles 28:7), it is not just individuals which could have complete obedience, but also the entire nation:

“And may your hearts be fully committed to the LORD our God, to live by His decrees and obey His commands, as at this time.” NIV

Psalm 81:13-15
“If my people would only listen to Me, if Israel would only follow My ways, how quickly I would subdue their enemies and turn My hand against their foes! Those who hate the LORD would cringe before Him, and their punishment would last forever.” NIV

What if you do not obey the Law perfectly?
Per the Bible, you did not have to obey the Law perfectly to be considered righteous. This is obvious both from the facts that not every transgression of the Law held the death penalty, and that there were several different atonement ceremonies which could be performed based on different transgressions. In a sense, in adhering the punishment schedule and atonement rituals, the people were keeping the Law despite transgressions of the Law itself.

There are also shining examples of people who broke the Law, and yet were still considered righteous by God. In Numbers 20, Moses transgressed Leviticus 22:32, but God still thought Moses was righteous enough to speak with him face-to-face (Deuteronomy 34:10). In 2 Samuel 11-12, King David had committed adultery Bathsheba and then had her husband, Uriah, killed, yet 1 Kings 15:5 says this of him:

For David had done what was right in the eyes of the LORD and had not failed to keep any of the LORD’s commands all the days of his life—except in the case of Uriah the Hittite. NIV

and David's lineage was given the Kingdom as an inheritance (1 Kings 11:38).

It seems that God is willing to forgive past transgressions for those who are truly repentant. As Ezekiel 18:21 renders it:

“But if a wicked person turns away from all the sins they have committed and keeps all my decrees and does what is just and right, that person will surely live; they will not die.” NIV

This repentant turn to God is allowed for individuals and nations, as we see from the example set by King Josiah in 2 Kings 23:24-25:

Furthermore, Josiah got rid of the mediums and spiritists, the household gods, the idols and all the other detestable things seen in Judah and Jerusalem. This he did to fulfill the requirements of the Law written in the book that Hilkiah the priest had discovered in the temple of the LORD. Neither before nor after Josiah was there a king like him who turned to the LORD as he did—with all his heart and with all his soul and with all his strength, in accordance with all the Law of Moses. NIV

Leviticus 18:5
Keep my decrees and laws, for the person who obeys them will live by them. I am the LORD. NIV

If you obey God's Law, will you live?
Leviticus 18:5, Deuteronomy 4:1-2, Deuteronomy 6:20-25, Nehemiah 9:29, Ezekiel 18:9, Ezekiel 18:17, Ezekiel 18:19, Ezekiel 18:21, Ezekiel 20:11, Ezekiel 20:13, Ezekiel 20:21, and Ezekiel 33:15 all say that if you obey the Law you will live. Ezekiel 18:21 and Ezekiel 33:15 even go so far as to add that a person who obeys the Law will “not die.”

Live, and not die? Is eternal life granted by obeying God's Law? Not at all. You have to look at other verses within the Bible to get the entire perspective. Consider Deuteronomy 4:40

Keep His decrees and commands, which I am giving you today, so that it may go well with you and your children after you and that you may live long in the land the LORD your God gives you for all time. NIV

Speaking of “your children after you” means that you will die even while obeying the Law. So you will not live forever, but take a look at 1 Kings 3:14:

“and if you walk in obedience to Me and keep My decrees and commands as David your father did, I will give you a long life.” NIV

Obedience will grant you a long (not eternal) life. If you obey God's Law, you will live long, and you will not die prematurely. This is what it means to live by the Law, and not die, but that is not all.

Living a long time would not necessarily be a good thing, which is why God also promises blessings for you, your posterity, and your nation; habitation of the Promised Land, a peaceful life, and great prosperity were all gifts for obedience (Leviticus 20:22, Leviticus 25:18, Deuteronomy 4:1-2, Deuteronomy 5:29, Deuteronomy 6:20-25, Deuteronomy 11:13-15, Deuteronomy 30:16, Joshua 1:7-8, 2 Chronicles 31:21, Isaiah 48:18-19).

According to Deuteronomy 17:18-20, kings who obeyed God's Law would be granted a ruling dynasty.

Deuteronomy 28:1
If you fully obey the LORD your God and carefully follow all His commands I give you today, the LORD your God will set you high above all the nations on earth.

What worldly influence does God expect the Law to have?
Deuteronomy 4:5-6 gives us a hint at the influence God expected His Law to have:

See, I have taught you decrees and laws as the LORD my God commanded me, so that you may follow them in the land you are entering to take possession of it. Observe them carefully, for this will show your wisdom and understanding to the nations, who will hear about all these decrees and say, “Surely this great nation is a wise and understanding people.” NIV

God's Law would show the surrounding nations how wise the Israelites were. From Deuteronomy 28:1-13, we can also see that obedience would not just grant the Israelites prosperity, but that God's blessing in return for obedience would make their nation the most prosperous nation in the entire world. It is from this perspective which we find Psalm 67:1-2 written:

May God be gracious to us and bless us and make His face shine on us— so that Your ways may be known on earth, Your salvation among all nations. NIV

The blessings the Israelites had received would make all other nations envious and curious. These other nations would try to figure out what makes the Israelites so prosperous. They would discover that the Israelites worship God and follow His wise ways (obey His Law). Naturally, they would try to emulate this success, obeying God's Law, and being led to the one true God in the process. That is precisely why we see the prophesy in Isaiah 2:3 and Micah 4:2 that:

Many nations will come and say, “Come, let us go up to the mountain of the LORD, to the temple of the God of Jacob. He will teach us His ways, so that we may walk in His paths.” The Law will go out from Zion, the word of the LORD from Jerusalem. NIV

Psalm 132:12
If your sons keep My covenant and the statutes I teach them, then their sons will sit on your throne for ever and ever.” NIV

What is the connection between the Law and the covenant of an eternal Kingdom?
In Deuteronomy 4:40, we find some rather interesting text:

Keep His decrees and commands, which I am giving you today, so that it may go well with you and your children after you and that you may live long in the land the LORD your God gives you for all time. NIV

God has given the Promised Land to the Israelites for all time, forever. This eternal gift is seen in Genesis 13:15 and Exodus 32:13 as well. However, whether or not the Israelites get to live in the Promised Land is determined by their obedience to God's Law. If they rebel, they will be expelled, but they will always be welcomed back to the Promised Land when they will obey God. This theme of prophesy can be seen in verses such as Ezekiel 11:17-21.

The same kind of situation exists for the Kingdom itself. The Promised Land must be ruled, and that ruling will be by that of a king. The dynasty of kingship for this eternal Kingdom belongs to those who will obey God completely. That is why we see in 1 Samuel 13:13 that Samuel told King Saul:

“You have done a foolish thing,” Samuel said. “You have not kept the command the LORD your God gave you; if you had, He would have established your Kingdom over Israel for all time.” NIV

That is why we see God's message to Solomon in 1 Chronicles 28:7 as:

I will establish his kingdom forever if he is unswerving in carrying out My commands and laws, as is being done at this time. NIV

and why we see Solomon plead in 2 Chronicles 6:16 to God:

“Now, LORD, the God of Israel, keep for Your servant David my father the promises You made to him when You said, ‘You shall never fail to have a successor to sit before me on the throne of Israel, if only your descendants are careful in all they do to walk before Me according to My Law, as you have done.’” NIV

By these verses, we can quite clearly see that ruling the Kingdom eternally meant having an unbroken dynasty of successors, and that such a dynasty was dependent on each descendant obeying God's Law.

When Solomon ultimately ended up drifting from obedience to God, God tore the Kingdom from his successor, giving it instead to Jeroboam and offering him the same kind of enduring dynasty which was given to David (1 Kings 11:29-39).

Isaiah 63:17
Why, LORD, do you make us wander from Your ways and harden our hearts so we do not
revere You? Return for the sake of Your servants, the tribes that are Your inheritance. NIV

Can you summarize all of this information concisely?
God gave the Promised Land to the Israelites for eternity, but they can only stay there, and kings can only rule there, while they obey the entirety of God's Law. God established the Law forever, perfect, and unchanging, just like Him. It is possible to obey the Law, and obedience does not need to be perfect in order to please God as long as you are truly repentant for your sins. Such obedience will be rewarded with long life and abundant prosperity, which will in turn lead others around you to seek God.

Note to Self

2011-05-27T07:04:00.026-04:00

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Background
Jesus resurrected a dead girl, telling her parents to keep the resurrection a secret, which was an impossible command given that crowds of people already knew about it. Following that, Jesus gave sight to a couple of blind men who managed to gain private audience with Him. Similarly Jesus also instructed them to keep the healing a secret, as if they could hide the fact that they had gained their sight. As those men were leaving, a mute, demon-possessed man was brought to Jesus. Jesus drove out the demon, the man spoke, and the Pharisees accused Jesus of working for Satan.

Note to Self

It all makes sense when you do not think about it. :-) Do not get me wrong. There are times when you can think too much about something. (I know that all too well from the field of engineering.) Yet you at least need to think about the basic elements of situation to ensure you have a design which will last, or a story that is credible. In this study, we will see a passage of scripture which just does not add up.

Matthew 9:35-38 is a very odd collection of verses. It starts out OK. Matthew 9:35 has Jesus roaming around, healing people and teaching about the Kingdom of God. Then Matthew 9:36 takes a bad turn:

When [Jesus] saw the crowds, He had compassion on them, because they were harassed and helpless, like sheep without a shepherd. NIV

That is good, no doubt! However, think about it just a little bit more, and it gets strange. Jesus is God. God sees not only these crowds, but everybody on the entire earth. Depending on your brand of Biblical scholar, God had seen the world for at least 3000 years by that point, yet He had not been moved to compassion by their suffering, and He had not bothered to send them a shepherd before now. At most, you could make a case that God did provide compassion to the Jews, but what about the rest of the world population? Nothing. No love. No compassion. Jesus' behavior does not match God's behavior.

Next following, Matthew 9:37 is an observation that there are too few workers for the plentiful harvest; the harvest essentially referring to soul-winning for God. The use of the term “harvest” has some metaphorical implications which we will discuss at a later time with more robust verses, but for now, ponder what this may have meant about the times in which Jesus lived...

We conclude the passage with Matthew 9:38 in a peculiar state, with Jesus saying:

"Ask the Lord of the harvest, therefore, to send out workers into His harvest field." NIV

On first reading, it makes sense. There is a lot of work, so they (the disciples) need a lot of workers, but who are they supposed to ask? The Lord of the harvest, who is God, who is Jesus. So Jesus knows of the need, Jesus has the compassionate will to do something, but Jesus tells His followers to ask Him to do something about it.

That is absurd! It is like if you hired a cleaning man to clean a messy room, and then when the cleaning man walks into that room, he turns to you and says “Hey, you should really hire somebody to clean this place up. It is a mess!” It is as if Jesus was making a “note to Self” or telling His disciples, “Hey, remind Me that I need to send out workers to collect this harvest.”

Just to add to the absurdity, according to Luke 10:1-3, Jesus makes this same statement while He is sending out seventy-two workers into that harvest field.

There is one school of skeptical thought that the story of Jesus evolved quite a bit, from Jesus being only a prophet, to being fully Spirit-infused prophet, to being the fleshly Son of God sans divine power, to being actually part of God in human form; part of the Trinity of Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. If so, this passage could be an artifact left behind from Jesus' more human, less divine, fabled existence, where there was a rigidly defined separation between Jesus and God. This theory would make sense, as there is nothing illogical about a man petitioning a god. (Assuming that a god exists, that is!)

From the school of Biblical faith, however, this does not stand out as odd at all. Jesus prayed many times to God in the Gospels (Matthew 14:23, Matthew 26:39, Luke 3:21, Luke 22:32, John 17:9). By definition, that should have been unnecessary (John 10:30). However, if Jesus prayed to God, then what is so odd about Jesus telling others to pray to God about something He already knows about? Given that God knows our inner thoughts and desires, all prayer should be unnecessary, but we are still told to pray. In fact, we do not even know what we are supposed to pray for, but we are still told to pray (Romans 8:26-27).

And it all makes sense, when you do not think about it. ;-)

Living Dead Girl

2011-05-20T07:05:00.059-04:00

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Background
The synoptic Gospels of Matthew, Mark, and Luke all agree on the chronological order of a short series of anecdotes which started with the healing of a paralytic man. The harmonized story continues with Jesus picking up Matthew/Levi, the tax collector, as a disciple, and telling the Pharisees that He is not there for them. Jesus then explains that His followers will fast after He is gone, and that you do not mix old and new fabric, or pour new wine into old wine skins. John ignores all of this.

Matthew continues on with the subject of this study, initiating the event while Jesus was discussing the wine and wineskins.

Mark and Luke have a rift in time, which both record that the events of this study happened right after Jesus returned across the Sea of Galilee, which was after He exorcised a Legion of demons, sending them into swine. To Mark and Luke, the healing of the paralyzed man had occurred long before Jesus had crossed the Sea of Galilee.

Living Dead Girl

Can you keep a secret? Sure you can. Maybe. It depends. What is the secret about? What would be the consequences of revealing the secret? How many people already know about it? There are many factors involved in keeping a secret, and sometimes it is just impossible to do so. Take the following episode in the Bible, for example.

Matthew 9:18-26, Mark 5:21-43, and Luke 8:40-56 tell the tale of how Jesus brought a dead girl back to life. Interjected into the tale is the story about how a woman with a bleeding disease touched Jesus' cloak and became healed by doing so (Matthew 9:20-22, Mark 5:25-34, Luke 8:42-48), but let us stay focused on the resurrection here.

The girl was the daughter of “a ruler” (according to Matthew), or a ruler of a synagogue named Jairus (according to Mark and Luke).

Matthew 9:18 has the ruler requesting Jesus for the resurrection of his daughter, because his daughter was already dead. In contrast, Mark 5:22-23 and Luke 8:41-42 have this ruler requesting healing for his daughter, because she is nearly dead. Was she dead already or just dying? Was this ruler asking for a resurrection or a healing? Unless you care about the truth, it does not matter.

Mark 5:35 and Luke 8:49 soon somewhat reconcile their side with Matthew, by having someone report that the daughter has just died, so there is no need for Jesus to come to try to heal her. To which Jesus replies to Jairus to “just believe” in Mark 5:36 and Luke 8:50. Meanwhile, Matthew's ruler believed that Jesus could resurrect his daughter from the very beginning.

Jesus makes it to the ruler's house. He tells the crowd of mourners that the girl is not dead, but rather she is asleep. Everybody laughs at Him. Jesus subsequently goes into the house and brings the girl back to life. The exact details around the resurrection are uncertain.

Matthew 9:23-26 has Jesus usher all of the noisy mourners out of the house before reviving the girl, and the news of this resurrection spreads throughout that region.

Mark 5:37-43 has Jesus limit the number of people following Him to the house to only Peter, James, and John. Jesus ushered the mourners out of the house, went back in with the ruler, his wife, and the three disciples, and then resurrected the girl. Jesus then told the parents not to let anyone know about this miracle.

Luke 8:51-56 has everyone follow Jesus up to the house. Jesus then limits the number of people going into the house to just Peter, James, John, and the parents. It is not clear whether or not the house was full of mourners at the time when Jesus entered it. Jesus resurrects the girl, and tells her parents not to tell anyone about the miracle.

OK, so here is the deal: As noted above, according to Mark and Luke, Jesus tells the girl's parents to keep a secret about the resurrection of their daughter. Jesus' request was impossible! Really! Let us review:

The girl's father (Jairus) was the leader of a synagogue. It is safe to assume that he was therefore well known in the community, and it should be, likewise, safe to assume that the community knew about his dying daughter.
When Jairus made his request for help from Jesus, he did so in front of a large crowd (Mark 5:21, Luke 8:40).
The girl was pronounced dead in front of the crowd (Mark 5:35, Luke 8:49).
A crowd of mourners had already started mourning her passing (Matthew 9:23, Mark 5:38, Luke 8:52)
The mourners knew that she was dead, not simply asleep (Luke 8:53)

So what exactly were the parents supposed to do to keep this secret? Lie, and say that they had only lied before, and she was really just asleep and faking illness? Explain that their one daughter did die, and that the living girl they now had was her twin, which they had kept hidden for 12 years? Besides, even if the parents kept quiet about the miracle, everybody else would run around blabbing about it!

It just does not make sense, but what else would you expect from bad fiction writers?

A thought had occurred to me that perhaps this tall tale was actually meant to be a parable. The mentioning that this girl was 12 years old coincides with the Bat Mitzvah age, when a young Jewish girl would be considered under the Law. The girl dies, as death is a common punishment under the Law, and as a representation that the system of the Law is broken. Jesus comes along and resurrects the girl, fixing the broken system by implementing Christianity. Jairus would be representative of a faithful Jewish believer, who mourns for the broken system, and who Jesus supports by telling him to keep on believing in God. If this parable approach is correct, the secret at the end is still a bit tricky to figure out its purpose. Perhaps the command to keep the fixing of the broken system by Jesus a secret would come from being practical; to keep their belief in secret to avoid being attacked by other Jews who still clung to the old system? Pure speculation, I know...

Who Needs Help?

2011-05-13T14:41:00.001-04:00

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Background
Beginning with Jesus healing a paralyzed man by forgiving his sins, Matthew, Mark, and Luke all agree on the chronological order of a short series of anecdotes. Meanwhile, John skips these events entirely.

Who Needs Help?

Not every issue with the Biblical text is earth shattering or belief altering. There is a lot of circumstantial evidence which suggests issues with veracity, but would never convince a believer to kindle the flame of a healthy skepticism. We will examine a couple of these lesser points in this study.

Matthew 9:9, Mark 2:14, and Luke 5:27-28 all briefly tell how a tax collector by the name of Matthew/Levi was called by Jesus. Jesus said “Follow Me,” and Matthew/Levi immediately gets up and follows Him. There are a couple issues here.

One issue is the obvious discrepancy between the account in Matthew, which calls the tax collector “Matthew,” and the accounts of Mark and Luke, which call the tax collector “Levi.” It is suggested that Matthew had two names, and perhaps one was a baptismal name, or perhaps an additional chosen name or nickname. So let us assume they are indeed the same person and move on to the bigger issue.

The second issue is that this tax collector, Matthew, is said to be the author of the Gospel of Matthew. Pause just a moment and consider that. We are roughly one-third of the way through the Gospel of Matthew, and yet just now in the story is when Matthew appears. How did Matthew get the information for this Gospel prior to this point of entry into the story?

The preceding chapters of Matthew record material which could only be accurately recorded by an eyewitness, such as exact quotes of what Jesus said and the conversations He had. Furthermore, it contains anecdotes which are unique to Matthew's Gospel, such as the three wise men visiting the baby Jesus, Herod ordering infanticide, and the full version of the epic Sermon on the Mount!

Sure, Matthew could have done some research to find out what happened beforehand, but you do not see any explicit demarcation to indicate what happened before Matthew joined the crew versus what happened after. You do not find “this is what I am told” versus “this is what I saw.” There is no change in perspective from third-person to first- person. That makes Matthew's authorship and eyewitness account at least a little suspect.

Moving on from there, Matthew 9:10-13, Mark 2:15-17, and Luke 5:29-32 record how Matthew/Levi hosted a dinner banquet for Jesus at his house. Jesus partakes. Pharisees asked Jesus' disciples why Jesus was eating with tax collectors and sinners. The three Gospels record similar responses from Jesus, with Matthew 9:12-13 being the longest:

On hearing this, Jesus said, "It is not the healthy who need a doctor, but the sick. But go and learn what this means: 'I desire mercy, not sacrifice.' For I have not come to call the righteous, but sinners." NIV

Here is the odd part about Jesus' response: Jesus thought that the Pharisees were sinners (for following man's ways instead of God's ways) and had false righteousness (Matthew 15:1-16, for example, illustrates both). So the literal interpretation is obviously inaccurate.

So, was Jesus being satirical? It appears that way. In effect, cutting through the deep sarcasm, Jesus was telling the Pharisees that Jesus had no time for them because they did not even realize that they were sinners. Fair enough, but is that consistent with Jesus' message? Yes and no.

Yes. This is fairly consistent with how Jesus treats the Pharisees throughout the Gospels. It is consistent with the message of not tossing pearls to swine.

But, no. No, it is not consistent with the message of Christianity. In Matthew 18:21-22, Jesus says that we should forgive people essentially an unlimited amount of times, but Jesus does not forgive these Pharisees. Jesus supposedly appeared to the Pharisees' murderous thug and firm supporter, Saul, and changed him into a gentle Christian for the Gentiles in Acts 9:1-31, but Jesus does not earnestly seek to to change these Pharisees. Finally, there is the anthem of 2 Peter 3:9, where God does not want anyone to perish, yet we find that Jesus completely shuns helping the Pharisees.

Who really needs Jesus' help? Apparently, that is up to Jesus' discretion. As someone Christians attempt to emulate Jesus, perhaps they should do well to remember that they should use discretion as well, and they should ignore Scripture which suggests otherwise.

The Origin of Paralysis

2011-05-06T07:03:00.053-04:00

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Background
This is another Gospel story with different precursors. Matthew: Jesus calms the storm and casts demons into swine. Mark: Jesus prays alone, and then travels throughout Galilee, preaching and exorcising, and finally cures a leper. Luke: Jesus gathers fishers of men and then cures a leper. John: No comment. Despite different origins, the Gospels all come together for this next anecdote. All but John, that is.

The Origin of Paralysis

Every so often, a piece of ancient text will reveal a detail which ties it to the epoch in which it was written. Some details are blatant, like mentioning the nation of Persia. Others are a little more subtle, requiring special attention to draw out from the text, but the extra effort can be rewarding in more clearly revealing the beliefs and customs of the time. For example, take the story of Jesus healing a paralytic man.

Matthew 9:1-8, Mark 2:1-12, and Luke 5:17-26 all record the story about how four men delivered their paralyzed friend on a mat to Jesus. Jesus tells the paralyzed man that his sins are forgiven. Some teachers of the Law, and possibly some Pharisees too, either began to talk amongst themselves or think to themselves that Jesus was blaspheming. Jesus detects their thoughts, and asks them which is easier to say: “'Your sins are forgiven,' or to say, 'Get up and walk.'” Jesus then heals the paralyzed man to show them all that Jesus can forgive sins, and then tells the man to get up and leave. Everybody is impressed by the miracle.

That is great, but there are several issues and revelations which need closer scrutiny here.

When did this happen? Matthew 9:1 records that this event happened right after Jesus crossed the Sea of Galilee, which was right after He sent demons into swine. The demons-into-swine trick was also recorded in Mark 5:1-20. Yet Mark 2:1 records that the healing of the paralyzed man happened a “few days” after Jesus healed a leper in Mark 1:40-45 (which is also recorded in Matthew 8:2-4). There is no way to reconcile this timeline.

Next, this is one of the passages in the Gospels in which Jesus confirms a few things here:

Jesus retained at least some supernatural powers of God, and God can read minds. That is nothing new, but debate often plays out in Christian circles about exactly how much Godly power, if any, did Jesus give up when becoming a man. (Bonus Question: How did the Gospel authors know what Jesus knew about the Law teachers' thoughts?)

Jesus can forgive sins. Let me repeat: Jesus can forgive sins; as in Jesus can forgive sins without being crucified. That is, Jesus can heal the rift between man and God without a sacrifice. That is, the crucifixion was not essential or mandatory to re-unite sinful man with Holy God.

As mind-blowing as the revelation above is to Christian doctrine, there is another one which catches my attention even more. When Jesus observed the four men bring in their paralyzed friend, He “saw their faith,” but Jesus did not forgive the sins of all of these men. Instead, Jesus only forgave the sins of the paralyzed man, despite being impressed with the faith of all of these men (Matthew 9:2, Mark 2:5, Luke 5:20). Why would that be? The answer is Biblical...

Back in those times, people who were afflicted with disease were thought to be punished by God for their sins. As was covered in a previous study, if you were sick, you were guilty. This fact is also revealed right in this episode in a subtle manner. First, as noted, Jesus only forgave the paralytic man. Second, when Jesus asked if it was easier to say that sins are forgiven or that to tell the paralyzed man to get up and walk (Matthew 9:5, Mark 2:9, Luke 5:23), He was not really asking which sentence is easier to speak. No, instead Jesus was asking which of these acts is easier to actually do, with Jesus' implicit answer being that they are equally difficult because the punishment for sin (paralysis) would require God's forgiveness to be healed.

This was the custom of belief at the time, the custom defining how people knew that God interacted with them. If they were sick, God was punishing them. If they were wealthy and healthy, God was happy with them. This same belief, and one of its associated issues, is echoed elsewhere in the Gospels, in John 9:1-2:

As [Jesus] went along, He saw a man blind from birth. His disciples asked Him, "Rabbi, who sinned, this man or his parents, that he was born blind?" NIV

Remember the next time you are sick, or you get paralyzed, or you get cancer, that, from a Biblical perspective, it is either because God is punishing you for your sins or because (in the example from John 9:1-38) the healing of your ailment will bring glory to God. So if you happen to die with your disease, I guess you will die knowing that God was punishing you. Oh, and God is Love. ;-)

Instead, I recommend aligning your beliefs with reality, and recognize that the “Truth” of the Bible is not really all that true. God's word is not eternal. Rather, it is outdated.