Wednesday Night Bible Study: Matthew 18-19: In Which I Die from Boredom
Thursday, March 4th, 2010
(Oops, I accidentally screwed up the posting schedule for this post, and my internet went down for about 20 hours to boot, so my apologies on it’s tardiness!)
I keep having problems with the “what do you want to study next” poll. Hopefully, it’s fixed, so if you haven’t voted, please do! Revelation is currently winning.
For any new readers, if you want to see all of my thoughts on Matthew up to where we are now, click on “WNBS” at the very top of the page.
And without further ado, on to Matthew 18. (And per my new policy, I will link to Bible Gateway and Skeptic’s Annotated Bible, but I don’t read SAB while I’m writing the post so that I will have as little bias as possible.)
Matthew 18 (Clean. Annotated.)
Jesus flies all over the place, covering treatment of children, humility, sin, and hell, all to the answer of the question of “Who is the greatest in the kingdom of heaven?” He’s actually pretty rambly, but at least this time we don’t have to read a confusing parable about how our poop relates to God. This is also the troublesome passage where he says, “if your right hand causes you to sin, cut it off, and throw it away!” I remember covering these verses at great length in my New Testament class. Why? After all, it’s pretty obvious that it’s just hyperbole! Well, apparently it’s not so clear if you are an evangelical and note the lack of hyperbole around it. And really, Matthew isn’t really a funny guy. Neither is Jesus. However, you’d be hard pressed to find anyone who takes that verse seriously. (Now Romans 1, on the other hand. . .) Real life attempts to take these verses literally have landed people in the mental ward (click on that link. Seriously. And then please tell me where the Bible implies anything about a microwave, and is there anything in the Bible that condemns me to hell for laughing when I read that article?). Now if they could just realize that taking the rest of the Bible literally is also good cause for lock up . ..
I think Jesus has reached the time in his life where he is kind of thinking kids are cute. Because he keeps talking about kids in that same sort of voice you hear in people who are ready to reproduce. Then he talks about how his Father loooves all of his children. Which are the True Christians, by the way. Oh, wait, that’s not in there. He doesn’t really say who his Father’s kids are. Maybe Jesus is an only child after all. He says,
If a man owns a hundred sheep, and one of them wanders away, will he not leave the ninety-nine on the hills and go to look for the one that wandered off? And if he finds it, I tell you the truth, he is happier about that one sheep than about the ninety-nine that did not wander off. In the same way your Father in heaven is not willing that any of these little ones should be lost.
Oh, really? Um, anyone feel like they just kind of ran away despite God desperately begging them to come back? No? Me either. Maybe God is still lookin’ for me. But I kinda doubt it. He is omniscient, ya know.
Blah, blah, blah, a bunch of common sense stuff on how to deal with conflict and forgiveness. The thing is, Jesus isn’t really that radical. Trying to work out a conflict is the mature thing to do! I wonder how he made it sound so profound? He tells one more parable, and that’s the chapter. Pretty boring, really. It’s some of the “good stuff” of the New Testament–as in, some of the passages Christians commonly point to and say, “See? This is better than that Old Testament!” But really? I see nothing I couldn’t have figured out myself without a Christian upbringing. Any lifelong atheists on here not know that the best way to handle conflict is to go to the person and try to work it out? Well, now you do. And that may be the most helpful thing I’ve seen in Matthew yet. Not so good, Jesus!
Matthew 19 (Clean. Annotated.)
So according to Jesus, Bob is committing adultery because he divorced me and remarried. He doesn’t say anything about women remarrying, though, so score! Jesus loves me best. Of course, Bob likes to say that I was maritally unfaithful, and he was therefore justified, but, um. Anyone agree with him?
Moving on from Bitter Ex Wife Syndrome (hehe, sorry, explaining it that way was more interesting than the actual passage),Jesus says, “Not everyone can accept this word, but only those to whom it has been given. For some are eunuchs because they were born that way; others were made that way by men; and others have renounced marriage because of the kingdom of heaven. The one who can accept this should accept it.”
And to tell you the truth, I don’t have a clue what that means. Is he talking about accepting the single people and the eunuchs? Or what? And who has been given the word? What word? Ah, Jesus, you’re talking in riddles! I think you should let your words be simple: your yes be yes and your no be no as opposed to letting your yes be a long monologue on about twenty subjects and your no be a condemnation of everyone to hell! (Jesus totally would have failed Sermon Prep and Delivery at Williams Baptist, btw!)
Back to child loving Jesus again. This is a favorite verse of Christians because Jesus is so kind and tender toward children. Unlike his Father.
Then you have the story of the Rich Young Ruler. To tell you the truth, I don’t even want to read these verses because I have heard them so many times. I’ve even been in a skit called “The Rich Young Ruler”, which was a more humorous take on this story. (I’m trying to remember if this is the one where the props people in the front row threw rubber chickens at us, but it may have been another one with the same guy who played the Rich Young Ruler. I can’t remember. I used to be in a traveling Christian drama group and we did a bunch of skits most weekends.) Yes, I am beyond sick of this story. Probably because it’s another “nice” story Christians like to tell. Ever notice how certain passages get beaten into the ground while others are hardly spoken of at all? Yeah. Matthew 18-19 makes me want to cry. From boredom.
But for anyone who has never even heard of church, a Rich Young Ruler approaches Jesus and asks what he needs to do to get to heaven. For the sake of the skit to follow, let’s name the Rich Young Ruler Joel Osteen (who is one of the leading proponents of the prosperity gospel).
Osteen: What do I need to do to get to heaven?
Jesus: Works, works, works! Namely, the ten commandments! (Later note: Skeptics Annotated points out that Jesus only lists six commandments, and the sixth isn’t even one of the original ten!)
Osteen: (Ignoring the fact that Jesus is obviously wrong. After all, the Bible is clear that it’s faith that gets us into heaven. Jesus must not have studied Ephesians very hard.) I’ve done lots of works!
Jesus: Oh! Then sell everything you have!
Osteen: No way! (Tears.)
Jesus: (to the crowd) It’s easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle than for a rich person to enter the kingdom of God.
I never understood this. Why is Osteen, er, the Rich Young Ruler, treated differently than everyone else? Why does everyone have to do good works, but RYR must sell everything on top of it? I was always taught that it was Jesus’ way of looking into his heart, but they ignore the fact that selling everything still has nothing to do with faith. And getting into heaven vs. hell is a pretty important topic for the Bible to be so unclear about. Why doesn’t Jesus say, “You have to believe that I am the Son of God to get into heaven”????
The disciples apparently see this, too, because they get pretty dismayed:
When the disciples heard this, they were greatly astonished and asked, “Who then can be saved?”
Jesus looked at them and said, “With man this is impossible, but with God all things are possible.”
W.t.f kind of answer is that? Jesus basically just said, “Whoever God damn well wants to save!” No works, no faith. Or maybe he clears it up with further dialogue.
Or maybe not.
Peter answered him, “We have left everything to follow you! What then will there be for us?”
Jesus said to them, “I tell you the truth, at the renewal of all things, when the Son of Man sits on his glorious throne, you who have followed me will also sit on twelve thrones, judging the twelve tribes of Israel. And everyone who has left houses or brothers or sisters or father or mother or children or fields for my sake will receive a hundred times as much and will inherit eternal life. But many who are first will be last, and many who are last will be first.
Therefore, we are all doomed. The 12 disciples and Jesus will judge the Jews and those who actually quit their jobs and left their families will be saved. Gentiles and those of us who work for a living and love our families are just kind of screwed. This is the best salvation plan Jesus himself came up with. It makes me think Paul maybe didn’t know what the hell he was talking about with all that faith nonsense . . . Not to mention evangelicals don’t know what the hell they are talking about either, with all this family values nonsense. WWJD? He wouldn’t get married or be a Gentile in the first place! So there!
Tags: Bible study, Joel Osteen, Matthew, prosperity gospel, secular Bible study
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March 5th, 2010 at 12:11 am
As regards all of the gospels, here is a quotation which sums them up:
“But,” says the Christian, “Christ is so perfect a character that he could not have been invented.” This is a mistake. The Gospels do not portray a perfect character. The Christ of the Gospels is shown to be artificial by the numerous contradictions in his character and teachings. He was in favor of the sword, and he was not; he told men to love their enemies, and advised them to hate their friends; he preached the doctrine of forgiveness, and called men a generation of vipers; he announced himself as the judge of the world, and declared that he would judge no man; he taught that he was possessed of all power, but was unable to work miracles where the people did not believe; he was represented as God and did not shrink from avowing, “I and my Father are one,” but in the pain and gloom of the cross, he is made to cry out in his anguish: “My God, my God, why hast Thou forsaken me?” And how singular it is that these words, reputed as the dying utterance of the disillusioned Christ, should be not only contradicted by two Evangelists, but should be a quotation from the twenty-second Psalm!
If there is a moment when a man’s speech is original, it is when, amid agony and despair, while his heart is breaking beneath its burden of defeat and disappointment, he utters a cry of grief from the depth of his wounded soul with the last breath that remains before the chill waves of death engulf his wasted life forever. But on the lips of the expiring Christ are placed, not the heart-felt words of a dying man, but a quotation from the literature of his race!
A being with these contradictions, these transparent unrealities in his character, could scarcely have been real.
The gospels are fictions, either slightly based on fact or more probably not at all based on fact. They are no more to be trusted as records of actual persons and actual events than are the novels of Harry Potter or James Bond. Do not look in them for a consistent and believable real person who could have lived and spoken – you will not find him there.
March 5th, 2010 at 8:36 am
On what grounds does Bob claim you were unfaithful?
March 5th, 2010 at 8:52 am
I had a friend whose parents where at the United Church in Canada, he grew atheist and told me that the translation about the eye of a needle was a bad translation. The original word referred to a sort of arch which would have made it not easy to pass a camel with a lot of things on top but not impossible…
What do you think ?
March 5th, 2010 at 9:12 am
Anon, oh, you know. I had sex with his friend. Horrors! He just leaves out the parts where he told me it was fine with him and when he actually told him to do it.
Sophie, there is a teaching that there is a gate in Jerusalem called the Needle Gate or the Eye of the Needle or something like that and it’s too small for a camel to pass underneath it. Whether it’s true or not is controversial.
March 5th, 2010 at 9:13 am
Here is a good article on the meaning of the camel verse: http://www.biblicalhebrew.com/nt/camelneedle.htm
March 5th, 2010 at 11:52 am
Back to the verse where the shepherd goes to find the one lost sheep:
OK, so he goes off to find the one lost sheep. While he is gone, a pack of wolves decimates the flock he left on their own, and he returns to find 20 sheep ripped to shreds by the wolves. Now, was that a good idea?
And if Jesus story about the servants and the talents of silver is anything to go by, Jesus would have condemned the shepherd to hell. Oh, wait, the shepherd is an analogy for his Father, so I guess he won’t follow through on that one!
March 5th, 2010 at 1:00 pm
Wow it takes a lot of gall to call that incident infidelity.
March 5th, 2010 at 1:06 pm
Well. There are a few more details, but I can NOT figure out how to write about them without compromising some people’s identities or crossing a line that Steve has advised me not to cross to keep myself safe from a lawsuit (which is guessing at Bob’s motivations as opposed to simply giving the facts). I have been trying to figure it out for months, and I just can’t. Still nothing that makes me look worse, I don’t think, but maybe it does. I don’t know! But it probably does explain what he’s doing better.
March 5th, 2010 at 1:42 pm
I wouldn’t waste too much time on the camel / needle thing. It’s obvious hyperbole to make a point. Today we might say you’d have as much chance as you would have of driving an 18 wheeler down an Olympic ski jump. Bad outcome either way!
March 6th, 2010 at 10:48 am
Here’s something I’ve never understood about the Rich Young Ruler parable. We’re constantly told in evangelical Christianity that God gave the Law in order to show His requirements, which was perfection. The Law is something we’re incapable of keeping, and thus shows us how imperfect we are, and why we need a Savior.
Yet the ruler says that he did keep all the commandments. Isn’t that impossible, according to evangelical Christianity? Is the interpretation that the ruler is lying?