Showing posts with label Pharisees. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Pharisees. Show all posts
Saturday, July 14, 2018
Patrons only: Gamaliel and Revolutionaries
My weekly podcast and video are now available for my patrons on patreon.com (that is, for $5 dollar or more a month donors). This week looks at Gamaliel, Pharisees, and revolutionaries in Acts 5.
Sunday, July 21, 2013
Sunday Cafeteria at Camp Meeting...
I was remembering this morning the old practice at Frankfort Camp meeting of taking a "free will offering" for meals on Sunday. Since we didn't believe in buying or selling on the Sabbath (understood to be Sunday), they didn't believe in buying or selling food on Sunday during camp meeting. On the other hand, people had to eat, didn't they?
The answer was a solution the ancient Pharisees would have been proud of (and you have to know that I don't mean that with the bias many would--the Pharisees were not the stereotypical boogie men they are often made out to be--they were just good at finding ways to do things within the rules rather than just making exceptions in certain circumstances). The people who worked in the kitchen were volunteers, so no one was paid for working on Sunday. Meanwhile, the Sunday meal was a free will offering. The normal amount was posted, but not required.
So in theory, you could have eaten for free on Sunday. But with conscience clear, most people just paid the suggested amount. And to be honest, they would have felt like they were stealing if they hadn't. :-)
The answer was a solution the ancient Pharisees would have been proud of (and you have to know that I don't mean that with the bias many would--the Pharisees were not the stereotypical boogie men they are often made out to be--they were just good at finding ways to do things within the rules rather than just making exceptions in certain circumstances). The people who worked in the kitchen were volunteers, so no one was paid for working on Sunday. Meanwhile, the Sunday meal was a free will offering. The normal amount was posted, but not required.
So in theory, you could have eaten for free on Sunday. But with conscience clear, most people just paid the suggested amount. And to be honest, they would have felt like they were stealing if they hadn't. :-)
Monday, March 19, 2012
6.1 Loving God
I didn't quite finish the Jesus chapter on Jesus' followers but wanted to keep moving rather than go for days trying to get inspired to finish it. So I move on to the next chapter, on the Sermon on the Mount and some of Jesus' miscellaneous teaching.
____________
The three Synoptic Gospels all present a scene during the last week of Jesus' earthly mission when he is asked what the greatest commandment is. His answer, while not unheard of at the time, has provided the cornerstone of Christian ethics for the last two thousand years. "'Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind.' This is the first and greatest commandment. And the second is like it: 'Love your neighbor as yourself.' All the Law and the Prophets hang on these two commandments" (Matt 22:37-40).
It is indeed possible to see all the teaching Jesus gave while he was on earth as the working out of these principles into everyday life. These are the two great absolutes of Christian living. For almost any other specific guideline in the Bible, we can think of an exception, a situation where a higher principle can trump another one. But these are the highest values--love God and love neighbor. They never come into conflict with each other, and there is no situation where God would want us to make an exception to the rule.
What does it mean to love God or to love your neighbor? I proposed in the previous chapter that to follow Jesus means to submit to his will over any competing authority or interest. Loving God with all one's being means that God's will takes precedent over family or any other human authority.
But we must be careful not to trick ourselves into thinking God's will conflicts in any way with the love of our neighbor. Justice can actually be an expression of love, when we are trying to steer our children in the right direction or when we are protecting society from someone who is dangerous. In the end, most of us are not even in a position as individuals to administer justice. But we are constantly in a position to show love to others.
The danger is when we use the command to love God as an excuse not to love our neighbor. For example, some might say that loving God means to hate homosexuals and thus that in this instance the command to love God trumps the love of our "enemy." This is nothing less than a trick of the Devil, using the idea of God's will as an excuse to get out of doing God's will, which is to love even our enemy. Jesus would have none of it.
Others have a tendency to turn the love ethic into rules. Loving God means to follow a set of dos and don'ts and to follow them without exception. But to reduce loving God to a set of rules is to go against the very example of Jesus himself. It was not his style to treat rules as exceptionless absolutes, but to make exceptions to general rules because loving people in concrete ways was more important than always following the rules.
The best example is probably when his disciples were picking some grain on Saturday, the Jewish Sabbath. Some Pharisees complained to Jesus that they were breaking the Ten Commandments, working on the Sabbath (Mark 2:23-24). What is interesting is that Jesus doesn't deny it. He doesn't say, "That's not working on the Sabbath." He doesn't say, "The Sabbath is about worship, not about working."
What he says is that there is a time to make exceptions to the rules because loving people concretely often trumps the rules, in this case the Sabbath rule. The example he gives is a time when one of the high priests gave David and his fighting men some of the sacred bread from the sanctuary, something that was completely inappropriate because it belonged only to the priests (Lev. 24:9). There is no wiggling out of this conclusion because Jesus himself said it was unlawful (Mark 2:26). Jesus' point is clear: in concrete situations, loving others will sometimes take precedence over keeping rules, even when we're talking about one of the Ten Commandments!
What does it mean to love our neighbor? ...
____________
The three Synoptic Gospels all present a scene during the last week of Jesus' earthly mission when he is asked what the greatest commandment is. His answer, while not unheard of at the time, has provided the cornerstone of Christian ethics for the last two thousand years. "'Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind.' This is the first and greatest commandment. And the second is like it: 'Love your neighbor as yourself.' All the Law and the Prophets hang on these two commandments" (Matt 22:37-40).
It is indeed possible to see all the teaching Jesus gave while he was on earth as the working out of these principles into everyday life. These are the two great absolutes of Christian living. For almost any other specific guideline in the Bible, we can think of an exception, a situation where a higher principle can trump another one. But these are the highest values--love God and love neighbor. They never come into conflict with each other, and there is no situation where God would want us to make an exception to the rule.
What does it mean to love God or to love your neighbor? I proposed in the previous chapter that to follow Jesus means to submit to his will over any competing authority or interest. Loving God with all one's being means that God's will takes precedent over family or any other human authority.
But we must be careful not to trick ourselves into thinking God's will conflicts in any way with the love of our neighbor. Justice can actually be an expression of love, when we are trying to steer our children in the right direction or when we are protecting society from someone who is dangerous. In the end, most of us are not even in a position as individuals to administer justice. But we are constantly in a position to show love to others.
The danger is when we use the command to love God as an excuse not to love our neighbor. For example, some might say that loving God means to hate homosexuals and thus that in this instance the command to love God trumps the love of our "enemy." This is nothing less than a trick of the Devil, using the idea of God's will as an excuse to get out of doing God's will, which is to love even our enemy. Jesus would have none of it.
Others have a tendency to turn the love ethic into rules. Loving God means to follow a set of dos and don'ts and to follow them without exception. But to reduce loving God to a set of rules is to go against the very example of Jesus himself. It was not his style to treat rules as exceptionless absolutes, but to make exceptions to general rules because loving people in concrete ways was more important than always following the rules.
The best example is probably when his disciples were picking some grain on Saturday, the Jewish Sabbath. Some Pharisees complained to Jesus that they were breaking the Ten Commandments, working on the Sabbath (Mark 2:23-24). What is interesting is that Jesus doesn't deny it. He doesn't say, "That's not working on the Sabbath." He doesn't say, "The Sabbath is about worship, not about working."
What he says is that there is a time to make exceptions to the rules because loving people concretely often trumps the rules, in this case the Sabbath rule. The example he gives is a time when one of the high priests gave David and his fighting men some of the sacred bread from the sanctuary, something that was completely inappropriate because it belonged only to the priests (Lev. 24:9). There is no wiggling out of this conclusion because Jesus himself said it was unlawful (Mark 2:26). Jesus' point is clear: in concrete situations, loving others will sometimes take precedence over keeping rules, even when we're talking about one of the Ten Commandments!
What does it mean to love our neighbor? ...
Saturday, February 04, 2012
Pharisees 2
... continued from yesterday.
______
Our heads are so full of things from Christian tradition and other parts of the New Testament (e.g., Paul) that it is hard for us to hear the connotations words like "healthy" and "sinner" likely had at the time of Jesus in his rhetoric. At least to start with, we should take these words somewhat straightforwardly. The son that initially says he will go work in the field is the "healthy" son and refers to the teachers, elders, Pharisees, and priests of Israel.
Since none of us has ever met an ancient Pharisee today, it is all too easy for us to make them into cartoon characters who are predictably evil and predictably hypocrite. Perhaps you've heard the children's ditty: "I don't want to be a Pharisee, 'cause they're not fair, you see." It is true that Matthew 23 absolutely excoriates the Pharisees as hypocrites, but as with most things, we will have a skewed view of them if we only form our understanding from one passage.
For one thing, the other gospels and Acts do not have as strongly a negative view of them. In John 3, Nicodemus is a Pharisee and is clearly friendly with Jesus, and Jesus is friendly with him. John portrays Nicodemus as surprisingly without understanding (John 3:10), but he is clearly genuine in his pursuit of God. Similarly, Acts sees no contradiction between being a Pharisee and being a follower of Jesus (e.g., Acts 15:5; 23:6).
Additionally, there may very well be aspects to Matthew's situation that have led it to focus on the worst elements in Pharisaism. Many think that Matthew was written in the decades immediately following the destruction of Jerusalem, at the time when the Pharisees were basically all that was left of the leadership of Israel. The Sadducees were priests closely associated with the temple, but the temple was gone. Many Essenes had probably fought as revolutionaries in the Jewish War, but they lost and the Romans hunted others down.
The Romans arguably engaged Pharisees when they looked for someone among those left who could be liaisons between the empire and the people who remained in the land of Israel. These were those who were to set up their leadership at a place called Jamnia. These were those who would shift the focus to purity and away from politics. This was the beginning of what would become rabbinic Judaism.
Matthew's presentation of Jesus' engagement with the Pharisees was about much more than remembering what they were like. It was written to show that Christian Jews were the true heirs of God's people, not Pharisaic Judaism. Matthew accentuates the negative aspects of the Pharisees in its presentations to show its primarily Jewish audience not to follow the current leaders of Israel.
But at the time of Jesus' ministry, the Pharisees were perhaps the most popular religious leaders of Israel. They inspired hope in the people. Their agenda was to return Israel to its covenant with God. If Israel would only be faithful enough, then God would forgive its sins and restore it. When we read the Parable of the Pharisee and the Tax Collector, we are not surprised that Jesus honors the "genuine" tax collector who is honest about his sin. But in Jesus' day, this conclusion would have been quite shocking.
After all, the Pharisees were actually trying to keep the covenant. Jesus never applauds the prostitutes for their sexual activities or the tax collectors for cheating the people. What he does is open the door for their restoration. Similarly, Jesus does not criticize the Pharisees for being strict. He criticizes them for having their priorities out of whack (e.g., Matt. 23:23)...
______
Our heads are so full of things from Christian tradition and other parts of the New Testament (e.g., Paul) that it is hard for us to hear the connotations words like "healthy" and "sinner" likely had at the time of Jesus in his rhetoric. At least to start with, we should take these words somewhat straightforwardly. The son that initially says he will go work in the field is the "healthy" son and refers to the teachers, elders, Pharisees, and priests of Israel.
Since none of us has ever met an ancient Pharisee today, it is all too easy for us to make them into cartoon characters who are predictably evil and predictably hypocrite. Perhaps you've heard the children's ditty: "I don't want to be a Pharisee, 'cause they're not fair, you see." It is true that Matthew 23 absolutely excoriates the Pharisees as hypocrites, but as with most things, we will have a skewed view of them if we only form our understanding from one passage.
For one thing, the other gospels and Acts do not have as strongly a negative view of them. In John 3, Nicodemus is a Pharisee and is clearly friendly with Jesus, and Jesus is friendly with him. John portrays Nicodemus as surprisingly without understanding (John 3:10), but he is clearly genuine in his pursuit of God. Similarly, Acts sees no contradiction between being a Pharisee and being a follower of Jesus (e.g., Acts 15:5; 23:6).
Additionally, there may very well be aspects to Matthew's situation that have led it to focus on the worst elements in Pharisaism. Many think that Matthew was written in the decades immediately following the destruction of Jerusalem, at the time when the Pharisees were basically all that was left of the leadership of Israel. The Sadducees were priests closely associated with the temple, but the temple was gone. Many Essenes had probably fought as revolutionaries in the Jewish War, but they lost and the Romans hunted others down.
The Romans arguably engaged Pharisees when they looked for someone among those left who could be liaisons between the empire and the people who remained in the land of Israel. These were those who were to set up their leadership at a place called Jamnia. These were those who would shift the focus to purity and away from politics. This was the beginning of what would become rabbinic Judaism.
Matthew's presentation of Jesus' engagement with the Pharisees was about much more than remembering what they were like. It was written to show that Christian Jews were the true heirs of God's people, not Pharisaic Judaism. Matthew accentuates the negative aspects of the Pharisees in its presentations to show its primarily Jewish audience not to follow the current leaders of Israel.
But at the time of Jesus' ministry, the Pharisees were perhaps the most popular religious leaders of Israel. They inspired hope in the people. Their agenda was to return Israel to its covenant with God. If Israel would only be faithful enough, then God would forgive its sins and restore it. When we read the Parable of the Pharisee and the Tax Collector, we are not surprised that Jesus honors the "genuine" tax collector who is honest about his sin. But in Jesus' day, this conclusion would have been quite shocking.
After all, the Pharisees were actually trying to keep the covenant. Jesus never applauds the prostitutes for their sexual activities or the tax collectors for cheating the people. What he does is open the door for their restoration. Similarly, Jesus does not criticize the Pharisees for being strict. He criticizes them for having their priorities out of whack (e.g., Matt. 23:23)...
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