Thursday Night Bible Study: Matthew 7:15-9:13
Friday, January 22nd, 2010
I told someone I would continue my series on reading through the Bible this Wednesday, but I forgot all about it! So Thursday night Bible Study it is!
I’ve only had one person tell me they like this. I don’t usually get very many comments on them, and I don’t know if it’s because I so perfectly say everything that needs to be said (ha!) or because people don’t like it very much. So tell me what you think:
Should I keep the Wednesday night Bible Study?
- Yes, I like it! (68%, 50 Votes)
- I don't care. (24%, 18 Votes)
- I don't really like it very much. (8%, 6 Votes)
Total Voters: 74
Loading ...Anyways, several weeks ago, before my tooth put me on a pretty steady dose of narcotics and wiped out the intellectual thinking part of my brain, I left off at Matthew 7:14.
Matthew 7:15 (found here if you want to follow along) opens up with a warning to watch out for false prophets. The problem is that he doesn’t say really what they look like, just that we will recognize them by their fruit. Well, what does that mean? You could probably pretty easily say that Westboro Baptist Church has converted very few, but Pat Robertson and Doug Phillips aren’t much more loving, but have quite a few followers. So really, a “false prophet” can simply mean someone who doesn’t agree with you. And that is how I have most often seen it interpreted.
A scary verse is Matthew 7:21-23:
Not everyone who says to me will enter the kindgodm of heaven, but only he who does the will of my Father who is in heaven. Many will say to me on that day, “Lord, Lord, did we not prophesy in your name, and in your name drive out demons and perform amny miracles?” Then I will tell them plainly, “I never knew you. Away from me, you evildoers!”
Well, I guess that rules out most televangelists! And priests. And there you go with the works, not faith thing, which contradicts Ephesians 2:8-9. Really, the Bible is so vague, how do you know if you are doing God’s will? And what if you only do God’s will 90% of the time? 99%? 50%? Where is the cutoff here? Nothing is more important than eternity, so why is the Bible not more clear? If anything should be very explicit, it should be this.
Chapter 7 concludes with the wise man and the foolish man, and how the crowds thought Jesus was the bomb.
On to chapter 8!
Chapter 8
Jesus heals a leper, but tells him not to tell anybody except to the priests as a testimony. I don’t really understand why the man was only allowed to give a testimony to the priests, as later, it seems Jesus wants us to tell everybody in the world about him. Nor do I understand why that’s an important detail, but whatever!
Then the centurion comes and asks Jesus to heal his servant from miles away. Jesus is really impressed at the guy’s faith, so he does it. Then he says something weird about how many people will come to eat at the feast of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob in heaven, but that the subjects of the kingdom will be thrown outside into the darkness, where there will be weeping and gnashing of teeth. Nice, loving Jesus there! It would make sense for him to say “sinners” or whatever (though I still don’t find that exactly merciful, if by “outside” he means an eternity in hell), but the subjects of the kingdom? What does that mean? After he goes off on that tangent, he tells the centurion his servant is healed.
So then Jesus heals a lot of people. Then he tells a disciple to let the dead bury the dead when the disciple wanted to bury his father. Hmm, there’s merciful Jesus, loving Jesus, kind Jesus, and powerful Jesus. But snippy Jesus? That was actually a pretty callous response! Even if following him IS more important, it’s still not a very nice thing to say.
Grumpy Jesus is seen again in the next few verses when he calms the storm. Heck, cheesy Christian songs have been written about how Jesus calms the storm. But Jesus was actually kind of snippy yet again when the disciples had the audacity to fear the storm. It’s almost like he snapped at them before calming it, saying, “You of little faith, why are you so afraid?” Well, maybe because their boat was about to capsize! It’s not like they had seen him calm the weather before. I mean, it’s one thing to heal people, but another thing entirely to control the storms. Jesus does not seem that forgiving of his followers’ humanity. I bet if God died, Jesus would have buried him. Oh, wait. . . Jesus was buried. Hmm, maybe Joseph of Aramathea (whose tomb Jesus borrowed for a few days) should have just let Jesus bury himself while he went to church!
So then Jesus casts out some demons into a herd of pigs, which then commit suicide. Actually, here it talks about how he cast demons out of two men, but I thought it was just one. So I looked up the account in the other gospels. Sure enough, Luke 8:26 just talks about one man. Both accounts place this right after the calming the sea incident, so it didn’t happen twice.
Thus begins chapter 9.
Chapter 9
Jesus goes back home and tells a paralyzed man his sins are forgiven. Some teachers of the law get pissed and accuse Jesus of blasphemy. So Jesus gets kind of aggravated again and asks them if it is easier to forgive sins or heal the guy. So then he heals him. It’s a cool comeback, but if you read it, it doesn’t really match the conversation. Someone gets mad at Jesus for acting like God, so he gets annoyed and heals someone? Maybe to prove that he IS God and he can damn do whatever he pleases? It’s almost like he does some of the miracles he does out of spite, to prove a point, and not just because he is loving and wonderful.
Then he collects Matthew, one of those evil tax collectors. Tax collectors were seen as pretty evil. Kind of like atheists today. If Jesus were in modern America, Matthew would be an atheist.
So the question is, if Matthew wrote the book of Matthew, but isn’t on the scene until Matthew 9, how does he know some of this stuff? This is where some really interesting Bible history comes into play, with Q documents, and P, F, and Z documents (okay, maybe not Z documents. Or F. But there might have been!), but I won’t bore you with all that. If you care, google Q document. It’s pretty dry, which is probably one of the reasons you won’t hear a sermon on it. The other reason is that if you preach about how the books of the Bible came into being, you might question your faith. Which means you might question your tithe (okay, it’s probably not quite so nefarious as tithing, but there is the problem of losing members or getting fired for causing them to question).
Matthew 9:12-13 says,
On hearing this, Jesus said, “It is not the healthy who need a doctor, but the sick. But go and learn what this means: ‘I desire mercy, not sacrifice.’ For I have not come to call the righteous, but sinners.
This verse put me in quite the conundrum as a kid. I was always a mostly good girl and accepted Jesus into my heart at the age of 6. So maybe that was why Jesus never seemed to answer my prayers: I wasn’t sick enough. Really, after the whole Mark and Bob debacle, I thought, “Maybe now I’m sick enough for Jesus to pay attention to me!” because I blamed the entire thing on myself. I begged for forgiveness, and asked Jesus to come back into my life, helping me with my unbelief and my mess of a life.
Only he never really did.
January 22nd, 2010 at 5:48 am
I enjoyed this post – I vote for more Bible readings.
January 22nd, 2010 at 7:17 am
I like these ‘bible studies’ too. It’s always good to hear someone elses take on scriptures. Well, other free-thinkers takes on the scriptures anyway. I’ve had my fill of believers takes on it throughout my life. Funny how all the years of church and having sermons and scripture shoved down my throat drove me away from reading the bible because none of it made sence. It took me losing my faith to actually dig into the bible and find out…yeah…it really doesn’t make sense! And now everthing makes more sense. Make sense? lol
Keep up the great work!
January 22nd, 2010 at 7:18 am
I like the way you analyse the Bible, it’s simple and easy to understand.
January 22nd, 2010 at 9:25 am
I felt the same way after a certain part of my life too. I asked Jesus to come back to me for 10 years, and nothing. I’m done with it.
January 22nd, 2010 at 10:43 am
I first learned about Source Criticism and Q from no less an apologist than F.F.Bruce. So it’s not universally rejected among evangelicals; probably only the verbal-dictation theorists really have problems with it. Much later when I was in a liberal church, the pastor gave an evening seminar in which he actually led us through analysis of a parallel passage, showing how Matthew and Luke get some of their common material from Mark, but that they also have common material from the hypothetical Q.
January 22nd, 2010 at 10:46 am
The great thing about having your own blog is that you get to talk about whatever you want. If it is useful to you to continue your march through the bible, then keep doing it!
Personally, I don’t find much benefit from continued study of it. I have about 5 different versions (King James, NIV, NLT, parallel versions, study versions, etc) that I have consulted and cross referenced over the years. I used to study the different permutations hoping to cut through the translations to find the real meanings without the clouding of the interpreters.
Ultimately, I came to the conclusion that all of it was just a ruse to try to control society and human beings in ways that are against nature and against human nature. We humans should lay down our judgments and prejudices and accept one another and find ways to work together for the common good. Books that promote judgment and divisiveness and discrimination have no place in modern society.
I do think that religion HAD a place in the development of humanity, but now it is time to cast off our fear of the unknown and proceed on our own abilities.
I still have my bibles, but at this point, I have not opened any of them for a few years now. I don’t see the point.
But that is just me!
January 22nd, 2010 at 10:52 am
Yes, please don’t stop doing these. I just found you. And frankly, as a recovering Baptist…I need this. I too have read the bible cover to cover (a couple of times), and done plenty of independent and group bible study. The SAME THINGS you’re talking about have bothered me, but you know…as a leader on the worship team, and in women’s ministry…I could never ALLOW myself to question them. I mean…asking that it all make SENSE? How DARE we? Yeah…ugh. So please…I really feel like I need this. And I feel relieved to have discovered you, and your writing. I hope that we will get to share about all of this.
January 22nd, 2010 at 11:07 am
Oh…and I forgot to add…that I too was a minister’s wife. And that, in and of itself, just like your recounting of some of your experiences…has a story ALL it’s own.
To make things ever more interesting in my life…I have known I was a lesbian since I was probably about 10 years old. I tried VERY hard to “change” this. I’ve had “deliverance” ministry (yes, eventually I even went from Baptist to “holy roller,” trying to rid myself of this horrible “sin”). My feelings never changed, no matter how much I BEGGED god to change me. He either didn’t want to, or was unable. But I married (twice), trying to “do the right thing.” Both marriages ended in divorce, of course, and I was always secretly miserable.
Anyway, to make a very very long story short. I am now very happily “married” to a wonderful woman that I’ve been with for 6 years. (No, we’re not “legally” married yet, seeing as how so many people don’t want to “allow” that.)
Much much has transpired in the past 46 years, to lead me to beliefs that are probably more deist than anything. I’m not agnostic. I certainly believe there is a God. I also believe we were given brains to REASON not to allow them to be enslaved to religion and fairy tales and the attempt to control people through fear and subjugation. I don’t believe in dogma and mind control by organized religion. Oh…I believe it exists…I just don’t believe it saves anyone’s soul, as a matter of fact, quite the opposite.
I apologize for rambling on in your comment section. I probably should have just emailed you this.
January 22nd, 2010 at 1:00 pm
I like these! I’m doing the same thing myself, actually, but I’m starting in the OT. It’s so refreshing to be ALLOWED to point all this crap out. Like Lori, I had plenty of experience reading the Bible, and plenty in questioning it, but none at all in not feeling guilty about questioning it!
I agree that Jesus is definitely a moody guy. It’s kind of like it depends on the writer, whether he’s this incomprehensible god being or a pious, awesome, miraculous human. Kind of reminds me of the scene in LotR when Gandalf shows Frodo that he’s not always a nice old man. Of course, I won’t get called names for not thinking Gandalf is real!
January 22nd, 2010 at 1:23 pm
I hate that friggin book. It gets on my last nerve. I think you should do the Old Testament too Laura. Dawkin’s sums it up in the God Delusion: “The God of the Old Testament is arguably the most unpleasant character in all fiction: jealous and proud of it; a petty, unjust, unforgiving control-freak; a vindictive, bloodthirsty ethnic cleanser; a misogynistic, homophobic, racist, infanticidal, genocidal, filicidal, pestilential, megalomaniacal, sadomasochistic, capriciously malevolent bully.”
How did Cheeses get hooked with this Daddy image, crap!
January 22nd, 2010 at 1:44 pm
I agree that Jesus is definitely a moody guy. It’s kind of like it depends on the writer, whether he’s this incomprehensible god being or a pious, awesome, miraculous human.
I just finished Bart Ehrman’s Misquoting Jesus, and he says much the same thing: the depiction of Jesus varies somewhat consistently among the Gospel writers. I forget the details, but one Evangelist has him haughty and pissed off, another all meek and mild (and of course in John he’s this hippy who says really weird mystical shit). The picture most of us have of Jesus is a vague “harmonization” of all four Gospels — I mean, how many people, even Christians, could tell you off-hand in which Gospels a particular parable, or saying, or incident, is found? And with what variants among the accounts?
January 22nd, 2010 at 1:48 pm
Lori, it’s incredibly rare that I get messages from minister’s wives, and that’s probably why I love it when I do. Feel free to email me anytime. We have a lot in common!
Cerberus, I am going to do the Old Testament. I decided to start with Matthew because people often tell new Christians to not start reading the Bible with the Old, but the New Testament. I wanted to be “fair” and give the loving, kind God of the NT a chance. (It’s really interesting how people say God is the same yesterday, today, and forever when the God of the OT has some sort of personality disorder and the God of the NT is all nice and loving!) Anyways, I figure I’ll go back and forth.
January 22nd, 2010 at 2:12 pm
Please continue your studies if you have the fortitude to do so.
I’ve tried tackling the old testament and always get lost somewhere in the “begats”. It’s no surprise to me that more than a few deconversion stories start with “after reading the Bible all the way through…”
I quite enjoy it as literature and remain puzzled that so many folks consider the Bible literal truth despite the stunning inconsistancies. For a fun exercise (if you ever have the time) try comparing Genesis to Milton’s Paradise Lost.
January 22nd, 2010 at 2:39 pm
Laura I’m just reading a short article in Secular Nation called “Why I Love the Bible” by Herb Silverman. He takes the OT stories and shows them from a different POV, like the snake’s in the garden! LMAO! But a lot wisdom there too regarding humanism.
January 22nd, 2010 at 2:42 pm
Oooh, do you have a link?
ETA: Oops! I see now you said IN not ON, so you meant the magazine. Never mind! I’ve had some interesting thoughts on Genesis myself, but I don’t know if they’re the same as Herb’s!
January 22nd, 2010 at 8:05 pm
So many comments here that I resonate with on some level, from “recovering Baptist”, a phrase I’ve been using, too, Lori, to “got stuck at the ‘begats’,” to wondering at 12 years old if I was really saved…it sure didn’t feel like it even though I was a “good youth pastor’s daughter.” I love LotR and recommend reading Tolkien’s version of the creation myth in Silmarillion.
Another author who has written on the Q Gospel and the book of Mark, among other topics, is John Dominic Crossan. Brilliant thinker who was a monk.
Glad to have the study back, Laura!
February 28th, 2010 at 1:24 am
“Then the centurion comes and asks Jesus to heal his servant from miles away. Jesus is really impressed at the guy’s faith, so he does it.”
A point of note: servant or slave in these verses is written in the original Greek as pais which is not the Greek for servant nor for slave. In this context, it is a young boy the centurion kept as a sex slave. Our nearest English word is catamite. I don’t think the fundies will ever give you that explanation, esp. since ‘Jesus’ doesn’t condemn the centurion for the relationship.