Craig Keener on adultery, divorce, remarriage

When would Jesus permit divorce? | Bible Background - Craig Keener

Kingdom violence: WWSD?

Here is audio of a message I gave several years ago at a home gathering on an intriguing text:

"From the days of John the Baptist until now, the kingdom of heaven has suffered violence,
and the violent take it by force."  Matthew 11:12

...at least, that's  how the NRSV styles it.

One of the  several  "gnotty" issues with this text is that translations take it in several different...even contradictory... ways.

Of course, "Whatsup with the violence here?" must be tackled.  How do we deal with the violence in the text without doing violence to the text?

This was

my  somewhat successful tab at looking at this text sans versitis, catching the context,  giving midrash  a voice in the mix, and throwing out a working interpretation of a tough text.

One thing I do here,  as I have done for some time now--even in much more formal "sermons"-- is letting the saints speak.. so Kevin,  Ivana, Scott, St John,

 Bobby, Sonya and Keltic Ken et al drop into the message vital points that would have been missed had I just been the talking head.

I love open source/open sores church.

Trump and Jesus both seem to love racist walls, and both called a woman a dog

If that title wasn't clickbait, I don't know what is (:



                                But it's true.





Don't worry....

 It's all explained in a fantastic section of A J Swoboda's  book
 "The Dusty Ones: How Wandering Deepens Your Faith."




Click  here..

                   


 and start reading with "A Gentile mother.."
                                                                                        

  You won't be sorry.

"lead us not into the coming birth pains.."

Both images from the Andrew Perriman post on What does Jesus mean when he teaches his disciples to pray “lead us not into temptation”?

"The Temptation of Anthony"

Most Misinterpreted Bible passages (Jason Staples)

From Jason Staples..

 click a link to read an individual post, or here to see all.

Introduction to the series here

• “
• Whoever Looks at a Woman With Lust”: Misinterpreted Bible Passages #1
• 
• “Judge not, lest you be judged”: Misinterpreted Bible Passages #3
• 
• “The Signs of the Times”: Misinterpreted Bible Passages #5
• 
• “Pearly Gates” and “Streets of Gold”: Misinterpreted Bible Passages #2
• 
• A Bald Man, Two Bears, and Forty-two “Children”: Misinterpreted Bible Passages #6
• 
• “That day will come like a thief”: Misinterpreted Bible Passages #4
• 
  

 “Paul, a ‘Slave’ or ‘Bondslave'”? Misinterpreted Bible Passages #7

figural Christology: reading backwards within the flowing stream of time

 Scot McKnight:

Believing to Understand

Richard Hays on figural Christology.

by Scot McKnight

What disturbs the professor is that so many read their New Testaments with nary a glance at the Scripture reference notes in the central column of many Bibles or printed in the footnotes in others. What disturbs the reader is what one finds when one pursues those cross-reference suggestions.

We need go no further than Matthew's first chapter. The original woman in mind in the famous "the virgin will conceive" was a "young woman" already married to Isaiah and pregnant and soon to bear a child. But the Greek translation, the Septuagint, turned the Hebrew almah into parthenos, which meant "virgin." Matthew, knowing Jesus was born of a virgin, chose the latter on which to hang this profound interpretation of the conception and birth of Jesus. In chapter 2, the holy couple, after having spent time in safety in Egypt, return—and Matthew finds a golden egg in a text that had nothing to do with the Messiah. Matthew brings rugged realities and scriptural patterns together: If Jesus is the Son of God, if he spent time in Egypt, if YHWH called Israel his Son and out of Egypt summoned them to the Land of Israel, then Jesus somehow needs to be seen fulfilling that text too. It's all in Matthew 2:1-15. Or take John 5:46, which tells us in the words of Jesus "If you believed Moses, you would believe me, for he wrote about me." If there is so much Jesus in Moses, why did so few recognize him when he came? Over and over we see this interpretive approach to the "Old Testament" when we pay close attention to the cross references in our Bible, at once opening a world of glorious discovery and faith and re-imagining history and at the same time provoking us into pondering what kind of readings these early Christian hermeneuts were offering their readers.

....The grip of historical method has historians by the neck, but not so the new "theological interpretation of the Bible" crowd, now on full and detailed display in the Brazos Theological Commentary on the Bible. For the historians, what the original author meant—only what he (or she) meant—is all that matters; for the theological interpreters, while authorial intent certainly matters, it is not all that matters. What matters perhaps more is what mattered to Jesus and the apostles, and what mattered to them is now mattering more and more to Christian readers of the Bible. The tight grip of the historians has been loosened. More and more we are learning to see the Bible as an inter- and intra-textual reality; only by embracing its central vision—Jesus as Messiah—can one read that Bible well.

Richard B. Hays, in the published version of his Hulsean Lectures in Cambridge, Reading Backwards: Figural Christology and the Fourfold Gospel Witness, proposes that Jesus read the events of his life "backwards" and in so doing taught Christians how to read the Old Testament "forwards." As he puts it, "the Gospels teach us how to read the OT, and—at the same time—the OT teaches us how to read the Gospels. Or, to put it a little differently, we learn to read the OT by reading backwards from the Gospels, and—at the same time—we learn how to read the Gospels by reading forwards from the OT."

Hays opens by appealing to the term "figural" to describe this backwards reading, and so we hear Erich Auerbach boiled down into New Testament hermeneutics:

There is consequently a significant difference between prediction andprefiguration. Figural reading need not presume that the OT authors—or the characters they narrate—were conscious of predicting or anticipating Christ. Rather, the discernment of a figural correspondence is necessarily retrospective rather than prospective. (Another way to put this point is that figural reading is a form of intertextual interpretation that focuses on an intertextuality ofreception rather than of production.)

That is, time and later perspective generate new readings:

Because the two poles of a figure are events within "the flowing stream" of time, the correspondence can be discerned only after the second event has occurred and imparted a new pattern of significance to the first. But once the pattern of correspondence has been grasped, the semantic force of the figure flows both ways, as the second event receives deeper significance from the first.

Hays, well known for his brilliant studies of how Paul read the Bible,[3] is concerned in this book with the Gospels, so we are treated to four separate, succinct introductory essays into how the Evangelists read the Bible backwards. The result is a masterpiece. Hays shows that the Evangelists had a "high" Christology, one that was shaped by the divine identity of Jesus... Matthew, Hays concludes, is not so indirect {as Mark}.  Indeed, he says Matthew "is producing an annotated study Bible, providing notes and references that will give the uninitiated reader enough information to perform the necessary interpretation." One quick reading of texts like Matthew 24:15, which updates Mark's more allusive reference in Mark 13:14, is enough to see Matthew's annotations in context. But there's far more to Matthew than this, as we indicated in the opening paragraph above. For Matthew, Jesus is Immanuel, God's presence among us—seen in worshiping Jesus (14:33) and in Jesus as present (18:20) as well as in his promise of continued presence (28:20). Matthew "believes and proclaims that Jesus is the embodied presence of God and that to worship him is to worship YHWH—not merely an agent or a facsimile or in intermediary"—and this takes a unique form: "the one who was crucified and raised from the dead is himself the embodiment of the God who rules over all creation and abides with his people forever."

...The historian and the apologist may cry out for a place at the table, but the hermeneutical loop eventually closes in and begs the reader to believe. For such a reader, believing that Jesus is the Son of God, the Bible suddenly makes (new) sense. Can any Bible reader not recognize what John does in 1:1 when he says all over again "In the beginning"? But now something has changed. Jesus has been inserted into the narrative, and the beginning has been christologically reframed: the Logos, Jesus, the Son of God, the Messiah, the incarnate one, is the Creator and the Life who gives eternal life. Whether it is the Temple (John 2:13-22) or the feasts of Israel (John 10:22-30; 19:14), under John's guidance they are all about Jesus—and the reader who sees they are about Jesus can rightly understand what the Temple and the feasts were designed to do. What then is John's approach? "John understands Scripture as a huge web of signifiers generated by the pretemporal eternal Logos as intimations of his truth and glory."  LINK

"if they don't repent, put them up front on the church stage in the spotlight to shun and excommunicate them in front of thousands"

Brian Dodd on Matthew 18's"tell it to the whole church":

Step 3 involves a larger group of 10 or 20: "If they won't listen, tell it to the gathering." The Greek for "church" is "gathering," and this usually happened in homes in the New Testament period, and surely did not involve the modern conception of a stage/performance/spotlights. Jesus is not talking about an auditorium where you shame and shun someone, but a living room where you have a family meeting.  link, full article

Everyone knows who Jesus meant by "the least of these," right?

click here

have faith (and works), and speak to Herod's artificial line-mountain on the horizon

 (bonus points for anyone catching the two U2 references in my title)

I am all for '"you can move mountains" as radical charismatic faith...sometimes.
But as a corrective to the typical "speak to the mountain of your circumstance" interpretation,
Charles R. Page II is helpful.

Many have weighed in as to which mountain of the "this mountain" Jesus spoke of/to is in mind:.


  the temple itself (called a mountain in Isaiah 2; Isaiah 56 etc) ,
               Temple Mount (Joel Green/John Carroll says Jesus "could only mean" this),
                               Mt Zion,
                                      Mount of Olives.

Whichever candidate we  choose above (maybe all), the bottom line is the same: the whole temple system is under judgement and must go.  On that topic, see N.T. Wright in this video.   And this: "For Jesus, the time of the temple is no more.” -Green/ Carroll, “The Death of Jesus in Early Christianity,”).

BUT consider Ryland's first paragraph below:  Could the mountain  instead/also be Herod's Herodian?

ALSO consider the second paragraph as compelling alternative to "faith that can move mountains."
Could it be "faith and works"?"


Jesus was possibly passing along from Bethpage to the Mount of Olives when this teaching was offered.  From that from which they traveled one can see off on the horizon to the south the mountain fortress of the Herodian, Herod the Great's summer palace, some seven miles south of Jerusalem.  The Herodian fortress is built inside an artificial mountain that resembles a volcanic cone.  To create this structure, Herod the Great had the dirt removed from one hill and piled up on another.  It was hollow on the inside, and a very tall fortification wall surrounded its perimeter.  This is a mountain that was literally moved!

Furthermore, from the Mount of Olives, on a clear day, the Dead Sea is visible to the southeast.  In  the West we often misinterpret Jesus' meaning when he says we may move mountains, believing he is taking about magic, or perhaps telekenesis.  Yet this is a very practical teaching, conforming to practical Hillelian thought: 'You can do unbelievable things if you are willing to work.'  You can move mountains, but you must have faith to put a shovel into the ground and bend your back!
--Jesus and the Land,Charles R. Page II, p127-128



Related: On the Herodian symbolism to Jesus' subversion of empire:

"In the Shadow of Herod" video

binding and loosing as blank check

Dan Martin:

A recent discussion after church reawakened a long-time concern regarding the popular interpretation of Jesus’ instructions regarding dealing with conflict, recorded in Matthew 18:15-20.
This is a glaring example of translators’ neglect (whether deliberate or inadvertent is not mine to judge) of very elementary grammar, which has resulted in both the assumption of inordinate and unwarranted power/authority on the part of people who consider themselves to be in positions of “leadership”, and abject fear and submission on the part of those deemed their “underlings” – neither of which, may I remind you, is a category instituted or approved by Jesus himself (see Mt.23:7-12).

In the vast majority of English translations of the passage familiarly labeled “binding and loosing” (v.18), Jesus’ words are interpreted as if those two terms were cast in the future tense, and therefore amounted to a “blank check” enabling “church authorities” to hand down a decision that will be confirmed unquestionably “in heaven”. In our large collection of English translations, I have found only two (Charles B. Williams -1956, and Clarence Jordan – 1970) besides my own, where any effort has been made to convey accurately that those words are NOT future, but perfect passive participles. I find it interesting that both of these, like my own work, were translated by individuals, and not by committees hired by institutional hierarchies!

This grammatical error should have..
from Discernment vs. Decision,

continued here

See related posts on this blog here

Rob Bell on binding and loosing: "the Bible is a difficult book"

Matthew 18: "If your brother's squeaky shoes offend you.."

holy heteroclite:: misundertaking Matthew: "If your brother ...

Divorce and Remarriage? Craig Keener video

Craig Keener video: Matthew and Great Commission

t

Here's Keener, in some text related to the video:

How to Make Disciples in Matthew 28:18-20

                The immediate context of 28:18-20 provides us examples for how to testify about Christ (28:1-10) and how not to testify about Christ (28:11-15).  But the context of the whole Gospel of Matthew further informs how we should read this passage, especially because it is the conclusion of the Gospel and readers would have finished the rest of this Gospel by the time they reach it.

                The command to “make disciples” of all nations (KJV has “teach” them) is surrounded by three clauses in Greek that describe how we make disciples of the nations: by “going,” “baptizing,” and “teaching.”  Jesus had spoken of “going” when he had sent his disciples out even within Galilee (10:7), but here disciples must go to other cultures and peoples because they will make disciples of the “nations.”

                Making disciples of the “nations” fits an emphasis developed throughout this Gospel.  The four women specifically mentioned in Jesus’ ancestry (1:2-17) appear to be Gentiles: Tamar the Canaanite, Rahab the Jerichoite, Ruth the Moabitess, and the “widow of Uriah” the Hittite (1:3, 5-6).  Ancient Jewish genealogies normally emphasized the purity of one’s Israelite lineage, but this genealogy deliberately underlines the mixed-race heritage of the Messiah who will save Gentiles as well as Jews. 

                When many of his own people ignored or persecuted him, pagan astrologers from the East came to worship him (2:1-12).  God and his Son could raise up Abraham’s children even from stones (3:9), work in “Galilee of the Gentiles” (4:15), bless the faith of a Roman military officer (8:5-13), deliver demoniacs in Gentile territory (8:28-34), compare Israelite cities unfavorably with Sodom (10:15; 11:23-24), reward the persistent faith of a Canaanite woman (15:21-28), allow the first apostolic confession of Jesus’ Messiahship in pagan territory (16:13), promise that all nations would hear the gospel (24:14), and allow the first confession of Jesus as God’s Son after the cross to come from a Roman execution squad (27:54).  Matthew probably wrote to encourage his fellow Jewish Christians to evangelize the Gentiles, so the Gospel fittingly closes on this command.

                “Baptizing” recalls the mission of John the Baptist, who baptized people for repentance (3:1-2, 6, 11).  Baptism in Jewish culture represented an act of conversion, so as “going” may represent crosscultural ministry, we may describe Jesus’ command to “baptize” as evangelism.  But evangelism is not sufficient to make full disciples; we also need Christian education.  “Teaching” them all that Jesus commanded is made easier by the fact that Matthew has provided us Jesus’ teachings conveniently in five major discourse sections: Jesus’ teachings about the ethics of the kingdom (chs. 5-7); proclaiming the kingdom (ch. 10); parables about the present state of the kingdom (ch. 13); relationships in the kingdom (ch. 18); and the future of the kingdom and judgment on the religious establishment (chs. 23-25). 

                But in Matthew’s Gospel, we do not make disciples the way most Jewish teachers in his day made disciples.  We make disciples not for ourselves but for our Lord Jesus Christ (23:8).  This final paragraph of Matthew’s Gospel fittingly concludes various themes about Jesus’ identity in this Gospel as well.  John (3:2), Jesus (4:17), and his followers (10:7) announced God’s kingdom, his reign; now Jesus reigns with all authority in all creation (28:18).  Further, we baptize not only in the name of God and his Spirit, but in the name of Jesus (28:19), thereby ranking Jesus as deity alongside the Father and the Spirit.  And finally, Jesus’ promise to be with us always as we preach the kingdom until the end of the age (28:20) recalls earlier promises in the Gospel.  Jesus himself is “Immanuel,” “God with us” (1:23), and wherever two or three gather in his name he will be among them (18:20).  To any ancient Jewish reader, these statements would imply that Jesus was God. 

                Does the promise that Jesus will be with us “till the end of the age” (28:20) imply that once the age ends he will no longer be with us?  Such an idea would miss entirely the point of the text.  Jesus is promising to be with us in carrying out his commission (28:19); that must be accomplished before the age ends (24:14), so the nations can be judged according to how they have responded to this message (25:31-32).  Taking this passage in the context of the entire Gospel provides us plenty of preaching material without even stepping outside Matthew!  LINK, Bible in Context pp. 29-30

David Bauer's commentary on Matthew, free online

David Bauer's commentary on Matthew from Asbury Bible Commentary-- free online at Bible Gateway..click here, or click by section below

MATTHEW

• Introduction
• I. The Origins of The Gospel
• II. The Structure of The Gospel
• III. The Theology of The Gospel
• IV. Outline
• Commentary
• I. The Person of Jesus Messiah, Son of God (1:1–4:16)
• II. The Proclamation of Jesus Messiah to Israel (4:17–16:20)
• III. The Passion And Resurrection of Jesus Messiah (16:21–28:20)
• 
  
---

See also:
• Gospel of Matthew (Seven Minute Seminary): David Bauer
• 
  
• The Structure of Matthew's Gospel: A Study in Literary Design
• 
  
• holy heteroclite:: Structure of Matthew's Gospel: not too ...

Gospel of Matthew (Seven Minute Seminary): David Bauer

At last!  I've been waiting on David Bauer's video on Matthew.

I had a life-changing class with DB on Matthew, and his book  on this is invaluable;
as is  his (along with Robert Traina)  "Inductive Bible Study"  (No one less than Eugene Peterson says of the content of this book,"it would profoundly change the Bible for me, and me along with it, in ways that gave shape to everything I have been doing for the rest of my life. This is not an exaggeration.”)

See also posts on "Structure of Matthew" below.

Here you go:

Austin Farrrer on "probable tracks" of Jesus' temptations: subversion of Paethon and temple tantrum connections

hotel in Israel

Austin Farrrer , though apparently "one of the most profound and prophetic theologians of the twentieth century"  (so back cover says!) was new to me....but the price was right on one of his books (1.50):  "The Triple Victory: Christ's Temptation According to St. Matthew."

As one with a special interest in the temptations of Jesus, literary structure of Matthew, I wouldn't have resisted the testation to buy it at double the price (:

Come on..NO reviews on Amazon US or Amazon UK (He was British)?!...

"His activity in philosophy, theology, and spirituality led many to consider him the outstanding figure of 20th century Anglicanism. -Wikipedia

Turns out he was  well-respected by C.S. Lewis,and had an intriguing solution for the synoptic problem.  Wiki calls him a "maverick."

 I like him already...even if/especially if he is sometimes wrong (:

Even in the preface,  Frederick Borsh partly agrees with accusations  of  Farrer's sometimes fanciful flights into literary structural analysis, midrash and typology.  But he defends him as being  very thoughtful, creative..and ahead of his time as far as redaction/compositional criticism etc.  "He may have seen too many typologies, but he was not wrong in understanding that biblical writers often thought in typological categories.  This keen awareness pays particularly rich dividends in his study of Christ's temptations." (p. 2)

He does well, as does Donald Kraybill, in seeing many links from the temptations  to the rest of Matthew's gospel.

I haven't read enough for a review yet, so I'll  just

1)ask if any are familiar with this work

2)quote this:

Satan's insinuation...contains a hidden poison: "If you are the Son of God..If you cannot or dare not, what sort of divine Son are you?"...

Jesus declines..not because it is wicked..but because it is wicked to make a willful use of spiritual power...

"throw yourself down"...The suggested action is so utterly useless in itself, it can have one purpose only:.."Jump and find out; if you won't jump you can't really believe it."

...Christ refused to do what Phaethon did [doubt his paternity].  But could he have even thought in those terms? We may give a double reply.  First, though Christ did not think that God was an inhabitant of Jerusalem, he took the sanctity of the holy place with complete seriousness  He can, indeed, be  said to have pulled his own death on his head, by taking the law into his own hands and cleansing the temple from trade.  Second, we must say that in dreams or visions symbols become realities...

..It would be absurd to claim any sort of certainty for the suggestions we have advanced.  We cannot be sure what paths of association Christ's visionary thoughts, as St Matthew represents them, follow out.  Yet our guesses are not valueless.  They were the sort of lines along which a devout Jewish imagination ran; and the exercise of working out probable tracks and junctions in the movement of such a mind puts us in sympathy with the author we are trying to understand..  Chapter IV

misundertaking Matthew: "If your brother offends you" ?

Before reading this post, I recommend watching this vintage episode of an award-winning series.
Keep an eye out for the character (?) I play:
a Bible-quoting..and Bible-throwing... pastor who loves Matthew 18 too much.

I'll see you after the fine film.

SOOO... If I can't find anyone to blame, I often say,
 "It's San Andreas' fault." (:

In the common  mistranslation,
                            misunderstanding,
                                        and misundertaking..

 of Matthew 18..





for once.. it's not King James' fault.
                         This time, it's Douay-Rheims' fault.
They translate:

15 But if thy brother shall offend against thee, go, and rebuke him between thee and him alone. If he shall hear thee, thou shalt gain thy brother. 16 And if he will not hear thee, take with thee one or two more: that in the mouth of two or three witnesses every word may stand. 17 And if he will not hear them: tell the church. And if he will not hear the church, let him be to thee as the heathen and publican.

If you would ask most evangelicals to fill in the blank below, I think they would say "offend""

"If your brother ___against you... .tell it to the church"

Why is that?  How did that happen?  The Greek is clear: ἁμαρτήσῃ=sins.

Maybe the Dhouay-Rheims sounds King James-y enough that it must be true  (Ironic that it's a Catholic translation, and many fundies are quoting it).  And it is, like many KJV problems, a matter of how language/words havechanged  ("Suffer the little children," anyone?  Don;t get me started on "avoid the appearance of evil"..)

Compare translations (link), and note that almost all translate "sin against you."
Even King James.

Side note..One translation (BBE) could be problematic (if anyone actually used it):
"If your brother does wrong to you"  works (as in "he does you wrong" by sinning against you), but it can be misread as what he does is only wrong to you (as in "in your opinion, he  does wrong), not towards you.

In our day, Christians disagreeing with each other over differences in denomination, doctrine, weaker brother/sister issues. preferred Bible translation, ecclesiology, tattoos, view of Rob Bell ... or  (gasp!) politics is enough for them to diss or divorce each other. We get  so defensive and so offended.  And we can quote chapter and verse  to unfriend or excommunicate them..so we think.

Whatsup with that?

One way to read Matthew 18 is as cluster of answers to the disciples' question at the top of the act: "Who's great?"  Jesus answers rabbinically:

 Question #1: Who is Greatest?

2-17 Responses (each are counter proposals)2-10 Response #1: Children2-4 Counter Proposal: Accept children5-9 Threat: If cause scandal10 Show of force: Angels protect12-14 Response #2: Sheep12-14 Counter Proposal: Search for the 1 of 100 who is lost15-17 Response #3: Brother who sins (counter proposal)15a Hypothetical situation: If sin15-17 Answer: Attempt to get brother to be reconciled17b If fail: Put him out and start over  -Camp/Roberts, Fresno Pacific University

N. T. Wright, commenting on this passage:

"It's time in today's culture that we took reconciliation seriously."  (Matthew for Everyone, Vol 2, p. 34)

Gee, why didn't be say , "It's time in today's culture that we took confronting brothers and sisters who offend us theologically or politically seriously."??

----------------Read verses 15-17 and then ask yourself:
"What did it mean in their historical world to treat  people like
"tax collectors and sinners?"

Two answers

1)Don't allow them in your bounded set.

2)How did Jesus treat  tax collectors and sinners? In a centered set way. Tony Jones writes: 

but because anyone, including Trucker Frank, can speak freely in this  church, my seminary-trained eyes were opened to find a truth in the Bible that had previously eluded me.”...That truth emerged in a discussion of Matthew 18's "treat the unrepentant brother like a tax collector or sinner.":

"And how did Jesus treat tax collectors and pagans?" Frank asked aloud, pausing, "as of for a punchline he'd been waiting all his life to deliver,"....., "He welcomed them!""

-Tony Jones, The New Christians, p.92

More on Trucker Frank here; he can interrupt my sermons anytime..

--
Hey, if you must have King James, and want a verse on an offending brother, how about this  or this?

In conclusion, some outtakes featuring the offensive sinning brother from the video at top: