Category Archives: The Gospels

Rethinking Bible Verses in Context, The Gospels, Translation Errors

“The Jews” in John and Anti-Semitism

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I was at a dinner last night where the topic came up of the phrase “The Jews” in John. In particular, Sunday’s sermon had addressed John 20, and the pastor helpfully noted that we need to be careful when reading a verse like 20:19 (“…the doors were locked where the disciples were for fear of the Jews…”) that we don’t let it feed into anti-Semitism. I shared some of my thoughts about this with the group, and I thought I’d share here for anyone else who would be helped by this.

“The Jews” is a terrible translation of the Greek word Ioudaioi here and elsewhere for several reasons. First of all, the disciples themselves were Jewish. They didn’t have fear of “the Jews”; they were the Jews! Jesus was a Jew, and probably most of the people that John wrote for were Jews in Asia Minor who believed in Jesus as Jews. Clearly that’s not what the word means here.

Second, the Greek word is mainly a geographic term referring to people who live in Judea. While it could be used in a religious sense to refer to people who have a Jewish belief system, the concept of “religion” really develops later in history. I would translate this with a geographic term rather than what will be read today as a religious phrase, e.g., “the doors were locked where the disciples were for fear of the Judeans.”

But even still, “the Judeans” is not really a perfect way of putting it either. Were they afraid of Judeans in general? No, they were staying in the home of a Judean! Jesus had a following in Jerusalem and throughout Judea, just as he did in Galilee. What is meant here is the people in charge in Judea … those who had urged for Jesus to be put to death. So a lot of Bibles have a footnote here suggesting that the word refers to “Jewish religious leaders” or something like that. The closest equivalent I can think of in our language today is when people use the word “Washington” to refer to the government. It isn’t a criticism of a whole city and the people of it, but specifically of the “Washington governmental leaders.”

Finally, we should think about the pragmatics of Bible translation. Even if “the Jews” was an accurate translation of Ioudaioi, the way that phrase has been used throughout history should caution us against ever using the phrase, especially in a book that people will ascribe so much authority to. I remember in the TV series Community that Shirley says to Annie, “I can’t believe that I never knew you were a Jew,” to which Annie responds, “I’d say the whole word next time.” It is a somewhat funny exchange, and certain we can use the word “Jew” (as many Jewish people would). The problem with Shirley’s quote is not what she says, but how she says it. There is almost a critical tone as she says the word “Jew.” Tone cannot be communicated in written text, so this is another reason I would avoid this phrase in Bible translations. Too many people will see the phrase and embed into it later critical use of the term.

Which brings me to my final point. I was asked yesterday if critical use of the word “the Jews” began with Hitler. Sadly, not at all. The Romans often despised the Judeans for not worshiping the Roman gods, so there was already critical use of the term at play in the first century (but that does not mean John himself used it critically!). By the second century you had so many non-Jews who embraced the Gospel of John that they already began to read the phrase critically … even though they spoke in Greek. Hitler was one person in a long line of people, including Martin Luther and already Ignatius of Antioch in the second century, who took passages like this to justify their own anti-Jewish biases. It’s not just that “the Jews” became a word of derision and so we shouldn’t use it in Bible translation. We could go so far to say as the Bible itself contributed to this use of the word. John himself uses the Ioudaioi critically. For him, it didn’t mean “the Jews,” but he was critical of a group nonetheless. And ironically his criticism was simply widened to include his own people group just decades later.

We should be careful to embody the spirit of love. As John himself (ironically?) says, “Whoever says he is in the light and hates his brother is still in darkness. Whoever loves his brother abides in the light, and in him there is no cause for stumbling. But whoever hates his brother is in the darkness and walks in the darkness, and does not know where he is going, because the darkness has blinded his eyes.” (1 John 2:9-11, ESV)

Let us be careful in how we think and speak about people who oppose us … lest our words become fodder for hate. Eventually that hate will find its way back to us!

NEW YORK, NY – JANUARY 05: People participate in a Jewish solidarity march on January 5, 2020 in New York City. The march was held in response to a recent rise in anti-Semitic crimes in the greater New York metropolitan area. (Photo by Jeenah Moon/Getty Images)
Evangelical Culture, The Gospels

Teacher, You Insult Us Too! A Sermon on Jesus’ Woes against the Pharisees and Lawyers (Luke 11:39-52)

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Today I preached a sermon on Jesus’ Woes against the Pharisees and Lawyers (Luke 11:39–52). This is not an easy text to preach from,. We don’t often know what to do with passages like this in the Gospels. We like the positive stories that focus on God’s love or mercy or grace. We like to think of ourselves as receiving that same love or mercy or grace. But when there are negative stories, filled with rebuke, we read through them quickly and think, “Those people must have been really bad.”

In fact through much of Christian history, we have assumed that the Pharisees were legalistic, hypocritical, self-centered people with a holier-than-thou attitude … nothing like us. But if you actually study the Pharisees, you’ll find that this couldn’t be farther from the truth. We know of several first-century Pharisees like the great Rabbi Hillel who taught God’s people that the Torah could be summed up in the instruction to not do to others what you hate. Or like Rabbi Gamaliel that we read about in Acts who convinces the Sandhedrin not to persecute Christians. Or the Apostle Paul who still identifies himself as a Pharisee at the end of his life (Acts 23:6; 26:5; cf. Philippians 3:5). No one in the early church would have heard the word “Pharisee” and thought it meant legalistic, hypocritical, self-centered people with a holier-than-thou attitude. People would have assumed Jesus was talking about a group of Jews who loved God, loved neighbor, and were committed to the Bible and to living a righteous life.

This is why we have stories like the parable of the Pharisee and the Tax Collector (Luke 18:9–14). The whole point is that even the worst of the worst, a traitorous tax collector, could be justified by God if he sincerely repents, and even the best of the best, a righteous Pharisee, could miss out on God’s justification if he looks down on others. If you come in with the assumption that Pharisees are legalistic people, very different from us, you just hear this passage as saying legalistic people won’t be justified but we will. We tend to associate ourselves with the good guys in stories and associate people we don’t like with the people we don’t like in stories. And it makes us bad readers of the Bible. But Jesus told this story knowing that his original audience would have viewed the Pharisees more positively and would have taken this as a warning.

And the same is true of the Woes against the Pharisees. If we have in mind these awful people, different from us, then we won’t get much of this passage. On the contrary, if the Pharisees of Jesus’ day were those who were committed to the Bible, to honoring God, to loving others, and to living a righteous life, then might this passage have something to say to those of us today who are committed to the Bible, to honoring God, to loving others, and to living a righteous life? If Jesus had warnings for the leaders of God’s people in his day, might he have warnings for those of us who lead God’s people in our day? If the Pharisees and lawyers needed to repent in the time of Jesus, might we need to repent today?

In this post I want to walk through the passage verse-by-verse and think about how God might want to challenge us.

The Setting: Jesus and Purity (11:37–41)

While he was speaking, a Pharisee invited him to dine with him; so he went in and took his place at the table. The Pharisee was amazed to see that he did not first wash before dinner. (Luke 11:37–38, NRSV)

Our story picks up after Jesus has been teaching in public. A Pharisee hears Jesus teaching about the kingdom being present and about our need to be filled with light rather than darkness, and the Pharisee does what any good person would do – he invites Jesus to dinner. The first thing the Pharisee notices is that Jesus doesn’t do what other people who are passionate about God do. Leviticus had given laws about how to be pure, and most the laws were not about morality but about what you’ve touched and about what you eat. His immediate question is going to be, “Wait, does Jesus really care about purity? Why isn’t he doing what we all do to honor God.” He doesn’t ask the question. He just thinks it, and Jesus addresses him.

Then the Lord said to him, “Now you Pharisees clean the outside of the cup and of the dish, but inside you are full of greed and wickedness. You fools! Did not the one who made the outside make the inside also? So give for alms those things that are within; and see, everything will be clean for you.” (11:39–41)

Jesus’ point is that often the things we do to honor God are external things, but God is after something deeper. We might go to church. We might raise our hands in worship. We might pray prayers or sing songs or talk to other Christians or even share the gospel, but these are actions that can be cleaned up easily. What’s on the inside? Is there greed? Is there wickedness? Is there lust for power or for control? Is there anger or envy or deception? Jesus says give all these things away, and then you will be truly pure from the inside out (cf. Mark 7:18–23).

Specifically Jesus is concerned that we might have greed on the inside – you know, the very basis of the American Dream; the very attitude we cultivate in American culture. This is what Jesus warns is on the inside of those who look good on the outside. If Jesus had some things to say about this to the Pharisees, he has a lot more to say to us today. He calls for a true almsgiving – one that includes not only money for the poor but giving all of ourselves to the poor. If we struggle in this area, he has some woes to speak to us.

The First Three Woes (11:42–44)

“But woe to you Pharisees! For you tithe mint and rue and herbs of all kinds, and neglect justice and the love of God; it is these you ought to have practiced, without neglecting the others.” (11:42)

God doesn’t care as much about whether we tithe as about what we do for the poor. Are we agents of justice in the world? Are we agents of God’s love? Often in the church today we are so focused on external things like tithes and building projects and programs, and God wants us to go deeper. The things that Jesus is passionate about in the gospels are often not the things we are passionate about in the church today. Jesus continues:

“Woe to you Pharisees! For you love to have the seat of honor in the synagogues and to be greeted with respect in the marketplaces” (11:43).

How many of you feel good about your involvement in church? That is what Jesus is criticizing here. This isn’t criticism of these super elitists out there somewhere. This is a criticism of us who love to do things in the church, who love the praise we get from others for our church involvement. Jesus is hitting where it hurts! If most of what we do for the church is done inside these walls and is done to get us recognition, then woe to us!

“Woe to you! For you are like unmarked graves, and people walk over them without realizing it.” (11:44)

The passage started with the Pharisee thinking Jesus might not be concerned enough about purity. Now Jesus reveals that there is a deeper purity that the Pharisee hasn’t even thought about. Unmarked graves were a problem because the Bible teaches that you become impure if you have touched something that is dead, but it is hard to be sure you are honoring God if you don’t even know where the things are that dishonor God. But Jesus makes the point that if you have greed and wickedness inside you rather than love and justice, you are the thing that causes uncleanness.

People see what it looks like when you follow God, and they think the life you are living is OK, so they do the same and think they are OK. But honoring God goes much deeper than your church involvement and your worship. It must be rooted in an inner disposition to love your enemies and to care for those in need.

The Woes Insult Us Too! (11:45)

At this point a lawyer speaks up, and notice his words:

One of the lawyers answered him,  “Teacher, when you say these things, you insult us too.” (11:45)

Notice how introspective this lawyer is. He doesn’t say, “Thank God I’m not a Pharisee.” He doesn’t say, “Yeah, I guess Simon here is kind of hypocritical.” He says, “Wait, doesn’t this apply to me too?”

Lately I have been thinking about how bad of Bible readers we are. We always compare ourselves with the people who are commended in the story and never with the people who are being criticized. We read this passage and think, “Man, those Pharisees were pretty awful people.” Maybe we even think about people we don’t like and conclude they are the Pharisees of today. Our response is far more arrogant and less humble than the response the lawyer offers.

A friend recently told me that he went to a Bible study on the parable of the Pharisee and the tax collector. In the parable, the Pharisee thanks God for not making him like the wicked tax collector, and the tax collector simply asks for mercy. Jesus say the tax collector goes home justified rather than the Pharisee. My friend said after the study, the leader prayed and basically thanked God that we’re not like the Pharisees. He missed the message of the passage.

If we read the woes against the Pharisees and feel better about ourselves afterwards, we are misreading them! We should respond to the Woes against the Pharisees as the lawyer does: “Teacher, when you say these things, you insult us too.”

Insulting us is exactly what Jesus wants to do. Sometimes we need to be shaken into deeper levels of obedience. So Jesus continues!

Heavy Burdens Hard to Bear (11:46)

And he said, “Woe also to you lawyers! For you load people with burdens hard to bear, and you yourselves do not lift a finger to ease them.” (11:46)

What is Jesus talking about here? The lawyers were the Bible teachers. They were the ones who would tell the people (who were illiterate), “Here is how the Bible says you should live.” And this process involves a whole lot of interpretation.

The Bible says to wash yourselves or items that have been touched by a bodily discharge or a dead animal, but what if we don’t know what all has touched a person or an item? The lawyers wanted to keep the people safe and so they instructed them to wash in all situations.

The Bible says not to do work on the Sabbath, but what is God going to consider work? The lawyers interpreted that for the people.
And sometimes the Bible says what to do in a specific situation that the lawyers had to determine whether and how to apply in a different situation. They did their best to interpret those things.

The same is true of us. We read the 613 laws of the Old Testament and have to determine what applies in the new covenant and how. What should Christians today do with laws about the Sabbath, about not bearing false witness against your neighbor, about ceremonial washings or Jewish holidays, about sexual purity, about theft or coveting. Some of these we say are to be applied strictly in any situation. Others we say are not.

This is what the lawyers did in Jesus’ day. The rabbis referred to this as binding and loosing. Those who were designated lawyers had the authority to make a decision regarding whether a certain act was permitted or not permitted, whether a person was bound by the law in a certain case or not bound by the law, and the belief was that as lawyers made these declarations on earth, the heavenly council would back up their decisions and make them so. This is what Jesus promises that the disciples will be able to do when he says, “Truly I tell you, whatever you bind on earth will be bound in heaven, and whatever you loose on earth will be loosed in heaven” (Matthew 18:18, NRSV). Jesus is giving the disciples the authority of lawyers. This passage is about how we determine that the law applies in a modern context.

This doesn’t mean we can go against what the Bible says. It means that the church has a responsibility to determine how the Bible rightly applies in a new context. And we do this all the time. Most Christians today think that we are not bound today by Paul’s instruction that women should not pray or prophesy without a head covering or by his statement that it would be better not to marry. We also tend to be pretty lenient about Jesus’ instructions about wealth or the Old Testament teachings on gluttony. But then we are pretty strict about other issues related to sex and gender, foul language, drinking, political beliefs, work ethic, physical appearances and other things depending on what church we belong to.
In all of this, we as the church are binding and loosing. How are we doing? Would Jesus say to us today, “Woe also to you Christians! For you load people with burdens hard to bear, and you yourselves do not lift a finger to ease them”?

I think there are a few ways we can tell if this is the case. First, are we sending the message that Jesus’ burden is heavy or light? People are leaving the church in droves right now and even speaking of how they have been hurt by the church. That is a bad sign. Second, are our interpretations loosing the bonds of injustice? Jesus could see a disparity between the rich and the poor that he repeatedly challenges in the Gospel of Luke, including in our passage where he notes that the problem with many of the Bible teachers is that they are filled with greed and wickedness. Is this true of our teachers today? Third, do many of the things we are strict about have to do more with external appearances than with justice and the love of God? Fourth, do our interpretations place ourselves in the seat of honor? Are we stricter on issues we ourselves don’t struggle with and more lenient on the issues we do?

I have a confession to make. Twenty years ago the church where I was now preaching had a female pastor and I told her that I don’t think what she was doing was biblical. I followed the strictest interpretation of 1 Timothy 2:12, where Paul tells Timothy that he does not permit a woman to teach, and I ignored Galatians 3:28, where Paul says there is no male or female in Christ Jesus, or Romans 16:1 where Paul commends a deaconess to the Romans who will be ministering to them on his behalf, or Romans 16:7, where Paul refers to a female apostle. I remember the dinner I had with her and her husband where I loaded them down with a burden hard to bear and did not lift a finger to ease it.

I have another confession to make. A few years later I was the associate pastor of a church in Columbus, and I was asked to come up with a membership curriculum for the church. I decided that if people want to be members of this church, they had to commit to a few things: reading the Bible devotionally every day, attending services every week when possible, and giving 10% of their income to the church. I also added a statement about living a holy life, but I never spelled out what that was, and I did not consider that some of the people in my church lived paycheck to paycheck and could not possibly give 10% of their income to the church. The 10% standard was given to a different people in a different time – a people who weren’t paying taxes in addition to tithes and who lived off the land rather than in a modern monetary system. Some of us today are wealthy enough that we can afford to give far more than 10% and some of us would struggle to put food on the table if we gave 10% of our income. These situations call for us in leadership to lift our finger to reduce the burden on the poor, but I did not do that.

I have a third confession to make. A few years ago I was an associate pastor at another church and someone asked if she could be a member in the church. Someone in leadership raised a concern: this woman lived with a man she was not married to. This person felt that the woman was not committed to holiness and therefore could not become a member of the church. I pointed out that (1) the man was not a Christian himself and did not care what rules we put on her, (2) he was absolutely opposed to getting married, and (3) he was the father of this woman’s child. We had a heated discussion about this situation and eventually it was decided that she could not become a member of the church. We as a church would rather break up the father and mother of a young child or tell the mother she cannot become a member of our church than lift a finger to ease this woman’s burdens. This woman now no longer attends church.

Have I loaded people with burdens hard to bear and not lifted a finger to ease them? Have I “lock[ed] people out of the kingdom of heaven” (to use Matthew’s wording of the final woe that we’ll talk about in a minute)? This passage is not about some hypocritical group of people who lived in a different time and place. This passage is about you and me, and we need to repent!

Building the Tombs of the Prophets (11:47–51)

“Woe to you! For you build the tombs of the prophets whom your ancestors killed. So you are witnesses and approve of the deeds of your ancestors; for they killed them, and you build their tombs.” (11:47–48)

Matthew gives us a little more of what Jesus said here than Luke does. Matthew 23:30–31 (NRSV) says, “You say, ‘If we had lived in the days of our ancestors, we would not have taken part with them in shedding the blood of the prophets.’ Thus you testify against yourselves that you are descendants of those who murdered the prophets.”

In other words, there have always been two groups within God’s people: those who speak prophetically … and those who oppose that speech. The claim that the lawyers make – that they would not have shed the blood of the prophets like their fathers did – shows that they are sons not of the prophets, but of those who killed the prophets. But Jesus isn’t just being cute with his words here. There is a subtext to this: those who are building the tombs of the prophets are about to kill the greatest prophet of all, showing whose sons they truly are. So Jesus says:

“Therefore also the Wisdom of God said, ‘I will send them prophets and apostles, some of whom they will kill and persecute,’ so that this generation may be charged with the blood of all the prophets shed since the foundation of the world, from the blood of Abel to the blood of Zechariah, who perished between the altar and the sanctuary. Yes, I tell you, it will be charged against this generation.” (Luke 11:49–51, NRSV)

But these acts of shedding the blood of prophets have continued throughout history. In the 15th century, great Christian thinkers like Jan Hus and Joan of Arc were executed for heresy. In the 16th century, around a thousand people were killed by church leaders for challenging the corrupt church of their day. In the 17th century many Quakers in America were put to death, and in Europe Galileo was put on house arrest until he got sick and died. Even in the 20th century some of the greatest modern prophets like Dietrich Bonhoeffer or Martin Luther King were killed by people who didn’t like their message. We might not be burning people at the stake anymore, but how many people have committed suicide because of pressure to conform that was placed on them by the church, and many Christians have become convinced that they are fighting in holy war against people who have a different message about God than they do.

If we are going to repent, we have to lay down our desire to control others. If we are going to speak against people, it needs to be against ourselves and against those who are in power, not against outsiders. We have a tendency as Christians today to judge those that we think we are holier than. Paul calls out the tendency to judge others in Romans 2: “Therefore you have no excuse, whoever you are, when you judge others; for in passing judgment on another you condemn yourself, because you, the judge, are doing the very same things.” (Romans 2:1–2, NRSV)

Or Jesus calls this out in Matthew 7: “Do not judge, so that you may not be judged. For with the judgment you make you will be judged, and the measure you give will be the measure you get. Why do you see the speck in your neighbor’s eye, but do not notice the log in your own eye?” (Matthew 7:1–3 , NRSV)

Jesus calls out even our anger as consisting of murderous thoughts: “You have heard that it was said to those of ancient times, ‘You shall not murder’; and ‘whoever murders shall be liable to judgment.’ But I say to you that if you are angry with a brother or sister, you will be liable to judgment; and if you insult a brother or sister, you will be liable to the council; and if you say, ‘You fool,’ you will be liable to the hell of fire.” (Matthew 5:21–22, NRSV)

Do you think when Jesus calls out those who would murder the prophets in his day that he doesn’t insult us also? We have to be careful to do what Peter says: “Rid yourselves, therefore, of all malice, and all guile, insincerity, envy, and all slander.” (1 Peter 2:1, NRSV)

The Key of Knowledge (11:52)

And then we come to the final verse:

“Woe to you lawyers! For you have taken away the key of knowledge; you did not enter yourselves, and you hindered those who were entering.” (11:52)

When we abuse our power as messengers of the gospel, we take away the key of knowledge, and we hinder people from entering.

I am struck by another woe that Matthew records that is not in Luke: “Woe to you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! For you cross sea and land to make a single convert, and you make the new convert twice as much a child of hell as yourselves” (Matthew 23:15, NRSV). God forbid that this could be said about us.

The only way we enter the kingdom of God is if we love like God loves. As Jesus said, “For if you forgive others their trespasses, your heavenly Father will also forgive you; but if you do not forgive others, neither will your Father forgive your trespasses.” (Matthew 6:14–15, NRSV).

If we ignore Jesus’s teachings about anger and judgment, then woe to us. If we read passages like the Woes against the Pharisees and Lawyers and don’t take the message to heart or if we think it’s about someone else, then woe to us.

The Good News

But there is good news in all this. First John says, “If we say that we have no sin, we deceive ourselves, and the truth is not in us. If we confess our sins, he who is faithful and just will forgive us our sins and cleanse us from all unrighteousness” (1 John 1:8–9, NRSV). In other words, we have two choices before us: we can be like the Pharisee in Luke 18 who voids all his righteousness by looking down on the tax collector, or we can be like the tax collector who beats his breasts and cries, “God, be merciful to me, a sinner” (Luke 18:13, NRSV).

I bring this passage to our attention to call us to beg God for mercy and to change our ways. If we have been focused on externals, let’s ask God to change what’s inside our hearts (Luke 11:39–41). If we have given to the church but not stood up for justice, let’s ask God to help us fight for justice and the love of God (Luke 11:42). If we have focused on the recognition we get in church, let’s ask God to help us do things without recognition (Luke 11:43). If we have caused people to turn away from the kingdom, let’s repentant and ask God to teach us to love like Jesus loves (Luke 11:44, 46–52). This is a lifelong battle. I am still trying to figure out what this looks like. I don’t think I focus on the condition of my heart enough or stand up for justice enough. But God is faithful. If we repent and ask him to do these things in our heart, he will!

The Gospels

The Biblical Gospel vs. the Evangelical Gospel

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Many years ago a friend asked me why the Gospels don’t teach the basic gospel message, and at the time I didn’t know how to respond. After studying the Bible more and more, I’ve realized that the problem is in us, not in the Bible. If you ask Christians today, “What is the gospel,” they will likely say something about heaven and hell and what happens when you die.[1] For most of us, the “good news” is primarily about salvation and specifically salvation from hell. But if you look in the Bible, the gospel is much bigger than this. Sometimes the gospel is tied with salvation, but more often the gospel is tied with the message of the kingdom.

Look at how the Gospel of Mark summarizes Jesus’ preaching: “Now after John was arrested, Jesus came to Galilee, proclaiming the good news of God, and saying: ‘The time is fulfilled, and the kingdom of God has come near; repent, and believe in the good news’” (Mark 1:14-15, NRSV). The gospel, or “good news,” is about God’s kingdom coming to earth and about us repenting and exercising faith in it to change the world. Did you know that the Gospel of Mark never once talks about what happens when you die? There is one passage that talks about hell (Mark 9:43-48), but it is not in an appeal to believe in Jesus. It is in a warning not to cause someone to stumble. The Gospel of Mark also never talks about going to heaven when you die. There is one passage that talks about having treasure in heaven and about having eternal life in the age to come (Mark 10:17-31), but the age to come is when Jesus sets up his reign on earth and we live in resurrected bodies on the new earth. Those treasures are stored in heaven, but are brought out for us here![2] And Mark 12:18-27 speaks about the resurrection, but again, this is about what happens on earth after Jesus returns. No passage in the Gospel of Mark speaks of going to heaven when you die. For Mark, that is not the gospel. The gospel is the message that Jesus is now taking the throne to bring God’s reign on earth. The very first verse of Mark says this much: “The beginning of the gospel of Jesus the Christ, the Son of God.” Both the terms “Christ” and “Son of God” are royal terms. The emperors of Rome claimed to be able to rule as the son of God, but Mark says, no, Jesus is the one with authority to rule as the Son of God. “Christ” (or “Messiah”) is not Jesus’ last name; it is the Greek word for “anointed one,” meaning the one who has been anointed as the Jewish king. That’s why when Jesus is on the cross at the end of the Gospel of Mark, the charge against him is that he is “the king of the Jews.” The gospel, for Mark, is ultimately the gospel of the kingdom.

But it is not just Mark who views the gospel differently than we do today. After the birth narrative, the Gospel of Matthew starts with these words: “In those days John the Baptist appeared in the wilderness of Judea, proclaiming, ‘Repent, for the kingdom of heaven has come near’” (Matt 3:1-2, NRSV). John the Baptist’s preaching is centered not on personal salvation, but on the invasion of God’s kingdom. One chapter later Matthew introduces Jesus’ preaching with these words: “From that time Jesus began to proclaim, ‘Repent, for the kingdom of heaven has come near’” (Matt 4:17, NRSV). And in chapter 10, when Jesus sends the twelve apostles out, he says, “As you go, proclaim the good news, ‘The kingdom of heaven has come near’” (Matt 10:7, NRSV). In three other passages Matthew refers to the gospel as “the gospel of the kingdom” (Matt 4:23; 9:35; 24:14). That’s what the gospel is: it is more about God reigning through Jesus than about what happens when you die. Matthew devotes an entire chapter at the center of his gospel to telling seven parables about the kingdom (Matt 13).

Now it might be tempting to think that because Matthew talks about “the kingdom of heaven” what he means is the place you go when you die, but a look more closely reveals that this is not what he is thinking about. In fact, Matthew uses “kingdom of heaven” in the same places where Mark says “kingdom of God.” “Kingdom of heaven” is just another way of referring to God’s rule from heaven. That’s why Jesus can say, “the kingdom of heaven has come near.” God’s reign is coming to earth. That’s why we pray, “Thy kingdom come, thy will be done on earth as it is in heaven.” The kingdom of heaven is about heaven having its way with the earth. That’s why Jesus says when he casts out demons that Satan’s kingdom cannot stand and that “the kingdom of God has come to you” (Matt 12:25-28). That’s why Jesus could say to those around him that some of them “will not taste death before they see the Son of Man coming in his kingdom” (Matt 16:28). That’s why Jesus can say to the Pharisees that “the tax collectors and the prostitutes are going into the kingdom of God ahead of you” (Matt 21:31). Or “the kingdom of God will be taken away from you and given to a people that produces the fruits of the kingdom” (Matt 21:43). The kingdom of heaven is something that Jesus and his disciples are bringing to earth!

We find the same thing in the Gospel of Luke, where Jesus again uses the phrase “gospel of the kingdom” three times (Luke 4:43; 8:1; 16:16) and associates the good news with the message that the poor, hungry, mournful and persecuted are blessed (Luke 6:20-26). And we find the same thing in the Gospel of John, where Jesus tells Nicodemus that unless he is born from above he will not see the kingdom of God (John 3:3, 5).

There are a handful of references to hell in the Gospels (Matt 5:22, 29, 30; 10:28; 18:9; 23:15, 33; Mark 9:43, 45, 47; Luke 12:5), but none of them talks about Jesus saving us from hell. And there are many more references to heaven in the Gospels, but only once in the four gospels do we find the idea that you can go to heaven when you die (Luke 23:43, assuming Paradise is in heaven, which is debated). Paul also talks a couple times about going to heaven upon death (Php 1:23; 2 Cor 8), but both Paul and Jesus are far more concerned with the breaking in of the kingdom of God than they are with where you will go when you die. Where you go when you die is important, but far more important is the fact that in Jesus God has begun changing the world! This is what “the gospel of the kingdom” is about. In order to understand this better, we should look at the Old Testament background of the concept of the kingdom of God.

In the Old Testament, Israel was established as a theocracy, which means it was a nation directly ruled by God. God shows himself to be king over all the gods of Egypt in the exodus. God acts as king to give the people their laws. God leads the Israelites through the wilderness as their king. God anoints judges to deliver the tribes of Israel under his kingship. But in 1 Samuel 8 we read the following:

Then all the elders of Israel gathered together and came to Samuel at Ramah, and said to him, “You are old and your sons do not follow in your ways; appoint for us, then, a king to govern us, like other nations.” But the thing displeased Samuel when they said, “Give us a king to govern us.” Samuel prayed to the LORD, and the LORD said to Samuel, “Listen to the voice of the people in all that they say to you; for they have not rejected you, but they have rejected me from being king over them. Just as they have done to me, from the day I brought them up out of Egypt to this day, forsaking me and serving other gods, so also they are doing to you. Now then, listen to their voice; only—you shall solemnly warn them, and show them the ways of the king who shall reign over them.” [1 Sam 8:4-9, NRSV]

Samuel goes on to warn them that the king will only look out for himself and will oppress the people and start wars and tax them heavily. Sure enough, the king they choose does this very thing. Eventually God gives them David, who is a man after God’s own heart, but his reign does not last, and the later kings oppress the people and lead them astray. This is why Ezekiel prophesies against the shepherds of Israel:

Thus says the Lord GOD: Ah, you shepherds of Israel who have been feeding yourselves! Should not shepherds feed the sheep? You eat the fat, you clothe yourselves with the wool, you slaughter the fatlings; but you do not feed the sheep. You have not strengthened the weak, you have not healed the sick, you have not bound up the injured, you have not brought back the strayed, you have not sought the lost, but with force and harshness you have ruled them. So they were scattered, because there was no shepherd. [Ezek 34:2-5, NRSV]

Ezekiel continues:

For thus says the Lord GOD: I myself will search for my sheep, and will seek them out.… I will bring them out from the peoples and gather them from the countries, and will bring them into their own land; and I will feed them on the mountains of Israel, by the watercourses, and in all the inhabited parts of the land. I will feed them with good pasture, and the mountain heights of Israel shall be their pasture; … I will seek the lost, and I will bring back the strayed, and I will bind up the injured, and I will strengthen the weak, but the fat and the strong I will destroy. I will feed them with justice. [Ezek 34:11-16, NRSV]

This promise, that God would shepherd his own sheep, is the promise of the kingdom. Isaiah prophesied:

Get you up to a high mountain,
O Zion, herald of good news;
lift up your voice with strength,
O Jerusalem, herald of good news,
lift it up, do not fear;
say to the cities of Judah,
“Here is your God!”
See, the Lord GOD comes with might,
and his arm rules for him;
his reward is with him,
and his recompense before him.
He will feed his flock like a shepherd;
he will gather the lambs in his arms,
and carry them in his bosom,
and gently lead the mother sheep. [Isa 40:9-11]

This chapter of Isaiah is important for the New Testament. It announces the change in Israel’s fortune, and John the Baptist gets identified as the voice crying out in the wilderness from earlier in this chapter. The word “good news” (twice in verse 9) is the same word that gets translated as “gospel” in the New Testament. And notice what the good news is: “Here is your God,” “his arm rules for him,” “he will feed his flock [and] gather the lambs.” It is a gospel of the kingdom. Later Isaiah uses the word “gospel” or “good news” again, and again it is in terms of God’s kingship:

How beautiful upon the mountains
are the feet of the messenger who announces peace,
who brings good news,
who announces salvation,
who says to Zion, “Your God reigns.” [Isa 52:7, NRSV]

Here we have a message of salvation, but that salvation comes in the form of God reigning, that is, in the kingship or kingdom of God.

The Old Testament prophets knew that God intended to rule the world as its king and that his people had rejected his rule. And they announced that God eventually would rule as king, and what would this look like? Feeding the flock, gathering the lambs in his arms, carrying them in his bosom, and gently leading the mother sheep (Isa 40:11). Or in the words of Ezekiel: seeking the lost, bringing back the strayed, binding up the injured, strengthening the weak, and feeding them all with justice (Ezek 34:16). And so when Jesus came, what did he do? Matthew summarizes it this way:

Then Jesus went about all the cities and villages, teaching in their synagogues, and proclaiming the gospel of the kingdom, and curing every disease and every sickness. When he saw the crowds, he had compassion for them, because they were harassed and helpless, like sheep without a shepherd. [Matt 9:35-36, NRSV]

When Jesus preaches the gospel of the kingdom, he heals the sick. As he says later in a summary of his activity: “Go and tell John what you hear and see: the blind receive their sight, the lame walk, the lepers are cleansed, the deaf hear, the dead are raised, and the poor have good news brought to them” (Matt 11:5, NRSV]. The gospel sets people free right here, right now. Jesus sees the sheep. He knows they are harassed and helpless. And he gently leads and cares for them. This is the kingdom of God.

But that is not all. Look at the next verse in Matthew:

Then he said to his disciples, “The harvest is plentiful, but the laborers are few; therefore ask the Lord of the harvest to send out laborers into his harvest.” [Matt 9:37-38, NRSV]

If the gospel is the good news that God is taking charge of the world and making it right, then discipleship is being the hands and feet of Jesus in carrying that out. The gospel is not about you. It’s not a purchase of fire insurance. It’s seeking God’s kingdom on earth, seeking God’s righteousness being realized on earth. It’s making God’s name hallowed, God’s will done. It is making sure people have their daily bread. It is forgiving those who trespass against us. It is helping people escape temptation.

Do you see the crowds? Can you tell that they are harassed and helpless, like sheep without a shepherd? Do you have compassion on them? Will you work with Jesus to feed the flock? In the very next verse it says, “Then Jesus summoned his twelve disciples and gave them authority over unclean spirits, to cast them out, and to cure every disease and every sickness” (Matt 10:1, NRSV). And before they go, Jesus tells them, “As you go, proclaim the good news, ‘The kingdom of heaven has come near.’ Cure the sick, raise the dead, cleanse the lepers, cast out demons” (Matt 10:7-8, NRSV). Many of us don’t have the faith to cure the sick, to raise the dead, to cleanse lepers, and to cast out demons, but start small. Do you see someone who is lonely and needs a friend? Be that friend! Do you see someone struggling financially? Give them whatever help you can offer. Do you see someone struggling with their health? Pray for a breakthrough. Do you see a troubled teen in need of an adult who cares? Take them under your wing. Do you see someone who doesn’t know if God cares about their situation? Show them that God cares through your actions. Let your actions prove Jesus’ words true: The kingdom of heaven has come near!

[1] A Google search for “What is the gospel” returned the following as the top three results: “the gospel is the good news concerning Christ and the way of salvation” (gotquestions.org); “Good news! Here is how you can be saved from my judgment!” (Crossway.org); and “sometimes the term gospel refers broadly to Jesus’ work of justification and sanctification for and in His people, and sometimes it refers narrowly to Jesus’ work of justification” (Ligonier.org).

[2] Tom Wright, Surprised by Hope (London: Society for Promoting Christian Knowledge, 2007), 164, notes that the language of treasure being stored suggests that the treasure will later be brought out of that storehouse. He says, “If I say to a friend ‘I’ve kept some beer in the fridge for you’, that doesn’t mean that he has to get into the fridge in order to drink the beer. God’s future inheritance, the incorruptible new world and the new bodies that are to inhabit that world, are already kept safe, waiting for us, not so that we can go to heaven and put them on there, but so that they can be brought to birth in this world, or rather in the new heavens and new earth, the renewed world.

Rethinking Bible Verses in Context, The Gospels, Worship Songs

Wouldn’t Any Shepherd Leave the Ninety-Nine?

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As modern (or postmodern) Westerners, we often misread passages of the Bible. This is not surprising; it is hard to read a text written in a vastly different language from a different time and a different culture and make sense of it. God knows this and is patient with us. He also calls us to study and to get better at reading this ancient, inspired text. The benefits of doing so are tremendous and sometimes the cost of not doing so is great. This is true with regard to the parable of the lost sheep.

The Parable of the Lost Sheep

Jesus tells three parables in a row: the lost sheep (Luke 15:3-7), the lost coin (Luke 15:8-10), and the lost son (Luke 15:11-32). The reason for telling these parables is given in verses 1-2:

Now the tax collectors and sinners were all gathering around to hear Jesus. But the Pharisees and the teachers of the law muttered, “This man welcomes sinners and eats with them.” [Luke 15:1-2, NIV]

The Pharisees and the scribes had a problem with Jesus’s acceptance of sinners. This should give us a hint off-the-bat that these parables are about the way we view sinners. And yet we tend to view them as a commentary on God’s love. Consider the song “Reckless Love” by Cory Asbury:

Oh, the overwhelming, never-ending, reckless love of God;
Oh, it chases me down, fights ’til I’m found, leaves the 99;
And I couldn’t earn it,
I don’t deserve it, still You give yourself away;
Oh, the overwhelming, never-ending, reckless love of God.

We often sing about how undeserving the sinner is of God’s love, but the problem is that in doing so, we make Luke 15 say the opposite of what it says! It was the Pharisees that saw sinners as unworthy of God’s love. Jesus was opposing that view! Consider Jesus’ opening question:

Suppose one of you has a hundred sheep and loses one of them. Doesn’t he leave the ninety-nine in the open country and go after the lost sheep until he finds it? [Luke 15:4, NIV]

Modern readers who have never cared for sheep might not know what a shepherd would do if one sheep disappears. Would he stay with the 99 so as not to lose another or would he leave the 99 in the open country and go after the one. Jesus expected his hearers to know: any shepherd is going to go find that sheep!

We know this not just because shepherds will attest to it, but also because of the way Jesus asks the question. We see rhetorical questions formatted in exactly the same way throughout the Gospel of Luke:

  1. Which of you if a friend comes at midnight would say, “Don’t bother me. I cannot get up and give you anything” (Luke 11:5-8). In a world where hospitality is highly valued, everyone knows the answer: none of us would do that. In the same way, God’s not going to do that regarding our prayers.
  2. What father among you if his son asks for a fish or an egg would give him a serpent or a scorpion (Luke 11:11-12)? Even today we know the answer: none of us would do that. In the same way the Father is going to give us what we need (Luke 11:13).
  3. Which of you by being anxious can add a single hour to his life (Luke 12:25)? None of us. Then don’t be anxious (Luke 12:26).
  4. Which of you has a son or an ox fall in a well on the Sabbath and says, “I can’t do anything about it; it’s the Sabbath” (Luke 14:5). No one would do that. In the same way, it is right for Jesus to free a man from bondage on the Sabbath.
  5. Which of you would start building a tower without first determining if he has the ability to complete it (Luke 14:28-30), or what king would go to war without first determining if he has the power to win the battle (Luke 14:31-32)? No one would. In the same way, don’t approach discipleship without counting the cost.
  6. Which of you who has a servant plowing or taking care of the sheep then serves the servant dinner (Luke 17:7-10)? No one. In the same way we as God’s servants shouldn’t think that God is suddenly indebted to us.

In each of these examples, the answer is clear (or at least it would have been to the original audience): none of us would do that, and the implication is that we shouldn’t expect God to be like that. These rhetorical questions work because everyone knows that Jesus is giving absurd scenarios. It is the same with the parable of the sheep:

Which of you having 100 sheep would choose not to go after one that is lost? None of us, Jesus. None of us would let even one slip away.

The point is that every shepherd values the lost sheep. In fact, we could say that the one sheep is suddenly of more value to the shepherd than the ninety-nine that have no need of being found. This is made clear in the next two verses:

And when he finds it, he joyfully puts it on his shoulders and goes home. Then he calls his friends and neighbors together and says, ‘Rejoice with me; I have found my lost sheep.’ [Luke 15:5-6, NIV]

This is not surprising at all. It is not about God’s love in particular. It is about what every shepherd would do. Every shepherd is relieved and overjoyed to find a lost sheep. So is God:

I tell you that in the same way there will be more rejoicing in heaven over one sinner who repents than over ninety-nine righteous persons who do not need to repent. [Luke 15:7, NIV]

The message is clear. Don’t you value what you have lost? So sinners are of great value to God!

The parable of the lost coin makes the same point:

Or suppose a woman has ten silver coins and loses one. Doesn’t she light a lamp, sweep the house and search carefully until she finds it? And when she finds it, she calls her friends and neighbors together and says, ‘Rejoice with me; I have found my lost coin.’ [Luke 15:8-10, NIV]

These are not surprising activities. No one says, “Well that coin doesn’t deserve to be found!” Deserving or earning is not the question. The question is one of value. A sheep and a coin (valued at a day’s wages) have value! And in the same way, a lost soul has value to God. This is the point of these parables. These parables do not imply that the sheep and the coin are undeserving, nor do they imply that God’s love for sinners is surprising.

The third parable makes the point again, and this time introduces another character, the older brother, representing the Pharisees and scribes who cannot see the occasion as worth celebrating. The father who has lost a son knows that the son’s return is worth celebrating, because the son has value. If the older brother cannot see that, the older brother is not thinking rightly about the situation, much as the Pharisees are not thinking rightly about the value of sinners.

To recap: God’s love for sinners should not be surprising to us. It surprised the Pharisees, but only because they undervalued human beings. Jesus told three parables to help everyone realize that God feels about lost human beings the way we feel about important things we have lost. To make the parable of the lost sheep about the recklessness of God’s love is to misunderstand not only the parable, but the value of human beings.

Popular Theology Today

So why do we gravitate toward the Pharisaic view? Probably for the same reason the Pharisees did. It starts with two seemingly noble desires: (1) to magnify God’s love and (2) to humble ourselves. These desires, wrongly applied, lead us to a bad theology and a bad anthropology, and in the end we feel like we have glorified God, when in reality we have misrepresented him and denigrated his creation.

The Bible is clear that humanity was created in the image of God and therefore has inherent value. This image has been marred by sin, but it is still there, and so is the value that comes with it. It is simply not true to say that there was nothing of value within us before we were saved. We had the image of God. It is simply not true to say, “I am just a sinner saved by grace.” We were never just sinners; we have always also been image-bearers and the object of God’s affection. What does Jesus say about the way God feels about sinners? “For God so loved the world that he gave his one and only Son” (John 3:16, NIV).

Why? Why did God love the world? Because it is his creation! Why does any of us love our rebellious sons and daughters? It comes naturally. Even when we have been hurt by those we love, there is still a warm place in our hearts for them. Again, just as the shepherd values the lost sheep and the woman values the lost coin and the father values the lost son, so God really, truly values humanity!

But what is the harm in having an overly humble view of our past selves? Simply this: we will extend that view to others who are where we were. But it is the view of the Pharisees, not the view of Jesus.

Sure, we can combat it with a theology of a God who loves sinners despite their worthlessness, but does that help us to love our neighbors as ourselves? It might help us share a message about Jesus with them or even to treat them as we would want to be treated, but does it help us to truly love and appreciate them the way Jesus loved and appreciated sinners?

Look at the way Jesus loves the sinful woman who wets his feet with her tears and dries them with her hair and kisses them (Luke 7:36-50). Everyone else thinks the worst of her actions. Jesus sees her actions in a positive light because he values her! Look at how Jesus is “a friend of tax collectors and sinners” (Luke 7:34). It is easy to be a witness to sinners; much harder to be a friend. Look at how Jesus is able to be entertained by a tax collector (Luke 19:1-10). Or how he sees a crippled woman as a “daughter of Abraham” long overdue for healing (Luke 13:10-17). The examples go on and on. Jesus didn’t just selflessly love people; he valued them.

So What?

So what does this mean for us? I think we need to make some adjustments. I come from a Calvinist background, and many years ago I would have spoken of the “total depravity” of humans apart from Jesus. Reading Scripture helped me to shed this worldview. But even Christians who do not identify as Calvinist are taught that there was nothing in us deserving God’s love. We need to replace that narrative with one in which no one is totally depraved, no one is “just a sinner,” everyone has value as an image-bearer, and the lost among us have a special value to God. That value is not just a kinetic energy that gets activated only when God changes the person. That value is already there. God looks at the sinner and loves who that sinner is apart from whether or not that sinner will get saved. We should do the same.

Changing our view of humanity in this way will produce two results:

  1. People will no longer be projects. When we think of people as unworthy of God’s love, we have trouble valuing them, and they can easily become projects. I am trying to lead so-and-so to Jesus, and that is the only value I see in them. If instead we see value in sinners, we will love them and appreciate them for who they are, just as Jesus loved and appreciated the sinners he encountered. Our ministry to them will become a two-way street as we learn from them and receive blessings from them while sharing what we have to offer.
  2. We will no longer be crippled by low self-esteem. Many Christians have a healthy self-esteem, but those who don’t are hindered all the more by their theology. They see their true self as the one that walked in sin, and they long to be freed from themselves, which is something God will never do. They struggle to see the image of God in themselves, even though it was there long before they came to know Jesus. They hate themselves and don’t believe that God really loved who they were even while they were in rebellion against God. Singing, “I couldn’t earn it; I don’t deserve it,” is not helping them. Singing about a “wretch like me” is not helping them. If we replace our Pharisaic view of humanity with Jesus’ view of humanity, we will love who God made us to be when he knitted us in the womb, and we will love who God made others to be even while they are lost.

If you feel like you are merely a saved sinner, a wretch, or a person having no value, know that this is not what God thinks! This is the Pharisees’ view. Jesus has always felt differently, and so he naturally left the ninety-nine behind to find you. He swept the house and searched carefully until he found you. He ran to greet you while you were still at a distance. Even for the God who can create whatever he needs, something was lacking as long as you were lost. God genuinely longed for you, and when you were found there was much rejoicing in heaven (Luke 15:7, 10)! This is the message of the parable. It’s not that you don’t deserve this; it is that you were worth seeking after and celebrating!

lost sheep

New Testament Use of the Old Testament, The Gospels

How to Transform the Current Political Climate

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Our country is in one of the greatest battles we have been in, and it is not a battle for the White House but a battle for our soul. It matters little which candidate gets elected. We could have the best President we have ever had, and if our integrity is gone, there is nothing that President could do to save us. Or we could have the worst President we have ever had, and if our nation is righteous, the effect of that President is going to be minimal. Therefore this post is not about which of the candidates is the better option but about what it means to be followers of Jesus in a very charged, divisive political and social climate. I want to focus in particular on Jesus’ teaching to love our enemies in Matthew 5:38-48.

This passage is part of the Sermon on the Mount. Jesus starts this sermon with the beatitudes, where he announces that the ones God truly blesses are the poor, the mournful, the meek, those longing for righteousness, the merciful, the pure in heart, the peacemakers, and the persecuted (Matthew 5:3-12). Then Jesus calls for his disciples to be different than the religious teachers of their time (Matthew 5:13-20). They teach the law of Moses, but it doesn’t really hit home to them, so in a series of statements Jesus notes what the disciples have heard about the law and how his teaching is different (Matthew 5:21-48). Then he highlights the problem of the other teachers: they do things merely to be seen by others as righteous. Not so the disciples of Jesus: we are to practice righteousness in secret, so that our reward will come from the God who sees what is done in secret (Matthew 6:1-18). It is in this midst of this that we find this teaching.

Eye for Eye and Tooth for Tooth?

Matthew 5:38-48 includes the fifth and sixth laws that Jesus addresses: “Eye for eye and tooth for tooth” and then “Love your neighbor.” Both of these can be easily misinterpreted. “Eye for eye and tooth for tooth” is a partial quote of a longer instruction about how the justice system in Israel is to be set up. Exodus 21:12 calls for the death penalty in ancient Israel when someone has murdered another person, but the next two verses qualify this: If the murder was not premeditated, there should be cities of refuge where the killer can flee and be protected from the person who wants to avenge the death of their kin. Verses 18-19 qualify this further: If someone strikes a person and injures him, he is not to be put to death but instead is “to pay for the loss of time and to arrange for full recovery.” Then verses 23-25 give the rule: “you shall give life for life, eye for eye, tooth for tooth, hand for hand, foot for foot, burn for burn, wound for wound, stripe for stripe.” This was not intended to be literal, because the next two verses specify what could serve as compensation for damage to an eye or tooth, and Jews in Jesus’ day also understood this to allow for monetary compensation at whatever an eye or a tooth was deemed to be valued at.[1] The purpose of this law was to set down rules for restitution and compensation and to prevent people from seeking vengeance that would be inappropriate for the crime.

Jesus recalls the law and then says, “But I tell you, do not resist an evil person,” and he gives four examples: if someone hits you, let him hit you again; if someone sues you for one article of clothing, give him all your clothes; if a Roman soldier demands that you carry his pack a mile, carry it twice as far; if someone wants to borrow from you, give what he wants (Matthew 5:38-42). Now Jesus is using hyperbole, making overstatements to get his point across, but his basic point is this: The law, “eye for eye and tooth for tooth,” gives you rights, but Jesus wants his disciples to stop thinking in terms of rights and start thinking in terms of love.

You have a right to be compensated, but don’t use that right. I once had a man I was ministering to steal my wallet. I reported my credit cards stolen, and the credit company asked me if I would be willing to help them identify the person who stole the card before they would refund the $200 in charges on my card, and I said, “no.” Or some of you may be familiar with the story of Les Miserables, where the Bishop of Digne tells the police that the silver they found on Jean Valjean was a gift, and then he offers Jean Valjean another gift. This is what Jesus is talking about: Jesus calls for us to cut our losses and continue in love.

Think about how rarely we see this in America right now. We have utterly failed to live in a Christian manner. That’s not the fault of unbelievers; that’s the fault of the church here! We have been given principles that could transform the world, and instead we have become like the world, caring more about our “rights” than about following the teaching of Jesus! As we get closer to election day, I have watched my Christian friends on Facebook posting deceptive things about Trump or about Biden to try to turn people against whichever candidate they hate. Do you know what the Bible calls this? Bearing false witness against our neighbor. It is a violation of one of the Ten Commandments! I received a political ad in the mail Friday that gave three quotes by one of the Presidential candidates, and I decided to look up these three quotes. In two of them the ad left out an important part of the sentence that would change the meaning of what the candidate said. To quote someone in a way that makes it sound like they are saying something they would not say is to misquote the person. This happens on both sides of the aisle, and it’s not just among those making ads, but among Christians as we talk about the candidates. We have fallen more in love with the ideas of our political party than with the teachings of Jesus, and once our beliefs become more important than the truth, we lose our ability to hear the truth altogether!

Long gone is the day when a Presidential candidate could hear a woman say, “I don’t trust [your opponent, because] he’s an Arab,” and the candidate would respond, “No, ma’am. He is a decent family man and citizen that I just happen to have disagreements with on fundamental issues.” Long gone is the day when a Presidential candidate could hear a man say “I am afraid of [your opponent becoming President],” and the candidate could say, “He is a decent person and we do not need to be scared of him being President.” If America loses its soul that’s one thing, but if Christians in America will follow the national hatred of enemy rather than Jesus’ call to love our enemies, the church in America will close its doors.

If we fail to love our enemies, we fail to be poor in spirit, mournful, meek, hungry and thirsty for righteousness, merciful, pure in heart, peacemakers, and the persecuted, and if we fail here, our blessing is gone.[2] Think about Jesus: Jesus was mocked and struck. His garments were taken from him. When they forced him to carry his cross, he carried it as far as he could. When they asked him to give his life, he freely laid it down. When these same things happen to us, should we be like Jesus or like the world?[3] If we want to call ourselves Christians, we have to be more focused on love than on our rights. We have to lay down the American way and take up the way of Jesus, take up our cross, and love others when we are wronged.

The apostle Paul says, “Repay no one evil for evil, but take thought for what is noble in the sight of all. If it is possible, so far as it depends on you, live peaceably with all. Beloved, never avenge yourselves, but leave room for the wrath of God; for it is written, ‘Vengeance is mine, I will repay, says the Lord.’ No, ‘if your enemies are hungry, feed them; if they are thirsty, give them something to drink; for by doing this you will heap burning coals on their heads.’ Do not be overcome by evil, but overcome evil with good” (Romans 12:17-21, NRSV).

What does this mean? It means that when we hate our enemies, we become like them, but when we love our enemies we can defeat the evil in them and potentially transform them to be like Jesus! Martin Luther King said, “Returning hate for hate multiplies hate, adding deeper darkness to a night already devoid of stars. Darkness cannot drive out darkness; only light can do that. Hate cannot drive out hate, only love can do that.”[4]

Love Your Neighbor and Hate Your Enemy?

This brings us to the second statement Jesus makes: “You have heard that it was said, ‘You shall love your neighbor and hate your enemy.’ But I say to you, Love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you, so that you may be children of your Father in heaven; for he makes his sun rise on the evil and on the good, and sends rain on the righteous and on the unrighteous” (Matthew 5:43-45, NRSV).

Now the law of Moses does not say to “hate your enemy.” Instead it says if you see your enemy’s ox or donkey running away, you should help your neighbor retrieve it (Exodus 23:4-5), and you should even treat foreigners as you would treat citizens (Leviticus 19:33-34). But because Leviticus 19 said “love your neighbor,” some people debated who we needed to love (see Luke 10:25-37).

In our passage, Jesus connects love for our enemies with being children of God (“that you may be children of your Father in heaven”). A true child does what the Father does. God doesn’t  cause his sun to rise only for the righteous, and he doesn’t send rain only for the good. God blesses both friend and foe, and we should do the same. The Apostle Paul says, “Be imitators of God, as beloved children, and live in love, as Christ loved us and gave himself up for us, a fragrant offering and sacrifice to God” (Ephesians 5:1-2, NRSV). If God is truly your Father, you will live as God does, by love. Remember the beatitudes: “Blessed are the merciful, for they will receive mercy. Blessed are the pure in heart, for they will see God. Blessed are the peacemakers, for they will be called children of God” (Matthew 5:7-9, NRSV). This is what it means to be a Christian: we love those the Father loves, and that is everyone!

Jesus continues: “For if you love those who love you, what reward do you have? Do not even the tax collectors do the same? And if you greet only your brothers and sisters, what more are you doing than others? Do not even the Gentiles do the same? Be perfect, therefore, as your heavenly Father is perfect” (Matthew 5:46-48, NRSV). If the previous verses showed the who God loves, these verses show who the godless love.[5] The tax collectors of Jesus’ day had turned their backs on their own country and agreed to work for the enemy, but even they loved people who loved them. The Gentiles worshiped other gods, but even they would express care for their fellow countrymen. If that’s all we are doing – loving people who love us and caring for our own country – then we are no better than the godless. If we want to call ourselves children of God, love for the lovely is not enough. Our love must extend to our enemies!

In today’s society our expectations are so much lower than Jesus’s expectations were. We don’t aim for love, we aim for “tolerance.” We have bumper stickers with the word “coexist.” The sentiment is nice, but the tax collectors and Gentiles of Jesus’ day could have expressed the same message. They tolerated their enemies well enough. The Christian call is much higher: “love your enemies.”

The law about loving our neighbor is found in Leviticus 19. Leviticus 19 starts with God saying to the Israelites, “You shall be holy, for I the Lord your God am holy.” God then gives a series of instructions about what this means: revere your parents, keep the sabbaths, do not worship idols, offer proper sacrifices (Leviticus 19:3-8). These are instructions about how to love God with all your heart. Then God continues: Do not harvest all your crops, but leave some for the poor and for immigrants (19:9-10). Do not steal or deceive others (19:11-13). Do not mistreat the underprivileged (19:14). Do not show favoritism (19:15). Do not profit from the loss of others (19:16). Do not hate your neighbor or take vengeance against anyone (19:17-18). And then it concludes with the words, “You shall love your neighbor as yourself” (Leviticus 19:18, NRSV).

When Jesus quotes Leviticus 19:18 at the beginning of this section and then closes this section with “be perfect as your heavenly Father is perfect,” which paraphrases Leviticus 19:2 (cf. Deuteronomy 18:13, LXX), he is thinking of this whole section of Scripture. What does it mean to love our neighbor? It means to do the things listed in Leviticus 19. It means to feed the hungry, to welcome the stranger, to provide clothing for the needy, to visit those in prison (Matthew 25:31-46). It means when you find a foreigner beaten and left for dead, you nurse him back to health (Luke 10:25-37). Jesus gives countless examples in his ministry that build upon the teaching in Leviticus 19. This isn’t just “tolerate your enemies.” This isn’t just “coexist.” This is a radical love for our enemies.

Here is where we are failing. We are fighting the wrong battle. We are fighting with words and votes rather than with radical love for our enemies. That’s why America seems to be falling apart at the seams. The church has lost its voice. Our voice was always love, not words. As soon as we forgot that, we went from being Christian to simply being American.

Consider the way of Jesus: he was born into a condition far worse than the one we live in. The Romans had taken over Jerusalem. Soldiers marched down the streets and enforced heavy taxes on the people. The Romans had let a group with some Jewish sensibilities have some autonomy, but the Herodians demonstrated that they had little interest in the common people. There was a Jewish high priest, but even he would ask the Romans to crucify Jesus. Could Jesus have stopped this? Could Jesus have overpowered them all? Could Jesus have called down a legion of angels to drive them all out of Jerusalem? Yes. But this is not the Christian way. We don’t win by taking over the government. We don’t win by overpowering our enemies. We win by loving our enemies. Jesus set aside his rights, he was not governed by fear, he overcame evil with good. The way we defeat evil is by starting with the evil within.

Application

How can we do this? I want to suggest three ways we can work on loving our enemies in the current political climate:

  1. Trust God. Our tendency to act more like the world than like Jesus is rooted in fear of an uncertain future. If we can replace this fear with faith, we will find it easier to put our fleshly ways to death. Jesus knew that a loss in the short run would be the greatest gain of all in the end, because he trusted God to turn evil into good. We don’t need to be afraid of either candidate getting elected. We can trust that God can work through either candidate.
  2. Repent of our sinfulness, especially in the way we have engaged in political discussion. Even when we are not portraying our political enemies in an unfair light, we are often insensitive to the people we talk with about politics. Love is more important than winning arguments. Let us repent of our focus on politics rather than the kingdom of God. Let us repent of our engagement in the way of the world rather than the way of Jesus. And let us do better in this regard.
  3. Listen to people who differ from you. We have a tendency to read only the articles and watch only the videos that say what our “itching ears want to hear” (2 Timothy 4:3, NIV). We tend to listen to people who disagree with us only in order to argue with them. The Bible says we should be “quick to listen, slow to speak, slow to anger” (James 1:19, NRSV). If we haven’t gotten to the point where we understand why some Christians vote differently than we do, we probably haven’t listened carefully enough to the other side.

We have been fighting hard (and often unfairly!) to get our favorite political candidate elected. But who gets elected is not what matters. What matters is what happens inside our hearts. Lay down the hate, and embrace love. Only in this way will the darkness be driven out of America. Trust God to take care of the institutions, and work on your heart. Love your enemy, and live in the only way that has the power to transform the world! God bless you all, and God bless America.

[1] See Josephus, Ant. 4.280, and b. Ketub. 32ab; cf. Craig S. Keener, The Gospel of Matthew: A Socio-Rhetorical Commentary (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 2009), 196.

[2] W. D. Davies and Dale C. Allison Jr., A Critical and Exegetical Commentary on the Gospel according to Saint Matthew, International Critical Commentary (New York: T&T Clark, 1988-1991), 1:539.

[3] Davies and Allison, Matthew, 1:546; Tom Wright, Matthew for Everyone, Part 1: Chapters 1-15 (London: Society for Promoting Christian Knowledge, 2004), 52–53.

[4] Martin Luther King, Jr., Strength to Love (Boston: Beacon, 1963), 47.

[5] Keener, Matthew, 204.