Monthly Archives: June 2022

JESUS DID NOT SAY THAT WE MUST BIND THE DEVIL

Apologetics, ,

JESUS DID NOT SAY THAT WE MUST BIND THE DEVIL

Oh what a mess we make when we assume that Jesus said what He did not say!

On one occasion, He was on a mission to teach His disciples a valuable lesson.  He took them to Caesarea Philippi – to us only a name on an ancient map but what did it mean to Jesus and His disciples?

It was Israel’s “red light district”, a no-go place for respectable and orthodox Jews. It was both a city built in honour of Caesar which had in it a temple dedicated to the worship of Caesar, and a region where there was the site of pagan worship of the worst kind.

 Outside the city of Caesarea Philippi, a huge rocky cliff had niches carved into the base in which the images of pagan gods were placed for worship, the most prominent being the goat-god Pan, and a pagan temple. There was a grotto at the base of the cliff from which a spring flowed, joining the snow melt from Mount Hermon to form the source of the Jordan River.

Pagan worshippers believed that evil spirits used the cave as their portal through which they retreated into the underworld in the winter and returned in the spring. Their worshippers would entice them out by having sexual intercourse with goats. This cave entrance was known as “the gate of hell”.

It was there, in sight of these depraved and disgusting goings-on that Jesus asked His disciples the question, “Who do you say that I am?” The disciples’ response was crucial. If they acknowledged Jesus only to be a prophet or a great teacher, as did many others, they would have missed the significance of His identity, and would have had no clue about the purpose of His visit to the region.

Their mission as His disciples hung on their understanding of who He was. If they saw Him as no more than another rabbi, what He came to do would have evaporated like the morning mist because He depended on them to continue His work when He left them, based on the conviction that He was indeed the Son of God.

Jesus was elated when Peter, as spokesman for the group, assured Him that they recognised Him to be the Messiah, the Son of God, even though Peter did not understand the full implication of his confession at that moment. It was on the strength of his confession, and in the environment of the worst of human depravity that Jesus commissioned them to bind His yoke on those who were destroying themselves by their ungodly lives because of the yoke of paganism that they had embraced.

. . . On this rock I will build my church, and the gates of Hades will not overcome it. I will give you the keys of the kingdom of heaven; whatever you bind on earth will be bound in heaven, and whatever you loose on earth will be loosed in heaven. (Matt. 16: 18-19)

To which rock was Jesus referring? Not the “rock”, Peter, or even the rock of Peter’s confession. Was Jesus referring to the literal rock at Caesarea Philippi which represented the worst of human religion and depravity? His yoke is so powerful that it will replace the belief systems and behaviour of paganism when those who believe that Jesus is the Son of God and experience the power of the Holy Spirit to raise them from spiritual death and transfer them into the kingdom of God.

We must interpret Jesus’ commission in the culture and religion of the Jews, not from our western imposition on the text. What did it mean to “bind and loose” in the context of Judaism in Jesus’ day?

In His extended explanation of the character and behaviour of kingdom citizens (called “the Sermon on the Mount”) Jesus made it clear that His purpose was not to set aside the Torah but to fulfil it by living it out according to God’s intention so that His disciples would understand and do as He did. The foundation of the Torah is the character of God, expressed in His mercy – the weightiest part of His character. It is His intention that, in all their dealings with one another as God’s covenant people, they would treat one another with mercy.

The ancient rabbis with sh’mikah, those who were acknowledged to have the authority to make pronouncements on God’s intention regarding the details of His instructions, i.e., the Torah, had missed the point and piled rules upon rules governing their behaviour until the people were burdened with impossible expectations on how to “keep” or live a Torah-compliant life.

Jesus declared that He had the authority to dispense with all the rigmarole of His predecessors and take His people back to God’s original intention – mercy and compassion because these attributes were the weightiest or most important aspects of God’s nature (see Exodus 33: 18-34: 7).

It was this yoke – the mercy and compassion of the Father – that would set people free from all other yokes, including the yoke of both paganism and Pharisaism, that would change people from the inside. At the very spot where the disciples witnessed what pagan beliefs led to – “on this rock” – Jesus declared that He would build His church – the visible representative of His kingdom, and nothing, not even the false beliefs about demons and hades, would be able to resist the truth.

At the very spot where the disciples were witnessing the behaviour of idol-worshippers, Jesus gave them His commission and the authority to “bind” His yoke on people and “loose” them from all other yokes which ensnared and enslaved them. No amount of useless “binding” the devil or demons can do what Jesus does in the hearts of people when they embrace the truth of who He is and allow Him to rule in their hearts by the power of the Holy Spirit.

The city of Ephesus was a case in point. When Paul and his companions went to Ephesus, it was a city in the grip of Diana-worship, the many-breasted goddess of fertility who was worshipped by people interacting sexually with her temple prostitutes. After Paul had preached the gospel in that city, many Diana-devotees embraced the truth, brought their demonic paraphernalia, and burnt it in the middle of the city.

So powerful was the yoke of Jesus that Diana lost her influence and had to be “defended” by the silversmiths led by Demetrius because they had lost their business making and selling “Diana”-relics. Their protest caused a riot in the city which almost cost Paul his life.

There is no evidence in Luke’s record of “Jericho” marches or prayer walks; of discerning of spirits or “pulling down” altars or strongholds; of “binding” demons and “loosing” the Holy Spirit or whatever people “loose” by their “spiritual warfare”! It was repentance (changing their minds and returning to God’s way), following Jesus and obeying the truth that set them free from the power of Satan.

Jesus died to defeat the devil by unmasking his lies and revealing the truth that He, Jesus, not the devil, is Lord.

When you were dead in your sins and in the uncircumcision of your flesh, God made you alive in Christ. He forgave us all our sins, having cancelled the charge of our legal indebtedness which stood against us and condemned us; He has taken it away, nailing it to the cross. And having disarmed powers and authorities, He made a public spectacle of them, triumphing over them by the cross. (Col. 2: 13-15)

We have only one response – to stand on the truth of what He had done.  

Our struggle is not against flesh and blood, but against the rulers, against the authorities, against the powers of this dark world and against the spiritual forces of evil in the heavenly realms. Therefore, put on the full armour of God so that, when the day of evil comes, you may be able to stand your ground, and after you have done everything, to stand. (Eph. 6: 12-13)

God has not instructed us to wage war against the devil and his minions. Jesus did that and overcame him through the cross. We can add nothing to what He has done. He calls us to hold fast to the truth of the gospel and its effects in our lives (put on the whole armour of God), and to declare the good news of forgiveness and freedom in Christ to those who are ensnared by Satan’s yoke of lies in whatever form they are held captive.

Idolatry or even denominational yokes which have added to or removed anything from the yoke of Jesus, hold people in bondage. Only when we believe and embrace the truth of God’s mercy in Christ and the finished work of Jesus on the cross, can we be loosed from the yokes of religious bondage and set free to worship God in spirit and in truth without fear because perfect love drives out fear.

 How much time is wasted in useless so-called “spiritual warfare” prayer instead of preaching the gospel to those who have never heard because it is the power of the cross that is able to save and deliver men and women from the devil and his snares! True spiritual warfare is done by telling people the truth and allowing them the opportunity to respond in faith. It is the work of God to set them free.

For He has rescued us from the dominion of darkness and brought us into the kingdom of the Son He loves, in whom we have redemption, the forgiveness of sins. (Col. 1: 13-14)

“Therefore, let all Israel be assured of this: God has made this Jesus, whom you crucified, both Lord and Messiah.”


37 When the people heard this, they were cut to the heart and said to Peter and the other apostles, “Brothers, what shall we do?”


38 Peter replied, “Repent and be baptized, every one of you, in the name of Jesus Christ for the forgiveness of your sins. And you will receive the gift of the Holy Spirit. Acts 2:36-38 Scripture taken from THE HOLY BIBLE, NEW INTERNATIONAL VERSION®, NIV®

JESUS DID NOT SAY THAT THE TRUTH WILL SET YOU FREE

Apologetics, ,

JESUS DID NOT SAY THAT THE TRUTH WILL SET YOU FREE

“O yes He did!” you might vehemently protest, and I will just as vehemently protest that He did not, at least that is not what He meant.

Let’s read what He said, in context, of course.

To the Jews who believed Him, Jesus said, ‘If you hold to my teaching, you are really my disciples. Then you will know the truth, and the truth will set you free.’ (John 8:31-32)

How many times have you heard someone quote Jesus’ words out of context: ‘The truth will set you free’?

The whole truth of what He said hangs on the issue of being His disciple. Unfortunately, even being a disciple of Jesus is misunderstood today. In Jesus’ day, a disciple was a person whom a rabbi (teacher and model) called to follow him. The rabbi had implicit confidence that, after spending time with him day and night, not only learning what he believed and taught, but also learning to imitate him in every way, those who followed him would become a replica of him. They, in turn would teach his yoke to others.

A disciple had to learn his rabbi’s yoke – his understanding of Yahweh’s original intention in the Torah – His instructions for living that would guide him on his journey towards his destination which was Zion, the place where He had established His name. Only a rabbi with sh’mikah, the authority recognised by two witnesses, was permitted to have his own yoke and to teach his yoke to his disciples.

Jesus had sh’mikah, authority from the Father to which both the Father and John the Baptist bore witness at His baptism, to override every other yoke and “bind” His yoke on His followers. Unlike the yoke of rabbis like Hillel and Shammai, who placed heavy burdens on people which the Pharisees and religious leaders slavishly followed, Jesus’ yoke was easy and His burden light.

Come to me, all you who are weary and burdened, and I will give you rest. Take my yoke upon you and learn from me, for I am gentle and humble in heart, and you will find rest for your souls. For my yoke is easy and my burden is light. (Matt. 11: 28-30)

It was in this context of discipleship, not to the casual observer who had no commitment to follow Jesus as his model and mentor, that Jesus spoke these words. True freedom can only be experienced by those who understand Jesus’ yoke and put it into practice in their everyday lives. The core of His yoke lies in His disposition as the Son of God and His representative on earth. He said, ‘I am gentle and humble in heart.’ Slavishly trying to follow a set of rules can never bring the rest He promised. 

What is this rest He promised? It is the rest of soul that has received forgiveness of sin through Jesus and has been reconciled to the Father by faith in Christ. He is no longer obligated to keeping a set of rules to gain favour with God. He has been reinstated into His family as His son or daughter; he has received God’s gift of righteousness through Jesus; he has been redeemed from the slave market of sin and transferred from the dominion of darkness to the kingdom of God. He has a new nature and a new Master.

All this is God’s doing; it cannot be taken from him. He can rest in what God has done for him, and he is free to walk in God’s truth through the power of the Holy Spirit. This is the freedom Jesus offers to those who throw in their lot with Him in loyalty, trust, and obedience.

This is a far cry from what some people believe He said, if they even know the source of the statement! There can never be true freedom outside of Jesus and outside of being His disciple by holding to His teaching. It is not the truth that sets us free but the experiential knowledge of the truth when we believe and practise the teachings of Jesus in the disposition of the Master that keeps us from living in the sin that produces fear, guilt, and shame.

Scripture taken from THE HOLY BIBLE, NEW INTERNATIONAL VERSION®, NIV® Copyright © 1973, 1978, 1984, 2011 by Biblica, Inc.® Used by permission. All rights reserved worldwide.

JESUS NOT SAY THAT HE WAS POOR

Apologetics, ,

JESUS NOT SAY THAT HE WAS POOR

Today we begin a new series entitled “Things Jesus did not say.”

Something has been troubling me for a while since I began to study the gospels many years ago. I have come to realise that, when we study the Bible from a Hebrew perspective, there are many things we take for granted as Greek-orientated western thinkers that are just not meant to be interpreted the way we interpret them. Imagine opening a novel set in the American “wild west” and reading it as a story from eighteenth century England. It would make no sense at all.

Unfortunately, that’s the way we westerners read and interpret the Bible if we don’t take into consideration the language and culture of the people who wrote it. As a result, we have developed and passed on a traditional way of understanding passages in the Bible that were never intended to be read that way.

Take, for example, Jesus’ response to the man who requested to follow Him:

Jesus replied, ‘Foxes have dens and birds have nests, but the Son of Man has no place to lay His head.’ (Luke 9: 38)

We have “invented“ an interpretation that demands that Jesus was poor, of course backed up by Paul’s statement in 2 Cor. 8:9:

For you know the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ, that though He was rich, yet for your sake He became poor so that you, through His poverty might become rich.

Of course, there can be no comparison between the riches Jesus enjoyed with the Father and His financial state here on earth, but that does not mean that He was a pauper during His time on earth. He was a Jewish rabbi. He would have been given many offerings by the people who followed Him and benefitted from His teaching. He was supported by wealthy women. After all, His seamless robe was the garment of a wealthy man for which the soldiers gambled as He hung dying on the cross.

Hebrew people used similes and metaphors to illustrate what a thing did rather than what it looked like. Look at God’s instruction to Moses when he asked to see His glory.

When my glory passes by, I will hide you in a cleft in the rock and cover you with my hand until I have passed by. Then I will remove my hand and you will see my back; but my face must not be seen. 

Wait a minute! God is spirit. Does He have a hand? No! Then what did He mean? We immediately interpret this to mean a literal hand. If that were true, then the many descriptions of God would lead us to think that He is a grotesque-looking being! A Hebrew person would ask, “What does a hand do?” Their language was based on action and what they experienced with their senses. They would understand that God would protect Moses from seeing His face.

This brings us to Jesus’ statement, Foxes have dens and birds have nests. For what purpose do these creatures have dens and nests? They do not live in them; they reproduce in them. What, then, did Jesus’ head have to do with reproduction?

One of Paul’s pictures of the church is a body. Jesus is the head of the church, the head of His body. However, the church was only born on the day of Pentecost. Before that, He was a head without a body. But why did Jesus need a body?

He came to restore His estranged people to fellowship with the Father through His death. It was His plan to reproduce Himself in the world through the church so that the unbelieving world would see what the Father is really like, not from the distorted picture of God presented by Jewish religion, but from His own life and ministry and from His death and resurrection reproduced in His followers.

When this man came with his request to be a part of the disciples, Jesus was not ready to take him on. The time would come when he would be welcomed into the church as a believer, joined to Jesus as his head, and part of a reproducing body that Jesus would send into the world to “make disciples”. These would in turn, follow Jesus and reproduce Him in the lives of others.

Only after Jesus’ death and resurrection, on the day of Pentecost, when the church was born, did Jesus have a body on which to place His head.

And God placed all things under his feet and appointed him to be head over everything for the church, 23 which is his body, the fullness of him who fills everything in every way. Ephesians 1:22-23

That’s how He intended to establish His kingdom on earth, head and body functioning as one, the head directing the body and giving the body life. It is a brilliant model, if only the church would do as He instructed instead of inventing its own model, which has, in the main, failed.

Scripture taken from THE HOLY BIBLE, NEW INTERNATIONAL VERSION®, NIV® Copyright © 1973, 1978, 1984, 2011 by Biblica, Inc.® Used by permission. All rights reserved worldwide.

YOU ARE YOUR OWN JUDGE

Christian Life, ,

YOU ARE YOUR OWN JUDGE

I have noticed, as I have walked and re-walked through the gospels with Jesus, that He was big on human responsibility. He never sanctioned the kind of prayers I often hear people pray – that God would do for us what He has already done or given us the responsibility to do for ourselves. Jesus always honoured the gift of choice. How often He ratified the choices people made! Take the rich young ruler, for instance. Did He go running after the man to beg him to follow Him, or to make things easier for him? Not a chance! He simply let the man go. The young man had made his decision, and that was that!

How will we, as prospective disciples of Jesus, respond to His warning? How will we measure our response to His yoke? I am sure we have no desire to disqualify ourselves or to lose what we already have because we have not understood the kernel of His teaching. What I am about to share with you is, I hope, in essence what Jesus was getting at.

I have an acquaintance who works for a small private company. She has worked extremely hard to help the company prosper, bringing in huge amounts of money through sales and service. She recently resigned to take up a position in her husband’s business, much to the disappointment of the company owners – not because of her value as a person but because of the wealth she brought to the company. The husband of the husband-and-wife team has shown his disdain for her decision. Where once he was her “friend”, he is now distant and unfriendly.

I think that this reveals in a nutshell the difference between those who have “the evil eye” and those who have “the eye of light”. Jesus was adamant that He had come to serve, not to be served. He expects those who follow Him to have to same attitude towards other people as His. My friend was useful to her employers if she brought in the money. The bottom line is: they used her. Their relationship stood only until the crunch of her leaving hit their bank balance.

What came to my mind through this incident was something like this: Whether they are believers or not is irrelevant. They have been diminished by their reaction to her resignation. Something of what they had has been lost. They measured her worth in terms of money and business. They did not value her as a person or share in her anticipation of bringing prosperity to her family. In fact, they did not even reward her or any of the other staff members by a bonus at the end of the year. They became their own judges.

This leads me to the heart of Jesus’s yoke. If we have chosen to walk in the way of Yahweh, our lives will be characterised by selfless service. We will not use people for our own ends. We will serve people at our own expense. The more we serve, the more we will increase in knowledge and understanding of God’s ways. It’s this “reciprocal” thing again. When we give ourselves away, God gives back by multiplication!

The opposite is also true. When we use people for our own purposes; when we disregard them as people and use them to enrich ourselves, we are diminished as people. We become more selfish and self-serving, less sensitive to the needs of others and dehumanised in our attitude to ourselves and other people.

Then Jesus said to His disciples, ‘If anyone would come after me, he must deny himself and take up his cross and follow me. For whoever wants to save his life will lose it, but whoever loses his life for me will save it. What good will it be for a man if he gains the whole world, yet forfeits his soul? Or what can a man give in exchange for his soul?’ (Matt. 16: 24-26)

Another aspect of this principle is true. The shallow soil does not allow the seeds to produce roots to anchor the plant in all conditions so that it can mature and produce fruit.  Shallow people trust in God if it is beneficial for them. As soon as tests or adversity come, they fall away because their faith in God is opportunistic.

These kinds of people will also use rather than serve God just like they use rather than serve others. Is this not diagnostic of what kind of hearts shallow people have? When they are disillusioned with God because He doesn’t answer their prayers – in other words, He doesn’t do what they want – they give up their faith in Him and go back to their old life. Use or serve – this reveals the true nature of our hearts.

The soil adds nothing to the seed. It only provides the environment in which the seed grows. Whether the seed can reproduce itself or not depends on the nature of the soil. What is the purpose of the seed? It exists only to reproduce itself so that its fruit can nourish the eater and its seeds can continue the cycle of growth and reproduction in the hearts of other people.

It seems to me, then, that this is a picture of our lives. Our hearts are the soil into which the seed falls. Like the soil, we add nothing to the seed but, as it grows and reproduces in us, our spirits are nourished by its fruit. We in turn, continue to perpetuate the life of the seed by sowing it into the hearts of others. Their response will determine its effect on their lives and whether the seed it reproduces will continue to be passed on to others. 

What we eventually become in our efforts to follow Jesus and become true disciples is entirely our responsibility. The Holy Spirit will not make the choices for us, but He will give us grace and power to put into practice our decision to follow Jesus and to do what He instructs us to do. In the end, as we follow Him, we will become like our rabbi, maturing as we journey with Him, into true sons and daughters of God.

“Be careful how you hear,” Jesus warned. “You determine the measure of your own fruitfulness.”

Pray with me, then, the matchless prayer of David whom God called, “A man after my own heart.”

Teach me your way, O LORD, and I will walk in your truth.

Give me an undivided heart, that I may fear your name. (Psa. 86:11)

Scripture is taken from THE HOLY BIBLE, NEW INTERNATIONAL VERSION®, NIV® Copyright © 1973, 1978, 1984, 2011 by Biblica, Inc.® Used by permission. All rights reserved worldwide.

THE PERIL OF HEARING

Christian Life, ,

THE PERIL OF HEARING

He said to them, ‘Do you bring in a lamp to put it under a bowl or a bed? Instead, don’t you put it on its stand? For whatever is hidden is meant to be disclosed, and whatever is concealed is meant to be brought out into the open. If anyone has ears to hear, let him hear.’ (Mark 4: 21-23)

How does this statement fit in with the parable of the four soils and its explanation? I think Jesus was talking about Himself. He was revealing His reason for this teaching. We have already explored the meaning of being “the light of the world”. We learned from the Tanakh – the Old Testament – that “light” often refers to the Word of God.

Your word is a lamp to my feet and a light for my path. (Psa. 119: 105)

When Jesus described Himself as the “light of the world” He was calling people to follow Him because He walked in the light of God’s Word (John 8: 12). He came into the world to be the light – to show people how to interpret and live by the Word of God. Of what good would it be, then, to be in the world as a light but to put the lamp under a “bowl” or a bed where its light would not shine in the room? It was His responsibility to shine the light by both living and teaching the Word of God so that what was hidden in people’s hearts would be exposed.

In Him was life, and that life was the light of men. The light shines in the darkness, but the darkness has not understood it. (John 1: 4-5)

Every time He told a story, people would either react or respond to it according to what was in their hearts. This was His purpose so that no one would be able to hide behind the excuse that they did not know.

Here we come to the importance of the disciple’s response. Why did Jesus teach in parables? He told them His reason.

The secret of the kingdom of God has been given to you. But to those outside everything is said in parables. (Mark. 4: 11)

Jesus taught in parables to differentiate between those who sincerely chose to follow Him and those who were in it for what they could get out of it. The very parables He taught would either harden or soften their hearts according to their choices.

However, with His teaching comes a warning. Even from those who wanted to follow Him, there were degrees of response. Some would follow with their whole hearts and unreserved obedience while others would follow guardedly and with reservations, picking and choosing what they wanted to obey.

‘Consider carefully what you hear,’ He continued. ‘With the measure you use it will be measured to you – and even more. Whoever has will be given more; whoever does not have, even what he has will be taken from him.’ (Mark 4: 24-25)

Jesus warned that the measure with which they responded would be the measure of what they received. Those who responded to His teaching and obeyed it wholeheartedly would receive more. Those who did not give Him wholehearted allegiance and obedience would lose what little they had. Once again, the measure of the truth they received and the measure of their fruitfulness depended not on God but on them.

Jesus had already made it clear to His disciples that the ones “on the outside” would be taught in parables to confirm where they already were in their unresponsiveness and unbelief. Now He fine-tuned His teaching even further. Through their choices, according to the interpretation of the parable, they had already forfeited the opportunity of receiving Him as their Messiah because they had refused to receive and walk in the light of the Word. His disciples, likewise, would receive light – enlightenment – according to the measure with which they received the Word.

Judas, for example, was one of the disciples – “on the inside” as compared with those “on the outside” and yet, in the end, he was worse than those on the outside. Even from his privileged position as a chosen disciple of Jesus, he had received nothing and lost everything. He was there at that moment, hearing the parable and its explanation and the exhortation and receiving the warning but, like the path where the seed fell and was snatched away, he heard nothing; or like the stony ground, there was no root, or even like the thorny soil, what little response there was, was choked by the thorns that were already growing there.

How, then, did Jesus expect His talmidim to respond? Everything He was to them, everything He had taught them and trained them to do moved them towards this moment. They would determine the measure of truth they would receive and the measure of their fruitfulness. Whether they gained more or lost what they had, whether they were abundantly fruitful in their lives or pathetically unfruitful depended entirely on them.

Jesus promised them the priceless gift of the Holy Spirit – the same Spirit who accompanied Him on His journey to the cross. The same power that enabled Him to live a sinless life, to die as an atoning sacrifice for the sin of the world and to rise from the dead would be in them to enforce what they believed. Theirs was the choice. Would they hear or would they refuse to hear?

Everything grows from a seed. God’s word is a seed. In it is the potential for abundant fruitfulness. There is nothing to restrict its growth except the condition of the heart. In every disciple’s heart there is the potential to ignore or reject the Word where there are areas of hardness and unbelief, or shallow soil where the roots cannot penetrate, or even thorny ground where our hearts are split by all-consuming concerns or desires. It is up to us to choose the measure of our response and the measure of what we gain or lose.

Scripture is taken from THE HOLY BIBLE, NEW INTERNATIONAL VERSION®, NIV® Copyright © 1973, 1978, 1984, 2011 by Biblica, Inc.® Used by permission. All rights reserved worldwide.