The Gospels are some of the most encouraging and enlightening books ever written. However, they also have some of the most challenging and difficult words ever put to pen and parchment, and those are the words of Jesus.
Jesus speaks in parables, and he also speaks directly to his disciples, the priestly class, Roman officials, and the people who would follow him from town to town. Many times then, and even now, his words were confusing, there were many times people walked away after Jesus spoke, but there were also many instances where people began to and continued to follow Jesus.
If I were to place myself in the context in which Jesus lived in the backwaters of Judah in a place called Galilee, as a poor craftsman, from a poor village existing in a society where the oppressive Roman regime was keeping its version of peace through crucifixions and taxation. I am not sure how I would respond.
I assume it would depend on my role in that society. If I were a fisherman or a craftsman, I would most likely respond a bit differently than if I lived the life of a pharisee, Roman guard, or tax collector.
No matter which I could have been during that period, the words of Jesus altered people’s lives drastically and have continued to do so for the last 2,000 years.
Why are the words of Jesus hard? Well, to be honest, some are just hard to understand, like Mark 7:27,
“Let the children first be fed, for it is not right to take the children’s bread and throw it to the dogs.”
While other sayings are just so convicting, it stops us in our tracks. For example, Luke 14:26,
“If anyone comes to me and does not hate his own father and mother and wife and children and brothers and sisters, yes, and even his own life, he cannot be my disciple.”
As we know, we are not to take verses on their own, so you will want to read the verses before and after the ones above. With that said, who are the dogs in Mark 7:27, and who are the children? Are the children the Jews and the dogs the Gentiles? To whom is Jesus speaking? Is he being a bit sarcastic towards the person he is talking to? Are there dogs nearby that Jesus points to?
All are legitimate questions and will have a different response depending on your interpretation of this piece of scripture. I encourage you to dig into this and think it through.
The scripture from Luke 14:26 is more direct and extreme, though not without symbolism or metaphors. This verse seems divisive; why would Jesus divide or at least speak of division in a family? What does he mean by hate? I thought we were to love one another?
There are many more questions, concerns, and even disagreements we could come up with these and many other verses in the Bible. We cannot read the Bible at a surface level but must engage with the ancient scriptures. This deeper reading does not mean learning the ancient languages (though it helps). Still, it does mean spending good focused quality time on your own along with other believers and even non-believers (you would be amazed at their perspectives).
Though we live in a Hobby Lobby world with kitschy mugs and wall art, we are to look at the Bible in its total capacity as the Word of God pointing to Jesus and his redeeming love. I would encourage you to take the time to do this and try and place yourself in the culture and history of the period in which these books were written, some of them over 3,000 years ago. The Bible was written to communities to be read by communities together, not a verse at a time. Groups typically read letters in their entirety, and other genres were read in large chunks at a time.
I will be teaching an in-person class beginning February 16th at 6:30pm, where we, as a group, will discuss the difficult words of Jesus. I encourage you to join us. You can do so by going to the following link: https://bit.ly/3Kqhilc
Matthew Dillingham
Executive Pastor
