Choosing the Twelve

Posted on January 12, 2017 by Don Merritt

One of those days Jesus went out to a mountainside to pray, and spent the night praying to God. When morning came, he called his disciples to him and chose twelve of them, whom he also designated apostles: Simon (whom he named Peter), his brother Andrew, James, John, Philip, Bartholomew, Matthew, Thomas, James son of Alphaeus, Simon who was called the Zealot, Judas son of James, and Judas Iscariot, who became a traitor.

Luke 6:12-16

When Jesus is faced with a major decision, He goes off by Himself to pray, often for an extended period of time; we might want to take note of this. In these verses Luke begins a new section that is centered around the 12. It’s interesting for us to see that Jesus chose them from among many “disciples” who were in His presence at this point in His ministry, something we often overlook in the story of His ministry.

There were Twelve who would play a special role in the development of the early Church. They would represent the 12 Tribes of Israel, even though in Jesus’ day there were no longer 12 Tribes, but only 2 and ½ (Judah, Benjamin and half of Levi). In doing this, Jesus confirmed His messianic role as the one who would reunite Israel in His Kingdom, but what no one seems to have understood at this point is that Israel would be united in a form never before seen, alongside the Gentiles.

Of course, that would come later.

With this, the stage is set for what many scholars call “The Sermon on the Plain”; we’ll get into that next time…

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Bonus Post: The Son of Man

Posted on January 12, 2017 by Don Merritt

We’ve already seen that Jesus will often refer to Himself as “the Son of Man”, a rather interesting little title. In fact, it is the title He uses for Himself more than any other; it is even more interesting to note that this title is used only once in all of the rest of the New Testament in Acts 7:56:  “Look,” he (Stephen) said, “I see heaven open and the Son of Man standing at the right hand of God” (cf. Luke 22:69).

For the ancient Hebrew, phrases like “son of so and so” might often be used to say “someone who is like so and so,” Yet when Jesus uses the term, He isn’t saying that He is like some random man, or even like some other person; so what is He up to?

The thing I find really interesting about the term is that it has just enough in it that over time a person who “has ears to hear” is likely to figure out whom or what Jesus is referring to, and those who don’t will always remain clueless. In this respect, I suppose one could say that “Son of Man” is a bit of a parable; for it is certainly a riddle.

Yet it isn’t an impossible riddle.

If we do some digging, we will find a clue in Daniel 7:13-14:

In my vision at night I looked, and there before me was one like a son of man, coming with the clouds of heaven. He approached the Ancient of Days and was led into his presence. He was given authority, glory and sovereign power; all nations and peoples of every language worshiped him. His dominion is an everlasting dominion that will not pass away, and his kingdom is one that will never be destroyed.

It seems highly likely that Jesus used this cryptic reference to identify Himself as the messianic figure from Daniel 7, something that only those with discernment and a willing heart would notice. His opponents, those who either knew, or with reasonable diligence should have known His identity from the very beginning possessed neither of these attributes. This is all the more troubling since of all people, they were the ones who knew these Scriptures so well; such is the condition of this world.

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A thought to ponder

Posted on January 12, 2017 by Don Merritt

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Photo of the Week: January 11, 2017

Posted on January 11, 2017 by Don Merritt

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Lord of the Sabbath

Posted on January 11, 2017 by Don Merritt

Luke 6:1-11

This passage contains two stories of events occurring on the Sabbath which result in conflict to point where the Pharisees begin to plot against Jesus. In the first one (6:1-5) the disciples were eating grain they had plucked along their way, prompting some Pharisees to ask why they were violating the law of the Sabbath. Remember that the Pharisees have constructed hundreds of oral regulations to define “work” for the Sabbath and in their very strict construction of the term, plucking a bit of grain from a plant was work, while walking for miles was not.

Jesus in His reply to their question reminded them of an incident in which David violated their laws to feed his men from consecrated bread that could only be eaten by priests, with the very clear implication that God didn’t view the Law quite so strictly as they did, declaring that He was “Lord of the Sabbath” indicating to them that He was qualified to decide what was really permissible independent of their oral traditions. Naturally, the Pharisees weren’t amused.

In the second part of the passage (6:6 ff.) Jesus is speaking in the synagogue on another Sabbath and a man was present with a “withered” hand. The Pharisees in attendance, who had just about had their fill of Jesus, were waiting attentively to see if He would heal the man on the Sabbath so they could make an issue of it. Knowing this, Jesus invited the man to stand up front in view of everyone, and posed a legal question:  “I ask you, which is lawful on the Sabbath: to do good or to do evil, to save life or to destroy it?” (6:9)

Jesus told the man to stretch out his hand, and lo and behold it was restored. The Pharisees were furious, but what could they say? All Jesus did was ask the man to hold his hand!

The plotting began then and there; they had to do something to this Jesus guy, for He wasn’t going along with their program.

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The Pharisees Have a Question

Posted on January 11, 2017 by Don Merritt

They said to him, “John’s disciples often fast and pray, and so do the disciples of the Pharisees, but yours go on eating and drinking.”

Jesus answered, “Can you make the friends of the bridegroom fast while he is with them? But the time will come when the bridegroom will be taken from them; in those days they will fast.”

He told them this parable: “No one tears a piece out of a new garment to patch an old one. Otherwise, they will have torn the new garment, and the patch from the new will not match the old. And no one pours new wine into old wineskins. Otherwise, the new wine will burst the skins; the wine will run out and the wineskins will be ruined. No, new wine must be poured into new wineskins.  And no one after drinking old wine wants the new, for they say, ‘The old is better.’”

Luke 5:33-39

After Jesus attends Levi’s big bash, the question about fasting arises. The Pharisees fast twice a week, so righteous and wonderful are they… and they make sure everybody knows about it. John’s disciples fasted also, and let’s face it, fasting was a big cultural thing for the Jews of that day. Of course the Law only required fasting once per year. Fasting was associated with mourning; mourning for sin or loss. It was also used in times of special devotion.

Jesus and His disciples didn’t do any extra fasting, and Jesus tells them in His answer exactly why that was: The Bridegroom was in their midst; this is a time to rejoice!

He uses a couple of little parables to expand His thinking, about a torn garment and new wine. A new garment is not intended to be a patch of the old, for with a new garment, who needs the old? Jesus is the new garment.

If you have new wine, you don’t put it into an old wineskin, because it will ruin the old wineskin as it ferments. When new wine comes along, everyone will say the old is better anyway, since most wine drinkers prefer a more mature wine to a young one. Funny thing, when the new wine (change) comes along, everyone prefers the old as you know if you’ve ever tried to change anything. Yet Jesus is the new wine, for with His coming, the Old passed away.

I’m willing to guess that this reply didn’t go over all that well with the old guard.

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Bonus Post: The Pharisees

Posted on January 10, 2017 by Don Merritt

The Pharisees were the largest group of “teachers of the Law” in the first century which is to say that they were teachers of the Law, but not all teachers of the Law were Pharisee. There were several other groups, most notably the Sadducees. These sects each represented a somewhat different theological tradition within Judaism, and I suppose it would be fair to compare them to modern day denominations in the sense that all were Jewish, but they taught things somewhat differently.

In the Gospels, the Pharisees are cast in a rather negative role as self-righteous, money loving, power hungry hypocrites, and while Jesus commented on these things often enough, we should probably recognize that not all Pharisees were quite so corrupted.

The main distinction between the Pharisees and other groups of scholars in those days was the singular devotion of the sect to keeping and maintaining the Law of Moses. Their devotion to keeping it was so great that in order to avoid even coming close to breaking the Law, they developed an oral law containing over two thousand additional rules to be memorized, and as a practical matter, annotated into the Law, so as not to even come close to a violation. Thus, since keeping the Sabbath was rather vague in the Law itself (you shall not work on the Sabbath), they came up with hundreds of additional rules so as to define anything that might be interpreted as “work”. As you know, this is the area into which Jesus boldly strode and conflict resulted several times.

Another example that comes up in Acts is their rule about only giving 30 lashes in punishment where the Law actually allowed 40. The Pharisees believed that rather than accidentally breaking the Law if there was a miscount, taking 10 lashes away from the maximum; they could be safe from making a mistake.

In addition to their study of the Law, the Pharisees also were serious scholars of the rest of the Old Testament. For this reason, they ran into serious conflict with the Sadducees who only accepted the Torah (Law) and not the rest (Talmud) of the OT. Thus, the Pharisees believed in a spiritual realm and a resurrection of the dead, which the Sadducees rejected.

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Another Disciple; More Conflict

Posted on January 10, 2017 by Don Merritt

After this, Jesus went out and saw a tax collector by the name of Levi sitting at his tax booth. “Follow me,” Jesus said to him, and Levi got up, left everything and followed him.

Then Levi held a great banquet for Jesus at his house, and a large crowd of tax collectors and others were eating with them. But the Pharisees and the teachers of the law who belonged to their sect complained to his disciples, “Why do you eat and drink with tax collectors and sinners?”

Jesus answered them, “It is not the healthy who need a doctor, but the sick. I have not come to call the righteous, but sinners to repentance.”

Luke 5:27-32

Tax collectors were probably the least popular of all in the Jewish social structure of the first century, for they were considered to be both thieves and traitors. They were considered thieves because they earned their very substantial livings by collecting more tax than was actually due. They were considered traitors because the tax they collected was for the Roman Government which was the foreign force that occupied Jewish territory, ruling by force of arms.

Everyone hated the tax collectors.

Jesus called Levi (Matthew) to be a disciple, and Levi followed Him without hesitation, giving up a massive business in the process: Astounding for a crook. What did Levi do next? He throws a big party for Jesus!

Let’s look at this from the point of view of the Pharisees: Seeing all of this, what are you going to think? If we are honest, we’d probably think the same thing they did; what was Jesus doing?!

In His reply to their question, Jesus shows a priority system that was more or less foreign to the Jews, for He had come to save these people, not to condemn them as everyone else did. That approach didn’t go over very well with the Pharisees of Jesus’ time, and frankly, it doesn’t go over very well with the Pharisees of our time either.

While we are looking at the passage, there is another little tidbit we shouldn’t overlook. Levi left his booth, went home and threw Jesus a party, inviting all of his sinner friends to attend… and they showed up. Notice that nobody had time to get their life in order before coming to Jesus. Levi was now a disciple of Jesus, but had he gotten his act together yet?

Don’t answer too quickly… for I think the answer is probably something like ‘kinda sorta but not really’. Yes, he walked away from his booth, so there might be repentance in play to a certain degree, then he throws a party and invites his old pals which could be said to be carrying on his old lifestyle or is this Levi hoping that Jesus will save them too? Forget for a moment that you know how the story ends, how Levi returned all he had stolen; at this point that hasn’t happened yet.

For me this story reinforces the notion that we do not need to get our life “together” before we come to Jesus, for who can truly get it all together without Jesus?

It’s something to think about don’t you agree?

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The Beginning of Conflict

Posted on January 10, 2017 by Don Merritt

Luke 5:17-26

Since Jesus; departure from Nazareth, things had been going pretty well; He met with universal acclaim, He has been begged to remain in villages, and many have come out to hear His teaching and see His healing, but just as we saw in Nazareth, things were about to change. In this section, Luke begins a series of five stories in which conflict develops between Jesus and various Jewish officials; this parallels the events in Mark chapter 2. We begin here with the very familiar story of the paralyzed man who was brought by friends to the house where Jesus was teaching. The crowd was so large that they couldn’t squeeze into the house, so the men carried their friend to the roof and lowered him into the room where Jesus was. Impressed with their faith, Jesus told the man his sins were forgiven, something that shocked the Pharisees and teachers of the law in the room.

Knowing their thoughts, Jesus asked them which would easier for Him to do, to tell the man his sins were forgives, or to tell him to get up and walk… So, He told the paralyzed man to get up take his mat and go home, which is exactly what the man did, right in front of everyone. Jesus explained why He did this: “I want you to know that the Son of Man has authority on earth to forgive sins.” (5:24)

God was glorified, everyone was amazed, many gave praise to God… and the seeds of discord were sown, for the Jewish leaders had something to accuse Jesus of: Blasphemy. To be sure, we will see this word again.

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Another Healing

Posted on January 9, 2017 by Don Merritt

While Jesus was in one of the towns, a man came along who was covered with leprosy. When he saw Jesus, he fell with his face to the ground and begged him, “Lord, if you are willing, you can make me clean.”

Jesus reached out his hand and touched the man. “I am willing,” he said. “Be clean!” And immediately the leprosy left him.

Then Jesus ordered him, “Don’t tell anyone, but go, show yourself to the priest and offer the sacrifices that Moses commanded for your cleansing, as a testimony to them.”

Yet the news about him spread all the more, so that crowds of people came to hear him and to be healed of their sicknesses. 16 But Jesus often withdrew to lonely places and prayed.

Luke 5:12-16

Once again Jesus heals someone, this time He heals a leper. Of note in this account is the fact that the man showed tremendous faith when he met Jesus; notice he showed no doubts about whether or not Jesus could heal him. Note also that Jesus healed the man by touching him, a rather big “no-no” for to touch a leper would make you unclean.

Jesus didn’t seem to care about that. Yet He did care that the man present himself to the priests so that they could perform the necessary rites to make him clean in the eyes of the Law… but he wasn’t to mention Jesus.

Naturally the word got out and Jesus’ fame spread even further.

With His fame spreading, we might note that Jesus didn’t call a press conference or hold a rally. Instead He went into seclusion to pray. That speaks volumes, don’t you think?

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