Blog Archives - WELCOME TO THE JOY OF TROY

July 31, 2021

7/31/2021

Moving Beyond Confrontation

        And the second is like unto it, Thou shalt love thy neighbor as thyself. On these two commandments hang all the law and the prophets. Matt. 22:39, 40.

    Jesus' answer about loving God as the greatest command would have been satisfactory in answering the scribe's question. But He knew that some of us "religious types" do much better in what we think is loving God than we do in caring about other people.

    As a result, He quoted a second great commandment from Leviticus 19:18, with its injunction to love one's neighbor. The underlying assumption is that it is impossible to truly love God without loving other people. Here we have one of the most important lessons in the entire body of Jesus' teaching. The apostle John put the matter succinctly when he wrote that whoever claims to love God, yet hates a brother or sister is a liar. For "whoever does not love their brother and sister, whom they have seen, cannot love God, whom they have not seen" (1 John 4:20, NIV). Again, "By this all men will know that you are my disciples if you have love for one another" (John 13:35, RSV).

    Jesus noted that love to God and love to one's neighbor is central to the Old Testament--"the law and the prophets" (Matt. 22:40). It would also become central to New Testament ethics. Thus Paul writes that "the whole law is fulfilled in one word, 'You shall love your neighbor as yourself' " (Gal. 5:14, RSV).

    He repeats the same idea in Romans 13, in which he notes that "love is the fulfilling of the law" (verse 10, RSV). But in that chapter the apostle helps us see more clearly the relation of the command to love to the Ten Commandments. More specifically, he explicitly unites the commandments from the second table of the Decalogue to the second great commandment. Thus he ties such commandments as not killing, not stealing, and so on to the command to love other people (verse 9, 10). The same could be done for the first table and loving God. But Paul knew that the problem of most "religious" people was not in loving God but one another.

    What a delightful place the church would be if more of its members took Jesus' answer to heart and put it into practice. Every congregation has "pious" members who act as if they can love God while being rude to other people. Beyond that, we continually encounter those who are extremely careful about how they keep the Sabbath and/or what they eat, but who are as difficult to live with as the devil himself.

    Help me, Father, to get the point of true religion.

July 30, 2021

7/30/2021

Confrontation Is a two-way Street: Number 3

        But when the Pharisees had heard that he had put the Sadducees to silence, they were gathered together. Then one of them, which was a lawyer, asked him a question, tempting him, and saying, Master, which is the great commandment in the law? Jesus said unto him, "Thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy heart, and with all thy soul, and with all thy mind. Matt. 22:34-37.

    This question, as with those of taxes to Caesar and the resurrection, was a major issue in the Jewish community of Jesus' day. Its legal scholars had concluded that Scripture contained 613 commandments, 365 prohibitions, and 248 positive injunctions. Among those 613 the rabbis differentiated between what they saw as the "heavy" and the "light" commandments. Jesus appears to have been alluding to that distinction when He said that "whoever then relaxes one of the least of these commandments and teaches men so, shall be called least in the kingdom of heaven" (Matt. 5:19, RSV).

    In that context the question about the greatest commandment focuses on which was the most necessary to be observed. But some Jews disagreed even with the idea that some things were more basic than others. To them, just as with some Christians today, every command had equal weight. And so did every sin. You were either for God or against Him. Such believers across time have tended toward behavioral perfection in their daily lives.

    But others of the Jews disagreed and debated endlessly as to which was the most basic of all laws. The scribe in Matthew 22 belonged to the latter group.

    Which commandment would you select if a person hostile toward your religion should raise that question? Some Jews of old might have selected the fourth, with its injunction to keep the Sabbath holy as a sign of the specialness of God's covenant people. Others may have chosen one of the other commandments of the Decalogue.

    But Jesus bypassed the Ten Commandments for one of the most familiar Bible texts in Jewish culture--Deuteronomy 6:4, 5: "Hear, O Israel: The Lord your God is one Lord; and you shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your might" (RV).

    That verse was part of the Shema. It opened every Jewish service and formed a part of their morning prayer. In effect, Jesus defined the heart of religion as loving God with one's total being.

    From that love should flow everything else in a believer's life.

July 29, 2021

7/29/2021

Confrontation Is a Two-way Street: Number 2

        The same day Sadducees came to him, who say that there is no resurrection; and they asked him a question, saying, "Teacher, Moses said, 'If a man dies, having no children, his brother must marry the widow, and raise up children for his brother.' Now there were seven brothers among us; the first married, and died, and having no children left his wife to his brother. So too the second and third, down to the seventh. After them all, the woman died. In the resurrection, therefore, to which of the seven will she be wife? For they all had her?" But Jesus answered them, "You are wrong, because you know neither the scriptures nor the power of God." Matt. 22:23-29, RSV.

    The second question in the Jewish counterattack against Jesus comes from the Sadducees--the traditional enemies of the Pharisees. They had not only lined themselves up with the Roman rulers, but they rejected all Scripture except the Pentateuch (the five books of Moses). According to Josephus, the Sadducees held that "souls die with the bodies" (Antiquities 18:1. 4). Thus they denied the possibility of immortality and the resurrection from the dead.

    Their acceptance of only the Pentateuch undergirds their question to Jesus in Matthew 22:25-28 about the woman who, according to levirate marriage custom (Deut. 25:5, 6), had seven husbands but no children. Their question sought not only to make light of the very idea of a resurrection, but, at a deeper level, to embarrass Jesus in public.

    But once again, Jesus turns the argument against His detractors on two points. First, He suggested that their question is flawed because it is founded on error. Not knowing Scripture, He claims, they also fail to understand God and His power. Like so many modern people, they apparently thought of the future life as a slightly altered version of earthly life as we know it. Not so, says Jesus. God's new kingdom will be along different lines. He didn't tell the Sadducees what heaven would be like because their minds couldn't have grasped it if He had. But He did declare that life in the hereafter cannot be compared to the present one.

    In the second part of His answer Jesus quotes from Exodus 3:6, demonstrating that the Sadducees were even ignorant of the part of Scripture that they accepted. God, Jesus noted, is the Deity not of the dead, but of the living, pointing forward to the resurrection of the patriarchs (Matt. 22:32).

    Here is a challenge for modern Christians. Most of us probably view heaven in terms of earthly realities. What are the high points of that approach? What are its problems? In what ways does the Bible teaching on the topic transcend our usual ways of thinking about it?

July 28, 2021

7/28/2021

Confrontation Is a Two-way Street: Number 1

        Then the Pharisees went and plotted how to entangle him in his words. And they sent their disciples to him, along with the Herodians, saying..."tell us...what you think. Is it lawful to pay taxes to Caesar, or not?" But Jesus, aware of their malice, said, "Why put me to the test, you hypocrites? Show me the coin for the tax." And they brought him a denarius. And Jesus said to them, "Whose likeness and inscription is this?" They said, "Caesar's." Then he said to them, "Therefore render to Caesar the things that are Caesar's, and to God the things that are God's." When they heard it, they marveled. Matt. 22:15-21, ESV.

    Confrontation is a two-way street. When Jesus challenged the Jewish leaders in His parables, they were quick to counterattack. In the query about paying taxes they presented Him with a loaded question that contained a dilemma. If Jesus replies that it is unlawful to pay taxes to Caesar, they will promptly report Him to the Roman authorities, with arrest quickly following. On the other hand, if He approves the lawfulness of paying taxes to Caesar, He will lose influence in the eyes of the people. The Jews held that God alone was King and that to pay taxes to any earthly ruler was to admit the validity of that kingship and thus insult God. Whatever answer Jesus gives to His detractors will open Him to trouble.

    Jesus' answer is both unique and wise. Asking to see one of their coins, He gets them to admit that it has Caesar's portrait on it. At that point He sets forth the maxim that both Caesar and God are to be paid their dues. That unexpected answer ends the attack. The Jewish leaders quickly see that Jesus has escaped from the trap they had so carefully laid for Him.

    Perhaps the most remarkable thing about Jesus' answer is His point that Caesar's realm can be separated from God's. As a result, His followers hold dual citizenship in both the kingdom of God and in a particular nation.

    Unfortunately, in a less-than-perfect world, a Christian's responsibility to those two realms comes into conflict from time to time. Matthew 22 does not tell us whether God's kingdom has priority over Caesar's or vice versa, or whether the two are equal. The early church had to work out that problem. While Paul and Peter argued that the rulers of earthly governments ought to be obeyed since they are God's agents (Rom. 13:1-7; 1 Peter 2:13, 14), the New Testament also makes it clear that when the dictates of an earthly ruler come into conflict with God's commands, the Christian "must obey God rather than human beings" (Acts 5:29, NIV).

July 27, 2021

7/27/2021

Confrontational Parable Number 3

        Jesus spoke to them again in parables, saying, "The kingdom of heaven may be compared to a king who gave a wedding feast for his son. And he sent out his slaves to call those who had been invited to the wedding feast, and they were unwilling to come....Then he said to his slaves, 'The wedding is ready, but those who are invited were not worthy. Go therefore to the main highways, and as many as you find there, invite to the wedding feast.' Those slaves went out into the streets and gathered together all they found, both evil and good; and the wedding hall was filled with dinner guests. But when the king came in to look over the dinner guests, he saw a man there who was not dressed in wedding clothes, and he said to him. 'Friend, how did you come in here without wedding clothes?' And the man was speechless." Matt. 22:1-12, NASB.

    The third confrontational parable is that of the wedding banquet. As in the first two, it ends in judgment for those who reject the Father and the Son.

    The parable divides naturally into two parts. The first deals with Jesus' historic call to the Jews and ends with an explicit allusion to the destruction of Jerusalem in verse 7. It replays many of the themes evident in the parable of the tenants.

    But at verse 8 the parable makes a shift as it advances beyond the Jews to those not initially invited to the banquet. Verses 8-10 foreshadow the gospel invitation moving from its earlier preoccupation with the Jews to concern for Gentiles in the larger world. Verse 9 begins with a close parallel to the great gospel commission of Matthew 28:29, 20--"Go therefore..." The command to preach to "both evil and good" reflects Christ's own preaching ministry. The gospel is truly the "good news" that everyone is invited to the wedding.

    But not all can stay. They must be in harmony with the king, who has commanded everyone to wear a wedding garment. Those without one are judged unfit to remain at the feast.

    A great deal of discussion has taken place as to the exact nature of the wedding garment. F. B. Brunner appears to be correct when he writes that "the wedding garment in the context of Matthew's Gospel is not passive, imputed (Pauline) righteousness; it is active, moral (Matthean) righteousness (5:20)...); it is doing God's will (7:21; 12:50...); it is evidence of repentance by law-abiding discipleship (3:7-10...)." That interpretation is in line with Revelation 19:8, which tells us that the fine linen of the redeemed "is the righteous deeds of the saints" (RSV).

    Thus once again we find Jesus indicating that a genuine faith relationship with Him includes not just believing but doing God's will. Faith is not mere mental assent that Jesus is Lord. It includes living the Christ life.

July 26, 2021

7/26/2021

Confrontational Parable Number 2

        "Hear another parable. There was a householder who planted a vineyard...and let it out to tenants, and went into another country. When the season of fruit drew near, he sent his servants to the tenants, to get his fruit; and the tenants took his servants and beat one, killed another, and stoned another....Afterward he sent his son to them....But...the tenants...killed him. When therefore the owner of the vineyard comes, what will he do to those tenants?" Matt. 21:33-40, RSV.

    The second confrontation parable takes the sequence a giant step forward. Whereas the parable of the two sons pictured the resistance of the Jewish leaders in a passive mode, this one is active--so much so that it points both to rejecting the prophets and to killing the son. It would be almost impossible for any Jewish hearer to miss the allusion to God's much-loved Israel in the description of the vineyard. Isaiah 5:1-7 describes that vineyard in quite similar terms to what Jesus employs. But in Isaiah the fault lies with the vines, whereas here it is with the tenants. In both cases, the result of failure is divine judgment.

    We can learn several lessons from the parable of the tenants. The first is that God is long-suffering. He does not send just one time, but keeps on sending. He does not give up easily on His children. A second lesson is just as obvious--the perversity of the tenants. If the major theme of the gospel story is God's love, a counterbalancing theme is humanity's rejection of that love. The tragedy of both the parable and history is that so often it has been God's own chosen people who have spurned His overtures.

    The third lesson is the centrality and finality of sending the Son. Yet the tenants kill even Him. The parable pictures that act as ultimately bringing judgment on them.

    A fourth lesson is that even though God's judgment may be long in coming, it is nonetheless certain and irreversible. The judgment of the particular tenants in Matthew 21 will come with the destruction of Jerusalem.

    The parable's fifth lesson is the transfer of God's kingdom from the nation of Israel to a new people. "I tell you," Jesus says in His most explicit statement on the topic, "that the kingdom of God will be taken away from you and given to a people who will produce its fruit" (Matt. 21:43, NIV). That new people is the Christian church, which has inherited a continuation of the Jewish covenant promises and responsibilities.

    May God help His new people not to exhibit the same perversity as the old.

July 25, 2021

7/25/2021

Confrontational Parable Number 1

        What do you think?   A man had two sons, and he came to the first and said, "Son, go, work today in my vineyard." He answered and said, "I will not," but afterward he regretted it and went. Then he came to the second and said likewise. And he answered and said, "I go sir," but he did not go. Which of the two did the will of his father? Matt. 21:28-31, NKJV.

    We have reached the final days of Jesus' life. And the Gospels indicate that He is on a collision course with the Jewish leadership. First came the triumphal entry, then the cleansing of the Temple, and finally the argument over His authority. Those events, which feature His Messianic role, reveal the growing rift between the Jewish leaders and the masses of the people, with the leaders rejecting Jesus and the latter group repeatedly demonstrating enthusiasm for Him.

    Next we find Jesus teaching and dialoguing in the Temple courts. In the process, He presents several confrontational parables, all aimed at the Jewish leaders.

    The initial parable is that of a father (God) and two sons. The first (who represents the tax collectors, prostitutes, and other outcasts) verbally refuses to labor in the father's vineyard but repents and works anyway. The second son (who represents the Jewish leaders) verbally agrees to obey but doesn't put his words into practice.

    Jesus, using an excellent teaching technique, involves His audience in arriving at the parable's lesson. The answer is obvious. All through Matthew's Gospel it is not those who say "Lord, Lord" who enter the kingdom, but those who obey (see Matt. 7:21).

    For Jesus, righteousness is not passive acceptance but active obedience. Faith is belief that acts. That is not salvation by works but rather the fact that love to God and other people flows naturally from the heart of a person who has met Jesus.

    Thus His words stand against the so-called gospel of emotional revivalism that looks for mere verbal acceptance rather than a transformed life. Likewise, this parable puts the lid on the falsehood that suggests that believing certain doctrinal truths is the way of salvation. And again, the parable strikes at the heart of those forms of Christian assurance that tend to equate salvation with accepting Jesus at the point of justification. Jesus' teaching on assurance of salvation is based on both accepting Him and living the Christlike life.

    And with that conclusion we have our marching orders for today and every day.

July 24, 2021

7/24/2021

Authorities in Conflict

        Jesus entered the temple courts, and, while he was teaching, the chief priests and the elders of the people came to him. "By what authority are you doing these things?" they asked. "And who gave you this authority?" Jesus replies, "I will also ask you one question. If you answer me, I will tell you by what authority I am doing these things. John's baptism--where did it come from? Was it from heaven, or of human origin?" Matt. 21:23-25, NIV.

    Jesus challenged the authority of the Jewish leaders in His cleansing of the Temple. Now they confront Him.

    We need to note what they did not question. For one thing, they didn't dispute the facts that He had authority or that He had been doing authoritative things. He had certainly demonstrated that in the Temple cleansing. A second thing that the delegation from the Sanhedrin did not contest was the righteousness of Jesus in cleansing the Temple. They knew that they had allowed things in the Temple courts that were wrong.

    On the other hand, they couldn't ignore what Jesus had done. After all, He had acted as if He were Lord of the Temple and had a right to do what He did. In that, He was usurping their prerogatives. Thus they had reasons to confront Him. No one could deny them the right to question Him on the source of His authority in His Temple-cleansing actions. But it had a hook in it. As William Barclay points out, "They hoped to put Jesus into a dilemma. If He said He was acting under His own authority they might well arrest Him as a megalomaniac before He did any further damage." Yet "if He said He was acting on the authority of God they might well arrest Him on an obvious charge of blasphemy."

    Jesus was quite aware of the trap. His response would put them into a dilemma that was even worse. His counter question regarding the authority of John the Baptist was a stroke of genius. They couldn't answer that the Baptist's authority was from God because he had pointed to Jesus as the Lamb of God. Yet they couldn't say that his authority came from men because the people held that John was a prophet.

    The stark alternatives left them with "we don't know" as the only possible answer. Jesus retorted that their refusal to answer His question gave Him the right to ignore theirs (see Matt. 21:27, NIV).

    As Christians we can learn much from the way that Jesus handled controversy. We need to keep both eyes open to His inspired strategy as He continues to journey to the cross.

July 23, 2021

7/23/2021

The Other Side of Gentle Jesus

        In the morning, as he was returning to the city, he was hungry. And seeing a fig tree by the wayside he went to it, and found nothing on it but leaves only. And he said to it, "May no fruit come from you again!" And the fig tree withered at once. Matt. 21:18, 19, RSV.

    At first glance it seems strange to find the story of the fig tree right after the cleansing of the Temple. But the placement is no accident. That becomes especially clear in Mark's Gospel, which splits the fig tree story into two parts (Mark 11:12-14 and 20-24) with the cleansing sandwiched in between them (verses 15-19).

    Victor of Antioch (fifth century) clearly saw that connection in the oldest existing commentary on Mark. According to Victor, the withering of the fig tree was an acted parable in which Jesus "used the fig tree to set forth the judgment that was about to fall on Jerusalem."

    In its context, the withered fig tree points to the Temple and its failure in preparing the Jewish people for the redemptive activity of the coming Messiah. Despite all that God had attempted to do through the Temple for His people, it had not borne fruit. And just as a tree that does not perform its proper function in bearing fruit gets cut down, so the Temple will meet its end.

    By extension, the parable of the fruitless fig tree has much to say to all religionists and all religious institutions characterized by promise without fulfillment, by profession without practice. Whether it be the Jewish nation, the Jewish leaders, or ordinary Christians, Jesus is adamant throughout the Gospels that outward profession is not enough. "You will know them by their fruits" (Matt. 7:20, RSV). "Every tree that does not bear good fruit is cut down and thrown into the fire" (verse 19, RSV).

    It has become fashionable for Christians to focus on the gentleness and kindness of Jesus and the Father to the exclusion of the "wrath of the Lamb" (Rev. 6:16). The plain fact that the God of love calls His children to wake up before it is too late. Eventually the God of love will terminate the reign of sin and create a new heaven and earth.

    And just as Jesus judged the barren fig tree, so He will someday judge the world. In fact, no one in the entire Bible had more to say about judgment than Jesus.

    Today is a good one to examine my own "fruitlessness." Let's be honest! Am I all show or is there depth and daily results of the gospel in my life?

July 22, 2021

7/22/2021

Public Statement Becomes Public Challenge

        And Jesus went into the temple of God, and cast out all them that sold and bought in the temple, and overthrew the tables of the money changers, and the seats of them that sold doves, and said unto them, It is written, My house shall be called the house of prayer, but ye have made it a den of thieves. Matt. 21:12, 13.

    With the cleansing of the Temple Jesus takes the battle into the very heart of the enemy camp. His demonstration in the Temple is no burst of enthusiasm or righteous anger stirred up by the momentary excitement of the triumphal entry. A reading of Matthew could give that impression, but Mark tells us that it was the "next day" after the entry when the cleansing took place (Mark 11:12, NIV). That is a significant bit of knowledge, since it definitely indicates that it was not some spur-of-the-moment challenge to the Jewish authorities. To the contrary, the fact that a night passes between the entry and the cleansing shows that we are dealing with a premeditated challenge whose purpose is to forcefully call the attention of the Jews to Jesus' mission. Thus in the cleansing we find Him making His Messianic claim and exerting His Messianic authority at the very heart of Judaism.

    The challenge is now impossible for either the leaders or the common people to ignore. The common people flock to Jesus in the Temple and shout Messianic praises to the "Son of David" as He heals the blind and lame outcasts (Matt. 21:14, 15). The chief priests and the scribes react to all the celebration with indignation (verse 15). The enthusiasm of the crowds was bad enough out in the city, but now it has entered their own special territory and casts their lucrative Temple trade in an extremely insidious light.

    Thus it is that in the Temple episode we find a turning point in the description of Jesus' enemies. Heretofore the gospel story has scarcely mentioned the high priests. But from now on out they will play a central role.

    In the cleansing of the Temple Jesus has challenged and judged the formal religious power structure. The high priests will make common cause with the scribes and Pharisees to get rid of Him with a determination not present before. In cleansing the Temple He has truly proved Himself to be a dangerous enemy.

    Father, help us as we meditate on the events leading up to the cross to see the importance and significance of Jesus' every step as He works out our salvation.