BSN 22 Spring 14 Bib 446: Week 3: Temple Tantrum/loud farts/Matthew 18: Greatness: Inversion and Kenosis/Philemon 3 Worlds Worksheets

The rest of the class presented their timelines, and our guest Karen gave this announcement to all the BSN cohorts:

I plan to get through this outline, but will adjust post if we don't:
Temple Tantrum/5 Signs/2 More Sets?/Matthew 18: Greatness and Kenosis/More Philemon/Impersonate Me

David Letterman/Subverion of Expectations/Empire:

-

TEMPLE TANTRUM: it kind of had this effect:

You'll also remember this video. "You're not supposed to be having fun in church; you're supposed to be praying and reading your Bibles!!":

A whole cluster of meanings help us grasp the huge shadow of the temple encounter in Matthew 21. Here are four..

Not necessarily in order of importance. You decide! Is one central?

1)It was not primarily about commercialism/selling stuff in church, but far more fundamentally about racism/prejuiduce.

2)It suggested that Jesus is the New Temple.

3)It calls to mind previous temple cleansings led by the likes Judah the Hammer and Simon the Star, and the Jewish desire for freedom.

4)If portrays Jesus as King, but a very different one than expected. One that was revisited with the testations yet again, and passed the test by subverting expectations and empire.
Jesus is King...but what kind of king will he be?
This was the shape of the temptations:
"Since you are the Son, what kind of Son will you be?"

-More one each below:

1) Racism as core issue, not commercialism:

a)Article By Dave Wainscott
“Temple Tantrums For All Nations"
Salt Fresno Magazine, Jan 2011:

Some revolutionaries from all nations overlooking the Temple Mount, on our 2004 trip

I have actually heard people say they fear holding a bake sale anywhere on church property…they think a divine lightning bolt might drop.

Some go as far as to question the propriety of youth group fundraisers (even in the lobby), or flinch at setting up a table anywhere in a church building (especially the “sanctuary”) where a visiting speaker or singer sells books or CDs. “I don’t want to get zapped!”

All trace their well-meaning concerns to the “obvious” Scripture:

"Remember when Jesus cast out the moneychangers and dovesellers?"

It is astounding how rare it is to hear someone comment on the classic "temple tantrum" Scripture without turning it into a mere moralism:

"Better not sell stuff in church!”

Any serious study of the passage concludes that the most obvious reason Jesus was angry was not commercialism, but:

racism.

I heard that head-scratching.

The tables the Lord was intent on overturning were those of prejudice.

I heard that “Huh?”

A brief study of the passage…in context…will reorient us:

Again, most contemporary Americans assume that Jesus’ anger was due to his being upset about the buying and selling. But note that Jesus didn't say "Quit buying and selling!” His outburst was, "My house shall be a house of prayer for all nations" (Mark 11:17, emphasis mine). He was not merely saying what he felt, but directly quoting Isaiah (56:6-8), whose context is clearly not about commercialism, but adamantly about letting foreigners and outcasts have a place in the “house of prayer for all nations”; for all nations, not just the Jewish nation. Christ was likely upset not that moneychangers were doing business, but that they were making it their business to do so disruptfully and disrespectfully in the "outer court;” in the “Court of the Gentiles” (“Gentiles” means “all other nations but Jews”). This was

the only place where "foreigners" could have a “pew” to attend the international prayer meeting that was temple worship. Merchants were making the temple "a den of thieves" not (just) by overcharging for doves and money, but by (more insidiously) robbing precious people of “all nations” a place to pray, and the God-given right to "access access" to God.

Money-changing and doveselling were not inherently the problem. In fact they were required; t proper currency and “worship materials” were part of the procedure and protocol. It’s true that the merchants may have been overcharging and noisy, but it is where and how they are doing so that incites Jesus to righteous anger.

The problem is never tables. It’s what must be tabled:

marginalization of people of a different tribe or tongue who are only wanting to worship with the rest of us.

In the biblical era, it went without saying that when someone quoted a Scripture, they were assuming and importing the context. So we often miss that Jesus is quoting a Scripture in his temple encounter, let alone which Scripture and context. Everyone back then immediately got the reference: “Oh, I get it, he’s preaching Isaiah, he must really love foreigners!”:

“Foreigners who bind themselves to the Lord…all who hold fast to my covenant-these I will bring to my holy mountain and give them joy in my house of prayer. Their burnt offerings and sacrifices will be accepted on my altar; for my house will be called a house of prayer for all nations.” (Isaiah 56:6-8, emphases mine)

Gary Molander, faithful Fresnan and cofounder of Floodgate Productions, has articulated it succinctly:

“The classic interpretation suggests that people were buying and selling stuff in God’s house, and that’s not okay. So for churches that have a coffee bar, Jesus might toss the latte machine out the window.

I wonder if something else is going on here, and I wonder if the Old Testament passage Jesus quotes informs our understanding?…Here’s the point:

Those who are considered marginalized and not worthy of love, but who love God and are pursuing Him, are not out. They’re in..

Those who are considered nationally unclean, but who love God and are pursuing Him, are not out. They’re in.

God’s heart is for Christ’s Church to become a light to the world, not an exclusive club. And when well-meaning people block that invitation, God gets really, really ticked.”

(Gary Molander, http://www.garymo.com/2010/03/who-cant-attend-your-church/)

Still reeling? Hang on, one more test:

How often have you heard the Scripture about “speak to the mountain and it will be gone” invoked , with the “obvious” meaning being “the mountain of your circumstances” or “the mountain of obstacles”? Sounds good, and that will preach. But again, a quick glance at the context of that saying of Jesus reveals nary a mention of metaphorical obstacles. In fact, we find it (Mark 11:21-22) directly after the “temple tantrum.” And consider where Jesus and the disciples are: still near the temple, and still stunned by the “object lesson” Jesus had just given there about prejudice. And know that everyone back then knew what most today don’t: that one way to talk about the temple was to call it “the mountain” (Isaiah 2:1, for example: “the mountain of the Lord’s temple”) .

Which is why most scholars would agree with Joel Green and John Carroll:

“Indeed, read in its immediate context, Jesus’ subsequent instruction to the disciples, ‘Truly I tell you, if you say to this mountain..’ can refer only to the mountain on which the temple is built!... For him, the time of the temple is no more.” (“The Death of Jesus in Early Christianity,” p. 32, emphasis mine).

In Jesus’ time, the temple system of worship had become far too embedded with prejudice. So Jesus suggests that his followers actually pray such a system, such a mountain, be gone.

Soon it literally was.

In our day, the temple is us: the church.

And the church-temple is called to pray a moving, mountain-moving, prayer:

“What keeps us from being a house of prayer for all nations?”

Or as Gary Molander summarizes:

“Who can’t attend your church?” -Dave Wainscott, Salt Fresno Magazine
--

So Jesus is intertexting and ddouble pasting two Scriptues

and making a new one.
But he leaves out the most important part "FOR ALL NATIONS"...which means he is hemistiching and making that phrase even more significant by it's absence,

b)As a follow-up to the temple tantrum of Jesus as targeting racism more than commercialism (see this, and these). if it's a new concept, and if you always though it was about "Don't sell stuff in church!" I find Bartholomew and Goheen's analysis intriguing. They read it as racism/prejudice/nationalism/"separatism" AND a "spirit of violence".

Does the former always lead to the latter?:

"...God has chosen the people of Israel to dwell among the nations so that all nations can enter teh covenant with God. But the temple Jesus now enters now functions in quite a different way, supporting a separatist cause, cutting Israelites off from their neighbors. Furthermore, the spirit encouraged within the temle is one of violence and destruction: it had become a 'den of revolutionaries' (Mark 11:17, authors' translation). Israel has turned its election into separatist privilege....a new temple, Jesus' resurrection life in the renewed people of God, can become the light for the nations that God intends." (The Drama of Scripture, p, 176)

In the footnote to the above the authors clarify:

"The Greek word here is Iestes ansd most likely refers to revolutionaries who sought to obverthrow Rome with violence, see also on Mk 14:48, 15:27, John 18;40, see NT Wright, Jesus and The Victory of God, 419-20

Hey, maybe Jesus- concern WAS commercialism after all:
is racism + violence=commercialism?

Also...this called to mind Erwin McManus in "The Barbarian Way":

"God always revolts against religions he starts"

That's a shock value statement, of course.
So it can't be "truly" true.
But it speaks the truth in part; and is partly true.

But two questions:

Didn't the fact that the temple was not completely separatist/sectarian even in the "Old" Testament (one of the passages Jesus quotes ..to counter racism..in the tantrum is Isaiah 56:6-8) help? Was the religion/temple of God in Judaism inherently racist, even if God-ordained? Weren't the dovesellers/moneychangers the violators, not temple Judaism itself?
If we picture God "revolting" we might ironically envision him as a but too "violent.

Jesus comes off violently peaceful (not violently peaceful in the temple..

c)You'll want to read "temple tantrum/ which curtain was torn?"
for more help on this theme. Remember the "Getting Ripped" inclusio discussion we had last Friday.
This article explains how it relates.
-----------------

2) Jesus as New Temple:

Three thought experiments.

-Think if I offered you a drivers license, claiming i had authority to issue it
-Think if someone destroyed all bank records and evidence of any debt you have owe
-Think what would happen if you pointed at something, hoping your dog would look at it.

Now watch this short and important video for explanations:

N.T. Wright, "The Challenge of Jesus":

His attitude to the Temple was not "this institution needs reforming," nor "the wrong people are running this place," nor yet "piety can function elsewhere too." His deepest belief regarding the temple was eschatological: the time had come for God to judge the entire institution. It had come to symbolize the injustice that characterized the society on the inside and on the outside, the rejection of the vocation to be the light of the world, the city set on a hill that would draw to itself all the peoples of the world. (64)

…Jesus acted and spoke as if he was in some sense called to do and be what the Temple was and did. His offer of forgiveness, with no prior condition of Temple-worship or sacrifice, was the equivalent of someone in our world offering as a private individual to issue someone else a passport or a driver’s license. He was undercutting the official system and claiming by implication to be establishing a new one in its place. (65) NT WRIGHT

See for more

#3 and 4 :Kings and King-potentials: Judah the Hammer,Simon the Star, Herod the Great, Simon Bar-Giora... and Jesus. Temple tantrum as kingship test and testation:

One can't help but find, in Matthew, the "common history" of two pivotal events in the history of Israel.

Both ended with homecoming "parties"

Event Date Location Deliverer Result

)Exodus 1000s BC Egypt 400 years Moses Passover Feast/Dance Party on the Beach

) Exile 500s BC Babylon 70 years Cyrus : Feast of Purim/4 Parties

)Temple defiled 165 BC Jerusalem Judah Hammer Feast of Haunnukah/Ptrep for Jesus Temple tantrum

From N,T. Wright's "Simply Jesus"

Wright is always helpful on the temple episode.

In this new book, he blew me away with the prequels to the tantrum:

Ever heard of Simon the Star and Judah the Hammer?

They were the forerunners here .

Wright:

For many centuries mapmakers put Jerusalem at the middle of the earth. That corresponds to what most Jews in the first century believed about the city, and particularly about the Temple. It was the heart of everything, the holiest spot on earth. It was the focal point of the holy land. Its decoration symbolized the larger creation, the world we read about in Genesis 1. It wasn’t, as sacred buildings have been in some other traditions, a retreat from the world. It was a bridgehead into the world. It was the sign that the creator God was claiming the whole world, claiming it back for himself, establishing his domain in the middle of it.
It was, in particular, the place where God himself had promised to come and live. This was where God’s glory, his tabernacling presence, his Shekinah, had come to rest. That’s what the Bible had said, and some fortunate, though frightened, individuals had glimpsed it and lived to tell the tale. But God lived, by definition, in heaven. Nobody, however, supposed that God lived most of the time in heaven, a long way away, and then, as though for an occasional holiday or royal visitation, went to live in the Temple in Jerusalem instead.
Somehow, in a way most modern people find extraordinary to the point of being almost unbelievable, the Temple was not only the center of the world. It was the place where heaven and earth met. This isn’t, then, just a way of saying, “Well, the Jews were very attached to their land and their capital city.” It was the vital expression of a worldview in which “heaven” and “earth” are not far apart, as most people today assume, but actually overlap and interlock.
And Jesus, had been going about saying that this God, Israel’s God, was right now becoming king, was taking charge, was establishing his long-awaited saving and healing rule on earth as in heaven. Heaven and earth were being joined up — but no longer in the Temple in Jerusalem. The joining place was visible where the healings were taking place, where the party was going on (remember the angels celebrating in heaven and people joining in on earth?), where forgiveness was happening. In other words, the joining place, the overlapping circle, was taking place where Jesus was and in what he was doing. Jesus was, as it were, a walking Temple. A living, breathing place-where-Israel’s-God-was-living.
As many people will see at once, this is the very heart of what later theologians would call the doctrine of the incarnation. But it looks quite different from how many people imagine that doctrine to work. Judaism already had a massive “incarnational” symbol, the Temple. Jesus was behaving as if he were the Temple, in person.
He was talking about Israel’s God taking charge. And he was doing things that put that God-in-chargeness into practice. It all starts to make sense. In particular, it answers the old criticism that “Jesus talked about God, but the church talked about Jesus” — as though Jesus would have been shocked to have his pure, God-centered message corrupted in that way. This sneer fails to take account of the fact that, yes, Jesus talked about God, but he talked about God precisely in order to explain the things that he himself was doing.
So we shouldn’t be surprised at Jesus’ action in the Temple. The Temple had, as it were, been a great signpost pointing forward to another reality that had lain unnoticed for generations, like the vital clue in a detective story that is only recognized as such in the final chapter. Remember the promise to David — that God would build him a “house,” a family, founded on the son of David who would be the son of God? David had wanted to build a house for God, and God had replied that he would build David a “house.” David’s coming son is the ultimate reality; the Temple in Jerusalem is the advance signpost to that reality. Now that the reality is here, the signpost isn’t needed anymore.
But it isn’t just that the signpost had become redundant with the arrival of the reality. The Temple, as many other first-century Jews recognized, was in the wrong hands and had come to symbolize the wrong things. It was, for a start, a place that for many Jews stank of commercial oppression. This is an additional rather obvious overtone of Jesus’ action in driving out the money changers and the traders. But it gets worse. The Temple was the center of the banking system. It was where the records of debts were kept; the first thing the rebels did when they took over the Temple in the great revolt was to burn those records. That tells you quite a lot about how people saw the Temple. I had a letter today from the tax man, politely asking me for my annual contribution to government finances. If I don’t answer it, the next one won’t be so polite.
Now imagine letters and records building up, detailing all the debts of ordinary people in Jerusalem, while the chief priests, who ran the system, lived in their fine mansions in the nice part of town and went about in their smart clothes. If you were an ordinary, hardworking resident of Jerusalem or the surrounding area, what would you think of the building that was supposed to be God’s house, but that stored the records of your debts, while the rich rulers who performed the religious rituals marched by with their noses in the air on their way to put on their splendid vestments and chant their elaborate prayers? Yes, that’s exactly how many people saw the Temple.
It gets worse again. The Temple had come to symbolize the nationalist movement that had led many Jews to revolt against pagan oppression in the past and would lead them to do so once more. As we see graphically throughout the history of Israel, and not least in the first century, the Temple was the sign that Israel’s God, the world’s creator, was with his people and would defend them against all confers. Battle and Temple had gone together for a thousand years, from David himself through to Judah the Hammer to Simon the Star.
And Jesus had come as the Prince of Peace. “If only you’d known,” he sobbed out through his tears, “on this day — even you! — what peace meant. But now it’s hidden, and you can’t see it.” Enemies will come, he said. “They won’t leave one single stone on another, because you didn’t know the moment when God was visiting you” (Luke 19:42-44).
Israel’s God was coming back at last, and they couldn’t see it. Why not? Because they were looking in entirely the wrong direction. The Temple, and the city of which the Temple was the focal point, had come to symbolize violent national revolution. Instead of being the light of the world, the city on the hill that should let its light shine out to the nations, it was determined to keep the light for itself. The Temple was not just redundant; not just a place of economic oppression. It had become a symbol of Israel’s violent ambition, a sign that Israel’s ancient vocation had been turned inside out. In Luke’s gospel, the scene of Jesus arriving in Jerusalem balances the scene near the start in which Jesus goes to Nazareth and risks his neck by declaring God’s blessing on the pagan nations. Then it was the synagogue; now it’s the Temple.
It also balances the scene even earlier, when the twelve-year-old Jesus stays back in Jerusalem, to his parents’ alarm, at the end of a Passover celebration — and is finally discovered sitting in the Temple with the teachers, listening to them, quizzing them in turn, and explaining that he had to be getting involved with his father’s work (Luke 2:49). Now here he is, back again, involved up to the neck in his father’s work, astonishing the Jerusalem authorities for a different reason. This is the climax of his father’s work, and that work is now focused on Jesus himself, not the Temple.
If Jesus is acting out a vision — astonishing, risky, and one might say crazy — in which he is behaving as if he is the Temple, redefining sacred space around himself, something equally strange and risky is taking place in the realm of time.

Wriight also, as did the folks I quoted in an earlier post, connected all major events in Jesus' timeline as revisitations of the original three wilderness temptations:

And the dark powers that put Jesus on the cross continued to the last with their mocking questions:
"Save yourself, if you're God's son! Come down from the cross!," echoing the same voice in the desert, "If you really are Gods son, tell these stones to become bread/" -Simply Jesus, chapter 10

Note: This would be (per Kraybill, and "economic" temptation ...remember bread=economic///). Hmmm...maybe this is "commercialism" revisited after all)

So how was the temple tantrum, and Jesus' choice to engage it, passing a test and resisting a core temptation/one of the three paradigmatic temptations?

Wright presses the key point of the temple cleansing:

We don't, perhaps, always realize that any such action was staking an implicitly royal claim: it was kings, real or aspiring, who had authority over the temple.. It was Israel's kings, or would-be kings who planned it..built it...cleansed it (Judah the Hammer)...rebuilt it...and hoped to rebuiild it once more (Simon the Star).....so what was its "meaning"? For a start, it was an emphatically royal action, a claim to be Israel's true King...but a king as a man of peace..no longer a military battle of 'us" against them"...the action would have been seen within a web of prophetic allusion and symbolism...meaning that the Temple was under God's judgement. -Simply Jesus, chapter 10

Jesus is King...but what kind of king will he be?

This was the shape of the temptations:

"Since you are the Son, what kind of Son will you be?"

One who refuses to turn stones into bread, but One who fearless predicts turning the temple to toast.

One who refuses to jump from the temple to prove himself, but One who is unafraid to jump into the temple's marketplace and bring its services to a halt.

One who refuses to rule by rod all the nations of the world, but One who in violently peaceful prophetic act opens the house of prayer for all nations to all nations.

"If anyone says to this mountain, 'Go throw yourself into the sea, and does not doubt in his heart but believes that what he says will happen, it will be done.' (Mark 11:23). If you want to be charismatic about it, you can pretend this refers to the mountain of your circumstances--but that is taking the passage out of context. Jesus was not referring to the mountain of circumstances. When he referred to 'this mountain,' I believe (based in part on Zech 4:6-9) that he was looking at the Temple Mount, and indicating that "the mountain on which the temple sits is going to be removed, referring to its destruction by the Romans..

Much of what Jesus said was intended to clue people in to the fact that the religous system of the day would be overthrown, but we miss much if it because we Americanize it, making it say what we want it to say, We turn the parables into fables or moral stories instead of living prophecies that pertain as much to us as to the audience that first heard them."

-Steve Gray, "When The KIngdom Comes," p..31

“Indeed, read in its immediate context, Jesus’ subsequent instruction to the disciples, ‘Truly I tell you, if you say to this mountain..’ can refer only to the mountain on which the temple is built!... For him, the time of the temple is no more.”

-Joel Green and John Carroll, "The Death of Jesus in Early Christianity,” p. 32, emphasis mine).

"The word about the mountain being cast into the sea.....spoken in Jerusalem, would naturallly refer to the Temple mount. The saying is not simply a miscellaneous comment on how prayer and faith can do such things as curse fig trees. It is a very specific word of judgement: the Temple mountain is, figuratively speaking, to be taken up and cast into the sea."

-N,T. Wright, "Jesus and the Victory of God," p.422

?

(

-- aggregate and collectivity sets:

p. 18-19 ,Kraybill, in our "Upside Down Kingdom," book, says, "The Kingdom of God is a collectivity--a network of persons....more than a series of individualized email connections linking the King to each subject...[It] infuses the web of relationships, binding King and citizens togeter" -Kraybill (

Read about the pope:

Pope Francis Kisses Man Plagued With Boils

backstory on the man with boils kissed by pope

-----------------------------

This week';s "COMMUNITY" topic is "Greatness and Kenosis". Here is it's corresponding sign

Kenosis: biblical Greek word for radical self-emptying.

Used of Jesus in Philippians 2:5-11. Kraybill calls it INVERSION

The symbol suggests that a biblical model/worldview often looks like the CEO/top-down model turned downside up..

Jesus came to serve.
             The last shall be first.
                         That's who is great in the Kingdom economy:


Jesus said in it yet another chiasm:

But those who exalt themselves will be humbled,

and those who humble themselves will be exalted

(Matt 23:12)

ONE GREAT PERSON SURVEYS

My Dack Rambo story? Click here to read all about it, and for the sequel click:
" I Deny the Resurrection and I am not straight." dackrambophoto1.jpg (1116×1416)

(uh, better click that title and get the context!)

we apply some "Three Worlds" theory to Matthew 18 and the topic of "Who is great?"

As we study, apply as many literary world symbols as you can

A video on that chapter featuring Keltic Ken:

Related outtakes:

Of LITERARY WORLD note:

-There is a hyperinked account in Matthew 16, there only Peter receives power to bind and loose, here all the disciples do. Remember 'ustedes va"?
-The sheep parable hyperlinks to Luke 15, but with a different context
Structurally, the last section of chapter 17 is connected
Two inclusios place this section in the middle of a unit about taxes/rights and children. Implications---

If you have your computer tonight, Scriblink some diagrams with me:

Of Historical World note:

What did you learn about a millstone from tonight's video clip?: Half the clip is below, and notes from complete video here:
← Faith Lessons by Ray Vander Laan: The Lamb of God

Renewing Our Worship: Clothing →

Faith Lessons by Ray Vander Laan: The Weight of the World

by Jay Guin

“Gethsemane” means olive press. The film shows an image of an ancient olive press at Capernaum. The olive press symbolizes the crucifixion.

There is a synagogue in Capernaum from the 3rd or 4th century, which is likely along the same plans as was used in the First Century.

Jesus was asked to heal a centurion’s servant. The centurion had built the synagogue and was highly esteemed by the people.

(Luke 7:2-5) There a centurion’s servant, whom his master valued highly, was sick and about to die. 3 The centurion heard of Jesus and sent some elders of the Jews to him, asking him to come and heal his servant. 4 When they came to Jesus, they pleaded earnestly with him, “This man deserves to have you do this, 5 because he loves our nation and has built our synagogue.”

Jesus was amazed at the faith of the centurion.

In Matthew 11, Jesus pronounces a curse on Capernaum for failing to repent.

(Mat 11:20-23) Then Jesus began to denounce the cities in which most of his miracles had been performed, because they did not repent. 21 “Woe to you, Korazin! Woe to you, Bethsaida! If the miracles that were performed in you had been performed in Tyre and Sidon, they would have repented long ago in sackcloth and ashes. 22 But I tell you, it will be more bearable for Tyre and Sidon on the day of judgment than for you. 23 And you, Capernaum, will you be lifted up to the skies? No, you will go down to the depths. If the miracles that were performed in you had been performed in Sodom, it would have remained to this day.

RVL: We’ve been taught the miracles of Jesus. Therefore, we will have no excuse. The most severe curses in the Bible are against those who knew better — not those who sinned in ignorance.

Olive oil was used for lubricant, for fuel, for lamps, for cleaning, as a preservative, and in cooking. Olive oil production was a major industry.

A massive stone rolled over the olives to produce olive oil. The crushed olives were then placed in another container and a massive stone column crushed the rest of the oil out of them. The olives were repeatedly crushed to get all the oil out.

Only the wealthy, typically the aristocrats, could afford the equipment needed to press the olives, and so they had control over local agriculture.

The Messiah is the “annointed one,” which refers to annointing with oil — olive oil.

Every few hundred years, an olive tree will stop bearing fruit and so must be cut down, and a new tree will grow from the stump.

(Isa 11:1) A shoot will come up from the stump of Jesse; from his roots a Branch will bear fruit.

The Jews taught that the new “shoot” was the Messiah — the shoot or branch out of Jesse.

Paul teaches that the Gentiles are grafted into the stump, meaning that out roots are Jewish.

And if God will cut down the natural tree for not bearing fruit, what will he do with the grafted-in tree?

“Nazareth” means shoot. Hence, Jesus is from “shoot” or “branch.”

Parents of children brought children to be blessed by the rabbi Jesus. Jesus insisted that the children come.

(Mat 18:2-6) He called a little child and had him stand among them. 3 And he said: “I tell you the truth, unless you change and become like little children, you will never enter the kingdom of heaven. 4 Therefore, whoever humbles himself like this child is the greatest in the kingdom of heaven.

5 “And whoever welcomes a little child like this in my name welcomes me. 6 But if anyone causes one of these little ones who believe in me to sin, it would be better for him to have a large millstone hung around his neck and to be drowned in the depths of the sea.

Children had no status in that culture. To become like a child was to give up status and rights.

Jesus felt strongly about those without status, who are unimportant. These are the “little ones.” If we don’t care about the little ones, the unimportant, the unloved, we’ll be tossed into the Abyss with a millstone (from an olive press) tied around our necks.

The column or pillar of stone used to squeeze the last of the oil out of a crushed olive was a “geth semane.” After telling the disciples to take on the gates of hell, he led them to Jerusalem, and then he went to the Garden of the Olive Press. There he felt the weight of the olive pressed — to the point of sweating blood.

The burden of carrying our sins was enormous. The “olives” are Jesus. The “weight” is us — we are the weight that squeezed the blood out of Jesus. by Jay Guin
Rob Bell's discussion of the Bible and binding and loosing

must be

read, wrestled and reckoned with..

It's the "YOKE" chapter of "Velvet Elvis"..
Thanks to Zondervan, a free online read, pages 40-69
here.

---

Page 22 of Syllabus,Matthew 18 Outline

(by Greg Camp/Laura Roberts):

1 Question #1: Who is Greatest?

2-17 Responses (each are counter proposals):

2-10 Response #1: Children

2-4 Counter Proposal: Accept children

5-9 Threat: If cause scandal

10 Show of force: Angels protect

12-14 Response #2: Sheep

12-14 Counter Proposal: Search for the 1 of 100 who is lost

15-17 Response #3: Brother who sins (counter proposal)

15a Hypothetical situation: If sin

15-17 Answer: Attempt to get brother to be reconciled

17b If fail: Put him out and start over

18-20 Statement: What you bind or loose

21-22 Question #2: How far do we go in forgiveness?

23-35 Response #1: Parable of the forgiving king/unforgiving servant

----------------Read verses 15-17 and then ask yourself:
"What did it mean in their historical world to treat people like

"tax collectors and sinners?"

Two answers

1)Don't allow them in your bounded set.

2)How did Jesus treat tax collectors and sinners? In a centered set way. Tony Jones writes:

but because anyone, including Trucker Frank, can speak freely in this church, my seminary-trained eyes were opened to find a truth in the Bible that had previously eluded me.”...That truth emerged in a discussion of Matthew 18's "treat the unrepentant brother like a tax collector or sinner.":

"And how did Jesus treat tax collectors and pagans?" Frank asked aloud, pausing, "as of for a punchline he'd been waiting all his life to deliver,"....., "He welcomed them!""

-Tony Jones, The New Christians, p.92

-In thinking about living selflessly like Jesus did...

fill in this blank:
The Scripture suggests that Jesus was able to do miracles, and have

supernatural knowledge, because he was ___________.

If you answered "God" ...
and not 'human"...read on:
--------------------------------------------

INVERSION/KENOSIS

Some theologians call this "Spirit Christology" or "kenosis", whether or not this proposed theology is consistently true. If it is, it would almost move this question into the realm of "essential" doctrines, because it then provides the very key to how we are to live in relation to daily Christian life, walking in the power and possibilities of the Spirit; doing the "greater works than Jesus" that Jesus flatly and unapologetically predicted we would do. Now, not every proponent of "Spirit Christology" or "kenosis theology" is biblical or orthodox, so hear me when I say that I know I don't agree with everyone using these categories. The basic argument would be this; to put it bluntly, as one preacher did for shock value:

"Jesus did nothing on earth as God! "

Wow, better unpack that! Now, that statement doesn't have to imply He was not God.. He was, is and always will be fully God in my Book! It's just that He didn't. during His earthly ministry, anyway..do anything out of His innate, inherent and intrinsic Godhood. He voluntarily surrendered the rights to use and access His God hood's attributes... such as omniscience, or power to do mighty miracles. Several
Scriptures come into play: John 5:19 and 30 offer that Jesus did nothing in and of Himself, but only did what the Father and Spirit told/led/empowered Him to do. Philippians 2:6-11 asserts that Jesus didn't take advantage of, or even access of the rights and power of His Godhood, which would be "robbery," and a violation of the whole point of His incarnation; His coming to earth. Instead of functioning out of His eternal power and prerogative as Almighty God, He "emptied Himself". A by-product of this, is as Hebrews affirms "Jesus know every temptation we have endured by His own experience" (2:18 and 4:15). I also love to shock congregations by asking "When Jesus did miracles on earth, how was He able to do those miracles?" Well-trained evangelicals of course automatically answer, "Because He was God!" When actually, that may be the wrong answer all together. Of course He was God, no debate. But the only Scriptural answer to "How did He do those miracles?" is "in the power of the Spirit". And witness Matt. 12:28: He cast out demons; not because He was God and could do so, but as a human "by the power of the Spirit." Thus, that is the "key" key, crucial catch, and ancient but overlooked secret as to how we, mere humans, are to do the same works He did, even greater. (Jesus said that, not me. Blame Him: John 14:12)

emember that:

"the one primary point
                                        of a parable
is that
                              a parable has
      one primary point"
(Note that is a chiasm!).

This quote fr
om Eugene Peterson helps us get how offensive Jesus' parables were to religious folk:

"gnostics delight in secrecy. They are prototypical insiders. They think that access to the eternal is by password and that they know the password. They love insider talk and esoteric lore. They elaborate complex myths that account for the descent of our spiritual selves into this messy world of materiality, and then map the complicated return route. They are fond of diagrams and the enlightened teachers who explain them. Their sensitive spirits are grieved by having to live surrounded by common people with their sexual leers and stupid banana-peel jokes and vulgar groveling in the pigsty of animal appetite. Gnostics who go to church involuntarily pinch their noses on entering the pew, nervously apprehensive that an insensitive usher will seat a greasy sinner next to them. They are however enabled to endure by the considerable compensation of being ‘in the know’ (gnostic means ‘the one who knows’). It is a good feeling to know that you are a cut above the common herd, superior to almost everyone you meet on the street or sit beside in church.
It is inevitable that gnostics will boycott the creation theater and avoid its language as much as possible, for metaphor is an affront to their gossamer immaterialities and inner-ring whispers, a loud fart in the salon of spirituality.” (Answering God, 75-76)

---------------------------------

Kraybill, from your Upside Down Kingdom textbook:

"the parables sizzle into the minds of the religious heavyweights:
your attitude is the opposite of God's" p. 158
------------------

-------------------------------------

Answer: We do them through "checking in" with the same Father Jesus checked in with while on earth; and trusting,...radically; to the point where the supernatural almost becomes natural and norm... the same Spirit Jesus trusted. (Note Jesus, a few sentences later, suggests that is His secret, and ours. He simply passes the torch to us, but not without the sharing the same equipping Holy Spirit: verses 16-17).Such deep trust and dependency doesn't make us Jesus, of course, but they do position us to trust the timing and voice of the Father, and prompting and power of the Spirit, as radically as Jesus did...with similar and "even greater" results! If JESUS never did anything in and of Himself (John 5:19 and 30), who do we think WE are?

When Jesus asked, in Mark 5:30, "Who touched me?," did He mean it, or was this a test? If "Spirit Christology" is true, one could answer the former, without sacrificing an iota of essential, foundational evangelical theology. When Jesus said even He (Matthew 24:36) did not know the day or hour of His return, was that a lie?. No, and this "lack of knowledge" on the part of a member of the all-knowing Trinity poses no problem. I would propose that He knows now, but He chose not to know on earth. This was all part of His modeling a complete self-emptying. This, though, is core to my third question:" How consistent and complete is this theology.? Did Jesus ever do anything 'on earth as God', even though He was God? And Lord, is this profound truth so profound that to miss it allows us to miss the 'normal' life you have intended for us?"

Whatever the ultimate answer to this question the Lord would give me, the bottom line question I keep hearing in the meantime. and "real time" is haunting: "Have I yet trusted as completely and recklessly as I could in the leading of the Father and the power of the Sprit? I almost don't even care if I do a greater work or not, I just want to be found faithful, and be an answer to Jesus' wild and waiting prophecy of John 14:12.

I love Dwight Edwards' penetrating, "must-be- wrestled- with" self-questions :

1. What have I done recently that could not be duplicated by an unbeliever, no matter how hard they tried?

2.What blatant evidence of the supernatural God has leaked out of my life?

Questions indeed!-

Post by Dave Wainscott.

ome amazing students of mine

Post by Dave Wainscott.

re-enacted The Prodigal Son, as Jesus might tell it today..Let's just say it's now about an Italian family whose dad owns a pizza parlor..and the prodigal got " hella hungry"...but it must be seen!

Pastor D.J. Criner

Sometimes in a Bible class, I will leave the room for five minutes,
and challenge the students to practice presenting anything they've learned.
It's totally up to them: they can tea- teach it, one person can present etc.

Sometimes I am even brave/dumb enough to say they can choose someone to impersonate (roast/toast( me and my style.

I should have known that with the delightful and daring Pastor D.J. Criner (of Saint Rest Baptist Church) in class, that the class would choose him for that impersonation option (:

It was caught on video ...

I guess I say ":awesome" a lot.

Be sure to catch his whiteboard artwork of me. as well.

---

--

We did IN CLASS, IN PAIRS, the Three Worlds worksheets on Philemon found in your syllabus.
Great work, Keep your notes for your paper. This was originally the homework due Week 6..but you have done it ahead of time!!
-----------------------------------------

Homework Help:If in red you can skip (or read red for revisions)

Week 4

Topic: Living in Many Communities: Prophecy and Wisdom

Preparation Reading:

Hauer & Young ch 6: “Covenant Advocates: The Prophets of Ancient Israel (The Latter Prophets)” (entire)

Amos (entire)

Hauer & Young ch 8: “The Way of Wisdom: Proverbs, Job, Ecclesiastes (The Writings II)” (entire)

Proverbs 10 – 15

Ecclesiastes 1-6

Job 1-5, 38-42

Hauer & Young ch 14 “Galatians: ‘The Gospel which was Preached by Me’” (pp. 296-297 only)

Galatians (entire)

Finish Radical Loving Care: Part Two (all chapters)Remembr: since many of you just got this book, this won't be due till week 6. So read the book as soon as you can. You can either do the questions listed OR a 1-3 page summary/review of the book

Grimsrud, ch 5, “Prophetic Existence: Covenant and Conversion”

Grimsrud, ch 6, “God Remains Committed to Healing”

Grimsrud, ch 7, “The Message of the Old Testament

Preparation Assignments:

1) Radical Loving Care Study Questions:

Part One: ch 1, “Opening Challenge,” pg. 193

Part One, ch 4, “Sacred Encounters, Sacred Work,” p. 194

Part One, ch 9, “The Not-So-Surprising Outcomes of the Healing Hospital,” p. 195

Part Two, ch 4, “The Sacred Encounter in Practice,” p. 197)RReemember since many of you just got this book, this won't be due till week 6. So read the book as soon as you can. You can either do the questions listed OR a 1-3 page summary/review of the book

2) Hauer & Young ch 6 Questions for Discussion and Reflection (p. 145): answer #1a-c

BSN 22 Spring 14 Bib 446

Tuesday, March 18, 2014

Week 3: Temple Tantrum/loud farts/Matthew 18: Greatness: Inversion and Kenosis/Philemon 3 Worlds Worksheets

A whole cluster of meanings help us grasp the huge shadow of the temple encounter in Matthew 21. Here are four..

-More one each below:

#3 and 4 :Kings and King-potentials: Judah the Hammer,Simon the Star, Herod the Great, Simon Bar-Giora... and Jesus. Temple tantrum as kingship test and testation:

?

(

Pope Francis Kisses Man Plagued With Boils

backstory on the man with boils kissed by pope

Faith Lessons by Ray Vander Laan: The Weight of the World

No comments:

Post a Comment