Month: September 2024

Week 37  Matthew 19

I noticed this verse last year and I noticed it again this year: many who are first will be last and many who are last will be first.
Working at being first in this world (or being right up there near the top spot) is pretty important.
Avoiding being last in this world is also important.
My guess is that almost everyone in the world has these two rules in the back of their minds: 1) I need to try to be as high up in the upper half as I can get. 2) I need to try to stay out of the bottom half (and if that’s unavoidable I need to be as high in the bottom half as I can be). The General Rule in every case is: being higher is better than being lower.
So while I’m living by the General Rule this niggling verse comes to me in a cautionary way:
• Many people who seem to be important now will not be important later
• Many people who don’t seem to be important now will – later on – be important.
It’s a reminder about how different the rules of the game are in the two spaces (Here vs. There) and in the two time zones (Now vs. Later):
#1 Guy Now might only be #1,000,000 Guy Later.
Top Guy Here might be Bottom Guy There.

Note: Matthew 19:30 (NIV)

Week 37  Mark  4

Jesus used many stories and illustrations to teach the people as much as they were able to understand. For instance:
• the Kingdom of God is like seed growing in a field
• the Kingdom of God is like a mustard seed
Mark says that in public the Lord only taught in parables but behind-closed-doors with the disciples he explained the meaning to them. It seems like a kind of secret society: For Members Only.
I wonder why the Lord publicly taught in riddles. Was he purposely keeping people in-the-dark (and then privately telling the secret meaning to his disciples)?
That doesn’t seem to jive with what Mark already said – that the Lord used many stories and illustrations to teach the people as much as they were able to understand. That seems like the logical thing to be doing – teaching people to help them actually learn. (Even if there was a ceiling to people’s understanding I can’t see any benefit to the Lord in lowering it.)
It makes a lot more sense to me thinking that a) the Lord was teaching people so they would learn rather than b) he was teaching people so they wouldn’t.
Of course it does look like there was a lot of uncertainty with the parables. But for me the question isn’t: why are people kept in the dark? I think as good a question  to ask is: why do people seem to prefer to avoid the light?

Note: Mark 4:33 34 (NLT). See 4:26-29 &  30-32

Week 37  Matthew 19

A wealthy young man asked the Lord what he had to do to inherit eternal life (he obviously figured that good actions in the here-and-now would assure him of a good & happy post-mortem life).
So the Lord told him: you can receive eternal life if you keep the commandments – for example:
No murder? > Eternal Life
No adultery? > Eternal Life
No theft? > Eternal Life
No lying? > Eternal Life
Honouring your parents? > Eternal Life
Loving your neighbour? > Eternal Life
The young man listened…mentally checking all the boxes. He’d done them all (yes!) But he didn’t want to count his chickens before they hatched and so he double-checked: what else must I do?
Selling everything is not one of the Ten Commandments. In fact as far as I know selling-all-my-possessions isn’t required anywhere in the OT. The Lord just made-up the commandment for this man. A personalized law. Made-to-measure.
In one way it seems like an unfair thing for the Lord to do. On the other hand the guy had asked what good things must I do to inherit eternal life? So it was fair game (and I guess it hit-the-nail-on-the-head).
Afterward the Lord told the disciples that it was almost impossible for a rich person to enter the Kingdom of God. He went on to say that humanly speaking, it is impossible. And if he hadn’t added that with God everything is possible it might have looked like the end-of-the-road for a lot of wealthy people.

Note: Matthew 19:17 20 16 24 26 (NLT)

Week 37  Matthew 18

The Lord tells a story about a lost sheep and even though he talks about the sheep and a shepherd his main point is not about sheep at all.
The sheep gets lost and the shepherd goes out searching for it. Eventually he finds it and he’s very happy when he does.
But Matthew goes on to say in the same way it is not my heavenly Fathers’ will that even one of these little ones should perish. It looks to me like in the same way means I have to take the fictional story and fill-in the factual equivalents. The fictional tips me off about the factual.
The lost sheep = a lost person
The shepherd = the Lord
The shepherd is concerned about the sheep = the Lord is concerned about a lost person
The shepherd searches for the lost sheep = the Lord searches for a lost person
The shepherd is happy when he finds the lost sheep = the Lord is glad he recovered a lost person.
By transferring the elements of the sheep-and-shepherd I understand something about the Lord.
And it’s very useful to know that the Lord is concerned about individual people. That he searches people out. That he’s hoping to find them. To bring them home. That it is not (his) will that even one of these little ones should perish.
Already having 99 sheep is good but not good enough. The Lord wants the lost one too.

Note: Matthew 18:14 (NLT)

Week 37  Matthew 15

The Lord told people publicly: you are not defiled by what you eat. Peter thought people were defiled by what they ate. So he asked the Lord for clarification.
The Lord gave Peter a quick description of the digestive tract – one of the natural systems in the body that processes food. I chew a mouthful of food & swallow it. My digestive system automatically takes over. Down-the-hatch to my stomach. Large intestine. Small intestine. Some digestive processing to extract what’s good and reject what’s useless. At the end of the road the system leaves me with a bunch of waste product to egest. Gone.
That’s System #1. The Lord describes it and then compares it to a different processing system: System #2. System #2 is similar to System #1 because it has raw material on the inside that it gets rid of – expels it from inside to outside. But System #2 is different from System #1 in one way. With System #2 there’s no raw material intake process. Raw materials are already inside – the non-natural / non-material food-of-the-heart. And if my natural heart is evil then System #2 will just naturally egest evil: evil thoughts murder adultery theft lying slander – things like that.
The Lord gave Peter at least three things to think about: a) good food doesn’t healthy-up your heart so b) don’t get all twisted-up about your diet because c) there’s another whole system in play that takes priority over food.

Note: Matthew 15:11 19 (NLT)

Week 37  Matthew 14

I can either a) have faith or else b) not have faith.
If I’m in the first category and I do have faith then I can either a) have a greater amount of faith or else b) have a lesser amount of faith.
That’s the key issue in this story: Peter’s ‘quantity of faith’.
When I think about range-of-faith – minimal faith vs. maximal faith – I think it’d be useful to have a numerical scale  (for instance: a #1 might be Almost Zero Faith and #100 might be a Huge Amount of Faith). A scale would tell me exactly how much faith I had. (One downside is that I’d be tempted to compare my score against other people.)
But reading about Peter today I think the better question is: if I have some faith – but it’s in short-supply – how do I expand it?
The story of Peter walking on water isn’t a story about How To Boost Your Faith Score. It’s obvious that Peter did have enough faith to walk on water…initially at least. But almost right away he lost it. And when Jesus saved him he asked Peter the key question why did you doubt me? So doubt reduced Peter’s supply of faith.
This story doesn’t tell me how to get more faith. But it does tell me one thing I should try to avoid so I don’t reduce whatever amount of faith I’ve currently got.

Note: Matthew 14:31 (NLT). Peter walking on water is in Matthew 14:22-33

Week 37  Matthew 13

This passage is an odd and not-too-clear message the Lord gives to his disciples when they wonder why he teaches using parables.
Before answering Jesus goes on a bit of a tangent about a teacher teaching his students. What Jesus says makes it seem like the teacher just arbitrarily designates selected students to have a special audio-visual capacity to dope-out what he’s saying. But he (nastily) withholds this hearing-and-seeing from the rest of the class.
I keep reading. The Lord quotes Isaiah who said that people don’t hear or see because their heart has become calloused; they hardly hear with their ears, and they have closed their eyes. That makes it sound like a student’s choice.
I keep reading. A bit farther down Matthew says that the Lord was aiming to explain mysteries hidden since the creation of the world. Which makes it seem like the Lord wanted to clarify things – not muddy them up.
I keep reading to where it says anyone who is willing to hear should listen and understand. Which doesn’t make it sound like the Lord has fated me to blindness & deafness.
So I end up modifying my first reaction (which was blaming the Lord for my blind & deaf indifference). It sounds like my own dopiness is boomeranging back on me.
It’s still a tough passage to manage. But it’s a reminder: am I reading something that makes the Lord seem ghoulish? Then I should keep reading.

Note: quotes from Matthew 13:11 (NIV) 13:35 43 (NLT)

Week 37  Matthew 7

About halfway through chapter seven the Lord makes a short parable-like comment: enter through the narrow gate. For wide is the gate and broad is the road that leads to destruction, and many enter through it. But small is the gate and narrow the road that leads to life, and only a few find it.
So there are four main things to be thinking about in this ‘traveller’s advisory’:
1. There are two different gates. One is big & wide and is pretty easily accessible. The other is narrow. It’s kind of restrictive & harder to find & maybe less get-at-able.
2. These two different portals lead to two different roads. One is a wide multi-lane thoroughfare that I get too once I’m through the big gate. By contrast once I get through the small gate what I have is more like a secondary road.
3. Probably a key difference is that the two roads go to different destinations. The Big Gate & Big Road eventually lead me to Destruction. The Small Gate & Small Road lead to Life.
4. Finally there’s a general report about traffic & road usage. Many people go through the Big Gate & travel the Big Road. But only a few even find the Small Gate & Small Road. So there’s quite a bit less traffic on it.
So two gates & two roads & two destinations. And the popular choice of the majority is for one and not the other.

Note: quote from Matthew 7:13-14 (NIV)

 

Week 37  Matthew 6

The Lord says: don’t worry about everyday life. I wonder what that could mean.
a) It could be that I aim to absolutely & entirely disconnect myself from everyday life. If I did that perfectly I guess I’d likely be dead.
b) As an alternative I could disconnect myself quite-a-bit from everyday life. Hard to say what non-everyday-living would look like. Maybe I’d rent a place. Use public transit. Restrict my diet. Only have a couple of changes of clothes. Give to charities. People have done that. Might be a good strategy.
c) Another approach would be for me to focus on the ‘worry’ part of the equation. This worry-reduction plan looks not-so-much like rejecting everyday life and more like living my everyday life but avoiding  the bruising & psychically-crushing weight of worry that’s often just a normal part of everyday life.
Personally I think the worrying-part – part c) – is what the Lord is driving-at. It’s a big concern. But then my (huge) follow-up question is:  how-in-the-world do I not worry? Being told not to worry is basically useless advice if I don’t know how not to.
But when I get to the end the Lord says your heavenly Father will give you all you need if you a) live for him and b) make the Kingdom of God your primary concern.  This is good to know. It’s not all I need to know. But it’s a positive start.

Note: quote from Matthew 6:25 31-32 (slightly modified) (NLT)

Week 37  Matthew 5

The last two-thirds of the chapter are the Lord talking about the OT law. He wasn’t prepared to just dump it. But he was pretty intent on fine-tuning the Jewish people’s understanding about it. (What this is saying is that if the Lord figured he had to describe to genuine OT specialists what the OT law was really about then he figured that they just didn’t get it.)
It occurred to me today that I likely read the OT in exactly the way that 1st century Jewish people did. In other words: the law means to slavishly obey the rules. But that’s reading it wrong.
The OT law wasn’t written by Moses to be obeyed in a strict & rigid & straight-jacketed sort of way. On the one hand there was a strict & rigid & straight-jacketed element to it. But it was more than straight-jacketed rigidity.
I can’t murder someone or have sexual intercourse with anyone I want or steal or lie because that’s against the law. But the Lord is saying that not doing those things doesn’t solve my instinctive & latent preference to do them. First Level Obedience is not doing. Second Level Obedience is altering my preference for doing them.
But that’s not the point for me right now. The point is that I think I likely tend to read the OT exactly the way 1st century Jewish people did. And that – according to Jesus – is an inadequate & misinformed way to go at the law.