Entrapment in the Temple

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Background
Jesus and the Disciples have arrived in the area of Jerusalem for the first (Synoptics)/last (John) time. They will bounce in and out of Jerusalem to the towns and territories surrounding Jerusalem, but Jesus will not leave the region before being crucified.

With some form of pageantry, Jesus entered Jerusalem on a donkey's colt, or maybe on a donkey and her colt, in order to fulfill the prophesy of how Israel's king would come to them.

Entrapment in the Temple

Entrapment is an act in which innocent people get purposefully lured by the authorities into breaking the law so that they can be arrested. In general, people find entrapment to be unscrupulous, if not flat out immoral, but that is not how God sees it. In part of a previous post, we discussed how God would send a miracle-working false prophet just to see if the Jews would faithfully hold to the one true God. In this study, we will see how actually obeying God's Law got turned into sinning against God by Jesus.

In all four Gospels, there is a story of Jesus clearing the Temple grounds of merchants. But Matthew 21:12-13 and Luke 19:45-48 are apparently significantly cropped versions of Mark's longer account. John's version is ever-so-slightly different. So let us look as both Mark and John side-by-side:

Mark 11:15-18 (NIV)

John 2:13-17 (NIV)

On reaching Jerusalem, Jesus entered the Temple area and began driving out those who were buying and selling there. He overturned the tables of the money changers and the benches of those selling doves, and would not allow anyone to carry merchandise through the temple courts. And as He taught them, He said, "Is it not written: " 'My house will be called a house of prayer for all nations'? But you have made it 'a den of robbers.'" The Chief Priests and the Teachers of the Law heard this and began looking for a way to kill Him, for they feared Him, because the whole crowd was amazed at His teaching.

When it was almost time for the Jewish Passover, Jesus went up to Jerusalem. In the Temple courts He found men selling cattle, sheep and doves, and others sitting at tables exchanging money. So He made a whip out of cords, and drove all from the temple area, both sheep and cattle; He scattered the coins of the money changers and overturned their tables. To those who sold doves He said, "Get these out of here! How dare you turn My Father's house into a market!" His disciples remembered that it is written: "Zeal for your house will consume me."

Basically, the two accounts are similar. Though it is not stated in this section, Mark's version also happens close to the Passover festival (Mark 14:1). So Jesus goes into the Temple courtyard, finds merchants, and kicks them out. You can tell that He was zealous about it, too, as Mark has Jesus preventing any more merchandise through and John has Jesus take the time to make a whip to accomplish the task. Two independent witnesses testifying to apparently the same event should add credibility to the story, but there are some veracity issues that we will cover in a moment. First, though, let us consider the situation.

Why is Jesus upset here? I know, that seems like a dumb question, right? Obviously Jesus was filled with righteous indignation at the "market" established on Temple grounds, but was He justified in that anger? No, not really. To find out why Jesus is really being unreasonable here, we have to turn back to the Old Testament.

Jesus threw out people selling cattle, sheep, and doves, as well as money changers, but they were there for a righteous purpose. This was not just some casual consumer meat market and currency exchange. Rather, this "market" was established to facilitate worshiping God and complying with His Law. In God's Law there are many references to specific animals being used for specific sacrifices, such as bulls (57+ times), rams (68+ times), goats (57+ times), sheep/lambs (4+/69+ times), and doves (6 times). If you did not own livestock, such as if you owned a vineyard, and you wanted/needed to provide a sacrificial offering to God, then (in most cases) you needed to buy an animal.

What about the money changers? Let us consult Leviticus 27:25 here:

Every value is to be set according to the sanctuary shekel, twenty gerahs to the shekel. NIV

You have to remember that this law was established in a time when money was not as standardized as it is today, and gold and silver coins could have had different weights depending on their precise origin, so God set the standard for His own House. God required that every financial transaction, such as redeeming a person, must be done according to weight of the "sanctuary shekel" (mentioned 25 times). That is why these money changers were on the Temple grounds. They helped people comply with God's Law by changing out their coinage for the supremely sanctioned sanctuary shekels. (Say that phrase ten times fast!)

God's Law, while not creating this "market" per se, established the need for this market to be in close proximity to the Temple's sanctuary. Given the Temple's ample courtyard, the most logical place for the market was on Temple grounds. Furthermore, unlike the sanctuary of the Temple, the courtyard was not considered to be sacred ground, as 2 Chronicles 29:16 indicates.

So if Jesus was justified in His righteous indignation, then God set up the Jews for this transgression, and thereby has practiced entrapment; ironically through the necessities in complying with God's Law. Alternately, I suspect that the real Jesus may have actually done such a deed as disrupting the market, or at least voiced his discontent of the situation of the market on Temple grounds, but that his actions in this case were born from pious ignorance; being unaware of how the Law made the market necessary. That did not stop the Gospel writers from incorporating the event into the overall story and including some tweaks to make the anecdote prophetic.

A Prophetically Different View
Speaking of prophesy, these two versions vary in Jesus' words and in their associated prophesies. In the Synoptics, including Mark, Jesus Himself quoted prophesy, and made it seem as though the merchants were dishonest by calling the market a "den of robbers." However, having Jesus prevent anyone from bringing in more merchandise is suggests a general problem with the market being there. That general problem is what we find with John's Jesus. But, in John, it was Jesus' Disciples who tied in the prophesy. So what about these prophesies?

In the Synoptic Gospels, Jesus is partially quoting Isaiah 56:7. The whole prophesy at least includes Isaiah 56:1-8, but may extend beyond there. When you read it, you will notice that it was wise for Jesus to only quote part of the prophesy. Isaiah 56:1 tells us that God's Salvation was coming soon... which was written at least 500 years before Jesus. Isaiah 56:2 stressed the importance of keeping the Sabbath, something that Jesus was more lenient about.

Even more interesting is the section Isaiah 56:3-7, which includes the verse Jesus quoted. There, God addressed eunuchs and foreigners who chose to worship God by keeping the Sabbaths and obeying His Law.

To the eunuchs, whose concern was that they would have no offspring for God to bless as a reward for worshiping Him, God told them that their names would be recorded as "a memorial" in the Temple, bringing them eternal fame. This implicitly indicates that there is no eternal afterlife reward awaiting the faithful!

To the foreigners, God would "bring them to [His] holy mountain" (which is implicitly Mount Zion in Jerusalem) where He would accept their burnt offerings and sacrifices! That is in direct contradiction to Jesus ending the need for sacrifices (Hebrews 10:1-18).

In John's Gospel, the Disciples associated Jesus' behavior with a partial quote from Psalm 69:9. Psalm 69 is a song allegedly written by the Jewish King David. Being a song, as opposed to being an explicit prophesy, I would argue that it is not necessarily intended to be prophetic. Yet if we are considering this song to be prophesy, then obviously we should consider the entire song, right? Most of the song is about how David had many enemies who were mocking and mistreating him without cause, and how even his own family rejects him because of his zeal for God. That kind of sounds like Jesus, right? Psalm 69:21 even speaks of being given vinegar for thirst, just like Jesus was given on the cross (Matthew 27:48, Mark 15:36, Luke 23:36, John 19:29). But that is not the whole story...

In Psalm 69:1-3, David had not seen God's help, despite calling out for God for a long time. In Psalm 69:5, he said that God knew the sins he had committed. In Psalm 69:19-28, he prayed for his enemies to suffer as opposed to praying for their enlightenment and Salvation. Speaking of Salvation, he did pray for God's Salvation of himself in Psalm 69:29-30. None of these concepts correspond to Jesus; who was often in prayer with God and saw His power through miracles, who was sinless (2 Corinthians 5:21), who said to pray for your enemies (Matthew 5:44), and who, through Himself, was supposedly bringing Salvation.

Interestingly enough, in Psalm 69:32-36 does end on a note that sounds prophetic. The last two verses, Psalm 69:35-36, are particularly noteworthy:

...for God will save Zion and rebuild the cities of Judah. Then people will settle there and possess it; the children of His servants will inherit it, and those who love his name will dwell there. NIV

What you have here is a terrestrial prophesy... rebuilding cities... in Judah (a region of Israel)... people settling there... children inheriting the land, implicitly after people die. This is not the prophesied afterlife of Christianity.

So, despite their differences, neither the Synoptic Gospels nor John managed to find an accurate prophesy to associate with this event. In fact, the prophesies appear to be pointing to something other than what Jesus offers.

(On a side note, the "den of robbers" phrase used by the Synoptic Gospels is sometimes associated with Jeremiah 7:11 where the same phrase is used. However, Jeremiah 7 is a part of a pre-Exile prophesy, where among the associated transgressions is idol worship, which was never mentioned as a problem by Jesus.)

Wait, When Did That Happen?
You may have noticed something odd about John's Temple-clearing event; specifically the chapter number. Chapter 2? Yes, that is right. While Matthew, Mark, and Luke portray Jesus clearing the Temple near the end of His public ministry, John shows that it occurred near the beginning of it. In fact, in John, Jesus recruited the Disciples, then changed water into wine, and then cleared the Temple, making it the second major event in His public ministry.

It is possible that these are two separate clearing events, but it seems unlikely. Yet the Synoptic Gospels only record Jesus making one trip to the area of Jerusalem during His ministry, while John records four visits there, so it is difficult to make a case one way or another beyond circumstantial evidence built on an argument from silence.

However, as noted above, there is no reason for Jesus to have enacted this spectacle if He was truly knowledgeable about the Biblical sacrifice requirements of the Law. So I lean towards thinking that this was a real, single event by a (sadly mistaken) real Jesus. However, I do not think that this necessarily happened at either the beginning or the end of Jesus' ministry. It was just an event that happened at some time. So when the Gospel writers came to including this anecdote, they had some liberty on where to put it. Mark put it near the end. Matthew and Luke (as usual) followed Mark's lead. John, which was developed independent of Mark's Gospel, put it at the beginning.

Or, of course, there is always the possibility that this anecdote had no foundation in Jesus' actual history.

The fact that it shows up in both the Synoptics and John, and the fact that there are significant differences in the associated prophesies, provide at least a little more circumstantial support for this event being derived from actual history, or at least included in the earlier origins of the entire Jesus story. I believe that such an early inclusion also supports the idea of this being derived from a real event.

Believe the Miracles

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Background
We are following Jesus on His final trip to Jerusalem, where, recently in our studies, He told some Pharisees that the Kingdom of God was within them, possibly just to mess with their minds and stop their scoffing questions. However, we are now going to quickly jump to the Gospel of John for an episode which occurred inside of Jerusalem, presumably at some time prior to where we are in the rest of our studies. Just before the event in the study below, according to John, Jesus had explained that He was the Good Shepherd because He dies for His sheep.

Believe the Miracles

Miracles: twists and tweaks in the physical universe which do not seem to have an obvious physical explanation; that which seems like only divine intervention could provide and explain. Jesus reportedly orchestrated a plethora of miracles during His ministry on earth. That should have been enough to make anyone a believer, right? The intuitive answer is yes, but is that the Scriptural answer?

In John 10:22-39, we find a case where "the Jews" were confronting Jesus in the Temple area during the Feast of Dedication. It starts off with these Jews demanding that Jesus clearly claim whether or not He is the Messiah. Jesus starts off strong in His reply, as we read in John 10:25:

Jesus answered, "I did tell you, but you do not believe. The miracles I do in My Father's Name speak for Me," NIV

Jesus' reply is slightly enigmatic, because you still do not have a clear sense of if He had explicitly said "I am the Messiah" before now. However, what Jesus says here is more powerful than mere words, because He says that He is truly demonstrating His position as Messiah through the working of miracles, instead of just trying to convince people with unsubstantiated words. Jesus is doing more than "talking the talk." He is "walking the walk."

That is an incredibly moving and powerful reply. Actions are better proof than vacant claims. Yet something is not quite right about it. We will get to that in a moment.

As Jesus' reply continues in John 10:26-29, He tells those unbelieving Jews that they are not His sheep, that He gives His sheep eternal life, that no one can take His sheep because His Father (implicitly God), greater than all, gave them to Him, and no one can take sheep from the Father. John 10:30 rounds that out with Jesus' memorable words:

"I and the Father are one." NIV

This verse seems pretty clear that Jesus is really claiming to be God, but the context makes that claim less certain. When Jesus references God, He says that God is "greater than all," which would seem to include Jesus Himself. It opens the door for this verse to be interpreted metaphorically. Is John's Jesus instead saying here that He is just perfectly aligned with the will of God?

Indeed, as the account continues, in John 10:31-34 Jesus provides more context to suggest a metaphorical interpretation. When the Jews want to stone Jesus for calling Himself God, Jesus replies with "Is it not written in your Law, 'I have said you are gods'?" Jesus was not quite right there. This quote does not come from the Law, a.k.a. the Torah, but rather comes from Psalm 82; a short psalm about God bringing rulers into judgement, where those rulers are metaphorically called "gods," presumably a reference to their great power and responsibility to act righteously. However, Jesus may have been using the word being translated as "Law" in more of a generic sense to mean the Scriptures.

From there, in John 10:35-36 Jesus builds the case that if God would call a mortal ruler a god, then surely His own special role, set apart by God and "sent into the world," garners a title of such respect as an even greater and more true version of God on earth. The reference to being "sent into the world" implies a much more significant role than that of a mere mortal, and that Jesus had existed before He lived on earth. This is more consistent with the idea John gave us earlier about Jesus in John 8:58-59, where Jesus made a reference to Himself being the "I am," one of God's names (Exodus 3:14).

So John opened the door for a metaphorical interpretation of Jesus' divinity, just to shut it again.

What John does do is emphasize simultaneously both the separate nature and the unity of God and Jesus. Jesus has the power and desire to do only what God wants Him to do. Jesus is God's articulating appendage. Within Christianity, everything regarding Judgement, Salvation, and praise get funneled through Jesus in His elevated position of co-diety, or Godly appendage, or whatever. This creates some real trouble, as we will see.

Continuing on, and getting back to the miracles, Jesus completes his reply in John 10:37-38 like so:

"Do not believe Me unless I do what My Father does. But if I do it, even though you do not believe Me, believe the miracles, that you may know and understand that the Father is in Me, and I in the Father." NIV

In this episode, Jesus made the case in the beginning and at the conclusion that His miracles should be all the proof you need to believe Him in His claim of divine nature. Furthermore, His ministry promoted that the path to Salvation was through Himself (who is also God), not through the one God who the Jews had always known, prayed to, and sacrificed to.

However, according to the Scripture, miracles are not enough. In fact, God may just send you a miracle-working prophet to try to lead you astray, to try and test your devotion to the one true God. Furthermore, as we see in Deuteronomy 13:1-5, God demands the death of such a prophet:

If a prophet, or one who foretells by dreams, appears among you and announces to you a miraculous sign or wonder, and if the sign or wonder of which he has spoken takes place, and he says, "Let us follow other gods" (gods you have not known) "and let us worship them," you must not listen to the words of that prophet or dreamer. The Lord your God is testing you to find out whether you love him with all your heart and with all your soul. It is the Lord your God you must follow, and Him you must revere. Keep His commands and obey Him; serve Him and hold fast to Him. That prophet or dreamer must be put to death, because he preached rebellion against the Lord your God, who brought you out of Egypt and redeemed you from the land of slavery; he has tried to turn you from the way the Lord your God commanded you to follow. You must purge the evil from among you. NIV

Are You Still So Dull?

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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.

Sourdough Sabbath

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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.

Fear God

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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.

Family Obligations

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Background
Almost. We are almost at the end of the laws which God is giving to the Israelites through Moses in the Book of Deuteronomy. Previously, we saw how God thinks that a child should not be killed for the sins of the father, despite the fact that God has a track record of killing children for their fathers' sins.

Family Obligations
Some things are just funny. Funny for irony. Funny because it is not supposed to be funny. Funny because someone managed to think of something so bizarre. Take Deuteronomy 25, for example.

Verses Deuteronomy 25:1-3 are laws handling disputes. Deuteronomy 25:1 begins with “When men have a dispute, they are to take it to court...” Pretty simple, right? Dispute = Court. Ironically, it would take several hundred years for an omniscient God (through Jesus) to recommend first trying to settle the matter privately before taking it to court (Matthew 5:25-26).

Also in these laws is a restriction. You can lash someone 39 times, but not 40 times, because with the fortieth lashing you might loose respect for the person being lashed.

In Deuteronomy 25:5-6, God dictates that if a married man dies without having a son, then it is the duty of the man's brother to marry the man's widow (regardless of how many wives the brother already has), and that the first son born from that marriage would carry on the deceased man's heritage.

Deuteronomy 25:7-10 covers if this man's brother refuses to marry his brother's widow, such as if he wanted to keep a monogamous relationship with his own wife or if he simply could not afford another wife. In that case, in front of the town elders, the widow is to spit in the brother's face and take one of his sandals. Then this brother's lineage would henceforth be shamefully known as “The Family of the Unsandaled.” The word of God. God be praised. ;-)

Next is one of my favorite laws. Deuteronomy 25:11-12 states:

“If two men are fighting and the wife of one of them comes to rescue her husband from his assailant, and she reaches out and seizes him by his private parts, you shall cut off her hand. Show her no pity.” NIV

The mental pictures of this situation are hilarious enough, but what really boggles and amuses the mind is pondering why God thought that it was necessary to add this specific law? Was this really such a pressing issue of the day as to need this law? Was it in the name of trying to have a “complete” set of laws, despite the fact that there are no laws against pedophilia? It is amusing, in a sad, sad way.

We have skipped over good laws in this chapter such as not muzzling an ox while it is treading out grain (Deuteronomy 25:4) and using honest weights and measures (Deuteronomy 25:13-16), but the chapter ends on a sour note.

Deuteronomy 25:17-19 instructs the Israelites to hold a permanent grudge against the Amalekites until they have been completely destroyed. Why? Because of what their previous generation had done to the Israelites as they were on their Exodus. This is in blatant contrast to the message which Jesus would later instruct; to forgive everyone of all transgressions in order to be forgiven yourself (Matthew 6:14-15).

It is so funny, and so sad, that so many believe.

Chalitzah
The photo below is of the placard describing the sandal in the photo above. It is funny how the museum description sanitized Deuteronomy 25:7-10 here, stating “if the marriage was not possible” as if to downplay the brother's role of refusal and stating that this ceremony “allowed the widow to marry outside the family” as if it was her choice. There is not a hint of the shame which the law of God actually conveys.

Sins of Their Fathers

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Background
We are continuing through Deuteronomy, where Moses is relaying God's Law to the Israelites just before they are to enter the Promised Land. Recently we learned that God allows divorces and subsequent marriages, as long as they are not remarriages of the same couple to one another.

Sins of Their Fathers
If you know much about the story of Jesus, you may know that He did not like hypocrites. The Bible mentions hypocrites 18 times. Once is in the Old Testament (Psalm 26:4). The rest come straight from the mouth of Jesus in Matthew, Mark, and Luke. (It is strange that Jesus never says “hypocrite” in the Gospel of John.) So if Jesus really does not like hypocrites, He needs to have a stern talk to God the Father, as we will see in Deuteronomy 24.

From last time, you remember that Deuteronomy 24:1-4 dealt with remarriage your ex-wife, which is never a good idea. ;-) The rest of the chapter, Deuteronomy 24:5-22, is largely a collection of really good laws, such as: A newly married man is not obligated to fight in wars. Have zero tolerance for kidnappers. Do not take a man's livelihood as security for a loan, and do not abuse the poor in taking loan securities. Do not take advantage of the poor or aliens. Do not deny aliens, orphans, or widows their justice. Share the remnants of your produce with the poor and the aliens.

Let us take a closer look at one of those good laws which we find in Deuteronomy 24:16:

“Fathers shall not be put to death for their children, nor children put to death for their fathers; each is to die for his own sin.” NIV

Death penalty aside, this is a good law. You cannot kill a man for something that his kid did, nor can you kill the kid for something that his father did. This is God's holy moral guidance, His code, His very law. We should review the Old Testament so far to see if God practices what He preaches.

First, we begin with the Flood of Noah. Besides Noah and some of his immediate family, God wiped out everyone on earth in a global flood. Life was going on as normal up to the day of the Flood (Matthew 24:38), so undoubtedly there were innocent children who were killed in the Flood for the sins of their parents.

Next, we find that God destroyed the entire cities of Sodom and Gomorrah for the sins of the people, with the exceptions of Lot and his daughters. Again, it is likely that innocent children were in those cities at the time of their destruction.

Moving on to Exodus, we find that God almost kills Moses' son (or possibly Moses himself depending on interpretation) because Moses did not yet circumcise his son.

Remember the plagues prior to the Exodus? In the tenth plague, God killed Pharaoh's firstborn son (and lots of other people's firstborn sons) for refusing to let the Israelites go.

Jumping on to Numbers, there is the tale of a rebellion led by Korah, Dathan, and Abiram. God slaughters these men along with their entire families as punishment.

Finally, and maybe most significantly from an eternal perspective, in the previous chapter of Deuteronomy we learned that the Ammonites and the Moabites were essentially forbidden to ever learn about and worship God, thereby damning them for all eternity, just because of how their ancestors had treated the Israelites while they were wondering the desert.

Keep in mind that this immoral behavior does not stop with the Torah, the first five books of the Bible. In perhaps one of the more famous episodes of the Old Testament, God kills David's son as punishment because David had slept with Bathsheba and had her husband killed (2 Samuel 11-12).

God is a hypocrite. God kills children for the sins of their fathers. Supposedly, God even had His own son killed (in a manner of speaking) for the sins of entirely different people. In Jesus' own words in Matthew 24:51, God the Father should be assigned to a place “where there will be weeping and gnashing of teeth” for all eternity for His hypocrisy.

Holy Divorce

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Background
Onward though Deuteronomy, where Moses is relaying God's Law to the next generation of Israelites. In Deuteronomy 23, we saw God prohibit groups of peoples from entering His assembly, including the exclusion of men with damaged testicles. The chapter continued with some miscellaneous laws, such as protecting runaway slaves, charging interest only to foreigners, abhorring the offerings of prostitutes, being committed to your vows to God, and taking freely from your neighbor's field. The next chapter begins with one of the most prevalent issues of our time.

Holy Divorce
You have heard that it was said that Jesus is against divorce, but this position seems to be a divorce from Scripture itself. No, not the New Testament Scripture, but the Old Testament Scripture – the foundation for the entire Bible. Let us look at Deuteronomy 24:1-4:

“If a man marries a woman who becomes displeasing to him because he finds something indecent about her, and he writes her a certificate of divorce, gives it to her and sends her from his house, and if after she leaves his house she becomes the wife of another man, and her second husband dislikes her and writes her a certificate of divorce, gives it to her and sends her from his house, or if he dies, then her first husband, who divorced her, is not allowed to marry her again after she has been defiled. That would be detestable in the eyes of the Lord. Do not bring sin upon the land the Lord your God is giving you as an inheritance.” NIV

First, whose words are these? In the majority of Deuteronomy, Moses is speaking, but he is simply proclaiming God's own words (Deuteronomy 1:3, Deuteronomy 8:11). Much of God's words are a series of commandments and laws which are collectively known as God's Law, with one of those laws being not to add to or take away from God's Law (Deuteronomy 4:2, Deuteronomy 12:32). So this is not Moses providing his opinion or defining the laws which he sees fit to enact, but rather they are the very word of God.

Now, what does this law actually say? This is not a law specifically about permitting divorce. This is a law prohibiting a man from remarrying his divorced wife if she marries again. The process of divorce is recorded in the law, but that is not the main focus of the law.

The right of divorce is implicit with marriage. God expected divorce to occur sometimes, which is the reason for this law, as well as the specific mention of divorce elsewhere in the Law (Leviticus 21:7, Leviticus 21:14, Leviticus 22:13, Numbers 30:9, Deuteronomy 22:19, Deuteronomy 22:29).

Look at the reason given for divorce in this case. The man is displeased in his wife, finding something unseemly about her. This is not to be understood as her having committed adultery, as she would have been put to death for that, instead of simply being divorced (Leviticus 20:10). Instead, this comes down to the man's opinion of his wife, that something about her is just not up to good standards.

In modern times, we have a tendency to read “man” as “a person” in legal matters to remove gender, but do not do so here. Only men had the implicit right of divorce from God in this patriarchal system.

An aspect of this sexual inequality is played out in this law. It is detestable for the divorced wife to marry a different man and then remarry her original husband because she has been defiled; because she has slept with a different man. Is that because a married man and woman are one flesh? No, not so fast. A man can have multiple wives, and he can sleep with one wife one night and another wife the next night, yet this behavior is not detestable to God (Genesis 30:14-18).

OK, so now fast-forward to the New Testament. Jesus says that anyone who divorces except because of adultery, causes the divorced wife to commit adultery, and the man who marries the divorced wife also commits adultery (Matthew 5:31-32, Luke 16:8). As you will remember, per God adultery is a sin worthy of immediate death (Leviticus 20:10). This is in contrast to this law from Deuteronomy 24:1-4, where God only has a problem with the divorced wife remarrying her original husband; not a problem with the divorce itself or with her second marriage, or even with her third marriage except for this restriction. That would be strange enough, but what Jesus says later really is messed up.

In Mark 10:2-12 and Matthew 19:3-9, when the Pharisees ask Jesus if divorce is OK, Jesus again proclaims that divorce is sinful and subsequent marriages are forms of adultery. The Pharisees ask Jesus why then did Moses permit divorce (Mark 10:4, Matthew 19:7)?

Jesus could have accurately either replied that Moses never gave (explicit) permission for divorce or that they have misunderstood the intention of that law because God was only providing provisions for when divorce occurred (which is still a weak defense because there is implicit approval). Instead, Jesus wrongly states that Moses permitted divorce because of the hardness of their hearts (Mark 10:5, Matthew 19:8). This law was not the opinion of Moses; it was the command of God. It is unfathomable that Jesus neither knew the Scripture nor the source of the command, if He truly was God Himself.

The story gets even more strange as it continues in Matthew 19:10-12. Jesus' disciples say that if that is the case with marriage, then it is better not to marry. Jesus says that not everybody can accept this, explaining further in Matthew 19:12 that:

“For some are eunuchs because they were born that way; others were made that way by men; and others have renounced marriage because of the Kingdom of Heaven. The one who can accept this should accept it.” NIV

Or in other words, Jesus says that some choose to act like those with damaged or removed testicles in order to gain access to the Kingdom of Heaven. Jesus is not saying that everyone should do that, but that some have chosen that path and (implicitly) that it is a good path to take. When you consider that in the Deuteronomy 23, God forbid those with damaged or removed testicles from entering the Assembly of God, this is an interesting reversal of policy.

Summing up all of this information concisely: God implicitly permitted men to divorce their wives, and had no problems with subsequent marriages as long as they are not between the men and their original wives. Jesus, on the other hand, does not know what He is talking about. That should be a huge red flag.

Intolerance for All

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Background
About a third of the way through Deuteronomy, Moses ends his history lesson/pep talk/fear-God speech, which included reminding the Israelites that they may be chosen by God, but they are not special in His eyes. Now, Moses begins to repeat all of the laws and commandments which God wants the Israelites to obey. So we begin again to learn what we can about this most-righteous lawgiver known as God.

Intolerance for All
How should you deal with religious pluralism? How tolerant should you be when you happen to know that you have the one true faith? Generally speaking, Christianity is tolerant of people with different beliefs, but mostly from the perspective of viewing them as targets to proselytize. That may be how God, the Son, Jesus, does business, but God the Father is of a different persuasion.

Moses begins to tell (most of) God's laws and commands to a new generation of Israelites in Deuteronomy 12. (God had forgiven, and then slowly killed the previous generation for expressing doubt and fear.)

First, Moses tells them to obey the list of God's laws and commands (Deuteronomy 12:1).

The list begins with the command to completely destroy all emblems and implements of worship of other gods from the Promised Land (Deuteronomy 12:2-3).

Whereas the pagan religions had set up altars and shrines all over the place, God then instructs that the offerings (including tithes) to Him must be given at the prescribed locations under the direction of the priests, which would naturally be more financially beneficial for the priests (Deuteronomy 12:4-28).

The chapter draws to a close with the message of censorship and restriction, as Moses instructs them not to inquire about other gods or the worship practices of other religions, because they do detestable things (Deuteronomy 12:29-31).

God, through Moses, ends the chapter with these notable words in Deuteronomy 12:32:

“See that you do all I command you; do not add to it or take away from it.” NIV

The message of censorship and restriction take a more violent turn as Moses continues in Deuteronomy 13.

In Deuteronomy 13:1-5, we find that God practices entrapment, encouraging the Israelites to sin through worshiping other gods, by sending them miracle-working false prophets. So if a prophet, perhaps a prophet named Jesus, were to give sight to the blind and walk on water, you should still not listen to him if he suggests anything other than following God's laws and commands. In fact, you should kill such a prophet because it is a test from God.

Then, in Deuteronomy 13:6-11, God's Law commands that if anyone, even the dearest person in your life, suggests that you should go worship other gods, that person must be stoned to death, and you must be the first one to throw a stone.

Finally, in Deuteronomy 13:12-18, if you know of an entire town which has been lead astray from God, you are to send elders and priests into the town to consult with them to win back their hearts and minds for God. No wait. I was confused. Actually, God commands the wholesale slaughter of every living thing in that town, including babies and livestock, followed by the burning all of the plunder of the town as a burnt offering to God. Oh, and the town is never to be rebuilt. Then, God will have mercy on you and bless you, because, as Deuteronomy 13:18 puts it, you are “doing what is right in His [God's] eyes.”

So God the Father commanded absolute intolerance for any other religion. Seek out and destroy it from within your borders. This was the law for the Israelites who would become the majority in the Promised Land. This was God's will for the Israelites, and He probably would have been happy if the entire world did the very same thing.

God the Son, Jesus, on the other hand, was softly tolerant of other religions. In fact, Jesus' biggest gripe was with the contemporary Jewish religion of the time more than any other pagan religion. There is hardly a reference to other religions beyond the vague Matthew 24:15/Mark 13:14 line about “the abomination that causes desolation,” and the meaning of that phrase is debatable. That makes sense, because a minority cult like the beginning of Christianity could not survive very long by attacking the majority forces around them, but they could tap into the frustration of the common Jew in the apparently hypocritical and corrupt Jewish religious system of the time to garner support for their fledgeling movement.

On a final note, it is interesting that there is no provision in God's Law for atheists. The concept just did not exist at that time.

The Law Makes an Impression

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Background
In Deuteronomy, after briefly recounting some of the history of the Israelites' trek through the desert, during which we discover the age of culpability and what God considers as the condition of not lacking anything, Moses begins to review the various commandments of God, but not without an appropriate preamble about the Law...

The Law Makes an Impression
Christianity has a lot to say about God's Law, such as the reason for it (Romans 5:20-21, Galatians 3:19, Hebrews 10:1), as well as arguments about why (Matthew 5:19, James 1:22-25, James 2:10, 1 John 3:4-6) or why not (Romans 3:27-28, Romans 7:1-6, Galatians 5:4, Hebrews 7:18-19) to continue obeying every commandment in the Law. Modern theology often presents the opinion that the Law was so stringent that nobody could follow it, and to that effect it illustrated the need for God's mercy through Jesus. Yet that is not at all how we see the Law presented in the Old Testament.

For God's opinion on the Law, a good place to start is Deuteronomy 4. Let us dive right in with Deuteronomy 4:1-2, where Moses tells the Israelites of God's Law:

“Hear now, O Israel, the decrees and laws I am about to teach you. Follow them so that you may live and may go in and take possession of the land that the LORD, the God of your fathers, is giving you. Do not add to what I command you and do not subtract from it, but keep the commands of the LORD your God that I give you.” NIV

Do not add or subtract from it? That is a fine principle under laboratory conditions, but in the real world civilizations change. Advancements in technology and process mandate updated laws. Just think of all of the laws which had to be created for the internet. Or perhaps even more significant, think of the huge advancement which was made in establishing copyright and patent laws. Yet the person, or deity, who created these laws had no concept of the changes which would occur and no ways to protect intellectual property. God thought that this was a complete set of laws, and all you would ever need.

Deuteronomy 4:3-4 reminds the Israelites how God killed all of those Israelites who worshiped Baal at Baal Peor, even though we learned that God stopped killing the guilty people because He was so impressed by Phinehas's vigilante-extremist actions.

After another pleading to obey the law (Deuteronomy 4:5), in Deuteronomy 4:6-8 Moses reveals the purpose of the Law.

“Observe [the laws] 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." What other nation is so great as to have their gods near them the way the LORD our God is near us whenever we pray to him? And what other nation is so great as to have such righteous decrees and laws as this body of laws I am setting before you today?” NIV

From this viewpoint, the Law, as practiced by the Israelites, was to showcase God on earth. It was to demonstrate that, unlike man-made idols, the God of the Israelites is a real and wise God. It was to make other nations realize that their gods were fake, and that they should seek the wisdom, guidance, and providence that only the one true living God could provide. It is no surprise that this same sentiment is echoed in the prophesies of a reunited Israelite nation, such as in Isaiah 2:3, Isaiah 51:4, and Micah 4:2; an inconvenient truth for Christianity.

To the charge that the Law was too stringent to obey, this claim can only be made by ignoring parts of the Bible. After all, why would God plead so often for His people to obey the Law if He knew that was impossible to do, such as in Joshua 1:8, 2 Kings 17:13, and Ezekiel 20:19? Also, there are major people which would have to be ignored, such as King Josiah from 2 Kings 22-23. So such a claim simply falls apart when considering the entire Bible.

Bend Over and Take It Like Jesus

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Background
We are working our way through the Sermon on the Mount in the Book of Matthew. It has been an interesting journey. We have seen that Jesus wants people to obey God's laws, but then Jesus goes on to say that the laws should be expanded in a way which completely disowns His own involvement (as God) in establishing the original laws. Moving on, Jesus overturns God's position on God-sanctioned vows. What other commands from God will Jesus corrupt? Well, there is one more in this study.

Bend Over and Take It Like Jesus
Imagine living in a world which was essentially unimportant, where all of the wise people were living for the next world to come; a new world where everyone who makes it there will live together in peace and harmony forever. OK, so maybe you do not have to imagine very hard if you are already familiar with Christianity.

Christians look forward to a happy, eternal afterlife, but doing so should have profound consequences. Jesus unflinchingly lays out some of these consequences in the Sermon on the Mount.

Let us start with Matthew 5:38-41. The first verse is particularly interesting. In Matthew 5:38, Jesus says:

"You have heard that it was said, 'Eye for eye, and tooth for tooth.'" NIV

Just like in a previous study on murder, adultery, and divorce, Jesus mentions the “eye for eye” as if He had no responsibility for it. However, those words came from God (Exodus 21:23-25, Leviticus 24:19-20, Deuteronomy 19:21), and because Jesus is part of the Trinity, from Jesus Himself.

As Jesus continues in Matthew 5:39-41, He says that you should not resist any evil person, but instead you should willingly let that person beat you, take your stuff, and make you do whatever such a person asks. When put in context with Matthew 5:38, this means that you should not seek retribution at all when someone wrongs you.

What? That is just utter nonsense! Unless, of course, this life has no value. Unless the only thing that matters is making it into a blessed afterlife. Forget about justice, even for murderers (as “life for life” is part of the eye for eye verses). You must show perfect mercy, and let God handle the ultimate justice in the afterlife. That seems to be the message that Jesus is communicating, as we will continue to see.

Jesus goes on to say in Matthew 5:42 that you should give to anyone who asks, and let anyone borrow whatever they want. The Luke 6:30 version adds that you should not ask for the return of whatever you give someone.

Such an approach could lead you to be destitute and unable to provide for your family. However, if this life does not really matter compared to the eternal afterlife, then it does not matter if you die penniless. It only matters that you die saved.

Finally, Jesus ups the ante even further in Matthew 5:43-48, saying that you should love your enemies and persecutors.

Do not stand up for yourself. Do not offer resistance. Do not retaliate. Just bend over and take it. These passages further imply that you should not seek any justice. Therefore, in a way this contradicts what Jesus had just said about following the Law, because there are prescribed punishments for transgressors in the Law, such as an eye for an eye and a tooth for a tooth.

This only makes sense if the context is that this life does not matter, and that all of your earthly efforts should be directed at the afterlife; that your house, your car, your money, your family, and even your life is not anywhere near as important achieving the blessed afterlife. As we have discussed in other studies, it appears that Jesus was preaching that God's judgement and His associated eternal Kingdom was coming soon. The odds were that you would not have to suffer, or worry about material goods, much longer anyway. Or at least that was the plan.

So, for those of you who believe in and follow Jesus, I have a challenge for you. Calculate how much money you need to live. I mean the bare minimum; Ramen noodles for three meals a day, money for the most humble place you can live, no vacations or presents, etc. Once you have that figure, subtract that from your take-home pay. Then, send me that remainder amount. That is right. I am requesting it from you, and Jesus says you should give it to me (Matthew 5:42). You can email me at onemanstruth@yahoo.com for my address to send the checks.

Go ahead. You know this life does not really matter.

Be Careful What You Wish for from God

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Background
In second month of the second year since the Israelites were brought out of Egypt by God, the Israelites left the Desert of Sinai (on the Sinai peninsula), according to Numbers 10:11. To put that in perspective, if they took the longest possible path and went around the coast of the Sinai peninsula instead of through the desert, they have traveled approximately 300 miles (483 kilometers). If you walked at the slow pace of 1.0 mile per hour (1.6 kilometers per hour) for only eight hours a day, you could cover that amount of ground in about 38 days.

It has been over a year since they left, and they still have yet to see the Promised Land. Not too surprisingly, some of the Israelites are starting to complain. That is where we pick up this study.

Be Careful What You Wish for from God
Be careful what you wish for; you just might get it. This common proverb suggests that you do not always know what is good for you.

Asking for something from God should be different, right? Not that you would know what is best for you in that case, but rather that God would know that and would therefore only give you what actually is good for you. Those familiar with the New Testament may recall Matthew 7:9-12 and Luke 11:11-13 where Jesus points out that you would not give your son a snake if he asked for a fish, and then extrapolates that your heavenly Father will likewise give good gifts to those who ask Him.

Well, let us look into that claim more closely. Numbers 11 seems like a good spot to investigate.

Numbers 11:1-3 starts the chapter on a bad note. Some of the Israelites are complaining about their hardships, and they do so “in the hearing of the Lord.” (That partial quote is from Numbers 11:1, and it implies that they were physically close enough to God for Him to hear them, as if God was a being subject to physical constraints.) God is angered by this, and so He kills some of them with fire. The people cried to Moses. Moses prays to God. The fire stops.

In Numbers 11:4-35, the story goes from bad to worse. Numbers 11:4-6 tells of how the Israelites complained that all they had to eat was manna, and that they miss the variety of free foods they had in Egypt.

As you may remember, in Exodus 16 is the tale of when God first starts giving the manna to the Israelites; on the fifteenth day of the second month after leaving Egypt. According to Numbers 10:11, it is now at least the twentieth day of the second month in the second year, so they have been eating manna for over a year now. Day in, and day out. Breakfast. Lunch. Dinner. Any guess as to why they were complaining?

What is manna? Numbers 11:7-9 says that it was like coriander seed and looked like resin, that people would prepare it to eat in a couple different ways after grinding it up like some kind of grain, and that it tasted like something made with olive oil. Strangely enough, this is somewhat contradictory to the earlier description in Exodus 16:4 that manna was a type of bread and in Exodus 16:31 which says that it looked white like coriander seed and tasted like wafers made with honey.

It should also quickly be noted that the Israelites did not begin receiving the manna until they complained that they had no food. So God rewarded their complaint.

Returning to the story at hand, in Numbers 11:10-15 is a rather amusing rant from Moses, with Moses saying that leading the Israelites is a real pain, and that he would rather be dead unless God provides some help. God replies in Numbers 11:16-17 that He will anoint seventy elders with the Spirit to help share the burden. So God again rewards a complaint.

Circling back to the Israelites' complaints, in Numbers 11:18-20 God says that He has heard their complaints, and will give them meat for a whole month, “until it comes out [their] nostrils and [they] loath it” because they have rejected God. Apparently the desire to have variety in your diet constitutes as rejection of God.

What is even more strange is that God is going to give them meat. Their complaint in Numbers 11:5 was about not having fish, but also about cucumbers, melons, leeks, onions and garlic. Previously, in Exodus 16:3 they had complained about not having meat. But altogether, it is silly that they would have complained simply about not having meat or that they needed God to provide meat because they had left Egypt with large droves of livestock (Exodus 12:38)!

In Numbers 11:21-22, Moses questions God's ability to provide meat for all of the Israelites for an entire month. That is silly. After all, God made the universe out of nothing, right? Moses should have known better, but instead it seems that Moses has no faith. Of course, if this is just a tale of fiction, there is no need to make sense.

The elders get anointed and begin helping Moses. Joshua makes his first appearance, being jealous that the elders are prophesying (Numbers 11:23-30).

Then, in the thrilling conclusion of the story in Numbers 11:31-35, God sends quail into the camp, echoing what was done earlier in Exodus 16:12-13. (The Bible does like to tell a good story at least twice, like with old Sarah being taken in by Pharaoh and then Abimelech.) However, in a new twist of spiteful wrath, God kills some of the Israelites with a severe plague “while the meat was still between their teeth and before it could be consumed” (Numbers 11:33), instead of simply rewarding their complaints like last time.

So we see that the proverb stands true in this case; that even with God you should be careful what you wish for. Also, God appears to be inconsistent in rewarding complaints. And finally, far from being a loving heavenly Father bestowing only good gifts to those who ask of Him, God punishes them with His wrath, killing them just for asking for a little variety. Sad.