Through the Bible -- Mark 13 (Prophecy about Temple)

I was unable to do a summary of Mark 13 during Passion Week, so here is a Sunday post to fill in that gap:

Psalm Sunday
Temple Monday
Debate Tuesday
Maundy Thursday
Good Friday
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1. Mark 13 -- along with its parallels in Matthew 24 and Luke 21 -- often features prominently in end times prophecy teaching. For example, my grandfather believed that the re-establishment of Israel as a nation in 1948 started the last generation before the rapture. There was actually a book written titled, Eighty-Eight Reasons Why the Lord Will Return in 1988. Mark 13 featured in that list.

One of the key reasons is Mark 13's mention of the budding of the fig tree (13:28-31). When you see it bud, you know the summer is near. Then Jesus says that "this generation will not pass" until all these things come to pass (13:30). We've already seen from Mark 11 that the fig tree that withers there likely symbolized the Israel of that day. So couldn't the budding of the fig tree be the re-establishment of Israel?

What happens within that generation? We have just heard in 13:26. The Son of Humanity will come on the clouds of heaven. Is this not the second coming, the return of Christ?

This is an ingenious interpretation. It gets around one of the key riddles of the passage. In the flow of the chapter, Mark 13:30 seems to say that that generation -- his generation, the disciples' generation -- would not pass before the Son of Humanity came on the clouds. The "generation after Israel's rebirth" argument helps alleviate the puzzle, at least until such time as the 1948 generation might all die off.

2. Is it the right interpretation of the passage? It doesn't seem to be what the passage meant originally. But one of the lessons we learn as we watch the New Testament interpet the Old Testament is that fulfillment can happen in more-than-literal ways. Sometimes I call such interpretations "spiritual" interpretations. Or you might call them "figural" interpretations. These are interpretations that weren't clearly in the minds of the Old Testament authors, but they are meanings that the New Testament authors saw in the words of the biblical texts. 

I grew up with this way of interpreting the text without even knowing it. The Spirit could make a passage come alive and speak to you directly. For example, there is a family story about how someone in my family thought God was telling us to move to Florida when the words "thou hast given me a south land" jumped out to her while reading Judges 1:15 in the King James Version. We were trying to decide if it was God's will to move to Florida at the time, and several passages jumped out at various family members. And move to Florida we did.

However, the Israel/fig tree/last generation interpretation of Mark 13 does not seem to be what the text meant originally. "This generation" does seem to refer to Jesus' generation. There is no clear connection between the fig tree illustration here and in Mark 11. And, most importantly, the context of the chapter points to a much different time in history.

God can fulfill the passage however he desires on a more-than-literal level. But Mark 13 originally was not primarily about the end times. It was primarily about the destruction of Jerusalem in AD70. 

3. Let's go back to the beginning of the chapter, Mark 13:1-4. At the end of Mark 12, they are at the temple. Jesus has pointed out that the poor widow has given more proportionally than the wealthy have. As they are leaving the temple, One of his disciples admires the stones of that temple.

That's when Jesus begins the train of thought of the chapter. He tells them that none of those beautiful stones will be left standing on each other. This destruction of that temple happened in AD70. The set up for the chapter is Peter, Andrew, James, and John asking him privately when the destruction of that temple is going to happen (13:4). They want to know what the signs of its impending destruction will be.

This all already happened. Jesus' predictions about the temple all came true. That temple no longer stands -- no stone of it is on top of any other. [1] 

The context is crystal clear. The introduction to the chapter is not about the end times as we think of them. The chapter sets us up to expect the chapter to be about the events surrounding the destruction of the temple by the Romans in AD70.

4. Many will come claiming to be the Messiah, the anointed ones to overthrow the Romans and establish the kingdom of Israel. No doubt claims were made around AD70. They all failed.

Wars, rumors of wars, earthquakes, famines (13:7-8) -- I am amazed when people point to wars in the Middle East as signs of the end times. Have they no sense of history whatsoever? There are always wars, earthquakes, and famines going on and have been throughout history. Mark 13 refers to the Jewish War from AD66-72, culminating in the temple's destruction.

"They will deliver you up to councils" (13:9). Who is the "you" here? Who is Jesus talking to? The passage tells us. He is talking to Peter, Andrew, James, and John. He's not talking to Ken Schenck. It is amazing how narcissistically we sometimes read the Bible, making ourselves the "you" of its passages. It's not wrong to do that. It's just not what the text actually meant originally.

Quite clearly, the "you" of the passage is Peter, Andrew, James, and John. In a secondary sense, the "you" of the passage is the audience of Mark's Gospel. We are not reading the passage in context when we see ourselves as the "you." And what if every Christian for the last 2000 years read themselves as the "you" of the passage? Was the passage fulfilled in the year 1200 too? Maybe. But not literally, not for what Mark 13 actually meant when it was written.

Mark 13:9-13 was originally about the persecution that the early church experienced in the years leading up to the destruction of Jerusalem in AD70. Did Peter, Andrew, James, and John appear before councils like the Sanhedrin? Absolutely they did.

5. Now we get to a key verse in the passage. "When you see the abomination of desolation standing where it must" (13:14). Hal Lindsey and Tim LaHaye in recent times saw this verse in terms of an end times Antichrist setting himself up in a rebuilt temple as God (cf. 2 Thess. 2:4). This is part of the ingenious stitching together of verses that was started by John Darby in the 1800s. Brilliant connective work. And far be it from me to tell God how to spiritually fulfill the biblical text.

But the original, first meaning of Mark 13:14 is overwhelmingly clear. The passage is about the destruction of the temple. The desolation of the temple by the Romans is what Mark has in view. Luke 21 makes the desolation of Jerusalem explicit. In its paraphrase of Mark 13:14, it reads, "When you see Jerusalem surrounded by armies, know that its desolation is near." Luke takes Mark's ambiguous wording and paraphrases it to make its meaning clear. [2]

Mark 13:14 was thus a prediction that the temple Jesus was looking at would be destroyed. There is no place in the Old or New Testament that literally predicts the rebuilding of a temple again. I'm not saying it couldn't happen. I'm simply saying it is not predicted. [3] All the Old Testament prophecies about a rebuilt temple were fulfilled in 516BC with the rebuilding of the second temple.

Most importantly, the inspired book of Hebrews tells us that there is no further need for an earthly temple. Christ has entered the true temple in heaven (Heb. 8:2). With one sacrifice, Christ has ended the need for sacrifice (Heb. 10:14). Christ's atoning sacrifice has ended the sacrificial system of the old covenant (10:9). There is no need for a temple in the end times (Rev. 21:22).

In short, no rebuilt temple today could ever house the glory of God. Hebrews is definitive. Jesus is the only temple we need, and if the temple were ever rebuilt, it would likely become a stumblingblock to the very elect, a easy idol in waiting for Satan to use to distract God's people from the glory of Christ. God's glory will never return to any earthly temple again. Jesus is the glory of God in this regard, end of story.

6. There is an interesting aside in Mark 13:14 -- "let the reader understand." Because of what a reader is today, we are prone to think it's talking about us understanding as we read. But a "reader" in the first century was the person who read a text aloud to an audience, remembering that many if not most early Christians were illiterate.

Some take the verse to relate to the fact that the phrase "abomination of desolations" is an allusion to Daniel 11:31. Matthew 24:15 makes this allusion explicit. Accordingly, some take the expression "let the reader understand" to mean that the person reading should understand that this event is the fulfillment of Daniel.

It was the fulfillment of Daniel in a spiritual sense. The original fulfillment of Daniel 11 took place in 167BC when the Syrians defiled the temple. This is a testament to the multiple meanings that Scripture can have (it's "polyvalence"). Daniel 11:31 had already been fulfilled once by the time of Jesus.

And it was fulfilled again in AD70, as we have seen. We will see if God chooses to go beyond the text's meaning and fulfill it again in the manner of Hal Lindsay and Tim LaHaye.

I and many others think that the statement "let the reader understand" was a reading cue to the person reading Mark to a church in the first century. Highlight this verse, the cue says, because it's important and its soon. Why? Because the verse goes on to tell Peter, Andrew, James, and John to flee Judea when these things are happening (Mark 13:15). Head for the mountains.

And there is a tradition that the Jerusalem church did flee the city before it was destroyed by the Romans in AD70.

The statement "let the reader understand" is sometimes taken as a clue as to when the Gospel of Mark was written. It is often dated to the time just before or just after the temple was destroyed. For various reasons, I suspect the Gospel was started before the temple was destroyed but that it reached its current form not long afterward.

7. The end of the chapter does seem to blur into the return of Christ. You could argue that some biblical prophecy does that. As the prophet looks to the future, similar "eschatological" events blur together. Mark has more than one statement that might have led his first century audience to think that Jesus would return within their lifetime. Mark 13:30 is one of them -- this generation will not pass until all these things happen. Mark 9:1 is another -- some standing here will not die until the kingdom of God has come with power.

N. T. Wright has ingeniously suggested that the coming of the Son of Humanity was a reference either to the departure of Jesus from Israel or to him coming in judgment on Jerusalem. This interpretation would alleviate the tension of the passage in relation to its fulfillment in that generation. [4]

He rightly points out that the language of the sun darkening and moon turning to blood could be similar to the kind of language we used when we talk about "earth-shattering" events. For example, Acts 2:20 seems to relate this language from Joel 2 to the Day of Pentecost. It could refer to something momentous rather than something like solar and lunar eclipses, still less a transformation of the moon into hemoglobin.

8. However, perhaps a reference to Jesus' second coming remains the best interpretation of the final portion of the chapter. Mark blurs from predictions of the destruction of Jerusalem to the final return of Christ. The end of the chapter tells Peter, Andrew, James, and John to be watchful as these events unfold (13:32-36). No one knew exactly when Jerusalem would be destroyed. 

And today, no one knows when Jesus will return. "No one knows the day or the hour" (13:32). It is amazing that people still try to set dates. I am also amazed when people say that the signs of the times are clear that Jesus will come back soon. Certainly we must live in readiness and expectation. But people have been saying "the signs are clear" for hundreds of years. 

My grandfather saw signs in the 1940s of the Lord's imminent return. We were on the edge of our seats in the 1970s with Hal Lindsey. I would hardly let my mother out of my sight at a store for fear she would be taken and I would be left behind. We were expecting again in 1988. We were primed for the "any day" of Tim LaHaye in the early 2000s. 

Yes, we must live in constant expectation, full stop. But we also note that every prediction -- and "it's so clear it's happening soon" -- has failed. 100% failure rate.

Watch and stay awake. Yes! Keep your candle lit. But it will happen "when you least expect it" (Matt. 24:44).

[1] The wailing wall in Jerusalem -- which you can still visit today -- was not a wall of the temple but a retaining wall holding the earth of the temple mount in place.

[2] The overwhelming majority of Bible scholars have concluded that Luke used Mark as one of its primary sources.

[3] 2 Thessalonians 2:14 comes closest because it talks about a man of lawlessness setting himself up in the temple as God. However, the temple was still standing when Paul was alive. The passage does not predict a rebuilt temple. Further, there is debate over what the temple referred to here is. Ezekiel 40-45 is highly symbolic but primarily looked to the re-establishment of the temple after the Babylonian captivity. As we will mention, Hebrews prohibits any future literal fulfillment still to come.

[4] In Daniel 7, the Son of Humanity comes to the Ancient of Days, a movement that at least initially is up rather than down.

2.3 Beyond Relativism and Absolutism

1.1 Unexamined Assumptions
1.2 "Unitary" Thinking
2.1 Binary Thinking in Ethics
2.2 Contextualization in Missions
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12. As seemingly obvious as the idea of contextualization is, it is messy. Let's say that some ethical norm that is important to you is dismissed or downplayed by someone or somewhere else under the name of "that was just cultural on your part." For example, what if a Christian from some part of the world were to say, "Why don't you American Christians greet each other with a holy kiss? 1 Thessalonians 5:26 clearly says to do so."

Maybe the American Christian responds, "That was a cultural practice of the Mediterranean world. Can't I just give you a handshake?" This isn't an issue of debate for us currently, so it is an answer we can easily accept. 

But what if it's an issue of greater significance? The German Christian says, "Your absolute prohibition on drinking is cultural. Can't I just drink in moderation and not get drunk?" What if someone says, "They didn't understand homosexuality in biblical times. What's wrong is visiting a temple prostitute or having sex with boys or forcing yourself on another person"?

You can begin to see the alarm that arose among some when the concept of contextualization came to the fore in the 1970s. "You just don't want to obey God. You're making excuses." And no doubt the concept of differing context has great potential to undermine moral principles. The fallen human mind has exquisite skills at rationalization, which is where you make excuses for inappropriate action. Rationalization is "reasoning away" your guilt or wrong behavior. We're very good at it.

In fact, humans are quite good at arguing that evil is good and good is evil (Isa. 5:20). The high priest "rents his clothes," rips them in a symbolic gesture, when Jesus acknowledges that he is the Son of God (Mark 14:23). "What further need of witnesses do we have?" It doesn't occur to him that Jesus actually might be the Son of God. He is making the good out to be evil.

13. So there is some legitimate concern about someone using the concept of culture to try to "wiggle out" of obedience to God's will. One might also suggest that the situation is different. Someone might say, "Normally it would be wrong to lie, but in this situation it is appropriate." There is a legitimate concern that the person is making excuses for sinful behavior.

About a decade ago, my church expanded its sense of legitimate reasons for divorce to include spousal abuse. It not only included physical abuse but emotional abuse. The idea is that a spouse can be unfaithful in ways that go well beyond sleeping with someone else. In my opinion, this is a good example of an ethical standard that is fully in keeping with the principles of Scripture without it being explicitly ennumerated in the Bible.

The problem is verifying it. "What if someone says they have been abused when they haven't?" I know of a case where a minister divorced his wife in the name of spousal abuse, but there were many who didn't believe him. There was actually an investigation to see if he could keep his ministerial credentials. Legislation was proposed to try to prevent abuse of the abuse clause.

Here we get to a fundamental issue -- if you make exceptions and allowances, someone is going to get away with cheating the allowance. I have heard of middle school teachers and substitutes who simply don't allow their students to use the restroom during class periods. "If you give an inch, they'll take a mile." If you say, "Lying is allowed under certain circumstances," then some people will take advantage of the allowance. If you say, "The prohibition on drinking is cultural," then some Christians are going to take advantage of it. Loopholes can open the door for bad behavior.

When I was an academic Dean, I realized that many policies come into existence because of people who "abuse the system." I remember a couple of faculty members who tried to drive a truck through the fact that there weren't explicit rules against practices that the rest of us followed as a matter of common sense. It was a little funny to me. They were really good at policy-making -- not themselves, but inspiring the rest of us to make policies so they couldn't abuse some aspect of the system.

14. However, in the end, I have a few responses to the fear of people abusing the concept of contextualization. The first is the old saying that "abuse is no excuse." The fact that someone might take advantage of the concept is a different issue than whether the concept is true or not. This is a form of the "fallacy of diversion." It confuses the application of a truth with the truth itself.

As we will see, it is simply the case that moral principles can play out differently in different situations and different contexts. I have a friend who thought he was having a major medical emergency. He had his wife drive him quickly to the hospital in the middle of the night. Later on, telling his young daughter about the incident, she was alarmed to find that her mother had driven through red lights on the way to the hospital. 

In the binary ethical thinking of childhood, a red light is a red light. You don't run it ever. No exceptions. It's an absolute. It wouldn't matter if you were having a baby or dying of a heart attack. A rule's a rule.

Take the question of abortion. It is sometimes argued that, if we prohibit abortion, women will die in unsavory places trying to get one illegally. But this is a bad argument against prohibiting abortion. The objection to the prohibition relates to the application of a moral principle rather than the validity of the principle itself. Possible implications are a motivation to make sure we are right about the core ethic rather than an argument in relation to the ethic itself.

15. A second response is of course that God knows. No one is truly getting away with anything. God knows when we try to make evil good and good evil. In fact, God knows what is really going on inside our hearts even when we don't. We can hide our true motivations from ourselves. But God knows.

I suspect that some of the push back on these concepts is ultimately about control. We want to be able to police those who might abuse allowances. When my wife was in elementary school, a teacher expressed frustration to her father that she was always out of her seat. My father-in-law asked the teacher, "Why don't you tell her to sit down?" His response was full of pathos: "Because she always has a good reason!" Apparently, she had mad skills at coming up with reasonable excuses for undesired behavior.

I once worked with a professor who had elaborate systems to catch students at cheating. It's not that I didn't have my own techniques too, but he seemed to enjoy the quest to catch the cheater maybe a little too much. At some point, we have to remember that God is in control. It's not our job to catch every person whose motives aren't pure. In the end, God is the judge of our intentions (1 Cor. 4:3; Rom. 12:19; Heb. 4:12-13).

16. It is no surprise that as awareness of context became clearer and clearer in the missions circles of the 1970s, opposition to the concept of contextualization rose as well. In the first chapter, I talked about the predictable opposition to difference that arises when a new idea or practice is introduced that shakes or threatens to undermine the status quo. When we have unexamined assumptions about ideas or practices that are important to us, we can react very negatively toward the introduction of other thinking or approaches.

There are rhetorical machines that go to work to maintain the status quo. I've suggested that binary thinking is a predictable response -- the new idea or practice is evil or stupid. Rhetorical machines produce fine-sounding arguments why the new idea or practice is wrong. Some of these arguments can be quite clever. I often use the word ingenious for an incredibly intelligent work-around what seems more or less straightforward.

I had a oneness Pentecostal student once. Oneness Pentecostals don't believe in the Trinity. They are "modalists" who think that God the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit are all the same, one person in different modes during different periods of history. 

This student was incredibly bright. At some point, we got into a discussion of Matthew 28:19, where Jesus tells his followers to baptize in the name of the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. The most obvious reading of this verse, it seems to me, is that three distinct persons are mentioned here.

His response was ingenious. "Notice that the word name is singular. Even though there are three titles given here, they all relate to the one person who ultimately only has one name." Ingenious!

He didn't come up with that argument, of course. It was an argument created by the "machine" of his church to explain away what I would call "naughty verses" for them -- verses that seem to go against their theology. Every theological system has them. Some verses just fit more easily into our theological systems than others. More on paradigms in a later chapter.

17. Other arguments against a new concept are not quite as clever. You might call them "above average" arguments. They sound intelligent enough that, if they are arguing for a position you like, they provide an excuse to keep the ideas and practices you started out with. They work inside the bubble. Social media and legacy media are constantly giving us talking points that allow us to keep the positions we want to keep.

Of course binary thinking doesn't stop with letting me maintain a belief or practice. Rhetorical machines typically go on the offensive. They provide me with smart sounding reasons not only for why I am correct but why the other side is either stupid or evil. This is especially the case with political rhetoric.

In push-back to moves toward contextualization, an above average rhetorical machine went into action. It used the concepts of absolutes and relativism to try to undermine what it called "situational ethics" and "ethical relativism." These concepts became tools in the arsenal of idealological resistance. If you are claiming that Christians in some other place don't have to follow certain norms, we can shut you down by labeling you a relativist. If you are claiming that it's ok to steal if you're hungry, we can shut you down by calling that "situational ethics."

However, upon the simplest of examinations, this rhetoric doesn't actually do what it wants to do. Fundamentally, it tries to put all ethics into two boxes -- people who believe in right and wrong and those who don't. Absolutists are those who believe in right and wrong. Relativists are those who don't. It is an either/or, binary option. In the end, it is the fallacy of false alternative.

For example, an absolute by definition has no exceptions. Now consider the biblical instruction to submit to those in authority over you (Rom. 13:1; Heb. 13:17). Is that an absolute without exceptions? 

Apparently not. Peter tells the Sanhedrin that they will not submit to its authority. "You tell us whether it is right to obey God or you" (Acts 4:19). That is to say, the principle of submitting to authority is a universal principle with exceptions. By definition, this is not an absolute. But it is not relativism either. It is another option on the ethical spectrum -- universal norm with exceptions.

18. Biblically, we find absolutes. But we also find universal norms with exceptions, and we also find instances of relativism. I would argue that the default scope of moral instruction in the Bible is universal with exceptions. Don't work on the Sabbath, but if your ox is in the ditch, make an exception (Matt. 12:11; Luke 14:5).

In this case, Paul goes beyond the Sabbath as a universal norm to more or less consider the Sabbath legislation as a matter of whether you are a Jew or a Gentile. He tells the Gentile Colossians not to let anyone judge them on whether they keep the Jewish Sabbath (Col. 2:16). Paul's teaching on the Jewish particulars of the Law approaches a kind of cultural relativism. I suspect he taught that it's fine for Jews to continue to abstain from pork, but Gentiles are not obligated to keep the food laws (so also Mark 7:19).

Indeed, you could argue that Paul makes Sabbath-keeping a matter of individual conviction in Romans 14:5 -- one person believes they must keep the Sabbath; another doesn't. Let that sink it. Paul makes Sabbath-keeping a matter of individual conscience and conviction. That goes beyond cultural relativism to individual relativism!

19. In short, the absolute-relativism rhetoric in the end doesn't do what it tries to do. Yes, the command to love God and neighbor is absolute -- no exceptions (Matt. 22:36-40). But other biblical commands seem to imply that there can be exceptions. There is the old question of someone hiding Jews during Nazi occupation during World War II. Do you lie when they ask if you are hiding Jews? The story of Rahab in Joshua 2 seems to imply as much. [8]

Upon considering this scenario, I had a student who said, "I guess it's ok to sin under some circumstances." But that is NOT what this argument is saying. We are saying that the right thing to do in some circumstances is to make an exception and that the wrong thing to do in some circumstands is to keep a rule. This student had the frameowork of absolutism so deeply carved on her mind that she couldn't see that it could actually twist morality in some extreme cases. [9]

But if there are potential exceptions, then the rhetoric falls apart. A concept or action cannot be dismissed simply by labeling. Now we have to do the hard work of ethical thinking. We have to identify moral principles that are in tension with each other and figure out which one takes precedence in this context or situation. But if we have to argue that out, then the rhetoric doesn't work as a quick answer to all our ethical questions.

If there are ethical norms that are universal but have exceptions, then I cannot use language of absolutes to shut down conversation. I have to do the hard work of ethical thinking. In the end, what a lot of people mean when they say "there are absolutes" is that "there is definite right and wrong." The problem is that relativists believe this too. They just think it depends on the culture, person, or situation. The rhetoric falls apart.

20. I grew up believing in convictions. Romans 14 is all about them. God may require something of me that he doesn't require of you. The Nazirites of the Old Testament were not allowed to drink or cut their hair. But everyone else could. This is an example of relativism.

There are individuals who were an alcoholic before they became a Christian. I have a friend who, while recognizing that the Bible fully allows the consumption of alcohol, would never drink himself because of his background. Abstinence for him is a personal conviction. This, again, is an example of ethical relativism, and it is biblically sanctioned.

Once again, we see that the "above average" machine of argumentation doesn't accomplish what it set out to do. Rhetoric of absolutes and relativism was meant to shut down any sense that ethics involves contextualization or the consideration of individuals or situation. But Scripture itself shuts the argument down.

Rather than morality being a binary of black and white, it involves a spectrum of possible decisions. There are moral absolutes. We've mentioned loving God and loving neighbor. All other ethical imperatives flow from these two. "Thou shalt not murder." This is an absolute because it does not include war or capital punishment or self-defense. If we worded it, "Thou shalt not kill," it would not be an absolute.

However, most ethical norms, it would seem, are on the level of universal principle with potential exceptions. There is a place in Scripture also for culturally relative norms -- wrong for one culture, allowed for another. And there is a place in Scripture for individual convictions, which are instances of personal relativism.

As you can see, morality is not a binary in this respect. It is a spectrum. We mentioned at the beginning of the chapter that moral nihilism is the approach to ethics that doesn't believe in any right or wrong. Relativism does believe in definite rights and wrongs. It is definitely wrong for my friend to drink, even though he would allow it might not be wrong for others. So it isn't even accurate to say that relativists don't believe in right and wrong.

Former President Biden is apparently a relativist when it comes to the subject of abortion. He believes it is wrong, but he wouldn't say it is wrong for others. The argument against him should not be, "That's relativist." The argument should be, "This is not an issue on which relativism is appropriate."

In the end, the absolutism/relativism argument fails to do what it sets out to do. On various issues, the Bible can be seen to take positions across the spectrum of moral scope. We therefore have to determine what the appropriate moral scope is for each action. We cannot simply dismiss an action by categorizing it. We have to do the hard work of moral reasoning.

We will return to ethics in chapter 8. Our purpose in this chapter has been to start us on the journey. The first step is to realize that we have moral assumptions we didn't know we had. The second step was for us to realize that binary thinking, while a natural response to new ideas, does not ultimately seem to work. There is a spectrum of moral scope. We will try to set a firmer philosophical basis for Christian ethics in chapter 8.

[8] Around 1800, Immanuel Kant coined the phrase "categorical imperative" in ethics. His philosophy was that, if something was wrong, it was always wrong without exceptions -- it was categorically wrong. He tried and tried to reformulate it so that it would make sense, but his difficulty ultimately belies the fact that he was just wrong. 

His particular German culture was absolutist, but he couldn't pull off the argument. He finally said his categorical imperative amounted to the Golden Rule. But an exceptionless moral absolutism inevitably would violate the Golden Rule by applying an absolute standard to situations calling for exception or mercy. It inevitably leads to immoral action under extreme circumstances.

[9] I might add that while I am making my thinking fairly explicit in this series, I function more as a facilitator in teaching. In this case, I did not argue against the student's position, but I wanted her to understand accurately the nature of the argument.

2.2 Contextualization in Missions

In theory, Thursday is my philosophy writing day (I have a schedule that life often doesn't allow). Here is what I have written so far on "Pilgrim's (Philosophical) Progress":

1.1 Unexamined Assumptions
1.2 "Unitary" Thinking
2.1 Binary Thinking in Ethics
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8. I suspect that some missionaries in the early 1900s were largely unreflective in their understanding of culture. Again, there is the person who is curious about differences. This person presumably makes for a good missionary because they are interested in other people as people and are willing to hear how other people think and operate in the world in a non-condescending and non-judgmental way. We're not talking about compromising on principles or the gospel. We're talking about the forms that Christian faith takes at a particular time and place.

As we have already said, a large number of people are wired to see difference automatically as something that needs to be corrected. "I'm right. You're wrong. And I need to fix you." I have little doubt but that a sizeable number of early missionaries entered other cultures unable to distinguish their Christian faith from their American Christian culture. (As we will see, this dynamic likely applies also to the way many American Christians approach politics.)

Let's say two people go on a missions trip to visit a field where there is already a strong Christian community. One person comes away thinking, "God is really using the church there to lead people to Christ and do good in their context." Another person has only seen how "crazy" they are there. Fun stories of difference seem more about how ignorant and inferior they are in the other place.

The first person is more reflective. The second person may not have taken anything of value away from the trip except that it has confirmed to them how ignorant people in other places are. The ironic fact is, however, that it is much more likely that the second person is ignorant of themselves, and the trip has only hardened them in their ignorance. It has confirmed to them their superiority.

These days, there is often mandatory preparation before mission trips of these sorts. There is absolutely training before you can go to a field for any extended period of time. We've learned over the years. 

But there was a day when visitors were not always particularly helpful to those on the field. The visitor might come with a savior complex, expecting to be provided with American-level standards of comfort and provision, creating a lot of extra work for the missionary or hosts, distracting from their work. Rather than helping, the mission team had to interrupt their work to take care of individuals who were largely oblivious to their own assumptions and needs.

I heard a story in recent years of an important person who went to engage a work in another country. Rather than stay onsite in the facilities of those with whom he was working, he insisted on staying in a location more comfortable for him at some significant remove from the site. Although I think we have gotten much better, I fear this sort of mindset and unwillingness to live as those whom we are allegedly serving was all too common in an earlier day. I believe nationals in other countries would readily confirm this impression, especially in earlier days.

When I was in Africa for a few months in the 90s, I heard stories of missionaries who engaged little with the people they were serving. Everything about them said, "I am superior to you, and you are blessed to have me here to help you." Certainly not all missionaries were that way. As I have said, I think we have become a lot more reflective about these dynamics in the last fifty years. 

Hopefully, we have moved well beyond being "unitary" and "binary" thinkers in our missions work. A unitary thinker doesn't even know they have hidden assumptions. I suspect many of the early missionaries fell in this category. Meanwhile, a binary thinker devalues or demonizes other ways of thinking and other practices. 

Later in the book, we will try to move toward greater self-awareness and a sense that there is often a spectrum of potential perspectives rather than just two options. Hopefully, we can move toward what we might call "incarnational" thinking, which is contextualized thinking. The word incarnation of course alludes to the fact that Jesus came to earth and took on our flesh (John 1:14). He did not share the gospel as a superior angel standing on the outside. He became one of us. He lived among us. He was one of us.

9. The 1970s saw an increasing emphasis on "contextualization" in missions. Contextualization is when you distinguish between the core of the Christian gospel and the form the gospel takes in a particular context. As you would expect, there was significant opposition to the concept. For example, the 1974 Lausanne Conference affirmed contextualization as an important missionary principle amid strong debate.

When we cannot tell the difference between our culture and the gospel, contextualization can feel like moral compromise. We think someone is "taking away" from Scripture when what they are really trying to do is translate it for another context. If women in my Christian culture wear their hair up in buns, then I end up instructing the women in other places to wear their hair up in buns.

In the mid-1900s, my church had a work among Native Americans in South Dakota, an "Indian school." I have no doubt but that the school did much good. However, I also suspect that there was a good deal of confusion about what was the missionary's culture and what was the core gospel. The native American students inevitably ended up looking like the missionaries in how they dressed, buns and all.

In the 1990s, my church decided that these native American believers should decide for themselves what the forms of Christian faith looked like in their context. Unaware of ourselves, we as outsiders were likely to mix our customs with the gospel, unable to tell the difference. The church concluded that the native American leaders were in a much better position to apply or "contextualize" the gospel in their culture.

Imagine the alarm when the native Americans incorporated some native dances into their district conference. Dancing was prohibited in the American Christian culture of the missionaries. From an outsider perspective, some said, "Dancing was part of Indian religion. You are being 'syncretistic' when you dance -- especially in your Christian worship." [5] 

The native American Christians responded. "You didn't understand. Everything was a part of our religion. You didn't understand because, in your culture, religion is compartmentalized. It is one area among many areas of your life. Dancing was not intrinsically part of our former religion any more than anything else. It is a part of our culture that you assumed was distinctively religious."

In the last two decades, Christianity has become more concentrated in the southern hemisphere. [6] The countries of the rest of the world have started to send missionaries to us. The United Methodist Church was not able to change its understanding of marriage largely because of the voice of its members from the global south. The American church largely has not woken up to realize that the shape of future Christianity is less and less in our hands. It is only the fact that we have more money that is maintaining more influence at present. 

One day we may wake up and find that the "inferior" Christians of the rest of the world have become the Christian leaders of the world. The binary thinkers among us will inevitably see them as corrupting the gospel, of mixing their culture with absolute truth. And it is inevitable that they will mix their culture with the gospel. What we should realize is that we have also been doing this all along.

10. This chapter is about moving beyond unitary and binary thinking in ethics. In chapter 8, we will return to this subject and explore more deeply the spectrum of approaches to ethics. I will argue that what is distinctively Christian are the core values and the priorities of ethics. But most ethical approaches have a place somewhere in the constellation of our decisions.

This is what I sometimes call "spectrum" thinking. We move beyond thinking there are only two approaches -- and especially beyond not even knowing we have an approach. We become more fully aware of our assumptions.

The idea that context affects how we apply ethical principles seems beyond question to me. There are those who would say that the idea of "abstracted principles" is Western. So be it. It works as a way of analyzing ethics. We can use the paradigm as a heuristic method without insisting it is the only right one. The end result in how we live and think broadly is the goal.

In chapter 8, we will explore more deeply the fact that the Bible itself gives us incarnated ethics. It is unreflective to read the Bible as words that are in a bubble. Every word of the Bible made sense to its authors and audiences in their worlds. That means these words were incarnated in culture too. It's a game changer of a paradigm shift. We will investigate this concept further soon enough.

For the moment, we are taking the first step toward ethical self-awareness. Is it possible that some of my approach to right and wrong is influenced by the culture around me? I'm not just referring to secular culture but to the Christian culture around me.

11. One issue my own church has debated now for several decades is that of drinking in moderation. In the 1800s and 1900s, there was a denial that the Bible even allowed for drinking fermented alcohol. Jesus was thought to turn the water into grape juice or the wine was thought to be so diluted that it was for all intents and purposes non-alcoholic. Meanwhile, all people who drink were villified. Many still hold these positions.

However, there has been a move toward reflectivity. I would say that, in my church today, most would acknowledge that Jesus drank fermented alcohol (Luke 7:33-34). The very fact that Nazirites were singled out for not drinking alcohol suggests that the vast majority of Israelites did drink.

Accordingly, the debate has largely shifted away from a biblical argument to a contextualization one. In our context, is our best Christian witness one in which we abstain from alcohol or one in which we drink? Having lived in England and Germany for several years, at some point I came to the realization that this is largely a matter of a certain American Christian culture. European Christians drink all the time without getting drunk or hindering their witness. 

But unreflectiveness abounds on every side in this debate. There are still those who seem largely unaware of the assumptions and practices of biblical times. Alarmed by the "moral decline" of the church, they can only see the forces arguing to allow moderate drinking as forces of moral compromise. A number of counter-arguments are given that are only convincing to the already convinced, as we might predict.

Then there is the ethical unreflectiveness of the "other side." They unreflectively assume that if something was allowed in biblical times, then it must be allowed in our times. Indeed, this was a core unreflective assumption of the Protestant Reformation. One of the Thirty-Nine Articles of the Church of England reads in part, "Whatsoever is not read therein, nor may be proved thereby, is not to be required of any man."

Many Protestants take this sentiment to mean that if the Bible doesn't specifically forbid it, we can't forbid it. But this approach is oblivous to the principle of contextualization. "Doing what they did isn't doing what they did if the meaning is different today," I have pointed out. [7] The Bible was written to cultures at particular times and places. It is enculturated thinking and practices as well, incarnated principles, if you would.

Accordingly, the following principle is also true. We may not be able to do some of the things they were able to do in biblical times because the meaning is different today. It is possible that not drinking is more appropriate for Christians in some cultures even though it is allowed in Scripture. As it turns out, there are individuals on "both sides" of this issue that have unexamined assumptions they have absorbed from their culture. 

Those who see that drinking was allowed in Scripture often do not realize that the Bible was contextual and inevitably must be recontextualized in our times and places. There is no way around it. If we deny it, we will inevitably misapply Scripture.

[5] Syncretism is when you mix elements of other religions into your religion.

[6] Cf. Philip Jenkins, The Next Christendom: The Coming of Global Christianity. 3rd ed. (Oxford University, 2011).

[7] Kenneth Schenck, Jesus Is Lord: An Introduction to the New Testament, 2nd ed. (Slingshot, 2008).

Though the Bible -- Mark 16 (Easter)

Happy Easter! I have done a more detailed verse-by-verse analysis of the resurrection stories in the Gospels in Explanatory Notes on Jesus' Resurrection.

Psalm Sunday
Temple Monday
Debate Tuesday
Maundy Thursday
Good Friday

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1. The burial of Jesus is not the end of the story! In many ways, it is just the beginning.

We get the impression from the other Gospels that Jesus was buried somewhat hurriedly. Joseph of Arimathea secures the body. The women take note of where his body was put so that they can come back after the Sabbath and perform proper burial rites. What can be done is done before the Sabbath begins at sundown.

Accordingly, the women come early on Sunday morning to the tomb with spices to anoint Jesus' body. Present are Mary Magdalene, Mary the mother of James, and Salome (16:1), the same three women mentioned in 15:40. In that world, they are overlooked and often unseen. The others are hiding, but they are still thinking about Jesus.

Who will roll the stone away? It is apparently a large stone in front of the tomb. They are not expecting there to be any other people around. It is barely sunrise. But to their surprise, the stone in front of the tomb is already rolled away.

As we have seen throughout Mark, his presentation is very to the point. The women go into the tomb. It is apparently big enough at least for four people, for when they go inside, there is a young man in white sitting there on the right. Although Mark does not tell us, Matthew tells us this was an angel.

2. "He is risen!" That is the message that the angel gives them. "Don't be amazed."

But the women are fearful. Mark 16:8 ends the Gospel as it has survived with the women telling no one out of fear. More on the ending of Mark in a moment. It is curious that Mark says the women tell no one out of fear. In Matthew, which almost all think used Mark as its main source, the women immediately tell the disciples, as also in Luke and John. 

Some have suggested that the women's reaction in Mark 16:8 fits with Mark's repeated sense of the disciples' misunderstanding. They repeatedly do not understand what is really going on. They don't understand the nature of Jesus' mission. They don't understand that he has to die. Here, they don't see that this is exactly what Jesus had been saying would happen.

Others have suggested that this ending is meant to urge us to tell about Jesus' resurrection. The women don't tell. Are you going to remain silent too? Go and tell that Jesus is risen!

3. Some have misread Mark as not teaching resurrection. But the angel clearly tells them that Jesus is risen. Just because Mark does not narrate any resurrection appearances doesn't mean he doesn't believe they happened. He clearly alludes to resurrection appearances in Galilee.

In Matthew and Mark, we only hear about resurrection appearances in Galilee. The fact that Peter is singled out probably alludes that the key resurrection appearance in Galilee was to him. The only candidate we have among the various appearances mentioned in the Gospels is John 21, along the Sea of Galilee. Luke syncopates the Galilee appearances out of his narrative, although he hints of the appearance to Peter in Luke 24:34.

These curiosities are a reminder that the picture is likely much clearer to us -- with four Gospels -- than it was to them as they lived through it. We wonder how anyone could question. But Jesus' appearances likely left room for both faith and doubt. As it is with us, there was enough evidence for faith if we have the heart for it. And there was enough room for doubt if someone had the heart for it.

4. The ending of Mark was quite a debate point when versions other than the King James began to come out. The earliest Greek manuscripts of Mark do not have 16:9-20. There is early evidence for it in the quotations of the Fathers, but these come to us by way of later manuscripts too. We can have fun debates about the external evidence for the ending. 

The internal evidence is definitive. Mark 16:9 starts the resurrection story all over again, as if 16:1-8 didn't exist. It is in a different style, giving a pop-pop-pop summary rather than a narrative unfolding like the rest of Mark. In short, it is an obvious tack-onto a version of Mark that seemed to end abruptly. It caps a tooth using an early summary of Jesus' resurrection appearances, a summary that draws from the endings of the other Gospels. The summary may indeed be as old as the second century. There is another shorter ending among the manuscripts that did the same thing.

There's thus nothing wrong with the content of Mark 16:9-20. I suspect it's all true. It just wasn't part of the original Gospel of Mark. Given how ancient and orthodox it is, I don't have a problem with pastors using it (for example, I have seen pastors quote it's version of the Great Commission). However, I suspect many do so without realizing it.

Did Mark really end at 16:8? Like the ancient church, 16:8 does seem like an odd way to end the Gospel. I personally lean toward a sense that the original ending was lost or removed very early on. I've heard some suggest that the ending of Matthew points toward how Mark orignally ended. 

Whatever the case, God has let it come to us as it is and there is nothing wrong with it. It does leave us with the question of what we will do. Will we be silent in fear or will we tell others that Jesus is risen. There is space for doubt. But there is space for faith too! What will you do?

2.1 Binary Thinking in Ethics

I have been formulating my personal philosophy as a journey. The first chapter was on "Unexamined Assumptions." Here is that chapter in 2 Parts: part 1 and part 2. Chapter 2 continues the journey into ethics. 
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1. Philosophy is about ultimate things and the answers to ultimate questions. It stands alongside all other fields of inquiry and asks, "What is the scientist really doing?" "What is the historian really doing?" Or the artist or the psychologist. 

Or the minister and priest. This latter "meta" inquiry is of course very sensitive. [1] Should anyone be allowed to ask questions about God? Or does asking questions about God put us in a seat of authority we shouldn't have as mere humans?

The Bible allows questions. We hear them in the prophets. "How long, oh Lord?" (Hab. 1:2). The psalmists ask this question repeatedly. "My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?" Jesus cries out from the cross, quoting Psalm 22:1. "Why do the nations rage?" (Ps. 2:1

You can ask questions with different attitudes, though. You can ask questions truly seeking answers. You can ask questions in pursuit of faith. And you can ask questions in pursuit of doubt. You can ask questions about God as if you are in the driver's seat. And you can ask questions about God because you just don't know. 

I have already advocated the long-standing Christian approach known as "faith seeking understanding" (fides quaerens intellectam). We start with the faith we have and go from there. We do so as genuine seekers because we don't want to get it wrong.

The fact that we inevitably start off with assumptions that are wrong is no offense to God. It is in large part a consequence of the Fall. Seeking the truth is thus ideally a quest for God -- the real God rather than the one of our potentially false assumptions. God believes what is truly true. Our inevitable starting point is to have some beliefs that are not true. Thus, rightly done, philosophy is a quest for the thoughts of God amid the inevitable thoughts of man.

Not everyone of course is equally suited for this task. Some of us are gifted in the area of abstract thought. Others may be more easily led astray in the world of thought. I accept that it may be appropriate for some not to question but to trust those they respect. I would only urge that it be done with humility, as the quest must also be done.

Yet our quest will ultimately lead to humility for those who love the quest, love ideas, and are gifted at such "meta-thinking." If the quest ends in arrogance, we have not done it right. There are many of us who have not done it right.

2. I want to start our quest to move beyond binary thinking with ethics. I'm sure you have heard the word. Let's start with a working definition. Ethics is about what is right and wrong. As we will see, even that definition is unreflective, but it helps us get the ball rolling. It helps us start the journey.

Like all ultimate matters, the question of ethics is sensitive. Our sense of right and wrong is deeply ingrained on our psyche. It's something we generally don't question -- or at least there is a lot of pressure not to question our sense of right and wrong. By the time we reach adulthood, we likely have a host of "mores" or "customs" built in.

There is a machine of control in place to keep us in line, especially if we grow up in a particular religion. In many cultures, the instrument is honor and shame. Deep values are implanted in the heart of a child's mind so that they want to seek honor and avoid shame. In Western culture, we try to instill a desire to avoid guilt. We want that angel on their shoulder (Freud's superego) so that they will resist the devil on the other one (Freud's id).

In evangelical circles, we have Sunday Schools to instill these core values. We want to imprint our way of life into our children at a young age. "Train up a child in the way they should go" (Prov. 22:6). With good intentions, we are trying to "indoctrinate" them. And, I don't think it's crazy to say that the Bible often serves as a tool of control to keep us in line.

The ironic thing, of course, is that the Bible often raises questions about our cultural ethics. My seventh and eighth grade Sunday School class has been working through Joshua, Judges, and 1 Samuel. The young people ask many difficult ethical questions every week. Why was Jael considered good when she drives a tent peg through a man's head? Was Rahab right to lie? Did Jephthah really sacrifice his daughter?

3. I remember when I realized that the Bible doesn't outright condemn polygamy. Don't get me wrong. I think it is headed in that direction, and I fully affirm monogamous marriage as God's ideal. But this is one area where I had this moment of realization about my own unexamined assumptions about what the Bible means.

Jacob of course has two wives and two concubines. Not a word of condemnation is given. David was a man after God's own heart and yet had many wives. A key moment in my quest to know the Bible was when I realized that Deuteronomy 21:15-17 assumes that a man might have more than one wife. The passage says nothing about the man needing to get his life in order and only have one wife. It assumes that polygamy was a normal practice in Israel.

What about Genesis 2:24 -- a man becomes one flesh with his wife? I had always assumed this was one man and one woman. But a man becomes one flesh with every woman he has sex with (1 Cor. 6:16). He becomes one flesh with a prostitute, for example. (By the way, this is not the same as marriage. Paul would never say that such a man had to marry the prostitute.)

In short, a polygamous man in the Old Testament became one flesh with each of his wives. Imagine my surprise when it occurred to me that Boaz might already have had a wife or two when he married Ruth. Nothing in the story precludes that possibility. It may actually be more likely than not.

Mind blown! I had an unexamined assumption about what the text was saying -- an assumption that I think is right in terms of how we should live and what God's ideal is for us. But I didn't know what I didn't know. I didn't see that I had hidden assumptions. My thinking was "unitary," using a term I coined in the first chapter.

4. What I'm getting at is that the Bible often isn't as entirely the source of what we say is right and wrong as we think. That doesn't mean our values are wrong. It may just mean that we are unreflective about the full basis for those values and where they come from.

When I taught New Testament, I had the students write a final paper in which they took a position on a contemporary issue based on the teaching of the New Testament. But I always warned them. It's best to pick an issue that the New Testament directly addresses. I made this warning because I often would get papers on abortion with lots of statistics and moral sentiments but not a single verse from the Bible.

It seems clear to me that our position on abortion is broadly based on the ethical principle that it is wrong to kill, but there is almost nothing in the Bible itself that directly addresses the topic. Almost every Scripture I have heard quoted involves unexamined assumptions that aren't clearly in the texts coupled with logical fallacies. 

In other words, there is a significant amount of theological glue involved in this position of the highest importance to us. If you set out the logic of our position, there are premises that come from outside the text. That doesn't make our position wrong, but it does show that our position is actually as much or more theology and philosophy as Bible.

We are on a journey of unexamined assumptions because we want to know what God thinks. A key realization on that quest is that some of what we say is the Bible is actually our assumptions rather than the Bible itself. The Bible can become merely symbolic. It can become a white board of culture and a power tool to keep our group under control. It can become a bannerhead, a placard. But if we look inside, sometimes we may not hear what we want to hear if we truly listen.

5. There is a delightful story in the Histories of the Greek historian Herodotus, who wrote in the 400s BC. [2] In the story, king Darius asks two groups of individuals what their practices were in relation to their parents when they die. The Greeks respond that they burn their bodies on a funeral pyre (Star Wars style).

The other group, the Callatians, were horrified. They thought such practices were abhorrent. "What then do you do?" Darius asks. "Why we eat our dead parents of course."

At this point, Herodotus draws a conclusion. "Custom is king over all." In other words, he draws a relativist conclusion and what we now call "cultural relativism." In this view, right and wrong entirely depends on where you grew up. 

Indeed, I was initially puzzled by the fact that the Greek word ethos and the Latin word mos -- from which we get the words ethics and morals -- initially meant "customs" or "habits." This made no sense to me initially because "everyone knows" that morality is about absolutes. It's about what is universally right and wrong everywhere in all times and places.

More on absolutes in a moment. Certainly most people in most cultures do not consider their values to be "cultural." They think they're just plain right. 

In Western culture, Herodotus is sometimes called the "father of history" because he went beyond simply repeating his people's traditions or assuming the Greeks were always in the right. He pursued source material and tried to be more even-handed in his treatment of the evidence. He was not a historian in the modern sense, but he is often seen as a benchmark. 

Indeed, the fact that he didn't privilege the Greeks led Plutarch to call him the "father of lies." Plutarch used his intellect to reinforce Greek cultural assumptions and values. In his own way, Herodotus began to use his intellect to ask the question of what is actually true -- which goes beyond the Greeks. The real truth is what God thinks, and God is bigger than any human tribe.

6. By the end of our journey, I hope to end with a justification of definite rights and wrongs. But because we start off with unexamined assumptions -- blind spots -- we can live with a little disequilbration for a moment. Inevitably, our views on right and wrong do have a lot to do with where we are born. And even as Christians, the morals we see in the biblical texts are deeply influenced by our culture.

In philosophy, I often shared a list of fascinating differences between different cultures. I've mentioned the polygamy of many cultures and the fact that the Callatians ate their dead parents. Obviously, there have been cannabalistic cultures that eat their enemies as well. [3] In certain Inuit cultures, the elderly might self-sacrifice (or be left behind to starve) because of the scarcity of resources... without it being considered wrong.

The ancient Spartans encouraged their young people to learn how to steal as a valuable skill. Some Greeks valued quasi-sexual relationships between male mentors and the young men they mentored. In ancient Egypt, a man's family (including pets) were often buried alive with the dead husband. 

Even into modern times, the practice of suttee in India burned the live widow of a dead husband on the same funeral pyre as him. Female circumcision continues in Africa to this day. In Japan up until recent times, the honorable thing for a woman to do even if she were merely accused of infidelity was to commit suicide. [4]

7. If we start off without even knowing that other cultures have different values (unitary thinking), we are typically repulsed when we encounter these practices of other cultures -- just as they are repulsed by our practices. The Callatians are repulsed by the Greeks, and the Greeks are repulsed by the Callatians. As I mentioned, we will try soon enough to ground ethics on something broader than culture.

But our initial reaction is often binary thinking. My culture's right. Yours is wrong. We bring in the Bible often without reading it. "The Bible tells me so." A whole mechanism of rhetoric developed in evangelical circles in the mid-twentieth century to combat relativism.

The other extreme is moral nihilism, a complete rejection of right and wrong to begin with. As we will see, this is actually something different from relativism. Relativism actually does believe in right and wrong -- it just believes it's relative. 

Moral nihilism rejects the existence of right and wrong altogether. Think Nietzsche. Think Diogenes, the ancient founder of the Cynics. He pooped and had sex in public to argue that the rules against such things were just made up by society. We will dive into such territory later in the book. For now, we are looking at the movement from unitary to binary thinking.

[1] The word meta in Greek means "after." In this context, we might say it means "alongside of." A "meta" discipline stands alongside that discipline and asks what it is doing, what its assumptions are. Philosophy itself has internal "meta" disciplines. It has "meta" physics and epistemology, which are the meta-disciplines to the meta-disciplines.

We can never escape this loop. Ultimately, all thinking rests on fundamental assumptions that cannot be escaped.

[2] This story is found in Herodotus, Histories 3.38.

[3] The Callatians weren't cannibals, by the way. I wonder if they thought this practice actually preserved their parents' heritage within them.

[4] You can see how much energy human cultures exert trying to control women. This speaks to their great potential power in society. Societies develop rules to control it. Part of the cultural dynamics in America in the moment is to try to put the genie of the empowered woman back into the bottle.

Through the Bible -- Mark 14:53-15:47 (Good Friday)

Psalm Sunday
Temple Monday
Debate Tuesday
Maundy Thursday
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1. Jesus was taken at night, the beginning of the Jewish Friday. He is taken to the high priest and to a group of chief priests, elders, and scribes. In John, it is Annas, the father-in-law of the high priest Caiaphas, a more private meeting (John 18:13). Peter follows at a distance.

There are false witnesses (Mark 14:56). One quotes Jesus as saying that he will destroy the temple and then rebuild it in three days (14:58). The audience of Mark knows that this false witness is right without knowing it. The witness thinks Jesus was being sedicious toward the temple, but the meaning of the words is that the temple will no longer be necessary after Jesus rises from the dead. His death and resurrection will take care of all sins from that point on.

 Jesus does not respond. Finally, the high priest cuts to the chase. "Are you the Messiah, the Son of the Blessed?" (14:61). Jesus finally affirms it. He is, and the high priest will soon see him coming on the clouds of heaven (14:62). This is an allusion to Daniel 7:13, where the Son of Humanity is given authority over all the earth by the Ancient of Days.

This is enough for the high priest, who considers such a confession to be blasphemy. He rips his clothes in symbolic disgust, and Jesus' fate is sealed in their minds. He is then mocked by those who are there. He is spat upon. He is struck. They provoke him, asking him to prophesy something. 

Meanwhile, Peter fulfills Jesus' prophecy in the courtyard. He denies Jesus three times when asked if he knows him. His failure and lack of faith comes home to him hard. He weeps bitterly.

2. When the sun rises they take him to Pilate. It is often said that they did not have the formal authority to put Jesus to death (cf. John 18:31). This was technically true. The proper way to put someone to death was to get Pilate to do it, and it certainly shielded them somewhat public blame. However, as in the case of Stephen, they likely could arrange for people to "go away" if they wanted to in less proper ways.

He is being charged with sedition for claiming to be king, a "messianic pretender," as it were. Jesus again is largely silent before Pilate. "Are you the king of the Jews?" (Mark 15:2). "You said it," he says. This seems somewhat of an ambiguous answer. It is not a denial, but it isn't exactly an admission either. He was more direct in his answer to the high priest.

Pilate offers to set Jesus free to the crowds. He senses that those who have brought Jesus to him are "envious" (15:10). Pilate doesn't see Jesus as a real threat. He gives the crowd a choice between Barabbas and Jesus. He is suprised that they pick Barabbas. But the chief priests have been working behind the scenes, stirring up the crowd (15:11).

The outcome is sealed. Jesus will be crucified.

3. Now Jesus is mocked by Roman soldiers. Inside the praetorium, they put a purple robe on him like he is a king. They make a crown out of thorns and shove it on his head (15:17). The cruelness of humanity is on full display. They strike him in the head. They spit on him. They mock him with fakes salutes, "Hail, King of the Jews!" They kneel before him.

He is weak. They compel a passer-by, Simon of Cyrene, to carry the crossbeam for him (15:21). The fact that his children's names are mentioned suggests that he and his family became believers in Jesus' resurrection and remained in the church for the decades to come. They take him to a place called Golgotha, "the place of the skull." The most likely location today was indeed within the Church of the Holy Sepulchre, which at that time was outside the city walls. [1]

People were generally crucified just outside the city walls on a path leading to an entrance to the city. By this practice, the Romans made a statement -- we have all the power. We are in control. This is what happens to people who challenge our power. Don't even think about it. You'll lose.

There was a significant amount of shaming here as well, a dynamic that our Western sensibilities are less in tune with. Jesus was likely crucified naked. They put an inscription over his head, "King of the Jews." This not only mocked Jesus. It mocked the Jewish people. "This is the kind of king you would have -- a crucified one." It was belittling.

But Jews mock him too. "Save yourself." "Come down from the cross." "You said you would destroy the temple and rebuild it in three days." Let's see it then. 

The soldiers gamble for his clothes. He is crucified with others, who also mock him (15:32). These are two thieves, one on the right and another on his left.

4. He is crucified about the third hour. This is 9am. Death by crucifixion was a long affair. You eventually suffocate. Jesus' time on the cross is less than most, only 6 hours. According to John, they have to break the legs of the other two to expedite their deaths before sundown (19:31-33).

Jesus is offered wine mixed with myrrh. He refuses it (15:23). Near the end, he is offered a sponge filled with vinegar (15:36).

At the sixth hour, noon, darkness comes over the land. The earth echoes the suffering of its king. He quotes Psalm 22:1 in Aramaic: "My God, my God, why have you forsaken me." Some think he is calling Elijah. His speech is probably slurred. In Mark, this is the only thing he says from the cross. 

He cries out and dies. Some say he died of a broken heart. This was a surprisingly short time on the cross, and perhaps he does have a heart attack. 

5. In Mark's presentation, this is the climax of the story. One of Mark's key themes is that the cross is not an objection to Jesus being the Messiah -- it is the very heart of Jesus being the Messiah. Jesus dies as a ransom for the sins of Israel (10:45). He is the mechanism by which the sins of Israel are atoned for. This is the mission.

The first person in Mark to fully get it is not even a Jew. It is the centurion by the cross who sees how Jesus dies and exclaims, "Truly this man was the Son of God" (15:39). Jesus' disciples didn't get it. In Acts 1:6, they're still thinking it's all about establishing an earthly kingdom now. Peter only half gets it in Mark 8:29 when he declares Jesus to be the Christ.

But in Mark it is Jesus' death that establishes him as the Christ, the Messiah. No elaborate theory of atonement is given. Mark's only comment on atonement theory is 10:45 -- "The Son of Humanity did not come to be served, but to serve and give his life a ransom for many."

6. The men have abandoned Jesus. The women have remained. There is Mary Magdalene, Mary the mother of James the younger and Joseph. There is a Salome. Mark reveals that Jesus had many followers who were women, individuals who traveled with him along with his other male disciples (15:41). They had ministered to him in Galilee. 

A man named Joseph of Arimathea asks Pilate for Jesus' body. He is a membrer of the Sanhedrin. The fact that we know his name suggests that he continued with the early church. Pilate is surprised that Jesus is dead already, but the centurion confirms it (15:44-45).

Most bodies were discarded, but Jesus will have a burial. There is no time for the normal preparations of the body for burial. Darkness is approaching and with it the Sabbath. The women can merely note where he is buried and plan to come back on Sunday morning (15:47).

Joseph buys a linen cloth and wraps Jesus in it. He places the body in a tomb cut out of rock. They roll a stone in front of it.

7. The temple curtain is torn in two (15:38). Once again, there could be an implied sense that the temple now is no longer needed. The barrier between the most holy presence of God and us is now gone or, rather, it is Jesus that has become the only path through the veil (Heb. 10:20). Some of these hints in this chapter relate well in my mind to a dating of Mark in its final form to just after the temple's destruction. This correlates well also with my sense of the dating of Hebrews. 

[1] The Garden Tomb really has no real claim, although it no doubt better reflects the feel of the site better today. But how a setting strikes a random person in the 1800s has little to do with how a place looked 2000 years ago. A random guy 1800 years after an event sees a rock that looks like a skull to him and there's a tomb nearby? The Sepulcher site has nearly 2000 years of historical weight to it. There is some anti-Catholic sentiment hiding in here as Protestants would have been deeply repulsed by the Church of the Holy Sepulchre in the late 1800s/early 1900s. 

Through the Bible -- Mark 14:1-52 (The Last Supper)

Psalm Sunday
Temple Monday
Debate Tuesday
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1. Mark 14 begins two days before the Passover, which is presumably Wednesday. The chief priests and scribes are plotting to arrest and kill him quietly. They want it to happen before the feast so there isn't as much of a crowd (14:2). 

They find their opening with Judas, who comes to them offering to betray him. They promise him money in return (14:11).

Mark does not give us a reason. At best, the other Gospels hint that the money was attractive to Judas, but in Matthew he tries to give it back (Matt. 27:3). In Acts he buys a field with the money and dies there (Acts 1:18). [1] These curious remarks have led many to speculate what else might have been going on in Judas' mind, especially given the misunderstandings of Jesus' disciples about what it meant to be the Messiah.

Two common suggestions are 1) that Judas was disillusioned with Jesus or that 2) Judas was trying to force God's hand. Both assume that Judas thought that Jesus would become king when they arrived in Jerusalem. In the second scenario, Judas is full of faith. "God won't let his Messiah go down." So he gives God a little help. Of course, it backfires on him and he tries to give the money back.

In the other scenario, Judas considers Jesus a failure. The kingdom was supposed to come and it didn't. Judas thinks Jesus a fraud -- and why not make a little money to salvage something from this miserable situation. "At least then they won't be after me." Luke and John tell us that Satan had possessed Judas.

But we can't read Judas' mind on this level. All the Gospels tell us is that he was interested in the money.

2. At the beginning of Thursday -- our Wednesday night since the Jewish day began at sundown -- Jesus eats in Bethany at the house of Simon the leper. Matthew and Mark have a similar version of the story. [2] A woman with some expensive perfume anoints his feet. It leads some to scoff at how much good could have been done for the poor with the value of that ointment. [3]

It is a melancholy moment for Jesus. She is preparing him for burial. Jesus is not purely utilitarian or mathematical in his values. You would think that the number of "good units" is greater if it goes to the poor rather than to him. But there are exceptions. These are the hours before his death. The poor will always be here to help (and help them we should).

It's a reminder that God's value is higher on the scale than anything else -- the coefficient scales the number up overwhelmingly. I always think of the magnificent medieval cathedrals when I read this passage. Many of them took 100 years to build. How much good could have been done for the poor with that money!

I don't know what God thinks on this one, but the cathedrals continue to give God glory almost 1000 years later. [4] Every poor person in the 1100s and 1200s mattered greatly to God, and the testament of Notre Dame is a witness from them to us. It was an act of worship to build for many, and it continues to praise God. 

That is a simplistic view of things, I suspect. But I think of those cathedrals every time I read this passage. And we do know this anonymous woman in Mark. [5] As Jesus predicted, her testimony to him has lasted two thousand years such that we are mentioning her even today (14:9).

3. Jesus eats the Passover meal with his disciples on our Thursday night -- the beginning of their Friday after sunset. There is some ambiguity in the Gospels as to whether this was a Passover meal or not. In John, it would seem to be the day before the Passover meal (John 18:28). But Mark certainly gives us the impression that Jesus and the disciples were eating the meal that night (Mark 14:12).

Whatever the precise calendar was, both options hold related truths. In John, Jesus dies as the Passover lambs are being killed, which tells us powerfully that Jesus is the Lamb of God that takes away the sins of the world (John 1:29). In the Synoptic Gospels of Matthew, Mark, and Luke, Jesus eats the Passover meal with this disciples, pointing to the coming exodus from their bondage.

Again, whether by Jesus' foreknowledge or prior arrangement, the disciples "chance upon" someone who has a large enough room in Jerusalem for them all to eat. The meal becomes a template for the "Eucharist," the communion services that are held in most churches to this day. Each time we take communion, we remember that night and we look forward to Jesus' return to eat with us again.

It would be easy for us to think of this as a small ceremony because that is the way that we celebrate it. But this was a full meal. They break bread, which symbolizes Jesus' body. After supper, they share a cup of wine, which represents his blood that he will shed in the morning. Mark brings out the significance. If the first Passover was associated with the Mosaic covenant, Jesus is bringing the new covenant of Jeremiah 31:31.

The seder meal that Jews eat today at Passover is likely much more developed than the practices at the time of Jesus. It would probably not develop more fully for a couple hundred years. This is an important insight for those who think that contemporary Jewish practices date back to the time of Jesus. Rather, the Mishnah dates to over 150 years after Jesus and the Talmud even hundreds more. 

We should not underestimate the impact that the destruction of Jerusalem in AD70 and then the total ousting of the Jews from "Palestine" in 136 (bar Kokhba revolt) had on Judaism. These events arguably changed a diverse landscape with varying practices and channeled them toward the shape we know today.

4. After the dinner, they sing a hymn and then head to the Garden of Gethsemane at the foot of the Mount of Olives. There are caves nearby and perhaps it was their intention to spend the night there. Judas knows where they will be, so it was an agreed on location. Perhaps they are hiding there from the authorities.

Jesus tells Peter that he will deny him three times that night. Peter is incredulous. In his mind, he is ready to fight to the death. What he is not prepared for, however, is for Jesus to go willingly with the authorities when they arrive. They are still expecting a militant Jesus and a kingdom of God by God's action. They are not prepared for a dying Messiah.

Jesus prays. Peter, James, and John can't keep their eyes open. Their spirits are willing, but their "flesh" is weak (14:38). Jesus is sorrowful, even to the point of deathly sorrow (14:34). He knows what he is about to face, and he doesn't want to. He was tempted in every way as we are and yet did not sin (Heb. 4:15).

He asks God to take the cup away from him if it is at all possible (14:36). He knows it isn't. He is expressing human feelings. His will remains resolved (cf. John 12:27). We can share our feelings to God even when we know what his will is. We can vent and not sin.

5. Finally Judas arrives, as Jesus knew he would. He kisses Jesus on the cheek, a sign that Judas had worked out with the men of the high priest (14:44-45). They wouldn't have known which one was Jesus otherwise. Jesus points out the sliminess of the situation. Rather than arrest him in public, they are sneaking out to get him at night. They have swords and clubs. What, am I a thief?

One of those with Jesus who is ready to fight cuts off the ear of one of the high priest's servants. [6] But Jesus has no intention of fighting. When his disciples see this, they abandon him.

A young man -- often thought to be John Mark, the putative author of the Gospel -- stirs out of bed and rushes to see what's going on. He had likely been in the background at the Last Supper. Seeing that he is following them, they try to seize him. Only getting his linen garment, he escapes from them naked.

[1] In Matthew 27:7, the chief priests buy the field and it becomes a place where foreigners can be buried, the "potter's field."

[2] In Luke 7, Simon is a Pharisee and the similar story takes place earlier in Jesus' ministry. In John 12, it is Mary the sister of Lazarus who wipes Jesus feet with her hair, and it is Judas who is upset.

[3] John specifies that it was Judas.

[4] That's a little bit of an overstatement, but it's closer to the truth than the impression "hundreds of years" gives.

[5] John gives a slightly different setting and identifies the woman as Mary, sister of Martha and Lazarus (John 12:1-3).

[6] John says it was Peter (John 18:10).

Through the Bible -- Mark 11:26-12:44 (Debate Tuesday)

Psalm Sunday
Temple Monday
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1. Tuesday morning begins with the realization that the fig tree had withered. But the bulk of the day is spent around the temple. Jesus teaches at the temple. He could still have escaped at this point. But the day is solidifying the sentiment of the leadership against him. Meanwhile, an undertone of destruction is getting stronger. This temple will be destroyed because of Israel's faithlessness.

We can divide the material for Tuesday in Mark into two parts. The bulk consists of debates that various groups have with Jesus. He is teaching, and they contest his authority and wisdom by trying to catch him with their questions. However, he bests them at every turn. He wins every argument and then finally in the end silences them with a question of his own.

This somewhat rabbinic sparring was part of the culture. Rabbis debated over the proper meaning and application of Scripture. It is a debate about authority. And these are ultimate questions. That section ends with Jesus' observations of a widow who proportionally gives far more than the wealthy people around her.

The second part of Tuesday's material directly has to do with the temple. In Mark 13 Jesus speaks of the context of the temple's destruction, which would take place 40 years later. We will look at that chapter tomorrow.

2. The first match is with chief priests, scribes, and elders -- the leaders of Israel (11:27-33). By what authority is he teaching? He is on their territory. He is causing a disturbance in the temple. Passover is coming.

They find out he is a Baptist -- one of those who is continuing the teaching of John the Baptist. Didn't Herod get rid of him? 

Jesus makes the connection explicit. By what authority did John the Baptist preach? Now they are in a bind. If they say John was from God, they will disqualify themselves from spiritual leadership for not following him. If they say he wasn't from God, they will face the displeasure of the people.

"We don't know." They dodge the question. They lose round one. Jesus outmaneuvers them.

But Jesus is not finished. He goes on to tell the Parable of the Wicked Tenants (12:1-12), which is clearly about the leadership of Israel. God planted the vineyard of Israel. But it's leaders have rejected God as the owner. They have rejected the servants he has sent to them, prophets. 

Finally, the owner sends his son, and they kill him. The end result is that judgment is coming for those wicked tenants. They will be destroyed. Meanwhile, the stone they rejected will become the cornerstone. This passage also comes from Psalm 118, which Jesus echoed several times on Palm Sunday (118:22-23).

3. Some Pharisees and Herodians spar next (12:13-17). Should Israelites pay taxes? They think they can get Jesus into a double bind on this one. If he says yes, the people will reject him as caving in to the enemy Romans. If he says no, he is a revolutionary and so vulnerable before the Romans.

"Whose image is on the coin?"

"Caesar's."

"Then give him his coin back." Jesus implies that the Roman economy has nothing to do with the kingdom of God. Here is all the profundity of his view of the Romans. They have nothing to do with the kingdom. Their money has nothing to do with the kingdom.

This in part is "Christ against culture" in Richard Niebuhr's terms. There is no need to participate in earthly politics. Yes, at the second coming Jesus will rule over all the earth. But it is not the time for revolution yet. Let the Romans do what the Romans will do. They are on borrowed time.

4. The Sadducees take him on next (12:18-27). We have now seen all the major groups except the Essenes. The Sadducees do not believe in resurrection. They think they have a winning argument. A woman is married to a man. He dies. According to the rules of Levirite marriage, six other brothers marry her in order, but she has no children.

Now they get to what they think is the clincher. In their mind, resurrection makes no sense because it would be impossible to know who her husband would be in heaven. It's really a pretty bad argument, the kind that only works well when you're around people who agree with you in an echo chamber.

Jesus pulls the rug out from under their assumptions. Women are not subordinated to men in the kingdom. They are not "given" in marriage. Rather, they have full autonomous authority. They will be like the angels. They will be equal to all the men who were their husbands in this life.

5. The final question seems sincere (12:28-34). It comes from a scribe who has been listening rather than sparring. This is a seeker, not a debater. "What is the greatest commandment?"

Here Jesus gives the core of all ethics: love God and love neighbor, citing Deuteronomy 6:4-5 and Leviticus 19:18. The first is the Shema, the conerstone of Israelite faith. Matthew 22 will go on to say that all the Law and the Prophets hang on these two commandments (Matt. 22:40).

When Jesus sees the genuineness of the man, he declares that the man is not far from the kingdom of God.

6. After all these questions, Jesus has one of his own (12:35-37). Psalm 110:1 seems to have God telling someone other than David to sit on his throne. David, the psalmist, calls the Messiah "Lord" when Yahweh sits the Messiah at his right hand. This was no doubt a known interpretation of the passage at the time even though it has as its unexamined assumption that David is the one speaking in the psalm.

So is the Messiah David's son or not, because David calls him Lord? This question stumps them, and Jesus does not give the answer. What is clear is that he has won the debates of the day. He has won without trying. He has not been the aggressor or the one seeking the debate. Rather, they have brought it to him.

7. But he does respond. He responds in the Parable of the Wicked Tenants. And the chapter ends with a critique of the religious scribes. 

The scribes, he says, they like to put on a show. They like to be greeted with honor. They like the seats of honor at banquets. They give long prayers to show how spiritul they are.

Meanwhile, they use their lawyer-like skills to devour the houses of widows. After all, they're just women. Their husband's property shouldn't belong to them after he dies. They're just women.

A widow comes by and gives two small copper coins. She goes by unnoticed by all but Jesus. But proportionately, she has given more than all the wealthy. She has given more than all the scribes. She has given from what little she perhaps had left after the greedy had done their job on her.

She is the one who will reign in the kingdom, and the others won't be there at all.

Through the Bible -- Mark 11:12-25 (Temple Monday)

Our journey through Passion Week continues from yesterday.

1. In Mark, it is on Monday that Jesus takes action in the temple. On Sunday, he arrives late in the day. The next day, he takes the two mile journey from Bethany again. This time, disgusted by what he sees taking place there, he overturns the tables of those who are selling doves and stops commerce from taking place (11:16).

What was so disturbing to him? He quotes Jeremiah 7:11, where the prophet Jeremiah indicted Israel for acting like it was worshiping Yahweh while serving other gods and committing all sorts of injustices. The temple, which should have been a means of approaching God, had become a means of iniquity. 

Accordingly, some have suggested that Jesus' action was bigger than a moment of anger. For example, E. P. Sanders suggested that Jesus was symbolically acting out the future destruction of the temple. [1] However, while Jesus does predict the temple's destruction in Mark 13, there is no hint of that message here.

2. Some have pointed out that this commerce must be taking place in the outer Court of the Gentiles. They thus suggest that Jesus is upset that Gentiles cannot properly worship God because of all the distraction of commerce there. "What do the Gentiles matter?" would be the underlying prejudice in play, and Jesus would be upset at the prevention of their worship.

In Matthew, Mark, and Luke (called the "Synoptic" Gospels for the similar way they look at Jesus), Jesus quotes Isaiah 56:7 in addition to Jeremiah 7. The temple is supposed to be a house of prayer, but the activities of selling doves and other sacrificial animals was getting in the way. Mark alone adds the part of Isaiah 56 that says the temple is supposed to be a house of prayer "for all nations." This addition fits with the likelihood that Mark had a non-Jewish audience. Jesus was thinking of Mark's audience long before they even knew about him.

In general, the sale of sacrificial animals was an important part of the temple's operations. Individuals traveling to Jerusalem from far away would not bring doves or goats with them over land and sea. They would need some way to purchase these items in Jerusalem. Futher, the animals needed to meet a certain standard of purity.

Therefore, something beyond the mere sale of animals must have been going on. It must have been something about the way this buying and selling was taking place that angered Jesus. There is the possible location, as we have mentioned. There is the possibility of abuse -- charging unreasonable prices for the animals. And there is the possibility that their activity triggered some broader issue. 

3. In fact, all three of these suggestions could be true at the same time. Jesus comes to the temple. It should be a place where Yahweh is worshiped. What does he see? He sees people making money off God. Are they abusing the system? Does it trigger Jesus' critique of the whole leadership of Israel? Does it remind him of Jeremiah's critique of the temple some 650 years earlier?

Mark indicates that the chief priests and scribes immediately want to get rid of him. This fact suggests that his action was broader than a moment of anger. It suggests the leaders knew that his action was aimed at them beyond whatever was happening in the outer court.

On a side note, Jesus demonstrates that it is not a sin to be angry in itself. "In your anger, do not sin," Ephesians 4:26 says. The verse implies that, while anger can easily lead to sin, it is not sinful in itself. Jesus act does not hurt anyone, but it is an act of force. While some like John Howard Yoder have tried to downplay Jesus' use of force in this incident, it seems inescapable that Jesus did use force to stop the use of commerce for at least a moment.

4. The incident with the fig tree brackets Jesus' action in the temple. On Monday morning, while on his way to the temple, Jesus is hungry and observes a fig tree. Seeing that it is without fruit, he curses the tree (11:14). Then on Tuesday morning, on his way into town again, his disciples observe that the tree has withered (11:20).

This incident has sometimes puzzled readers. It seems somewhat random and capricious on Jesus' part, especially since figs may not have been in season (11:13). However, the story seems to play a larger role in Mark's account. You could argue that the incident with the fig tree "sandwiches" Jesus' action in the temple.

Jesus is going to the temple. He curses the fig tree. The next morning the fig tree has withered. This sandwich structure is sometimes called an "intercalation." The "bread" of the sandwich helps inform the meaning of the meat in the middle and vice versa.

In this case, the fig tree can be said to represent Israel. It thus becomes symbolic of the coming judgment and destruction of Israel. Just as the fig tree did not bear fruit and was condemned, so Israel largely did not accept Jesus as the Messiah. While John the Baptist brought a message of repentance, Israel on the whole did not repent. So, like the fig tree, Jerusalem stood judged before God.

The temple would be destroyed by the Romans in AD70.

5. Interestingly, Mark shifts the focus of the incident a little with a dialog between Jesus and the disciples on faith. Matthew and Luke move away from the act's political significance even more. It's possible that this teaching on faith was a known saying of Jesus without a context and that Mark has used this incident as a way to include it in the Gospel.

Jesus' teaching is that, if we do not doubt, our faith can move mountains. He thus encourages his disciples to trust in God when they pray. If our will is aligned with God's will, then we will receive whatever we pray for. Jesus also warns that one must not harbor unforgiveness, though, when we pray. "Forgive us our sins, as we forgive those who sin against us" (Luke 11:4). Luke and Matthew incorporate this saying into the Lord's Prayer.

[1] E. P. Sanders, Jesus and Judaism. So also N. T. Wright.

Through the Bible -- Mark 11:1-25 (Palm Sunday)

Today is Palm Sunday. I'm going to try to do daily posts this week on Passion Week in Mark. As an aside, last year I actually published Explanatory Notes on Mark's Passion Week (here's the ebook). This is a verse-by-verse commentary on Mark 11-15. The posts this week are of a more general nature.

Here are links to broader posts on Mark 1:1-13, Mark 1:14-15, Mark 1:16-45, and Mark 2.
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1. Well over a century ago, Martin Kähler described the Gospel of Mark as "a Passion with an extended introduction." The story of Jesus' final week on earth before his death takes up a full third of the Gospel, showing us how important Jesus' death is for Mark. Indeed, while the other Gospels climax with Jesus' resurrection, Mark climaxes with the recognition of the centurion by the cross that Jesus was indeed the Son of God (15:39). 

Mark thus ties Jesus being the Messiah with his suffering and death. This was a highly subversive understanding of what the Anointed One would be. Before that point, all Jews would have seen the victory of the Messiah over Israel's enemies as the hallmark of the restored King of David. Amazingly, Mark ties Jesus' messianic identity to his death for sins.

Mark has been building to this week since Peter's declaration that Jesus was the Christ in 8:29. Since that point in the story, Jesus has told his disciples three times that he was going to Jerusalem to die, giving the second half of Mark a sense of forboding. In the last instance, Jesus gives Mark's theology of the cross in one verse: "The Son of Humanity did not come to be served, but to serve and to give his life as a ransom for many" (10:45).

2. On the Sunday before his crucifixion, Jesus rides into Jerusalem on a donkey. This is Jesus' triumphal entry. Luke records that Herod Antipas was also in town for Passover (Luke 23:7). No doubt his entry took place with much more pomp and splendor, leading some to suggest that Jesus was mocking him.

However, Jesus was more likely deliberately fulfilling Scripture. Although Mark does not mention it, Matthew 21:5 will make it clear that Jesus was fufilling Zechariah 9:9. This verse foretells of the restored King of Israel coming into Jerusalem on a donkey. Whether by pre-arrangement or prophecy, Jesus tells two of his disciples how to find a colt in the next village. They find it just as he said.

Jesus' entry into Jerusalem is full of symbolism. Not only does it enact Zechariah, but spreading garments is something that might be done for a king (cf. 2 Kings 9:13). Another passage that Jesus enacts is Psalm 118:25-27, a psalm that was often sung at Passover. The people cry, "Hosanna," which is the "Save us" of Psalm 118:25 (hoshia na). They also quote verse 26 -- "Blessed is the one who comes in the name of Yahweh." Finally, 118:27 mentions branches being used in festal procession.

In short, Jesus' entrance is full of echoes of Scripture that point to Jesus as the Messiah and restored king of Israel.

Jesus' entry into Jerusalem in Mark ends with Jesus going to the temple. It's late. He returns to Bethany. It's interesting to note that Matthew has the "cleansing" of the temple as the end of Palm Sunday. The climax of Palm Sunday in Matthew is thus Jesus' action in the temple, which takes place on Monday in Mark.