Okay, I confess, I peeked ahead a little last week when I was trying to figure out whether or not Jesus’ disciples actually followed his instructions. He does send them off, but not to cities, and reading ahead, I realized something: I don’t like Jesus. At least, I don’t like Matthew’s perspective of Jesus. It’s cool that he heals people, but he often does it so rudely. He doesn’t care about any other relationships people might have. He wants us to hate everyone else and just love him (and I have heard that “hate” in the Bible doesn’t mean “hate” as you hear it today, but when he says you have to let your family die rather than lie for a second to save their lives, he kind of loses my respect. I mean, a smart deity would know that people need people. You can’t just talk to the ceiling all day. Frankly, I know more about psychology than Jesus does. No offense to Jesus, but he’s just not a nice person in Matthew.

Matthew 11 is better than Matthew 10, but Jesus is still pissed about something. No wonder the Pharisees don’t really like him. I was always taught it was because they were jealous. I don’t think so. (Btw, I finally found a bunch of notes in the margins in 2 Thessalonians & 1 Timothy. I only had this Bible a few months before leaving Bob, so it’s not as marked up as my old Bible was. Pity! A couple in Timothy really reflect my questioning at the time!)

Matthew 11

(Click here to follow along.)

John the Baptist gets thrown in prison, so he sends his disciples to ask Jesus if he is the one to come or should they expect someone else? (I take it they mean the Messiah?? Weren’t they there with the dove and God’s voice at Jesus’ baptism? And why was John in jail, anyways?)

Never one to be straightforward, Jesus answers (11:4-6),

“Go back and report to John what you hear and see: The blind receive sight, the lame walk, those who have leprosy are cured, the deaf hear, the dead are raised, and the good news is preached to the poor. Blessed is the man who does not fall away on account of me.”

Okie dokey! So if Jesus really was a disciple of John (see last week’s post with the video), this is where he maybe decided, Hey, John’s in prison. I can use this to my advantage! And tells everyone that John is a prophet who came to tell everyone about him. He’s really smart about it, too. He sounds kind of politician-y: Well, my opposition is great, but I’m better!

Then Jesus says something really interesting. Last week,  I wondered why Jesus said “Son of Man” when referring to himself in the third person. I wondered if there was supposed to be another Son of Man out there. But no, here it seems as if he really does just like to talk about himself in the third person (I’m pretty sure they make a medication for that. . .). It’s interesting what he says in verse 19: “The Son of Man came eating and drinking, and they say, ‘Here is a glutton and a drunkard, a friend of  tax collectors and ‘sinners.” But wisdom is proved right by her actions.”

Interesting! It seems as if Jesus likes to eat and drink. Sorry, strict Southern Baptists (and John Hamel, whoever you are). It’s hard to be a “drunkard” on grape juice. I can tell you that this was most certainly not a passage ever highlighted in my church or youth group!

Then back to ranting, angry Jesus, where he condemns a few cities for not repenting after he performed those miracles, the acts of compassion. So Jesus had ulterior motives. He didn’t heal people to be nice and loving, but to make them believe what he wanted. Blah, blah, blah, by this point, ranting Jesus is getting old. (And yes, if Jesus is real, then he’s probably pretty pissed at me.)

So right after condemning several cities full of people to hell, he praises God.  He condemns the people to agony for not repenting, then turns right around and praises God for hiding the truth from the wise and learned for God’s pleasure. I’m sorry, but that’s not kind, merciful, or loving. It’s sadistic. There’s no other word for it. And it blows the whole “personal relationship with God” thing out of the water. Jesus does not seem to understand or care about individuals whatsoever as he condemns entire cities to fate worse than death.

So right after that, he calls for the weary to come to him so he can give them rest. He talks about how humble and gentle he is. ?! So in less than 10 verses, he goes from angrily condemning, to sadism, to kindness. Bipolar much?! Geez, I need some rest after trying to make sense out of all of this! (Two weeks ago, we had angry Jesus. Last week, racist Jesus. This week’s Jesus is bipolar, I have decided!)

Chapter 12

(Found here.)

Hm, maybe there is a lot of mental illness in the Bible. Bipolar Jesus vs. OCD Pharisees. No wonder they didn’t get along. The Pharisees get mad at Jesus’ disciples for picking grain as they walk during the Sabbath. Oh, noes! So Jesus reminds the Pharisees that King David ate consecrated bread when he was hungry. Then Jesus adds a new title to himself. He was Son of Man (he likes calling himself that and talking in the third person), now he is Son of Man and Lord of the Sabbath. Goodness, Jesus, leave something for God the Father!

More boring details on the Sabbath and analogies ensue. Basically, he says it’s okay to be nice to people on the Sabbath, and to prove it, he heals a dude’s hand.

But the Pharisees are pissed. They plot to kill Jesus, so Jesus runs away. He heals people, warning them to not tell them who he was (guess he changed his mind about the workers in the harvest from last week!). People start wondering if Jesus is the Son of God, but the Pharisees hear about it and get mad, and claim he’s of the Devil. Or Satan. Or Beelzebub. The red dude with horns has lots of names, too. Jesus rambles a bit on how he couldn’t possibly be Beelzebub, then says if you’re not for him, you’re against him. So I guess every atheist and non Christian is indeed an antitheist when it comes to Christianity. Sorry if that makes you sad.

He says that blasphemy against him will be forgiven, but blasphemy against the Holy Spirit won’t be. So I guess I don’t know what blasphemy is after all. Unless it kind of destroys the whole three parts to the same egg idea of the Trinity and how God can be Father, Son, and Holy Spirit without being different gods. Because there’s only one God, ya know! Well, at least I know it’s okay to blaspheme against one. Whew!

Then Jesus launches into a scathing monologue against the Pharisees. Funny, he was praising them earlier. Guess they had a falling out.

So some of the Pharisees ask to see a miraculous sign (guess they weren’t paying that much attention to all the other people Jesus healed!), and Jesus gets mad at them. He yells at them for 6 verses, rambling about how he and Jonah will be out of commission for three days. And I would like to know who the Queen of the South is (in vs 42). All it says is “The Queen of the South will rise at the judgment with this generation and condemn it; for she came from the ends of the earth to listen to Solomon’s wisdom, and now one greater than Solomon is here.”  Did he forget Solomon has been dead for quite awhile? Solomon did have a female visitor from the South, but she would be dead, too. But I am pretty sure there are no accounts of her rising from the dead during Jesus’ generation and condemning it. (Okay, honestly, he does sound a little bipolar in some of these passages. No disrespect or DSM diagnosing intended here, but some of these things do make me wonder. I was taught that Jesus never displays any sign of mental illness throughout the Bible, but I am starting to kind of disagree with that. It’s usually ministers who say that, not psychologists.) Then he starts rambling about evil spirits again. I never noticed how rambly Jesus is. Rambly Jesus and Bipolar Jesus this week!

Then he refuses to see his mother and brothers, calling his disciples his mother and brothers. Really, was there any reason to be so rude? They were waiting outside to see him. Don’t the 10 Commandments say to honor your mother and father? He doesn’t really seem to honor his mother. He kind of treats her like an annoying pest.

Yeah, sorry. I am not a fan of Jesus after these last two or three weeks. I liked him at the beginning of Matthew, but now? Not so much. Other Gospels portray him a bit more nicely, so we’ll see how it goes later.

Tags: atheism, Bible study, Christianity, Gospel, Matthew, religion, secular Bible study

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