Struggles with Luke 1, and Possible Solutions

At church this morning, the pastor preached about the story in Luke 1, which is about the birth of John the Baptist.

Zechariah was a priest who was old, and he and his wife, Elizabeth, wanted a child.  Zechariah’s priestly section was on duty, and he was selected by lot to go into the Lord’s sanctuary and offer incense.  At the right side of the altar of incense, the angel Gabriel stood.  Gabriel promised Zechariah that Zechariah’s wife would bear a son named John, who would cause many to rejoice and would turn many people to God.  This son would not drink alcohol.  Because Zechariah was old, he was skeptical about this promise, so Gabriel said that Zechariah would be mute until the promise was fulfilled.  For months, Zechariah was holding in the excitement of what he had seen and heard.  When John was born and Zechariah could finally speak, Zechariah, filled with the Holy Spirit, delivered a long prophecy about what John would do and how that fit into God’s plan for Israel.

There are two aspects of this story that have long bothered me, and I will interact with those, while also sharing how my pastor this morning interacted with those aspects.

A.  Why was Zechariah in the sanctuary of the Temple?  I thought that only the high priest was allowed to enter the Holy of Holies, and that occurred only once a year, on the Day of Atonement (Leviticus 16). 

The answer to my question is probably that there were three places in the Temple.  There was the courtyard, which was where the bronze altar for the burnt offering was, along with the bronze laver for washing.  Further inside of the Temple/Tabernacle was the Holy Place, which had the golden lampstand, the table for the shewbread, and the golden altar of incense.  Further inside, and behind the veil, was the Holy of Holies, or Most Holy Place, where the Ark of the Covenant was.  (Well, it was not there during the time of Zechariah, but that was still considered to be a very holy place.)

The high priest could only enter the Holy of Holies, behind the veil, on the Day of Atonement.  But Aaron entered the Holy Place right outside of the Holy of Holies at other times.  He was to burn incense every morning (Exodus 30:7-8) and regularly keep the lamps burning (Leviticus 24), and bread was to be arranged on the table every Sabbath (Leviticus 24).  See here for a blog post, which includes a helpful map of the Tabernacle.  I should also mention Hebrews 9:1-7’s distinction between the Holy Place and the Most Holy Place.  Vv 6-7 say: “Now when these things were thus ordained, the priests went always into the first tabernacle, accomplishing the service of God.  But into the second went the high priest alone once every year, not without blood, which he offered for himself, and for the errors of the people” (KJV). 

Many commentators interpret Luke 1 in light of the twenty-four courses of priests in I Chronicles 24.  According to I Chronicles 24, there was an order for these courses of priests to come into the house of God.  Some commentators who are Christian believers and accept Luke 1 as historical use the alleged timing of Zechariah’s “turn” in the Temple to calculate Jesus’ birth.  In any case, only the high priest could enter the Holy of Holies, and that occurred only once a year.  But perhaps the other twenty-four courses of priests, depending on when their turn was, came into the Holy Place at other times and fulfilled the duties required for that: keeping the lamp burning, burning incense, etc.  Zechariah’s duty in Luke 1 was to burn the incense.   

The pastor was saying that Zechariah, by lot, got the job of going into the sanctuary and offering incense, whereas other priests (perhaps in his course, or section, that was on duty) got more menial jobs, such as sweeping the ashes.  I thought that the Levites, not the priests, were the ones who did the menial stuff.  But who knows?  Would the Levites have been allowed into the Holy of Holies to clean?  Maybe not, since they had a lower level of holiness than the Aaronide priests.  I Chronicles 23:28-29 says, however, that the Levites cleaned the holy objects and were in charge of the bread laid out on the table, both of which pertained to the Holy Place.  Yet, II Chronicles 29:18 presents the Aaronide priests entering the inner part of the House of the LORD to cleanse it.  Could the Levites perform their duties for the Holy Place, without actually entering it?  Perhaps the Aaronide priests brought out the holy objects for the Levites to clean, or the Levites gave the Aaronide priests the bread to take into the sanctuary.

I should mention that there is a Christian tradition that Zechariah was the high priest and that the events in Luke 1 occurred on the Day of Atonement.  See here.  Maybe this tradition was wrestling with the same sort of question that I had.  I am not convinced that Zechariah was the high priest, however, for Luke 1:8 says that he was in the sanctuary burning incense because it was his section’s turn to be on duty, and he was chosen to burn incense by lot.  These were the reasons that he was there, not any high priestly status.

B.  A second question that I have concerns Zechariah’s prophecy.  Zechariah seems to talk about Messianic expectations that many Jews of his day had: Israel would be saved from her enemies and serve God without fear (Luke 1:71-74).  Zechariah was excited because he thought that his son John had something to do with that.  But that did not happen.  Rather, Israel’s Roman oppressors destroyed the Jerusalem Temple in 70 C.E. 

Perhaps Zechariah’s prophecy was conditional: if Israel repented at John’s preaching, then God would save Israel from her enemies.  There is good reason to think this.  Luke 7:30 states that the Pharisees and lawyers, by not being baptized by John, rejected God’s plan for themselves.  Jesus in Luke 13:34-35 says that he desired to gather Jerusalem together as a hen gathers her brood under her wings, but Jerusalem was not willing, and thus her house is left to her desolate.  In Acts 3:19-21, Peter seems to be telling the Israelites that, if they repent, God will blot out their sins and send Jesus to inaugurate the restitution of all things.

I have problems with this approach, however.  For one, Zechariah does not appear to be making a conditional prophecy: he seems to be saying that John will (not might) bring people back to God, and that God will save Israel from her enemies; in a sense, that happened, for John did help convert many people.  Luke 7:29 mentions tax collectors who were baptized by John; but there were influential people who did not receive John’s preaching.  Second, there is an indication even early in the Gospel of Luke’s story of Jesus that the rejection and crucifixion of Jesus was not God’s Plan B in case Israel failed to repent, but rather was God’s plan all along.  Simeon tells Mary when Jesus was a baby that a sword will pierce her soul (Luke 2:35), which may refer to the sorrow she would feel at Jesus’ crucifixion.

Can all of this be reconciled?  Perhaps.  Maybe early Christians believed that Jesus’ death was part of the eschatological pangs that would precede Israel’s deliverance from her enemies.  Or perhaps the hope was that, after Jesus died for the sins of Israel, Israel would repent, and God would send Jesus back to do what the Messiah was expected to do (Acts 3:19-21).  The hope may have been that John set the stage for that, or cultivated the soil for it, by bringing people to repentance and receptivity to what God was about to do. 

Turning to my pastor’s message, the pastor was saying that Zechariah was excited because John was involved in a new way in which God would relate to people.  God would no longer simply be in the Temple, amidst smoke from the incense, but would be out there, with the people.  I would be hesitant to say that Luke has a view of the incarnation, of God becoming a human being in Jesus.  At the same time, I would agree that a case could be made that John and Jesus were bringing God “out there.”  John was baptizing, offering forgiveness of sins outside of the Temple.  Jesus’ ministry was bringing God’s healing and forgiveness to people, allowing them to experience God more tangibly.  Jesus still respected the Temple in the Gospel of Luke and encouraged lepers to follow the Torah’s procedure (Luke 17:14) after being healed, but, in a sense, Jesus was bringing God “out there.”

Jesus Reaches Out to Lost Zacchaeus (Luke 19:1-10)

At church this morning, the pastor was preaching about the story of Zacchaeus in Luke 19:1-10.  Zacchaeus was a rich tax collector, and tax collectors were unpopular among Jews because there were tax collectors who defrauded people or exacted more than was due to them (Luke 3:13), growing rich as a result.  Jesus was passing through Jericho, and Zacchaeus climbed the sycamore tree to see who Jesus was, since Zacchaeus was a short man.  Jesus came, looked up, and told Zacchaeus that he (Jesus) would be coming to stay at Zacchaeus’ house.  Zacchaeus came down from the tree and welcomed Jesus.  People standing there were grumbling that Jesus was about to be the guest of a sinner, and Zacchaeus told Jesus that he (Zacchaeus) would give half of his possessions to the poor and pay back fourfold those whom he defrauded.  Jesus said that salvation has come to this house, for Zacchaeus is a son of Abraham, and the Son of Man came to seek and to save the lost.

The pastor talked about a variety of topics.  He was jokingly, yet honestly, saying that he tended to view himself as a low-level sinner, regardless of what his Methodist theology teaches him.  He said that he felt that he was not as bad as some sinners, and not too bad of a sinner, period.  (He seemed to be implying that this was not how he was supposed to feel, but it was still how he honestly felt.)  He likened Zacchaeus to Bernie Madoff, who stole millions from people and destroyed people’s lives.  The pastor asked if God’s grace can run that deep, and he referred to a church he attended that reached out to addicts.  The pastor was contrasting the beatitudes in the Gospel of Matthew with the beatitudes in the Gospel of Luke.  Matthew’s beatitudes bless the poor in spirit and those who hunger for righteousness (Matthew 5), whereas Luke’s beatitudes bless the poor and hungry, while proclaiming woe to the rich, the full, and the popular (Luke 6).  The pastor also referred to the Parable of Lazarus: the afflicted poor person went to Abraham’s bosom after his death, whereas the rich man went to Hades, a place of torment (Luke 16).  One can add Mary’s Magnificat to the list of Luke’s passages about the rich and the poor: it talks about God lifting up the poor and hungry, while bringing down the proud and powerful and sending the rich away empty (Luke 1:52-53).  The Gospel of Luke appears to be anti-rich.  Yet, here Jesus is, reaching out to rich Zacchaeus!  The pastor said that Jesus was not standing with his arms crossed, waiting for Zacchaeus to offer to make restitution; that was something that Zacchaeus himself decided to do, but Jesus was just reaching out to lost Zacchaeus.  The pastor inquired why Zacchaeus wanted to see Jesus, and he speculated that it was because Zacchaeus was lonely.  The pastor then said that there are ways in which each of us is lost, or has been lost, and Jesus seeks and saves us.  And, even if we consider ourselves lower-level sinners, the pastor said, we can make restitution to people.

I’ll let my summary of the story and the sermon stand, without adding too many thoughts of my own.  Even if I may not always consider myself to be as bad as than certain sinners, I should still remember that Jesus is compassionate towards all sinners, desiring their restoration.

One part of the story that stands out to me is Jesus’ statement that salvation has come to Zacchaeus’ house because Zacchaeus, too, is a son of Abraham.  Is Zacchaeus now a son of Abraham because of his repentance?  I think of John the Baptist’s statement in Luke 3:8, encouraging people to bear fruit of repentance rather than seeking refuge in their status as Abraham’s children.  Zacchaeus was an Israelite, like the other Israelites there, but perhaps his repentance was his affirmation of what being an Israelite ethically and spiritually entailed.  Or maybe Jesus was saying that the other Israelites there should accept Zacchaeus as a fellow son of Abraham, with an identity as part of God’s chosen people: they should have compassion for that sinner and desire his repentance, as opposed to looking down on him and criticizing Jesus for reaching out to him.  They should embrace and applaud Jesus’ outreach to Israel, God’s chosen people, and Jesus’ outreach to Zacchaeus was a part of that.  Or maybe part of it was Jesus telling Zacchaeus that he was a son of Abraham, a part of the community of God’s people: Zacchaeus could see himself as part of a community as opposed to separating himself from the community through his exploitation of his fellow Israelites.  Zacchaeus did not have to feel so lonely, for he was part of something larger than himself.

Ramblings on the Blasphemy Against the Holy Spirit in Luke 12

I recently read Gerald Borchert’s Jesus of Nazareth: Background, Witnesses, and Significance, and I said in my post here that the book led me to take a second look at the concept of the blasphemy against the Holy Spirit in Luke 12.

A lot of times, Christians try to explain the blasphemy against the Holy Spirit in light of its context in Matthew 12:22-32.  There, Jesus casts a demon out of a man, and the Pharisees attribute Jesus’ successful exorcism to Beelzebub.  Jesus warns that blasphemy against the Holy Spirit will not be forgiven.  Many Christians say that the Pharisees were close to doing that when they were attributing what was obviously the power of God to the devil.

But the blasphemy against the Holy Spirit occurs in a different context in Luke 12.  Or at least that seems to me to be the case.  In Luke 12:8-12, we read (in the KJV):

8 Also I say unto you, Whosoever shall confess me before men, him shall the Son of man also confess before the angels of God:
9 But he that denieth me before men shall be denied before the angels of God.
10 And whosoever shall speak a word against the Son of man, it shall be forgiven him: but unto him that blasphemeth against the Holy Ghost it shall not be forgiven.
11 And when they bring you unto the synagogues, and unto magistrates, and powers, take ye no thought how or what thing ye shall answer, or what ye shall say:
12 For the Holy Ghost shall teach you in the same hour what ye ought to say.

In Luke 12, the concept of the blasphemy against the Holy Spirit occurs within the context of a discussion about Christians appearing before authorities.  They are to affirm Jesus before these authorities, not deny him.  In preceding verses, Jesus seeks to reassure the disciples that God cares about them, and he warns them to fear the one who can destroy body and soul in hell, not those who can kill them here on earth.

I am reluctant to say that the blasphemy against the Holy Spirit has nothing to do with the Pharisees in Luke 12.  Jesus in Luke 12:1-3 warns his disciples to beware of the hypocritical leaven of the Pharisees.  And, in the chapter right before, in Luke 11:14-26, we read the story of the Pharisees accusing Jesus of casting out devils through the power of Beelzebub, the chief of the devils.  Unlike Matthew 12:22-32, Luke 11 does not end that story with Jesus commenting on the blasphemy against the Holy Spirit.  But could that story in Luke 11:14-26 still be relevant to the blasphemy against the Holy Spirit in Luke 12?  Could blasphemy of the Holy Spirit be part of the hypocritical leaven of the Pharisees against which Jesus warns his disciples in Luke 12?

I can envision the blasphemy against the Holy Spirit functioning in one of two ways in Luke 12.  One possibility is that Jesus is warning his disciples not to commit blasphemy against the Holy Spirit.  Yes, they will be put in situations in which they will be on trial for their faith, and they will feel pressured to deny Jesus in public.  God can forgive them for denying Jesus in public, but God will not forgive them if they blaspheme against the Holy Spirit.  They should take heed, amidst the pressure, not to turn away from God completely, not to deny or walk away from what they know to be true.

Another possibility is that the blasphemers against the Holy Spirit are the people persecuting the disciples.  In this scenario, Jesus’ warning about the hypocritical leaven of the Pharisees in Luke 12:1-3 could be telling the disciples that hypocrites will be out to persecute them, and reassuring them that, even if the hypocrites put on a pretense of godliness, there will come a time when the hypocrites will be exposed for who they really are.  When Jesus in Luke 12:10 says that blasphemy against the Holy Spirit will not be forgiven, he could be saying that the persecutors of the Christians, who deny what is obviously a work of God, will not receive forgiveness.  Matthew Henry appears to go this route.

This would probably be a good place to end the post, but I want to ramble a little more.  I was watching an excellent sermon yesterday by Rob Bell on the Book of Revelation, and Bell was talking about the brutality of Emperor Domitian of Rome, who supposedly demanded worship, but whom the Christians refused to worship.  According to Bell, Christians took this stance at great cost to themselves, since they could not engage in commerce without worshiping Domitian.  Bell was saying that John was encouraging these Christians that God was on the throne in heaven.  Bell also said that John was speaking against the view some Christians held that one could go through the motions of emperor worship to get along and go along and that God would not care, for God looked at the heart, anyway.

I was also reading Joel Kraemer’s biography of Maimonides, the renowned twelfth century Jewish thinker.  During the time of Maimonides, people were pressured to convert, sometimes with the threat of execution.  Muslims and Jews were pressured to convert to Christianity in Christian countries.  Jews were pressured to convert to Islam in certain Islamic areas.  Muslims and Jews (in the latter case, at least Maimonides), according to Kraemer, often permitted their adherents to convert to other religions if they were threatened with death, or at least to pretend that they were converting to the other religions.  But these Muslims and Jews still encouraged their adherents to continue their own piety in private, and even to leave the area so that they could practice their own religion.  That reminds me of that first possible interpretation I mentioned of Luke 12:8-12: you can be forgiven for denying Jesus, but make sure you don’t leave Christ behind completely.

I can understand both approaches.  On the one hand, many of us go along and get along with less than perfect systems because we feel that we have to do so in order to survive.  On the other hand, I can sympathize with how Rob Bell was characterizing John the Revelator’s approach: Domitian does not deserve the worship that God alone deserves.  Domitian is a thug, whereas God is a beneficent, loving being who is worthy of worship.  Therefore, we will not worship Domitian, and we are willing to die for this stance.

I’ll leave the comments open, but please comment only to explain the significance of the blasphemy against the Holy Spirit in Luke 12.  Don’t ask me if you’ve committed blasphemy against the Holy Spirit, or regurgitate the usual Christian spiel of looking at Matthew 12:22-32.  Focus on Luke 12, please.

Derek Leman's Comments on Luke 16:19-17:10

Yesterday, I shared Messianic rabbi Derek Leman’s comments on Luke 16:1-18.  These comments were from his free Daily D’var.  Today, I want to share his comments on Luke 16:19-17:10.

Luke 16:19-17:10 (KJV):

¹⁹ There was a certain rich man, which was clothed in purple and fine linen, and fared sumptuously every day:
²⁰ And there was a certain beggar named Lazarus, which was laid at his gate, full of sores,
²¹ And desiring to be fed with the crumbs which fell from the rich man’s table: moreover the dogs came and licked his sores.
²² And it came to pass, that the beggar died, and was carried by the angels into Abraham’s bosom: the rich man also died, and was buried;
²³ And in hell he lift up his eyes, being in torments, and seeth Abraham afar off, and Lazarus in his bosom.
²⁴ And he cried and said, Father Abraham, have mercy on me, and send Lazarus, that he may dip the tip of his finger in water, and cool my tongue; for I am tormented in this flame.
²⁵ But Abraham said, Son, remember that thou in thy lifetime receivedst thy good things, and likewise Lazarus evil things: but now he is comforted, and thou art tormented.
²⁶ And beside all this, between us and you there is a great gulf fixed: so that they which would pass from hence to you cannot; neither can they pass to us, that would come from thence.
²⁷ Then he said, I pray thee therefore, father, that thou wouldest send him to my father’s house:
²⁸ For I have five brethren; that he may testify unto them, lest they also come into this place of torment.
²⁹ Abraham saith unto him, They have Moses and the prophets; let them hear them.
³⁰ And he said, Nay, father Abraham: but if one went unto them from the dead, they will repent.
³¹ And he said unto him, If they hear not Moses and the prophets, neither will they be persuaded, though one rose from the dead.

17 Then said he unto the disciples, It is impossible but that offences will come: but woe unto him, through whom they come!

² It were better for him that a millstone were hanged about his neck, and he cast into the sea, than that he should offend one of these little ones.
³ Take heed to yourselves: If thy brother trespass against thee, rebuke him; and if he repent, forgive him.
⁴ And if he trespass against thee seven times in a day, and seven times in a day turn again to thee, saying, I repent; thou shalt forgive him.
⁵ And the apostles said unto the Lord, Increase our faith.
⁶ And the Lord said, If ye had faith as a grain of mustard seed, ye might say unto this sycamine tree, Be thou plucked up by the root, and be thou planted in the sea; and it should obey you.
⁷ But which of you, having a servant plowing or feeding cattle, will say unto him by and by, when he is come from the field, Go and sit down to meat?
⁸ And will not rather say unto him, Make ready wherewith I may sup, and gird thyself, and serve me, till I have eaten and drunken; and afterward thou shalt eat and drink?
⁹ Doth he thank that servant because he did the things that were commanded him? I trow not.
¹⁰ So likewise ye, when ye shall have done all those things which are commanded you, say, We are unprofitable servants: we have done that which was our duty to do.

Derek Leman’s comments:

NOTES: Luke has emphasized repeatedly Yeshua’s teaching about renouncing all attachment to possessions, about the importance of almsgiving, and about the kingdom perspective of reward and punishment. The rich man and Lazarus parable is not the place to find information about what the afterlife is like. Parables feature concrete images and unusual descriptions without needing to be taken literally. The term “Abraham’s bosom” reflects the tradition of viewing the afterlife as being “gathered to the fathers” (Johnson). As in a Greco-Roman symposium (banquet), the place of honor is to recline next to the head of the banquet, so Lazarus is pictured as reclining next to Abraham. See Matt 8:11 for the “table of Abraham”. See Luke 13:28 for the idea of people seeing the patriarchs in the kingdom. Many times Yeshua has taught the principle of reversal: those who make this life about riches are poor in the life to come and vice-versa. The whole parable is a denunciation of Yeshua’s opponents, Pharisees in this case, who Luke informs us are “lovers of money” and were scoffing at Yeshua. The Pharisees were a party seeking political power in order to enforce their notions of Torah purity on the people. Yeshua has said that their Torah teaching lacks the intensity of the kingdom ethic. They are not as good at Torah piety as they imagine. Almsgiving is an example of true Torah. So, in this parable, Yeshua makes the decisive point that Moses cannot help a person who refuses to submit to the announcement of the kingdom and to live for its coming. As Luke Timothy Johnson says of these Pharisees who opposed Yeshua, “In spite of their claim to hold the demands of the law, they reject the outcasts among the people.” So they will reject the one who comes back from the dead (vs. 31). Luke Johnson suggests that after a long section denouncing the comfortable and privileged, Yeshua now issues in 17:1-10 a demanding challenge for his followers. It may be true that as the poor or marginalized they tend to be humble, but they too need faith, must forgive, and in so doing are only doing their duty. In other words, Yeshua turns from excoriating his powerful adversaries to making hard demands of his followers. The marginalized followers of Yeshua should not rejoice in being a scandal to the power-mongers. Causing stumbling is never something to rejoice about. And if the scandal caused by the disciple falls on the “little ones,” likely a term taken over from Matthew referring to disciples of Yeshua, then the guilt for causing it is very high. In other words, we have a responsibility to assist the faith of others and not do anything to bring it down. Likewise, we cannot nurse the private satisfaction of wringing guilt from others, but must readily forgive offenses against us. These hard demands caused the disciples to say, “Increase our faith.” Yeshua replied that if they had the smallest grain of faith it would be enough to uproot trees. In other words, it is not the amount of faith but the power of the one in whom we have faith that matters. Focus on our own religious affections can be counter-productive whereas focus on the greatness of God and Messiah is paramount. Yeshua then continues his hard teaching. When we so live for others as to avoid causing scandal and to forgive repeatedly, we have only done our duty. The radical life of discipleship is not cause for high praise. To focus on our own greatness would again be counter-productive. It is the Master we must serve and not ourselves.

Derek Leman's Comments on Luke 16:1-18 (the Shrewd Steward)

Derek Leman is a Messianic Jewish rabbi, and I subscribe to his free Daily D’Var, in which he comments on passages in the Torah and the Gospels from a religious and a scholarly perspective.  I would like to share here his comments today on Luke 16:1-18, which includes the Parable of the Shrewd Steward.

Luke 16:1-18 (KJV):

1. And he said also unto his disciples, There was a certain rich man, which had a steward; and the same was accused unto him that he had wasted his goods.

² And he called him, and said unto him, How is it that I hear this of thee? give an account of thy stewardship; for thou mayest be no longer steward.
³ Then the steward said within himself, What shall I do? for my lord taketh away from me the stewardship: I cannot dig; to beg I am ashamed.
⁴ I am resolved what to do, that, when I am put out of the stewardship, they may receive me into their houses.
⁵ So he called every one of his lord’s debtors unto him, and said unto the first, How much owest thou unto my lord?
⁶ And he said, An hundred measures of oil. And he said unto him, Take thy bill, and sit down quickly, and write fifty.
⁷ Then said he to another, And how much owest thou? And he said, An hundred measures of wheat. And he said unto him, Take thy bill, and write fourscore.
⁸ And the lord commended the unjust steward, because he had done wisely: for the children of this world are in their generation wiser than the children of light.
⁹ And I say unto you, Make to yourselves friends of the mammon of unrighteousness; that, when ye fail, they may receive you into everlasting habitations.
¹⁰ He that is faithful in that which is least is faithful also in much: and he that is unjust in the least is unjust also in much.
¹¹ If therefore ye have not been faithful in the unrighteous mammon, who will commit to your trust the true riches?
¹² And if ye have not been faithful in that which is another man’s, who shall give you that which is your own?
¹³ No servant can serve two masters: for either he will hate the one, and love the other; or else he will hold to the one, and despise the other. Ye cannot serve God and mammon.
¹⁴ And the Pharisees also, who were covetous, heard all these things: and they derided him.
¹⁵ And he said unto them, Ye are they which justify yourselves before men; but God knoweth your hearts: for that which is highly esteemed among men is abomination in the sight of God.
¹⁶ The law and the prophets were until John: since that time the kingdom of God is preached, and every man presseth into it.
¹⁷ And it is easier for heaven and earth to pass, than one tittle of the law to fail.
¹⁸ Whosoever putteth away his wife, and marrieth another, committeth adultery: and whosoever marrieth her that is put away from her husband committeth adultery.

Derek Leman’s comments:

NOTES: As with the manager in the parable, the Children of Light (Jewish leaders) are about to be visited by their master. What will they do to secure friends in eternal tents? Will they help people reduce their debt to God or will they continue doing nothing (or even opposing Yeshua’s movement of reaching out to sinners)? The parable confuses many concerned with the possibility that unethical actions of a manager are being praised. Some deny that the manager’s response is unethical (perhaps he is simply removing the high interest his master charges from the customer accounts). As Luke Timothy Johnson says, the issues in the parable amount to two simple things: how to respond to the visitation of the master and how to use possessions. The manager begins by using possessions selfishly. But when he hears the master is coming, he seeks to use possessions in a way to win friends. He uses his power to reduce the debts of those he does business with. Likewise, Yeshua’s disciples give alms to those in need and also teach forgiveness, so that people may reduce their debts both economically and spiritually. Vs. 9 suggests almsgiving as a way to use money wisely. Vss. 10-12 suggest that God rewards disciples based on their use of possessions. Vs. 13 suggests that money (or possessions) may either be an idol or a means of serving others. The exact logic of vas. 14-18 is hard to follow at first. Luke Johnson suggests the following progression: the Pharisees feel superior in their Torah piety, but Yeshua reminds them something new is here (announcement of the kingdom’s arrival) which builds on top of the old (Torah piety). Yeshua implies that the new teaching of Torah he brings (the gospel of the kingdom) is more intense than theirs (the law and prophets which were until John). He then goes on in vss. 19-31 to tell a parable questioning whether anyone who is not committed to almsgiving can hear Moses at all. And these Pharisees are lovers of money (and, thus, not fervent in almsgiving). Luke’s method of relating this conflict is transparent and simple. He pinpoints for readers a fault of these Pharisees (love of money) and shows this as opposition to kingdom values. Without Luke’s note in vs. 14, we might have guessed the esteemed things of vs. 15 were power and domination. But, while that may be true, Luke is focusing on a more narrow offense: greed. In vss. 16-18, Yeshua claims that the Pharisees are not as good at Torah piety as they imagine. Yeshua’s kingdom gospel is intensifying Torah, not diminishing it. Slackness about divorce is an example of the Pharisees’ failure to intensify Torah. And meanwhile, John the Baptist marked the boundary from before and after the arrival of the kingdom (in Yeshua’s life and deeds the kingdom can be said to have partially arrived). The real piety of Torah looks for the kingdom and makes this world like the world to come by providing for all who are needy and hurting.

Kennedy & Nixon 10

On page 320 of Kennedy & Nixon, Chris Matthews characterizes Richard Nixon’s response to his sweeping victory in the 1972 Presidential election as follows:

“Old campaign hand Herb Klein was not alone in registering [Nixon's] strange hibernation as evidence his boss’s resentments had returned.  It was as if victory were not an occasion for reconciliation but an opportunity to revisit old wounds.  Instead of celebrating in the bright light of fellowship, Nixon sat through the dark morning hours savoring with operatives Haldeman and Ehrlichman the state-by-state salute of his country that carried with it a decisive rebuke of his enemies.”

How one handles victory is as important as how one handles defeat.  According to Chris Matthews’ narration, Nixon handled his 1972 victory by continuing his resentments against his enemies.  Matthews narrates that Elliott Richardson tried to show Nixon that there was no “they” out to get Nixon, that Nixon won the 1972 election overwhelmingly and was now President of all of the people in the United States.  But Matthews goes on to state, on page 326: “Not only was the Orthogonian Nixon unlikely to accept the counsel of a Franklin, even one he employed, but events would soon prove that there were any number of people out to get Richard Nixon.”

Whether or not that is the whole story, I don’t know, but I can see myself handling my victories and successes in a similar manner: as a way to show my detractors that I am just as good as they are, as a way to reinforce my resentments rather than an opportunity for me to be the bigger person.

As I read Matthews’ narration here, I thought back to something I heard a Bible study group leader say about a story in Luke 10.  In Luke 10, Jesus sends out his disciples to preach the Gospel, to heal the sick, and to cast out demons.  When they return to Jesus, all excited that the demons have submitted to them in the name of Jesus, Jesus tells them not to rejoice that the demons submit to them, but rather to rejoice that their names are written in the Book of Life.  Jesus then praises God for revealing God’s truths to little children rather than the wise.

The group leader said that Jesus appeared to be spoiling the disciples’ excitement: Why can’t Jesus just let them be happy, rather than throwing a damp towel over their joy?  But the leader concluded from this story that we should pray in the heart of our success.  It’s easy for people to handle success badly.  One could become arrogant, or use success as a way to give one a sense of self-worth, or use it as an opportunity to reinforce resentments.  Praying in the heart of one’s success can hopefully temper these tendencies.  As people remind themselves that there is one who is above them, and that they have worth in his eyes, perhaps they will be less likely to idolize success, both when they have it, and when they don’t.  At least one would hope!

The Whole World Was At Peace?

I went to midnight mass last night.  The priest was saying that the people in the world put aside their resentments and divisions when Jesus was born.  I had no idea where he was getting that.  Herod certainly didn’t put aside his ambitions in the Gospel of Matthew, for Herod saw the recently born Jesus as a rival to his throne and tried to kill him.

I thought of a Bible study group that I attended years ago.  We were going through the Gospel of Luke.  The group leader was saying that, the way that he long saw the Christmas story, people at Jesus’ birth are all happy and are singing songs together.  In reading Luke, however, he was seeing a different picture: people’s reactions were, “This is strange stuff.”

Questions about Luke 22, and Why Luke Said Jesus Was Innocent

My church finished its Bible study on Luke last night.  We were going through Luke: Gospel of Reassurance With Michael Card.  Because my pastor and his wife will be away next week, we went through two lessons last night.  In this post, I'll have three items: two about Lesson 7, and one about Lesson 8.

1.  One verse that stood out to me was Luke 22:15-16, which states (in the NIV): "And he said to them, "I have eagerly desired to eat this Passover with you before I suffer.  For I tell you, I will not eat it again until it finds fulfillment in the kingdom of God." 

How will the Passover be fulfilled in the kingdom of God?  What does that mean? 

John MacArthur states: "fulfilled. Christ’s death on the following day fulfilled the symbolism of the Passover meal. Passover was both a memorial of the deliverance from Egypt, and a prophetic type of the sacrifice of Christ."
 
According to MacArthur, if I am understanding him correctly, the Passover found fulfillment in the Kingdom of God when Jesus died on the cross.  I thought for a long time, however, that its fulfillment in the Kingdom of God would relate to Christ's second coming.  John Gill's interpretation is similar to that of MacArthur, but he also believes that there is eschatological significance: "it will also be fulfilled in the kingdom of heaven, or eternal glory, when there will be a perfect deliverance of the saints from sin, Satan, and the world; which the deliverance of the Israelites out of Egypt was typical of, commemorated in the passover; and therefore then will be sung the song of Moses, and the Lamb; and then will Christ, and his true followers, eat and drink together in his Father's kingdom, and spend an endless eternity in never fading joys and pleasures."
 
In a sense, while the deliverance of the world from sin and Satan commenced with Jesus' crucifixion and resurrection, it will be completed, or fulfilled, after Christ's second coming.  Within early Christian thought, the Passover is relevant to this eschatological occurrence, for the Book of Revelation mentions the Song of Moses in reference to it.

2.  What stood out to me in Lesson 7 was a question about Luke 22:45.  I think that the curriculum was using the NIV, so I'll quote Luke 22:45 in that version.  The context is Jesus' anguished prayer in the Garden of Gethsemane, shortly before his arrest, trial, and crucifixion.  Luke 22:45 states, "When he rose from prayer and went back to the disciples, he found them asleep, exhausted from sorrow."  The question about this passage in the workbook was: "What do you think Luke meant in regard to the disciples being asleep, 'exhausted from sorrow' (verse 45)?"

I have to admit that this biblical passage puzzled me somewhat.  Why were the disciples sorrowful?  Did they know that Jesus was about to die?  Did they feel heavy around Jesus because they could sense that Jesus was feeling heavy?

I had problems with the idea that the disciples at that moment were aware that Jesus would die.  I didn't think that they had that kind of understanding of God's plan at that point.  Obviously, they knew that Jesus was about to encounter trials, since Peter affirmed in Luke 22:32 that he would not deny Jesus but would go to prison and death for him, so Peter was aware that troubling times were ahead.  Could that be why the disciples were sorrowful when they were praying?  I had long assumed that they were clueless about what was about to happen to Jesus when they fell asleep.

I looked at commentaries, and the only explanations I found were that the disciples were sad because Jesus was sad, or because Jesus had told them about his imminent trials and death.  Why would they stick with Jesus, if they knew that he was about to die?  Was it out of loyalty, love, and admiration for Jesus?  Did they expect for God to deliver Jesus and usher in the Messianic era at the last minute?  If that was their expectation, why were they so sad?

3.  The Gospel of Luke makes a big deal about Jesus' innocence.  That was noted when I was taking New Testament classes as an undergraduate.  The curriculum my church was using last night highlighted this point.  Michael Card said that Jesus' innocence in Luke's Gospel foreshadowed Paul's innocence in Acts.  But what is the big deal about Jesus being innocent.  Innocent of what?  The charge that he was a blasphemer, or an insurrectionist Messianic wannabee?  The impression that I got from the group, and that I get from many Christians, is that Jesus' innocence in Luke's Gospel means he was sinless.  But one doesn't follow from the other, in my opinion.  One can be innocent of charges, yet still fall short of sinless perfection.

Perhaps Luke is simply trying to convince the Romans that Jesus was innocent of being an insurrectionist.  At the same time, I have the feeling that his innocence has a deeper meaning than that in Luke's Gospel. 

From Last Night's Bible Study on Luke

I went to my church's Bible study last night.  We're going through Luke: Gospel of Reassurance With Michael Card.  Here are some items: 

1.  One question that the workbook asked was how we can be ready for Christ's return.  I was thinking of asking a question about that in the group last night, but I was too mellow at the time to do that.  Essentially, the question that was in my mind was this: Why do we need to be "ready" for Christ's return?  What's that even mean?  That we need to be perfect when Christ returns----or at least spiritually adequate----otherwise Jesus will be disappointed in us when he comes back and sees us doing something we shouldn't, or not doing something we should?  Would we lose our salvation, in that case?  I suppose that there are some passages about that in the synoptic Gospels: in Matthew 24-25, for example, we have the parable of the wise and foolish virgins, and also the story of the guy who thought his master was delayed and thus beat the slaves.  The foolish virgins are excluded from the wedding banquet, and the guy who beat the slaves is cut up and put into a place of weeping and gnashing of teeth.  That sounds to me like a loss of salvation.  I go to a Presbyterian church, which probably does not believe that people can lose their salvation.  How would it interpret these passages?  That the foolish virgins and the guy who beat the slaves represent people who weren't truly saved to begin with?

Here's a post that I wrote about being ready for Christ's return. 

2.  Michael Card in the DVD said that Jesus in Luke 24 was addressing two questions: one was about the destruction of Jerusalem, and the other was about the second coming of Christ.  I usually hear this sort of argument from conservative Christians when they are trying to argue that Christ in Matthew 24 and parallels was not predicting an imminent second coming, which (according to a number of Christians, except for preterists) did not happen.  I see this argument as a stretch, since the destruction of the Temple in 70 C.E. and the second coming of Christ seem to be closely associated with each other in Matthew 24 and parallels.  At the same time, when it comes to the Gospel of Luke, I tend to be open-minded, for there are some scholars who don't seem to have a conservative Christian ax to grind, yet they maintain that Luke did not hold to an imminent eschatology.

Here and here are posts that I have written on this topic.
 
3.  Hearing about people's real-life struggles in the group was quite sobering.  People in the group were talking about those who lost their toes or leg due to diabetes.  I wonder how I would react if that happened to me.  Would I cling to God even more for faith and hope, or would I be upset at God?  I'd probably be in the latter category, for some time, but I can imaging myself clinging to God as a way to have faith, hope, and joy, in a situation where joy might be hard to find. 

Unworthiness, and the Prodigal Who Played by the Rules

There were interesting discussions at my church's Bible study last night.  We talked about such topics as the challenges and difficulties in interpreting the Bible, people who have been released from mental institutions who cannot get on their feet, and the challenges of dealing with hospital bureaucracies.  "You almost have to be your own advocate in these hospitals," someone astutely said.  Of course, that's not easy for everyone!  There seemed to be a humility and a compassion in the group's discussions last night.  That, in my opinion, is better than its discussions about why we need to put prayer in school!

I'd like to highlight two issues from last night's Bible study.  First of all, there was a lot of emphasis on our unworthiness.  We read the story of the blind man who cried out to Jesus for mercy, and Michael Card was saying that mercy is someone giving us what we do not deserve.  This doesn't particularly resonate with me, to tell you the truth.  I can understand that I should not have a huge sense of entitlement, since that will lead to disappointments, and it will get on people's nerves as well.  I also recognize that I have my share of flaws.  But why should I say that the blind man did not deserve to be healed?  He's a human being created in God's image.  Doesn't he deserve a whole life?  Don't all of us?  I just have problems with the standard Christian spiel that we should all be so grateful that God has not snuffed us out for our sins.  While I realize that I have my moral flaws, I have a hard time seeing myself as some kind of worm, who should be happy with whatever table scraps God decides to give me.  Then again, come to think of it, there are a few times when I do feel like a worm, but that is when I have done something that I regret, not because I'm trying to brainwash myself to accept some theological spiel or script.

Second, the workbook asked us which son we identify with in Jesus' parable of the prodigal son: the younger brother, who went out and spent all his inheritance money on fun, then humbly returned to his father; or the older brother, who stayed behind with his father and followed all the rules, and was resentful when his father welcomed back the prodigal son and threw the prodigal son a party.  To be honest, I have a hard time putting myself in either box.  I wasn't a wild kid, but I played by the rules.  I did well in school, read my Bible, etc.  But I can't go to the other extreme and paint my life as one of perfect rectitude, so, while I can understand the older brother's reaction, I don't exactly resent those who made bad decisions and are trying to get their lives in order.  I suppose that I characterize myself as one who played by the rules, and yet, as I look back, even then I had problems, some of which I wasn't even aware were problems. 

Mary, Martha, and the Bible

My church had some interesting discussions last night at our Bible study.  We're still going through our study on the Gospel of Luke.  I'll use as my starting-point a question on page 35 of the curriculum that we are using, Luke: Gospel of Reassurance With Michael Card. 

"Read Luke 10:38-42, another passage from Luke that Michael views as dispelling the idea that the Bible is 'anti-woman.'"

Luke 10:38-42 is the story of Mary and Martha.  Martha is working in the kitchen, upset that her sister Mary is sitting at Jesus' feet, learning from Jesus, instead of helping her out.  But Jesus commends Mary.  Michael Card was saying that Mary's sitting at Jesus' feet and learning was revolutionary in those days.  After all, Michael Card notes, rabbis didn't even speak to their own wives in public, and they were against women learning Torah.

I didn't care for Michael Card's point that the story of Mary and Martha dispels the idea that the Bible is anti-woman.  I wouldn't say that the Bible is anti-woman, per se, but I would say that it has passages that are sexist and patriarchal, as well as passages that are liberating and progressive.  "The Bible" does not say the same thing all the way through, for it is a collection of documents with different ideologies and writers.  Even a conservative Christian in the group remarked that the Bible has its ups and downs when it comes to its views on women, since there are times when women are portrayed as strong or as leaders: Deborah and Esther are examples.  I'm not sure if he was dismissing biblical inerrancy, though.  I may not have made clear to the group that there are patriarchal passages in laws that are attributed to God, and so perhaps he thought that I was merely describing features of ancient Israelite culture, which did not necessarily come from God.  Someone else in the group, however, said that men wrote the Bible, and they were reflecting the sexist and patriarchal notions of their day. 

I was thinking some about Michael Card's statement that rabbis wouldn't speak to their wives in public.  I do recall rabbinic passages like that.  At the same time, I'm hesitant to say that rabbis didn't speak with women at all in public, for I have read rabbinic tales about matrons asking rabbis a question.  Moreover, while Michael Card is correct that there was a rabbinic aversion to women learning Torah, that wasn't the entire story.  See my post here.

We talked in the group about whom we identified with more, Mary or Martha.  A lady in the group said that somebody needed to cook to feed all those people, so she could understand Martha's concern.  A man in the group, whom I usually call "Bob" on this blog, said that he identified with Mary, since he was a man.  Bob said that women back then were expected to do the cooking and cleaning, whereas men could pursue other things, such as learning.  Society allowed men the luxury to be Marys, in short.  Bob lamented that it's still like that, regardless of how far society has advanced.  Bob asked why a man couldn't have helped Martha out. 

Misuse and Use of Luke 10:21

At Bible study last night, one verse that got quoted was Luke 10:21: "In that hour Jesus rejoiced in spirit, and said, I thank thee, O Father, Lord of heaven and earth, that thou hast hid these things from the wise and prudent, and hast revealed them unto babes: even so, Father; for so it seemed good in thy sight" (KJV).

I think that this verse can be taken in unfortunate anti-intellectual directions: you don't have to listen to scholars, since God reveals wisdom to the simple; you don't have to understand why someone believes what she believes and respond to that, since reasoning is irrelevant, as knowledge of "the" truth comes by revelation.

This verse was quoted on the DVD that we watched within the context of the typical narrative that the marginalized, humble people came to the truth (i.e., accepting Jesus as the Messiah), whereas the scholars and religious leaders missed out.  There are many conservative evangelicals who would draw from this narrative the lesson that we don't need to listen to scholarly "worldly wisdom" because the scholars of Jesus' day missed out on the truth.  Can we also take from this narrative the lesson that maybe we shouldn't trust today's religious establishment because the religious leaders of Jesus' day missed out on the truth?  I doubt that a number of conservative evangelicals would want to go there, as such an idea would conflict with their belief in church "authority"!

I'm not sure if my problem is merely with the misuse of Luke 10:21, or with Luke 10:21 itself.  I'll have to admit that I can't think of ways to interpret Luke 10:21 in a way that makes me completely comfortable.  I will say this, though: there is perhaps a valuable lesson in Luke 10:21, namely, that God can work in ways that we don't quite expect.  We all (or many of us) have our biases and blinders, our egos and insecurities, our desires for power and acknowledgement of how the world "really" works.  I should take heed that these marks of "sophistication" not blind me to the good things that God does in the world. 

In a similar vein to some of my concerns, check out Pete Enns' excellent post here. 

Jesus the Radical?

I went to my church's Bible study last night.  We're going through the Gospel of Luke right now.  The Bible study booklet was saying that Jesus was seeking to bring about radical change.

Several years ago, I was in another Bible study group.  When this group was going through the Gospel of Luke, I said on more than one occasion that Jesus was radical.  The group's leader disagreed with me on that.  He noted that Jesus was not some flagrant extremist, for Jesus ate with the Pharisees.

Similarly, last night, the question of whether or not Jesus was a radical came up in my church's Bible study on Luke.  Our booklet said that Jesus was one who was trying to bring about radical change.  But a person in the group, whom I will call Bob (whose past comments I've written about here and here), did not agree with characterizing Jesus as a radical.  He said that he did not think that Jesus tried to shove the truth down people's approach, but rather offered them another way of looking at things, leaving it up to them to make up their own minds.  He also said that the changes that Jesus makes are subtle, not radical.

I identified a lot with what Bob was saying.  For one, it was a good counterbalance to one of the themes that I was hearing last night: that Luke was a slave (or so said Michael Card), and so we should be slaves to God.  I'm sure that Bob believes that it's important to keep Christ's commandments, but he also highlights that God respects our free choice.  Second, Bob's statement that Jesus makes subtle rather than radical changes in our lives resonated with me, since I'm not exactly sure what "radical" change in my life I should be looking for, according to the religionists who use that term.  I would like for there to be changes in me: for example, I'd like to be free from my resentment and less nervous.  These are changes, but they're a far cry from me selling all that I have and giving the proceeds to the poor, or me leaving my family.

I think that Jesus was radical, but also subtle and gentle (though, of course, there were times when he rebuked people).  Establishing a community that did not privilege people according to their social class was radical, in that day and age.  But being in that community entailed simply socializing with other people and showing them respect, which (while socializing is difficult for me) does not exactly strike me as some concept from tim-buk-too: it's radical, but it exhorts us to do something that we can do.  It entails a subtle change----from elitism to seeing value in all kinds of people.

Luke and Divine Inspiration

My church started a new Bible study last night.  We're going through Luke: Gospel of Reassurance, with Michael Card.  The main theme last night was who Luke was and how that influenced his writing of his Gospel.  Luke was a Gentile, and that influenced him to highlight the Gospel going to the Gentiles.  He was a physician, and Michael Card said that the physicians he knows are men of prayer, and that could be why Luke's Gospel has a lot of emphasis on prayer.  Michael Card speculated that Luke was a slave, since many physicians in the ancient world (such as Emperor Augustus' physician) were slaves, plus Luke was a slave name.  Could Luke's status as a slave (assuming that Michael Card is correct on this) explain the sensitivity of his Gospel to the poor and the marginalized?

We read Luke's introduction in Luke 1, where he said that he was gathering information from eyewitnesses and was writing so that Theophilus might know with certainty about that in which he had been instructed.  Michael Card said (if I remember correctly) that the stories in Luke about Jesus' birth and childhood may have been due to Luke's consultation of Mary, the mother of Jesus.  The pastor was asking if people in the ancient world would value Luke's references to the testimony of eyewitnesses rather than the testimony of eyewitnesses themselves, of the sort that we see in Matthew's Gospel.  (My pastor believes that the apostle Matthew, who was with Jesus as a disciple, wrote the Gospel of Matthew.)  People in the group were acknowledging the difficulty of writing a history from the testimonies of eyewitnesses, since different people have different accounts.  But the people in the group seemed to believe that Luke wrote an accurate life of Jesus, for physicians pay attention to details, and Luke, according to II Timothy 4:9-11, stuck with Paul when others had forsaken him, showing that Luke was a man of character whose Gospel can be trusted. 

Our workbook asked: "How do you think the Holy Spirit was involved in the process of Luke's researching and writing his account, which eventually came to be included in Scripture?"  That is an excellent question, even if you are a believer who does not accept all of Michael Card's ideas about the authorship and composition of the Gospel of Luke, preferring other scholarly scenarios instead.  Where does Luke end, and where does God begin?  I one time wrote a paper for a Jewish theology class, in which I was seeking to explain my view as to how the Bible was divine revelation.  I wrote that I believed that God inspired human authors, while preserving their own personalities.  My professor was puzzled by that model of revelation.  He wondered if I was saying that the Bible contained God's words, or human authors' words, or somehow both.

I don't have a fully satisfactory answer to my professor's question, but I wonder: maybe God could communicate truth while still preserving the personality of the human authors.  Who Luke was as a person may have influenced him to highlight certain aspects of God's truth----the Gospel going to the Gentiles, social justice, prayer, etc.----but he was still communicating aspects of God's truth.  By reading Luke, perhaps we're getting a window into the mind of Luke, but also (on some level) the mind of God. 

Coming INTO or IN His Kingdom?

For my blog post today about Bart Ehrman's The Orthodox Corruption of Scripture, I have two items, both of which feature in Ehrman's discussion about Luke 23:42-43.  The setting for Luke 23:42-43 is Jesus' crucifixion.  It reads (in the KJV): "And [the thief on the cross] said unto Jesus, Lord, remember me when thou comest into thy kingdom.  And Jesus said unto him, Verily I say unto thee, To day shalt thou be with me in paradise."

1. When I look at two Greek texts on my BibleWorks, I see two readings of Luke 23:42.  In the BGT, the thief asks Jesus to remember him when Jesus comes into his kingdom.  In the Byzantine text, however, the thief asks Jesus to remember him when Jesus comes in his kingdom.  According to Ehrman, the former reading is earlier, whereas the latter reading reflects an alteration that was made for a theological purpose, namely, to emphasize (against so-called heretics) that Jesus will come back bodily in the future.  The former reading has more of a feel of a realized eschatology: Jesus will come into his kingdom after he dies, meaning the kingdom already exists.  The latter reading, however, has more of a futuristic eschatology: Jesus will one day come in his kingdom.  Ehrman states that there is one codex Bezae that takes this futuristic eschatology even further, as it presents the thief saying, "Remember me in the day of your coming."

Ehrman believes that the reading in which Jesus comes into his kingdom is earlier.  It's attested in "the best of our Alexandrian witnesses", and it is consistent with Luke's overall eschatology, in which the kingdom is already present.   Ehrman also points out that the reading in which Jesus comes in his kingdom does not exactly mesh well with its immediate context, for Jesus tells the thief that "Today you will be with me in paradise", showing that the context was about something more immediate, not something in the future.  (That verse is interpreted differently within Armstrongite and Seventh-Day Adventist circles, which believe that the dead are unconscious between the time of death and the resurrection of the last day.  Essentially, they believe the comma should be in a different place so that the verse would read: "Verily I say to you today, you shall be with me in paradise.)

2.  On page 234, Ehrman describes Luke's eschatology, as he understands it:

""Indeed, for Luke the disciples do see the Kingdom of God, but not its having come in power.  In the mission of the seventy, the kingdom of God has 'come near' (10:9, 11); in Jesus' own mission, it is said to have 'arrived' (11:20) and thus already to be 'in your midst' (17:21).  Even in Luke, though, these experiences of the kingdom are proleptic of the final denouement in which the kingdom is to come in a decisive act of history at the end of the age (Luke 21:7-32).  The tragic experiences of the world prior to that coming of the kingdom are mirrored in the experiences of Luke's Jesus, whose own tragedy comes in his martyrdom.  Moreover, just as the world experiences a proleptic vision of God's kingdom (in Jesus' ministry) prior to the eschatological woes that will finally usher it in, so too Jesus experiences and manifests this kingdom before suffering and 'entering into his glory' (24:26)."

The Kingdom of God may have come at Jesus' first advent in the sense that Jesus was the king of the kingdom, and that Jesus was giving people a foretaste of what the kingdom at his second coming would be like: a time when demons are subordinated and people are healed.  I wonder, though, why Jesus would come and give people a foretaste of a future kingdom that would come millennia in the future (maybe even beyond that).  What would be the point?  Maybe Jesus in Luke thought that the future kingdom was imminent.  That has been debated.  See here.

Luke the Maverick?

In The Orthodox Corruption of Scripture, Bart Ehrman argues that Luke-Acts does not believe that Jesus died to atone for people's sins.  Jesus' death in Luke-Acts is significant in another way, according to Ehrman.  

Ehrman makes a variety of arguments to support this claim: that Luke in drawing from Mark's Gospel omits Mark's view of Jesus' death as a sacrifice that brings atonement (Mark 10:45; 15:39); that there are New Testament manuscripts that lack the part of Luke 22:19-20 about Jesus giving his body and shedding his blood for people; etc.  Remember the veil of the Temple that rips from top to bottom at Jesus' death?  According to Ehrman, Mark and Luke interpret that incident in different ways.  Mark probably sees it as indicative of atonement, that people now have access to God through the death of Jesus.  Luke, by contrast, seems to regard it as a sign of God's judgment on Israel and her religious institution for preferring darkness rather than light.  Ehrman notes that, in Mark, the veil rips after Jesus' death, whereas Luke depicts it as ripping before Jesus gives up the ghost (Luke 23:45).  In Luke, Ehrman argues, God is demonstrating during Jesus' crucifixion his displeasure at what Israel is doing.

What, then, is the significance of Jesus' death in Luke-Acts, according to Ehrman?  Ehrman states on page 201: "The death of Jesus in Luke-Acts is not a death that effects an atoning sacrifice.  It is the death of a righteous martyr who has suffered from miscarried justice, whose innocence is vindicated by God at the resurrection."  What about Acts 20:28, which affirms that Jesus bought the church with his own blood?  First of all, Ehrman notes that the text can actually mean that Jesus acquired the church with his blood, not necessarily that he bought it.  Second, Ehrman on page 202 explains how he thinks that Jesus would acquire the church with his blood, according to Luke-Acts: "The blood of Jesus produces the church because it brings the cognizance of guilt that leads to repentance."  On page 203, Ehrman applies this insight to Acts 20:28: "...Paul states his relief at being guiltless of 'the blood' of the Ephesian elders----meaning that he fulfilled his obligation to preach to them his message of salvation, a message that can save them from the coming judgment.  Only if his hearers repent when confronted with Jesus' blood will they be saved from spilling their own."  This sounds somewhat (but not entirely) like the moral-influence view of the atonement, which states that Jesus' death was not something that objectively cleansed us of our culpability for our sin, but rather was something that was intended to influence us on a subjective level: Jesus' death would encourage us to turn to God.  The moral-influence view said that Jesus' death would show us how much God loved us and melt our hearts to turn to God, whereas Ehrman's interpretation of Luke-Acts is that Jesus' death (and subsequent exaltation) would make people feel guilty and thus repent.  But both are subjective models for the atonement.

I think that Ehrman is on to something.  In Luke 23:48, we read (in the KJV) that, after Jesus' death and the centurion's confession that Jesus was innocent, "all the people that came together to that sight, beholding the things which were done, smote their breasts, and returned."  The idea here may be that people repented out of guilt when they saw the death of Jesus, as they realized that they put to death an innocent man.  Moreover, Ehrman does well to note the lack of references to blood atonement in Luke-Acts.  I remember reading an article by a scholar named Henry Cadbury that made that same sort of point, but what I learned in reading Ehrman is that there are actual manuscripts that don't have anything about Jesus giving his body and shedding his blood for people in Luke 22:19-20.

But there is a question that I have: How could Jesus' death make everyone feel guilty, when not everyone was directly involved in Jesus' crucifixion?  If Jesus did not die for my sins, indicating that I'm not really part of the picture, then why should I feel guilty about his death?  Is it because of collective guilt: that, in a sense, the Israelites and the Gentiles who participated in Jesus' crucifixion represented all Jews and Gentiles, or they displayed how we would act if we were in their shoes?  (It would be like what some Christians say about why Adam's guilt is imputed to us: God knows that we would have done the same sin as Adam had we been in his shoes!)  Are all people supposed to somehow see themselves in the story of Jesus' crucifixion?


I'd like to make one more point: it seems to me that, in Ehrman's book, Luke-Acts is a rather mavericky voice in the New Testament.  I doubt that Ehrman would say this explicitly, but it's just the impression that I'm getting.  Luke-Acts is the book that causes the proto-orthodox problems and that does not go with the flow of other parts of the New Testament.  Mark at Jesus' baptism presents God acknowledging to Jesus that Jesus is God's son, whereas Luke (in earlier manuscripts) depicts God as begetting Jesus as God's son at that point, which appears consistent with adoptionism.  Mark and Paul have blood atonement, whereas Luke-Acts generally does not.  Mark depicts Jesus as experiencing agony when he is about to die, whereas Jesus in Luke is much more composed (Ehrman argues that Luke 22:44 is not authentic to Luke, and he notes the absence of this verse in early Greek manuscripts as well as elements of the Alexandrian tradition, including Clement and Origen), which may have struck some as rather docetic (Jesus only appeared human).



Don't get me wrong: Ehrman talks about how proto-orthodox scribes altered Mark, Matthew, and Hebrews, too.  Ehrman states that Mark at least appeared consistent with adoptionism (that Jesus was adopted as God's son at his baptism), whether or not Mark intended it that way.  But it just seems to me that Luke-Acts is the mavericky work in the New Testament.  Of course, some of the speeches in Luke-Acts may actually predate the book----the speeches that talk about Jesus' death without mentioning blood atonement, or that depict God as making Jesus the Christ at his resurrection.  Luke-Acts, consequently, may contain Christian voices that are even earlier.  Perhaps, very early on in the history of Christianity, there were different ideas about the significance of Jesus' death, or when Jesus became Son of God.

Applying Luke 7 (Jesus Raising the Widow's Son from the Dead)

At church this morning, the pastor was preaching about a story in Luke 7, in which Jesus raises from the dead a widow's only son, who died at a young age.  This story has troubled me somewhat.  V 13 says that the Lord had compassion for the widow woman, and I one time heard a Bible study group's leader say that the lesson here is that God has a tender heart for our suffering.  But my problem is this: If God has a tender heart for our suffering, why does God allow our suffering?  Granted, Jesus felt compassion for that widow woman when he was on earth, and he raised the woman's son from the dead.  But that's a rare occurrence.

There are plenty of people out there in the world who lose children to death at a young age, and those children are not raised from the dead.

The pastor said that Jesus' raising of people from the dead during his earthly ministry may have foreshadowed his own resurrection, in which Jesus would defeat death.  The pastor was saying that Jesus tells us today amidst our problems what he told the widow woman in v 13: weep not.  The reason is that Jesus' resurrection has brought us the hope that death is not the last word.

Perhaps believing in Jesus' resurrection can provide people with hope.  In my opinion, though, that depends on how inclusive one's view of salvation is.  If I have to believe that people will go to hell if they died before saying some prayer, then I wouldn't have that much hope.  Sure, I'd be happy that I'd see my departed Christian friends or loved-ones in the afterlife, but I'd be sad that I couldn't see non-Christian friends or loved ones----that they'd be in hell. 

Psalm 113

For my weekly quiet time this week, I'll blog about Psalm 113.

According to Psalm 113, God dwells above the nations and even above the heavens, yet God looks at what is going on below Him in heaven and on earth.  And God is not a passive observer, as far as the Psalmist in Psalm 113 is concerned, for God lifts up the poor and seats them with princes and gives children to women who are barren.

Patrick Miller in the HarperCollins Study Bible states that "the song stands in a line of tradition with 1 Sam 2.1-10; Lk 1.46-55."  I Samuel 2:1-10 is Hannah's song of praise after God answered her prayer for a son, a prayer that she prayed when she was barren.  And Luke 1:46-55 is the Magnificat, which Mary sang when she was pregnant with Jesus.  Hannah's song is about how God lifts up the hungry and the poor and gives the barren woman seven children.  And Luke 1:46-55 is likewise about God elevating the lowly and the hungry.

Psalm 113 is similar to Hannah's song and the Magnificat in its theme of God exalting the lowly.  But Psalm 113 is also different from Hannah's song and the Magnificat, for Hannah's song and the Magnificat are not just about the exaltation of the lowly, but also the debasement of the well-off.  I Samuel 2:5, for instance, says that those who were full have hired themselves out in an attempt to get bread, and that the woman who had lots of children has become feeble.  Luke 1:51 affirms that God has scattered the proud, Luke 1:52 says that God has cast the mighty from their seats, and Luke 1:53 states that God has sent the rich away empty.  Psalm 113, by contrast, is thoroughly positive in that it focuses on God's elevation of the lowly, while it does not mention God's debasement of the mighty.

Of course, Psalm 113 is part of a unit called the Hallel or the Egyptian Hallel, which consists of Psalms 113-118.  Many Jews sing the Hallel during the Passover.  Was Psalm 113 originally written to be part of the larger Hallel unit?  And does the larger Hallel unit focus primarily on God's elevation of the lowly, or does it also include the notion that God will debase the mighty?  As I glance at the Hallel unit, most of what I see is positive.  Psalm 118:10-11 affirms that the Psalmist cut down the adversarial nations who were surrounding him, but, overall, the Hallel focuses on God's deliverance of people.  That's my impression, based on my quick scanning of the Hallel.

But I'd like to play a little bit with the theme of thanking God for blessing us, rather than praising God for casting down the mighty.  Whenever I am told that I should pray for my enemies and ask that God give them the things that I desire for myself (i.e., health, economic provision, etc.), I am very hesitant, for I don't want for God to bless my enemies.  But I should want for God to bless both of us, not for me to be blessed while my enemies are cursed, or for my enemies to be blessed while I have to struggle.  I'd like to think that there are plenty of God's blessings to go around!  Of course, Psalm 113 does not even mention the Psalmist's enemies, but rather focuses on God's elevation of the lowly.  The reason that people tell me to pray for my enemies is that they believe that this could cure my resentment, and the curing of resentment does not appear to be a theme in Psalm 113.  But Psalm 113 is still a Psalm that focuses on the positive----on God's goodness and how far God has brought people who once were in the dumps, and now no longer are.  Such a positive attitude is something I should strive for.  At the very least, I should appreciate and enjoy what God gives me, rather than looking at my enemies to see how they are doing.  But a state of spiritual advancement beyond that is for me to pray that God will bless my enemies with the blessings that I desire for myself (meaning that the prayer is for God to bless both of us).

But is there a place for the attitude of Hannah and Mary in the Magnificat, of wishing for the downfall of those who are mighty?  I would say "yes" and "no".  I'd say "yes" because Hannah and Mary were probably talking (at least in part) about the oppression of Israel at the hands of the mighty.  Hannah, perhaps, was expressing her hope that God would use her son Samuel to deliver Israel from her oppressors, such as the Philistines, and that is what happened (I Samuel 7:13).  And Mary had Messianic expectations regarding her son Jesus, that in Jesus rested the deliverance of Israel from those who afflicted her.  It is right to desire the end of oppression, which humiliates people, dehumanizes them, or reduces them to poverty.

I'd say "no", albeit with some hesitation, if Hannah were glorifying the woman with lots of children becoming feeble because she did not care for her husband's other wife, Peninnah, who had lots of children and mocked Hannah when Hannah was barren.  If Hannah in I Samuel 2:5 is hoping that God will make Peninnah feeble, then such a sentiment is certainly understandable and human on Hannah's part.  But there is an attitude that is spiritually advanced beyond that: to have compassion for Peninnah and to forgive her.  Peninnah may have mocked Hannah because Peninnah was jealous that their husband loved Hannah more than he loved her (Peninnah).  Hannah perhaps should have sympathized more with Peninnah's predicament, or she should have forgiven Peninnah.  But I realize that this was probably easier said than done, since it's easy for one to talk about forgiveness, but it's harder to extend it to those with whom one comes into contact.

Turning Stones into Bread: Why Was It Wrong?

At church this morning, the pastor in his sermon said that Jesus not once thought about himself.  Rather, my pastor said, Jesus served others.  The pastor referred to Jesus healing the sick, and also Jesus turning water into wine at a wedding to spare the wedding couple any embarrassment.  The pastor also mentioned Jesus' refusal at his temptation to turn stones into bread as an example of Jesus choosing not to think about himself.

I have to admit that I've not extensively studied Jesus' refusal in Matthew 4 and Luke 4 to turn the stones into bread.  To be honest, I don't know what the big deal would have been had he turned the stones into bread!  I've read explanations: Jesus would have been wrong to have turned stones into bread in violation of his Father's will, Jesus was supposed to depend on God, etc.  But why would it have been against the Father's will for Jesus to turn stones into bread?  The Father had no problem with Jesus multiplying the loaves and fishes! 

Was it a matter of selfishness, as my pastor suggested this morning?  I have a problem with that.  Is self-interest always wrong?  If Jesus could acceptably multiply loaves and fishes to feed others when they were hungry, why was it wrong for him to turn stones into bread to feed himself when he was hungry?  Isn't it appropriate for people to meet the needs of the hungry, whomever they may be, even if the hungry are they themselves?  Perhaps one could say that Jesus simply shouldn't have obeyed Satan because, well, it was Satan who was commanding him to do something, and we should never do what Satan says!  I'd like a better answer than that, for I prefer to believe that right is right and wrong is wrong, regardless of who says it.  What I mean is that something is wrong not because Satan commands it, but Satan commands it because it is wrong.  Granted, Satan probably was telling Jesus to do something wrong when he suggested that Jesus turn the stones into bread, but my question is why Jesus turning stones into bread would have been wrong in the first place.  Perhaps some of the considerations that I just mentioned are incomplete parts of the answer, if there's an answer out there that is more satisfying.

See my post from a while back about Jesus' temptation: here.

Arbitrary Apologetics?

Nate of the blog "Finding Truth" had a post a while back, Missing the Point.  In the course of the discussion in the comments-section, the topic of the genealogies of Jesus in Matthew and Luke came up.  Many contend that the genealogy in Matthew contradicts the one in Luke, whereas those who are committed to biblical inerrancy tend to maintain that the two genealogies are both factually true.  One conservative Christian solution that has been proposed for the contradictions between the genealogies is that the one in Matthew is Jesus' genealogy through Joseph, whereas the one in Luke is his genealogy through Mary.  The problem with this argument is that Luke's genealogy does not mention Mary, but only Joseph.  Those who believe that Luke's genealogy concerns Jesus' line through Mary, however, respond that Mary is not mentioned because women were usually omitted from Jewish genealogies.  See here for more about this argument.

I do not think that it's an absolute rule that Jewish genealogies omitted women.  Matthew's Gospel is probably a Jewish-Christian Gospel, or at least it's plausible that it emerged in a community that had a strong Jewish-Christian influence, and it refers to women, such as Tamar and Rahab (vv 3, 5).  I Chronicles 2:16 mentions the woman Zeruiah (the mother of Joab), and I Chronicles 4:18 refers to Bithiah, the daughter of Pharaoh.

But I admit that genealogies in the Hebrew Bible tend to focus on men.  Does that explain why Luke does not mention Mary in his genealogy?  Under Nate's post, a commenter, William, offered the following insight:
"I also wonder that if Luke really meant 'Mary' instead of 'Joseph,' as it says, then why didn’t he just write 'Mary?' It would have been that easy to negate this entire problem. Had Luke done that, no one would ever be talking about the discrepancy between Ma[t]thew and Luke, and this issue at least would never enter into the conversation. I have heard the argument that the Jews would not accept a genealogy from a woman, and maybe that is correct, but many of the very same people who use this argument will point to using women like Mary Magdalene as witnesses as some sort of evidence that the bible is from [G]od, because man, at that time, would not have used women as credible witnesses. Maybe that’s true too, but I can’t help but wonder why it’s one way on one instance and another way in separate instance…"

William is arguing that certain Christian apologists are arbitrary when they say that Luke has Mary's genealogy but does not mention Mary because Jews would not accept a genealogy that traced a person's line through a woman, and yet they turn right around and contend that the Gospels' stories of Jesus' resurrection appearances are historical because they present the first witnesses as women, in a Jewish culture that did not accept women's testimony (which, I will note, is only partially true, since there were cases in which women could be witnesses, according to rabbinic writings).  So was Luke trying to support his case by appeasing ancient Jewish misogyny, or by disregarding (if not countering) it?  It appears that Christian apologetics just grab hold of whatever argument might work, even if they employ arguments that end up contradicting one another.

I think of a post that I wrote a while back, Does Boring Mean Historically-Accurate?  In that post, I critique a point that someone made that Numbers 7 is historically accurate because it repeats seemingly boring details over and over, and the person was contending that this makes sense if the biblical author was aiming to convey history.  I argued, however, that there could be a literary reason for such repetition.  And there are conservative Christian apologists who have used the same sort of argument to explain the redundancies in the Pentateuch----in countering the idea that the Pentateuch contains different sources: that redundancy or repetition was a feature of rhetoric in the ancient world.  So does redundancy mean something is historically accurate, or can it be rhetorical, for such a purpose as emphasis?

On some level, what I'm saying is unfair.  I cannot say for certain that everyone who appeals to the women eyewitnesses to Jesus' resurrection argues that Mary was omitted from Jesus' genealogy to appease Jewish standards.  And I cannot say that those who appeal to rhetoric to dispute source criticism of the Bible deny that there is a rhetorical purpose behind the repetition in Numbers 7.  But it does interest me that there are so many arguments out there that aim to uphold the historicity and inerrancy of the Bible, and these arguments contradict each other.