Jesus' Balance of Power

This is from the last chapter of my second Jesus book:
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The Nicene Creed, said in many churches today, was a perfected version of what the Council of Nicaea decided in 325, but it didn’t reach something like its current form until the next council at the city of Constantinople in AD381. That creed says that, “We believe in one Lord, Jesus Christ, the only Son of God, eternally begotten of the Father, God from God, Light from Light, true God from true God, begotten, not made, of one Being with the Father.”

It was now agreed that Jesus was divine in the same way that God the Father was divine. And of course it was agreed that he was human too. A Christian leader in the 300s named Gregory of Nazianzus famously argued that “what has not been assumed cannot be healed.” What he meant is that if Jesus did not really take on humanity, he can’t heal us.

So after working out the basics of the Trinity, Christians for the next hundred plus years would debate how Jesus’ humanity and divinity fit together. Now that Christianity was legal, they didn’t have to spend as much time worrying about persecution. In fact, the Roman Emperor Theodosius I made Christianity the only legal religion in 380. The contents of the Bible were also coming together.  By the year 400, Christians pretty much agreed on which books belonged in the New Testament. This “peace and quiet” created a space for them to iron out some of these issues.

The end result was the common Christian belief that Jesus was both fully human and fully divine in such a way as that both were real features of who he was. The church steered a path between a number of competing ideas. For example, a bishop named Apollinarius offered the possibility that Jesus had a human body but a divine mind, as if the divine Logos had taken over a body. The result basically would suggest that Jesus didn’t have any human element in his thinking.

Still later, an archbishop named Nestorius suggested that Jesus’ almost had a split personality—a human one and a divine one. In response, a man named Eutyches argued Jesus only had one nature that was a mixture of human and divine. No doubt these were all well-intentioned attempts to figure things out, even though the politics of it all often got ugly.

The final decision, like the one about the Trinity, was very balanced. Jesus was fully human and fully divine. He was only one person (against Nestorius) but he had two natures (against Apollinarius and Eutyches). He was really tempted and experienced genuine humanity in its fullness. But he was also truly God walking on the earth.

Obviously by 451 Christians had come a long way from simple biblical statements like 2 Corinthians 13:14: “May the grace of the Lord Jesus Christ, and the love of God, and the fellowship of the Holy Spirit be with you all.” The Corinthians may have had a very simple sense of such a verse. Here are three different persons: One God, one Lord, one Spirit.

When we read it today, we believe all three are mysteriously the same, one God. So Jesus the Lord is both the fully human Jesus who walked the earth and the fully divine Jesus who came from heaven. He was conceived by the Holy Spirit and born of the Virgin Mary.

Matthew on Faith versus Works

... But the most memorable parable in this [End Times] sermon is the Parable of the Sheep and the Goats. After the Son of Man returns, the whole earth gathers for judgment, and Jesus divides the earth into two groups. One group are the sheep. These are those who fed the hungry, gave drink to the thirsty, took in strangers, clothed the naked, and visited the sick. They enter into the kingdom.

Meanwhile, those who did not do these things enter into eternal fire along with the Devil and his angels. It is interesting that they are surprised. They are like those who cry, “Lord, Lord,” in Matthew 7 and the weeds of Matthew 13. Matthew clearly believed that many in the church were not truly in the church. The Parable of the Sheep and the Goats tells us the main reason. The false brothers are those who could help but do not show their love for others in a very concrete way.

Matthew provides a strong challenge to anyone who strongly divides faith from works. The theology of Jesus in Matthew is clearly one that believes the failure to help others, especially other Christians, is an indication that someone is not a Christian at all. We can parse it in our theology how we want. For example, we could say that genuine faith leads to genuine works. But the Gospel of Matthew doesn’t care about these things. We do because of the Protestant Reformation. But such distinctions weren’t a concern for Jesus or Matthew. They would not have objected to the phrase "justification by works" any more than James 2:24.

Church Discipline (Matt. 18)

Matthew 18:15-20 give us one of the classic biblical texts on confrontation. Once again, it is likely teaching that has been shaped in the context of the later church, since there was no church at the time of Jesus’ ministry. But this doesn’t diminish its truthfulness in any way. If a brother or sister, someone in your local church, does something wrong, go to them first privately.

We notice a couple things right off the bat. First, this teaching is not primarily aimed at the relationship between Christians and non-Christians. It seems primarily a matter of discipline within the Christian community. A second question is whether Matthew means sin in general or when a person sins “against you,” as some manuscripts of the New Testament say. The earliest manuscripts simply say, “if your brother sins.”

It isn’t a small point. There is a huge difference between going to talk to someone one-on-one because they have wronged you and going to talk privately to someone who has done something wrong in general. My sense is that Matthew is talking about sin in general, not just a sin against you.

At this point some cultural elements might come into play. After all, Jesus taught ancient Jews in Galilee, and Matthew wrote to ancient Christian Jews probably somewhere in Palestine. How you go about engaging other people on sensitive issues is not a timeless aspect of human nature or culture. The connotations of various actions vary from place to place. [4]

So it would not only be silly but counterproductive simply to assume that the “rules of engagement” in Matthew 18 should be applied in all times and all places in exactly the same way. For example, in the American context there could be many situations where it would not be wise or appropriate for a woman to confront a man privately or vice versa, especially if the other person had sinned against you in a sexual way.

Even in Jesus’ day this teaching would not have been intended to be absolute. If you had asked Matthew’s audience whether a woman should confront a man who had sinned, they almost certainly would have specified specific people who would be more appropriate to do so. It is a general principle—those who do wrong should be encouraged to stop. One-on-one private confrontation is often a great place to start, but it may not always be the best place to start.

Indeed, in the litigious world in which we live, it might often be wiser to start with Matthew’s second step: “If they will not listen, take one or two others along.” This is especially the case if they have sinned specifically against you. If it is wrongdoing in general, perhaps it would be wise for leaders to be the ones to confront, rather than just anyone. And at this point we might snap back to remember that in Matthew’s narrative, Jesus is talking to the disciples here rather than to the crowds...

The Kingdom Sermon (Matt. 18)

I struggle more to give a title to the teaching in Matthew 18 than I do for the other “sermons” in Matthew. Yet Matthew 19:1 gives us the same signal that a sermon has ended that we see after the Sermon on the Mount, the Mission Sermon, the Parable Sermon, and then later on after the “End Times” sermon: “When Jesus had finished saying these things.” Matthew 18 begins with a focus on children and ends with a focus on forgiveness. What seems to hold the sermon together is a recognition that we are vulnerable and that from time to time we lose our way.

The sermon begins with the question of who is the greatest in the kingdom of heaven. Jesus’ answer is, “whoever takes the lowly position of this child” (18:4). The kingdom is about being a subject of the king in submission to his rule. Or you might think of a child who trusts and listens to the directions of a parent. It’s certainly not about being famous or powerful. “The last will be first and the first will be last” (20:16).

So being a member of the kingdom is about service and servanthood. It’s about humility and putting others ahead of ourselves. It’s not about ambition or supremacy. Christians should not “lord it over” others, enjoying domination over others and showing others that they are in control.

Someone might push back and say, “Someone has to be in charge” or “Nothing will ever get done if someone doesn’t jump in there and take control.” “Didn’t God tell Adam and Eve to subdue the land?” It’s true. There are a lot of people who have a built-in drive and natural ambition that they channel in the service of God. They accomplish what seem to be great things for God. They built big churches and lead big organizations. They become famous stars and athletes or take Christian values into the political arena. For them not to do these things would be for them to take the talent God has given them and bury it in the ground.

What’s important to realize from God’s perspective is that they are no more significant in the kingdom than some anonymous person who puts flowers on the front altar every Sunday. In fact, if the person who is successful by the standards of the world begins to think he or she should get the credit rather than God, they make themselves of lesser significance in the kingdom. To whom much is given, much is expected from God, but the one who tries to receive earthly honor from it is diminishing his or her kingdom honor...

The Disciples' Mission

Thought I'd throw up some excerpts from my second Jesus book these next few days.  Here's one about Matthew 10.
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The Sermon on the Mount is the first of the five large sermons in Matthew. It was arguably meant to present Jesus’ earthly teaching in a nutshell. We might call the second of the five sermons the “Mission Sermon,” and it appears in Matthew 10. Jesus sends out the disciples in Mark 6, and Matthew is likely drawing on that incident here.

One of the most striking features of the Mission Sermon is the fact that Jesus tells his disciples to go only to the “lost sheep of Israel” (10:6). They are not to go into the towns either of Gentiles or Samaritans (10:5). This is striking because, in John 4 for example, Jesus goes through Samaria and witnesses to a Samaritan town. And of course in the Great Commission he tells his disciples to go into all the world and preach the good news to all the nations (28:19).

Surely we need to think of Matthew 10:5-6 as “Phase 1.” While Jesus was on earth, his focus was on Israel, not Gentiles or Samaritans. In fact, his focus was not on Jerusalem but his own region of Galilee in the north. Indeed, even in Galilee his focus was not on everyone but the “lost sheep,” those spiritually knocked off track, like tax collectors and prostitutes. “Phase 2” was then after Jesus’ resurrection, when the target audience expanded to the whole world and all ethnicities.

Perhaps this is a good reminder that God can call us to minister to specific groups of people at specific times and places. The danger is to make this an excuse. “I only minister to this sort of person,” when in fact God wants us to broaden our service. Even Jesus himself occasionally ministered to those outside of Israel (e.g., Matt. 15:21-28). When God brings someone into our reach, he wants us to touch them (cf. 1 John 3:17).

While the Mission Sermon begins with what is clearly Phase 1 instruction, I can’t help but feel that a lot of this sermon was not only for the time while Jesus was on earth and not just for the disciples. Why would Matthew preserve instruction that was only for the disciples? Wouldn’t anyone hearing the instructions of Jesus about the mission—especially Christian leaders—have heard a word for them as well? Don’t we hear Jesus speaking to us today as well?

This is especially true when we get to verses like 10:16-23. This is talking about how Jesus’ followers will be dragged before governors and kings (10:18)—something clearly after the resurrection, during Phase 2. These verses talk of the coming of the Son of Man, which reminds us of other passages like Matthew 25:31 that refer to Jesus’ second coming to earth. It’s a very puzzling statement which, whatever it means, surely refers to the time after the resurrection, not just to the Phase 1 mission Jesus sent his disciples out on while he was still on earth...

Luke's Birth Story

We've seen that Matthew's birth story focuses on Jesus as the promised king.  It leads in Matthew 1 with Jesus' royal lineage and then shares the story of the wise men, where even Herod the Great recognizes that Jesus is king.  Luke, who may have known of Matthew's gospel, decided to highlight a different aspect of Jesus' birth. [1]

If Matthew emphasizes Jesus as king, Luke highlights the humility of Jesus' birth. Rather than being welcomed by kings, Jesus is greeted by shepherds, some of the lowest in society.  Luke focuses on the role of women in the story, individuals with low status in that world.  One of these is the prophetess Anna, who had been a widow perhaps for as much as sixty years--again, individuals usually overlooked and disempowered in that world.

We are so used to splicing together these "Christmas stories" that we often miss that each of the gospels has something unique to contribute to our understanding of Jesus.  It's interesting to wonder how our Christmas plays would be different if we only had Matthew or only had Luke. For example, if we only had Matthew, we would think Jesus was originally from Bethlehem and only later moved to Nazareth in the north to escape persecution (Matt. 2:1, 22-23).

Luke begins with the birth of John the Baptist. We would not know from Matthew, Mark, or John that Jesus and John the Baptist had any family connection. From Luke we also learn that John the Baptist is of priestly lineage, something we are not told in any other gospel. It is intriguing to speculate if John was an Essene or if some early believers had been Essenes. John baptized not far from the most famous Essene location on the northwest side of the Dead Sea.

[insert textbox]
The Essenes were the third of the three best known religious groups among the Jews of Israel, the others being the Pharisees and the Sadducees. [2] Until the discovery of the Dead Sea Scrolls, we knew of them primarily from some scattered comments in ancient writings like those of the Jewish historian Josephus and the Jewish thinker Philo. Since the Dead Sea Scrolls were probably the library of an Essene community, we have since been able to form a more extensive sense of who they were.

There seem to have been different groups of Essenes, some of whom were stricter than others (just as the Pharisees had different schools as well). Some married and lived in cities. Others separated themselves from society and were celibate. At least some of them were much stricter than your average Pharisee. For example, the community at Qumran by the Dead Sea viewed itself as a substitute for the temple while the temple was impure and they lived by the purity standard of priests.

Their sense of purity seems to be closer to the Sadducees than to the Pharisees, which makes sense if they had a significant priestly background at some point of their history. They seemed to have shared their possessions in common.  They probably had a more "apocalyptic" outlook on soon coming events in which God would judge the world and those in the true assembly or church would be saved. They perhaps had a stronger sense of eternal punishment and hell than other Jewish groups. They have also provided us with some of the clearest examples of the expectation that a Messiah was coming to restore and purify Israel.
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Another feature of Luke's birth story are the number of songs in them...

[1] The majority position of experts is that Matthew and Luke are independent of each other but used common sources like Mark and another collection of Jesus' sayings.  However, it would explain a few other similarities if, in addition to these sources, Luke also knew about Matthew's gospel. See Mark Goodacre, Questioning Q, ***. The real answer to how it happened may be more complicated than any of us would imagine.

[2] One of the best overviews of Judaism in the lead up to Jesus is James VanderKam's An Introduction to Early Judaism ***.

Matthew's Genealogy

I mentioned in the previous chapter that Matthew was Mark with five large sermons inserted, along with birth and resurrection stories added at the front and the back.  I personally like to think that Matthew was thinking of Moses and the first five books of the Old Testament when he did this. Genesis, Exodus, Leviticus, Numbers, and Deuteronomy are the five books of the Law in the Old Testament. I would argue that Matthew was implicitly comparing Jesus to Moses, implicitly claiming that Jesus is the final and definitive Moses, the authoritative interpreter of the Jewish Law.

So the first two chapters of Matthew give us material that Mark doesn't have.  Matthew 1 gives us Jesus' royal genealogy.  Although most of us find such things boring, there are some nuggets of insight hiding in this list of names. And it's important to know that in the ancient world, your family or genealogy was one of the biggest factors that told who you were.

We like to think in our world that we can be anything we want to be, anything we set our minds to do. We are an individualist culture in North America. We decide our own destinies. I don't have to do the job my parents do.  I can be a Republican even if my parents are Democrats. I don't have to live in the city my parents live in. I don't have to stay poor just because I come from a poor family, and I don't have to socialize with high society even though my parents did.  In America, we believe in setting our own destinies.

Not so in the ancient world--or in most of the world.  In most times and places, humans have been members of herds, not individualists. Despite our individualism, you can still see traces of this human instinct even in America.  We call it peer pressure in teens but in adults you see it in political parties and religious affiliations. I can know a lot about you even by what cable channel you watch all the time.

In the ancient world, identity was largely a matter of one's genealogy, gender, and geography.  What family are you from?  Are you male or female?  What is your race and ethnicity?  You were assumed to be a particular type of person depending on your answer and, chances are, you conformed to these expectations as part of your own culture.

So when Matthew gives this long genealogy of Jesus, he is telling his audience who Jesus is.  The answer is that Jesus comes from a royal lineage.  Jesus is the son of David and is thus eligible to be king. Matthew divides Jesus' family tree into three groups of 14. This is probably because 14 is the number of David's name.

In ancient times, the letters of the alphabet did double duty as numbers as well.  Since Hebrew largely does not write its vowels, David's name is D-V-D or the numbers 4-6-4, which add up to 14.  By dividing up Jesus' lineage into three groups of 14, Matthew poetically shouts out "David," "David," "David."  The Gospel of Matthew thus begins by announcing that Jesus is king.

Another very interesting aspect of the genealogy is the way Matthew mentions certain women.  It mentions Tamar, Rahab, Ruth, Bathsheba, and of course Mary.  What is interesting is that there is something somewhat scandalous about each one.  All of them except for Mary, for example, were foreigners, non-Israelites.  Jesus' family tree thus embodies the fact that the gospel is good news for the lost.

There was something further scandalous about most of them in other ways as well.  Tamar dressed as a prostitute to get Judah to do his fathering duty. Rahab ran a house of prostitution. Bathsheba had an affair with David, and Mary got pregnant before she and Joseph were married. Again, the implication is that God wants to save the sinner and that he loves those who have lived in shame.

These two aspects of Jesus' family tree--his royal identity and his embrace of the lost--prepare us for his birth story...

Treasures in Heaven (Matthew 6)

Treasures in Heaven
Matthew 6 plays out another aspect of the key verses of the Sermon on the Mount: “Unless your righteousness surpasses that of the Pharisees and the teachers of the law, you will certainly not enter the kingdom of heaven” (5:20).  If someone hearing this verse actually knew some Pharisees, the verse would have been terrifying.  Really?  More righteous than a Pharisee?  No hope for me!

Pharisees were known for how carefully they kept the Jewish Law.  They were so serious about keeping the Jewish Law that they had developed extremely specific rules that spelled out very concretely what it might mean to keep the Sabbath holy or not to covet.  While it's easy for us to condemn them or dismiss them as hypocrites, we can develop our own traditions about how to keep the rules too.

For example, when I was a young boy, I once visited a church on a Sunday evening that was very strict on keeping Sunday as a Sabbath.  Taking Exodus 20:6 very seriously, they did not believe in working on Sunday.  In the hour before the evening service, I visited a nearby playground and was swinging. An older person came up to me and told me I needed to leave the playground because it was the Sabbath. Her thought was that, for a kid, playing was my work.  I should stop swinging--that is working--because it was the Sabbath.

It is really ironic to me now to realize how similar this person was being to some of the ancient Pharisees.  Being so zealous to keep the Law, they played out the rules into every area of life.  The problem is not so much their eagerness to keep God's Law but the fact that for some of them the rules became an end in themselves.  Some of them apparently lost sight of what was much more important to God--loving people. [1]

So to say that you had to be more righteous than the Pharisees would have been terrifying to an average Jew.  Although today we assume they obviously fakers or evil, Pharisees enjoyed great popularity among most Jews. We have to make ourselves feel the shock of this statement.

When we get to Matthew 6, we begin to understand what Jesus is saying.  The righteousness of Israel's teachers of the Law is a this-worldly righteousness.  It is a righteousness for show.  The stereotypical Pharisee Matthew has in mind is an actor, a hypocrite who is playing at acts of righteousness but does not have truly heavenly values...

[1] We should remember that the Gospel of Matthew is probably harder on the Pharisees in its presentation because the community that produced Matthew was probably in serious tension with the Pharisees.  Most experts think that Matthew was written after the Jerusalem temple was destroyed, when the Pharisees were perhaps the only major Jewish group left. With them in power, they became the leaders of Judaism and thus the perhaps main Jewish opposition to Christian Jews.

The Beatitudes

The Sermon on the Mount begins with some famous verses called the Beatitudes or the “blesseds” (Matt. 5:3-12). For example, the first one is, “Blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven” (5:3). I was in a Bible study once that was going through the Beatitudes. One of the first questions we asked was, what does it mean to be blessed?

The first suggestion was that it meant to be happy. In fact, that’s how Today’s English Version translated it once upon a time: “Happy are those who know they are spiritually poor.” Somehow, though, happy seems like a pretty anemic translation of the word “blessed.”

In that Bible study, a woman from Africa suggested that the word might mean something like “honored.” I thought it was interesting that the idea didn’t really resonate with the group. Inside I was thinking that she probably came the closest of anyone in the room.

Unlike North America today, the ancient world was an honor/shame world. Those of us in America prize things like thinking for yourself and making up your own mind. We prize rugged individualism and the “self-made man. Self-reliance, individual achievement—those are our values.

Not so in the ancient world. In the ancient world, the goal was to be honored by your group and not to bring it shame. So the person who was prized was the one who most fully displayed the values of the group. Meanwhile, the thing most to be avoided was bringing shame to your group by showing outsiders that you were not measuring up.

To be blessed by God is thus to be honored by God. All the Beatitudes embody the contrast between now and what is not yet. Now, those who weep and are grieved do not seem blessed. They do not seem to be honored now. But that is only now, for the moment. When God’s kingdom comes, they will be comforted (Matt. 5:4). In that day, they will have reason to rejoice.

Those who are poor in spirit, who realize that they are completely dependent on God, may not seem blessed now. They may not seem as prominent to others now because they do not stand in the marketplace and boast of their own righteousness, like the hypocrites mentioned later in the sermon (e.g., Matt. 6:2). But they will be rich in the coming kingdom of heaven (Matt. 5:3). [1] It will belong to them.

The rest of the beatitudes continue with similar contrasts. The meek do not usually gain high honor in this world, except perhaps at their retirements and funerals. More often, they go through life unnoticed because they do not push themselves to the front. In this world, it is the assertive and ambitious to tend to advance. By contrast, the meek will inherit the earth in the coming kingdom (Matt. 5:5).

God will fill those who hunger and thirst for righteousness, even in this life (Matt. 5:6). Those who are merciful now, will be honored with God’s mercy on the Day of Judgment (5:7). Those who make peace now, they are especially honorable to God (5:9). Those whose hearts are pure in motive, they will have the privilege of being with God for all eternity (5:8).

Right now, those who are persecuted for serving God do not seem honored. Those who are mocked and insulted seem more to be objects of shame than reward. But when God’s kingdom comes, it will all be reversed. They will inherit a great reward from heaven then. They will receive the same honor that the prophets of God have, even though they were persecuted at the time (5:10-12).

These are great reminders to us. We should not go seeking persecution. There are and have always been some twisted souls that actually seek out persecution to get praise. They ironically are still functioning with earthly values, only trying to get honor through putting on a godly show. They are the hypocrites of Matthew 6 we will talk about below.

The kingdom blessed are those who live out the Christian life because they are serving God. They do not do it to get acclaim. They keep doing it when they are mocked or persecuted. Their goal is simply to give honor to God, and God will reward them in the coming kingdom.

[1] The phrase, “kingdom of heaven” in Matthew probably does not refer to heaven as the place where we will spend eternity. Matthew 8:11 seems to indicate that the kingdom of heaven will be on earth. “Kingdom of heaven” simply seems to be Matthew’s way of saying “kingdom of God” in Mark. He may say “heaven” because it is the place where God is, as a matter of respect}

The Sermon on the Mount 1

The best known of the five big sermons in Matthew is the Sermon on the Mount. We may miss some profound aspects of this grand sermon if we merely think of it as a sermon Jesus gave on one particular occasion. By the time you finish this book, you will hopefully realize that the main goal of the Gospel writers was not merely to record the things Jesus said and did but also to tell us truths about Jesus by the way they presented the things Jesus said and did.

For example, some of the material in the Sermon on the Mount is in both Matthew 5-7 and Luke 6. Now it is quite possible that Jesus preached similar things on more than one occasion, but that is not the best explanation for what we find in these chapters. We have good reason to conclude that Matthew and Luke were drawing on a common source for this material. [1] If this idea is true, then the differences between the two are significant, because they probably represent something Matthew (or Luke) was meaning to say about Jesus.

What is the significance of the fact that the Sermon on the Mount is on a mountain?  Is it merely the fact that Jesus said these words on a mountain?  Or has Matthew set these teachings of Jesus on a mountain in order to tell us something about Jesus? Again, this whole line of thinking can be a little troubling when you hear it for the first time. We are programmed merely to think of the Gospels as historical presentations without realizing that ancient writers felt freer to be creative in the way they presented history than we would expect.

So is it possible that Matthew wanted us to think of another word from God that was given on a mountain in the Old Testament?  Is it possible that Matthew wanted his original Jewish audience to think of Moses and the Law when they read the Sermon on the Mount?  If so, then the key verses of the sermon, 5:17-21, take on a rich meaning.

Matthew 5:17 says, "Do not think that I have come to abolish the Law or the Prophets; I have not come to abolish them but to fulfill them."  Now the Law and the Prophets is a shorthand for the entire Old Testament Scriptures. [2]  But the next couple verses go on to talk about commandments in the Law and the rest of the chapter shows how Jesus fulfills the Law.

The point is that the Sermon on the Mount gives Jesus' authoritative interpretation of the Law.  It implicitly compares Jesus to Moses as the law-giver.  Moses gave the Law.  Now in this sermon Jesus gives the fulfilled Law.  The sermon closes with the people getting the point: "When Jesus had finished saying these things, the crowds were amazed at his teaching, because he taught as one who had authority, and not as their teachers of the law" (7:28-29).

[1] Because it was German scholars who first explored this issue, they called the hypothetical source "Q" after the first letter of the German word for "source," Quelle.  Scholars like Mark Goodacre believe it is more likely that Luke used Matthew as a source directly for this sort of material ***. My point in the main text comes to the same conclusion either way.

[2] The three sections of the Old Testament in the Jewish division are the Law, the Prophets, and the Writings.  The "Law and the Prophets" is thus a shorthand way of referring to the whole Old Testament by referring to its two main parts.

The Story of Matthew (3.2)

... continued from yesterday.
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The scholarly story of Matthew is not as romantic as the one we hear more often. Normally, we hear of how Matthew was a tax collector that Jesus called to be a disciple.  Then later Matthew, under the inspiration of the Holy Spirit, wrote down his reminiscences of Jesus' earthly ministry. We get the impression that Saint Matthew sat down one day (or two) and the Holy Spirit inspired him to write down his memories of his time with Jesus two or three decades earlier.

God's inspiration of the Gospel of Matthew was probably a little more complicated and less romantic.  The book of Matthew itself is anonymous.  Nowhere in its pages does it tell us who its author is.  There is an early tradition by a man named Papias who wrote this: "Matthew collected the sayings [of Jesus] in the Aramaic language, and everyone translated them as best they could." [1]

It is not clear that Papias was talking about the Gospel of Matthew as we have it. Nevertheless, at some point early on, the heading, "The Gospel according to Matthew," started circulating as the title of this document.  It is the only name we have offered from the ancient world for the name of its author. My sense is that these sort of traditions usually preserved some kernel of truth but also that they also usually got a little mangled and romanticized.

Here is the scholarly story. The Gospel of Mark was written first, probably in the late 60s or early 70s of the first century, probably primarily to a Gentile Christian audience. Then a Christian Jew, sometime after the destruction of Jerusalem, perhaps in the 70s, took the Gospel of Mark and created the Gospel of Matthew out of it.

[insert text box on the Synoptic Question]

I should probably stop and remind you that God can inspire a person to use sources just as much as he can dictate to you.  In fact, on the romantic model, Matthew was remembering things.  That is, his memory was a source, helped by the Holy Spirit. Certainly 1 and 2 Kings mention sources like the Annals of the Kings of Judah, and Jude quotes a book called 1 Enoch.

So what did the author of Matthew add to Mark to make the Gospel of Matthew?  Basically, Matthew adds five large sermons scattered throughout. Then he added the Virgin Birth and resurrection details on the front and the end.  If you take Mark and drop these sermons into it, add the introduction and conclusion, then you have Matthew.

Now the author of Matthew had to have a source for these sermons. One possibility is of course that the source of these sermons was a collection of Jesus' sayings that in some way went back to the disciple Matthew. While this is mostly speculation, it would be typical of how traditions often worked in the ancient world. The Gospel of Matthew would get its name from one of its major sources but the precise story would have grown a little. [2]

The fact that there are five sermons has not been lost on interpreters of Matthew, since the cornerstone of the Jewish Scriptures is the five books of the Law, the Pentateuch.  Could it be that the author of Matthew was thinking of the Law when he added these five sermons? [3] After all, Matthew arguably presents Jesus as the authoritative interpreter of the Law, and as we will see, the way it tells Jesus' birth story makes us think of Moses.

Was it the disciple Matthew who put this all together? On the whole it seems more likely that material from Matthew was a source for the Gospel than that the actual disciple Matthew put the Gospel together into its current form. It's certainly possible, just not the most likely conclusion. For example, why would an eyewitness (Matthew) draw on a non-eyewitness (Mark) as his primary source? And although Greek was certainly spoken in Palestine, the only evidence we have of Matthew suggests he preferred Aramaic (or Hebrew).

Nevertheless, I will refer to the author of the Gospel as Matthew. If this sort of issue is annoying, it's important to realize that half the things that upset us are actually traditions we have learned about the Bible rather than things in the Bible itself. The Gospel of Matthew does not tell us who its author was--the titles were surely added later. But since we grow up forming our faith around the Bible as we know it--or the version in which we read it--we can feel like our faith is being challenged when in fact it is only our traditions about faith that are in question...

[1] My translation. Found in Eusebius, Ecclesiastical History, 3.39.16. Three elements of this translation are highly debated.  Did Matthew collect sayings or stories?  Was it in Aramaic or Hebrew?  Did people translate or interpret them?

[2] One problem with this speculation is that the sermons of Matthew are not exactly "translation Greek."  Some of it could be, although it is virtually impossible to trace it without wild speculation. Assuming the Gospel of Matthew used a written source, it would likely have been a Greek source.

[3] B. W. Bacon is often credited with first developing this idea. ***

Scholars, Consensus, and a Story (3.1)

Scholars are notorious for disagreeing with each other, as well as with having bizarre ideas. I personally believe that not all scholars are created equal.  In particular, some are more objective than others.  In the area of religion, some people become experts only to defend the positions with which they started. Others try to nail out the details of a position that was wrong to begin with, and they predictably end up in a wacky place.

I personally take a lot of stock in consensus.  When those who are truly experts on a subject pretty much agree on something, I take that very seriously.  There is an important caution here.  For example, the book of Hebrews was the focus of my doctoral work and I have published two books and several articles on it.  I think it is fair to consider me an expert on Hebrews.

But I am not an expert on the Gospel of John.  A position I have on John doesn't count as much intrinsically as if a Johannine scholar were to speak. Frankly, even on the subject of Hebrews, I am more of an expert on some aspects than others.  So when I speak of consensus on something like the Gospel of Matthew, I mean experts on Matthew more than I would mean a New Testament scholar in general.

So I have a PhD in New Testament.  I have written a New Testament survey textbook.  So I have explored a little the question of how the gospels were created. Am I an expert on that subject?  Maybe we should say I am more of an expert than your pastor probably is, but less of one than those for whom this subject is their specialty.

Nevertheless, I want to tell you a story.  I think it is a story that most of those who truly are experts would agree with.  I want to tell you the story of how someone started with the Gospel of Mark and ended up with the Gospel of Matthew...

Mark: Disciples Don't Get It

Going along with the tone of hiddenness in Mark's Gospel is a pervasive sense that the disciples didn't really "get it."  They don't really seem to get the nature of Jesus' mission or how it is supposed to end. One of the earliest examples of this theme is the Parable of the Soils in Mark 4.

A farmer throws seed out on a number of different soils--a path, rocky ground, soil with weeds, and good soil.  Birds get the seed on the path. The plant on rocky ground gets scorched because it doesn't have root.  Weeds choke the third batch of seeds. But the fertile soil yields an abundance of fruit.

The meaning of the parable, Jesus tells the disciples, is that not everyone has "ears to hear."  Not everyone who hears the good news of the kingdom will respond positively. Some have no interest at all. Some can't stand the opposition that inevitably comes.  The struggles of life choke the faith of others. But some have a faith that endures and yields abundant fruit.

In Mark, this is the parable that explains all of Jesus' parables. While we tend to think of parables as making Jesus' message easier to understand, Mark presents them as riddles.  Only those who have faith will understand and accept them. "The secret of the kingdom of God has been given to you. But to those on the outside everything is said in parables" (4:11).

What is then truly ironic is that the disciples don't understand the parable.  The disciples don't understand a parable whose meaning is that only those with faith will understand Jesus' parables. This is how Mark consistently portrays the disciples, even the key disciples Peter, James, and John. They get that Jesus is the Messiah, but they don't get what that means. Since the other Gospels don't have such an emphasis, we have to ask why Mark does.

One suggestion is that the individual or community that produced Mark did not have a completely favorable view of those Jerusalem apostles. On one level, this could make sense. After all, the theology of Mark is closer to Paul than it is to what we know of Peter from Paul's writings.

Take Mark's sense that all foods are now clean (Mark 7:19), a parenthetical comment often thought to point to a primarily Gentile audience for Mark.  Peter did not seem to take that position in AD49 in Antioch, when Paul argued strongly against him (Gal. 2:11-21). In that incident, Peter seemed to defend the Jerusalem position that Jewish believers shouldn't eat with unclean Gentile believers.

In the end, however, I don't think this is the best explanation. And it isn't because Mark is traditionally associated with Peter, as we mentioned above. If traditions come into conflict with a careful reading of the biblical texts, then traditions must yield. The Gospel of Mark itself doesn't tell us who its author or what its key sources were.  Inductively speaking, it is anonymous.  Some connection with Peter remains possible but we can't let this possibility interfere with listening to Mark itself.

A simpler explanation is that the disciples really didn't anticipate that Jesus was going to die.  It is incredibly plausible because no one at that time expected a Messiah to die.  It's just not what Messiah's were for and normally dying would have proved you weren't the Messiah.

Messiah is means "anointed one" in Hebrew and Aramaic.  The Greek word for it is Christ.  It is a royal title.  To say that Jesus was the Messiah was to say that he was the king who would restore the political kingdom of Israel.

Against this backdrop, it was Jesus' death more than anything else that did not compute with the disciples. We often use Peter's denial of Jesus as an example of cowardice, of not having the inner strength to stand up and be persecuted for Christ. My hunch is that Peter was no coward. I bet he was more than ready to fight with Jesus in the Garden to the death. What he wasn't ready for was for Jesus to go quietly with the soldiers and for him to "lose."

To me this is an incredibly significant point.  The disciples did not expect Jesus' death.  Then afterward I don't think they expected his resurrection either.  They didn't get it.

If Mark does in part reflect some of Peter's preaching, might we not in Mark hear a touch of his own regret?  "I can't believe I didn't get it." Again, we shouldn't let later tradition steer our interpretation much, but it is at least possible...

Gospel Writers on Street Corners? 1

Jumping to the second chapter of my Jesus in the Gospels book.  This is on the special themes in Mark.
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A Difference of Eyewitness Perspective?
Each of the four Gospels tells the story of Jesus in a distinctive way, although the first three gospels tell the story similarly enough to be called "synoptic" gospels, gospels similar enough that you could put them side by side and compare them.  But from early on it was recognized that John went its own way. A Christian in the late 100s called it a "spiritual" gospel. [1] It is interesting to wonder how our picture of Jesus might be different if we didn't have John.

Sometimes people make sense of the distinct presentations of the Gospels with the picture of four people standing on four different corners of an intersection, describing what happened to cause an accident.  In this common sense scenario, each person sees something a little different because they are looking on from a different angle.  They are all describing the same thing, but their narratives are each going to be distinct.

There may be some truth to this scenario, but things probably are also a little more complicated. [2] It's true that, traditionally, Matthew and John were thought to be written by the disciples with those names. Mark's Gospel is traditionally linked to Peter, and it is often suggested that Luke did some serious eyewitness research, perhaps including Mary herself. I personally think that traditions like these have to be taken more seriously than many do, but I also acknowledge that such traditions regularly get a little mangled in process.  [2]

As we will see throughout our journey, Matthew and Luke probably used Mark as their main source.  The places where they differ from Mark are thus probably intentional and reflect special emphases they wanted to bring out more than differences in eyewitness perspective.  Matthew and Luke are then thought to have relied on yet another written source as well. So while eyewitness testimony may very well underlie the foundations of the Gospels, most of the differences more come from the editing of the Gospel writers in order to bring out special themes.

Although we don't know Mark's sources for sure, it's likely that he also is telling the stories of Jesus in such a way as to bring out some special themes. The earliest tradition, about Mark, from the early part of the 100s, is that

"Mark having become the interpreter of Peter, wrote down accurately whatsoever he remembered. It was not, however, in exact order that he related the sayings or deeds of Christ. For he neither heard the Lord nor accompanied Him. But afterwards, as I said, he accompanied Peter, who accommodated his instructions to the necessities [of his hearers], but with no intention of giving a regular narrative of the Lord's sayings. Wherefore Mark made no mistake in thus writing some things as he remembered them. For of one thing he took especial care, not to omit anything he had heard, and not to put anything fictitious into the statements." [3]

The sense here is that the stories of Mark aren't necessarily in the order they happened. There is also the sense that Peter presented the stories in such a way that they would speak optimally to his audiences. Although we have to remember that Papias himself may have his own agenda in the way he presents this information, it is striking that this statement probably comes within 50 years of Mark's writing...

[1] Clement of Alexandria

[2] For a strong defense of the eyewitness basis for the Gospels, see Richard Bauckham, Jesus and the Eyewitnesses.

[3] Roberts-Donaldson translation currently, fragment VI.

1.5 Mark Part 2

continued from yesterday
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... It is easy for us to forget that Jesus participated fully in humanity. He suspended his knowledge of all things while he was on earth (e.g., Mark 13:32). Even though we believe he was God, on earth he had to learn who he was, and he had to learn God's will, just as we do.

Jesus taught, and he taught primarily in stories and riddles.  The primary example Mark gives us is Jesus' parable of the soils in Mark 4.  A farmer throws seed on four different kinds of soil: the path, rocky soil, soil where there were weeds, and good soil.  Birds snatch the first. The second has no root and so gets scorched by the sun. The third gets choked by weeds, and only the seed on the fourth soil thrives.

Jesus' point is that not everyone will respond appropriately to his news of the kingdom. Only the one who "has ears to hear" will hear and follow (4:9). Ironically, Jesus' own followers don't understand this riddle, a fact to which we will return in the next chapter.  Jesus' own disciples don't understand the parable whose point is that only those with faith will understand his riddles!

Inevitably, Jesus got into conflict.  He didn't go looking for it.  It inevitably came looking for him. When you are making as big an impact as Jesus was, some people are going to feel threatened. They're going to get jealous.  Some are just going to flat disagree with you. Jesus had his share of that, and eventually it grew so great that they put him to death.

Mark, Part 2
The turning point of Mark, as is often said, comes after Jesus acknowledges to Peter that he is the Christ, the expected anointed one of Israel (Mark 8:27-30).  The tone and direction of Mark changes from that point on.  Up to this point, everything has been, "go, go, go!"  Jesus has healed, he has cast out demons, crowds of immense proportions have followed him.

But now the tone changes.  Three times Jesus will tell his disciples that he is going to Jerusalem to die. There is a sense of foreboding and destiny. Although Jesus does still heal and the crowds still follows, he seems to spend more time privately with his key followers.

Mark 9 records the curious event of the Transfiguration, where Peter and James and John see Elijah and Moses appear with Jesus.  They will emerge as a core group of disciples within the larger group of the Twelve, even after the resurrection.  Unfortunately, James and John seemed to want such privileged roles. They got into conflict with the other disciples over their desire to have the highest roles in the coming kingdom (10:35-40).

Indeed, at another point the whole group of disciples were arguing over who would be the greatest when the kingdom would come (9:34).  They must have thought that they were going to Jerusalem for Jesus to become king, not to die.  We will return to the disciples' lack of understanding in the next chapter, a key theme of Mark...

1.4 More Mark

continued from here. I've had a writer's block on moving forward. Like a knot in a muscle, you just have to rub it out.
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The first 13 verses of Mark set the stage for Jesus' ministry.  We meet John the Baptist, and Jesus is baptized by John.  Jesus is driven to the desert where he is tempted in preparation for his mission.

Then 1:14-15 arguably give us the key verses of Mark. This begins the first half of the gospel in earnest (1:14-8:30).  What did Jesus preach?  He preached that the kingdom of God was arriving.  The climax of this section is arguably in 8:27-30 where Peter acknowledges for the first time that Jesus himself is the Christ, the earthly king of the kingdom. [1]

So we have the announcement of the kingdom at the beginning of this section, but the disciples do not yet fully know Jesus' role in that kingdom. He is simply its chief proponent, now that John the Baptist has been arrested.  But by the end of the section they acknowledge that he is in fact the Christ of that kingdom.

Jesus does several different kinds of things in the intervening verses. He recruits and trains followers. In Mark, recruiting Peter, Andrew, James, and John is the first thing he does after he starts preaching the kingdom (1:16-20). [2] Later he will call a tax collector named Levi (2:13-17). [3] Still later Jesus' followers will coalesce into 12 key individuals (3:13-19), probably symbolizing the restoration of the 12 tribes of Israel. Then Jesus sends them out to preach just as he has (6:6-13).

These 12 only scratch the surface of those who followed Jesus in Galilee. The story of Jesus feeding 5000 people one day alone points to a much larger group of Jesus-followers.  The early church understood these twelve to be unique in a way that none since have been or could be (e.g., Acts 1:25; 1 Cor. 15:5). And while Paul understood himself and others to be apostles as well, witnesses to the resurrection (1 Cor. 9:1), he also likely understood himself to be the last of this group (1 Cor. 15:8).

Nevertheless, the Great Commission tells us that making disciples of Jesus didn't stop here.  Jesus sends his disciples to go make other disciples. In Mark 6, Jesus sends out his disciples to assist in throwing demons out of power and in preparing people for the arrival of God's kingdom. In Matthew 28, his core followers are to teach his commandments to all the nations and to baptize them.

In recent times, we have tended to limit the Great Commission to convincing others to become Christians, but there is nothing so narrow in Matthew 28.  Becoming a follower of Jesus in Matthew is more than getting baptized.  It is even more than a process of learning Jesus' teachings. Becoming a follower of Jesus in Matthew means taking on Jesus' yoke (Matt. 11:28-30).  It involves being willing to be persecuted, even crucified because of following Jesus (Matt. 10:38).

A second thing that Jesus did was cast out demons. When Jesus did so, he was doing something much bigger than just helping one person out, although Jesus' exorcist ministry was a clear example of his compassion toward others. Rather, many Jews at the time believed that the earthly realm had come to be in the control of demonic forces since the earliest days of humanity. Therefore, when Jesus cast out demons, he was reclaiming the earth for God--the rule of God was returning to the land once more (cf. Luke 11:20). And he sent his own followers out to participate in this sign of God's approaching kingdom.

Certainly Jesus heals many people in the first half of Mark, perhaps the most obvious example of his compassion.  He heals Peter's mother-in-law (Mark 1:29-31). [4]  He heals a leper (1:40-45) and a paralytic (2:1-12).  He heals a man with a disabled hand (3:1-6) and someone who cannot speak or hear (7:32-37).  He heals a woman with a hemorrhage (5:35-43) and even raises a girl from the dead (5:25-34).

Some of the miracles he did transcended human healing.  On one occasion he multiples food to feed 5000 (6:33-44), on another 4000 (8:1-9).  He calms the sea (4:35-41) and walks on water (6:47-53). These events speak of a power from God that we would call supernatural today, transcending the laws of nature.

Jesus prayed.  Mark gives us only two verses on Jesus' temptation in the desert (1:12-13), but tells us elsewhere that Jesus sought on deserted places to pray (1:35). He would increasingly find it difficult to get alone for such things. If it wasn't the crowds seeking him out, then it was his followers seeking him out for the crowds. We can presume that this time alone with God not only recharged Jesus but also clarified for him his sense of God's will.

It is easy for us to forget that Jesus fully participated in humanity...

[1] In Mark's language, the kingdom of God is the kingdom of God, and thus God the Father remains the ultimate king of the kingdom.

[2]See chapter 5 of The Essential Jesus for more about the followers of Jesus.

[3] Our impulse to harmonize makes us want to equate Levi with the disciple Matthew. After all, in Matthew's version of this story, the name of this tax-collector is named Matthew. At the same time, there are some questions about this identification.  So a disciple Matthew is mentioned in Mark 3:18. If it was the same person as Levi, why wasn't he called Levi there as well.  Mark 2:14 says that Levi's father was Alphaeus, but Mark 3:18 identifies a James as the son of Alphaeus.  None of these observations preclude the possibility that Levi is another name for Matthew.

[4] It is important for some Christian traditions that the apostles not marry, but the most obvious reading of the New Testament is that almost all the apostles had wives. Cf. 1 Cor. 9:5.

1.3 Mark continues

I sent off my draft of the first Jesus book to Wesleyan Publishing House yesterday.  It's probably a little too long which is a potential pain. It's sometimes easier to write from scratch than to edit down something, but we'll see what they say.

So now back to the second book, toward which I've written two posts, the last of which is here.  The first book was about Jesus: The Essentials, the basics or core of Jesus. I'm sure WPH will come up with a better title. The second volume is then about the specific presentations of Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John. No doubt the outline will develop but here's my basic sense of the second volume:

1. Mark's Basic Story
2. The Hidden Jesus (special themes in Mark)
3. The Virgin Birth (Matthew and Luke)
4. The New Moses (Matthew's 5 sermons)
5. Jesus the Rabbi (special themes in Matthew)
6. God's Movement (Luke's history of God's doings)
7. Jesus the Savior (special themes in Luke)
8. Signs and Glory (John's different approach)
9. Jesus the Way (special themes in John)
10. Jesus the Divine Word (John and beyond)

Now to continue Mark...
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Mark 1:1 begins with a simple enough statement: "The beginning of the good news about Jesus the Messiah." The NIV2011 translates the opening verse well for a couple reasons. First, the phrase "good news" is better than "gospel" because it would be easy for us to think that Mark is only saying that this verse was beginning the Gospel of Mark.  But when Mark wrote, the idea of a gospel book hadn't happened yet.

In fact, it may very well be that the idea of a gospel book started right here, with the way Mark worded this verse: "the beginning of the gospel."  Mark meant the beginning of the good news, but it's easy enough to see how some later reader would think of the whole book as a gospel, a new type of literature or genre. If an ancient person had found a scroll of Mark on the street and picked it up, no doubt they would have thought of it as some kind of biography.

Of course there is no birth story.  This might have seemed as odd to an ancient person as it does to us.  How do you have a biography without a birth story?

Then again, we look for different things in the childhood of a famous person than the ancients did. We live in the shadow of Freud, where we want to know the "formative influences" on a child. How did her parents treat her? What kind of a relationship did she have with her mother?

The ancients saw identity in much more fatalistic terms. If the child later became great, there must have been signs of greatness from the very beginning, surely. Were there notable omens at the time of birth? What early indications were there of the later greatness?

Mark simply begins with Jesus' baptism by John.  He hits the ground running with this compact, first gospel. In chapter 4, I'll give some of the reasons why most think Mark was the first of the gospels we now have. Of course we can speculate that some of the traditions about Jesus were written down before Mark, but Mark is the earliest we have for sure.

The good news is about Jesus, the Messiah.  The NIV2011 goes with the Hebrew version of the word "Christ."  Messiah means, "anointed one," and has clear connotations of Jesus' kingship.  Christ is simply the Greek translation of it. Many manuscripts also have "Son of God" here, which is also a royal title that comes from the Old Testament (e.g., Ps. 2; 2 Sam. 7:14)...