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Jesus Did Not Say That He Was Poor

Apologetics, , , ,

JESUS DID NOT SAY THAT HE WAS POOR

Now that we have completed our ramble through Mark’s gospel, where next?

Something has been troubling me for a while since I began to study the gospels nearly eight 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 do. 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.

But 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 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. Take for example 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.

But 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 in the Bible 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 protected Moses from seeing His face.

That 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. But 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 and resurrection. 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 life and ministry and from His death and resurrection reproduced in His followers.

When this man came to 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 disciples would in turn, follow Jesus and reproduce Him in the lives of others.

That’s how He intended to establish His kingdom on earth. 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.

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Jesus Turned Tough?

Bible Study, , , , ,

JESUS TURNED TOUGH?

“As they were walking along the road, a man said to them, ‘I will follow you wherever you go.’ Jesus replied, ‘Foxes have dens and birds have nests, but the Son of Man has no place to lay His head.’

“He said to another man, ‘Follow me.’ But he replied, ‘Lord, first let me go and bury my father.’ Jesus said to him, ‘Let the dead bury their own dead, but you go and proclaim the kingdom of God.’

“Still another said, ‘I will follow you, Lord: but first let me go back and say goodbye to my family.’ Jesus replied, ‘No one who puts a hand to the plough and looks back is fit for service in the kingdom of God.'”  Luke 9:57-62 (NIV).

I have deliberately not used The Message for my Bible reference today because the paraphrase misses the impact of Jesus’ words. When you read this passage, does He not sound rather unsympathetic and off-handed? It is so out of character that we have to dig deeper into the meaning and impact of what He said to the individuals who wanted to follow Him.

At face value and in response to the first man who wanted to follow Him, it seems that Jesus was trying to put him off because the life of a disciple meant a life of poverty and deprivation. What a horrible misrepresentation of God! Jesus was neither poor nor did He call those who follow him to a life of poverty. He wore the outer garment of a man of means and status –a seamless robe. Wealthy women supported Him and He would have received offerings from people who followed Him and valued His ministry.

Hebrew people did not always take the words of their rabbis literally. They would have asked the question, ‘What do foxes do in dens and birds do in nests?’ They don’t live in them; they reproduce in them. It was a rabbi’s intention that his followers reproduce him in the way they lived and what they taught — his yoke.

Jesus is the head of His body, the church, but the church had not yet come into being because He had not yet died and the Holy Spirit had not yet been given. On the day of Pentecost when the Holy Spirit fell on the believers, the church was born and began to reproduce. Jesus was telling the man that he would have to wait until He, the head and the church, the body came together to become one so that He could begin reproducing Himself through people.

It is not clear why Jesus discouraged one and called another. Was it a test to gauge the sincerity and determination of each individual?

The second man had an excuse for not following Him immediately. It was not that his father’s funeral was imminent. A year after a body had been placed in a tomb the bones were removed and reburied in an ossuary, a box in which they were stored to make room in the tomb for another family member. This man was waiting to place his father’s bones in their permanent resting place, and that could be months away. He was putting off following Jesus indefinitely.

Jesus saw through his excuse and warned him not to waste his opportunity. Burying bones could be done at any time and by those who had no interest in following Him.

The third man had another kind of excuse. Going home to say goodbye to the family was not about giving each one a hurried kiss and then catching up with Jesus. It involved a long, drawn-out farewell, homesickness and regret and then trying to find Him when He has long since moved on.

Jesus is not interested in having people follow Him reluctantly with one eye on what they have left behind. He wants those who throw in their lot with him wholeheartedly without giving a thought to the family from whom they have walked away. Although family ties are precious and important, they must take second place behind our loyalty to Jesus because He calls us to participate in the life of a family far bigger and with a destiny more glorious than any earthly family.

Are you following with gladness or regret?