In Alfred Plummer’s commentary on the Gospel of Matthew, I read this and thought I would share it with you:
“To those who believe that Jesus Christ was what He claimed to be, that is, to those who believe in the Incarnation, there is no difficulty about miracles. They are the natural works of a supernatural Person. If He was not supernatural, then difficulty arises. But in that case we tear up the New Testament, and the history of the Christian Church becomes inexplicable.”
In Luke 14:26, Jesus makes a statement which has the potential for misunderstanding and confusion. Jesus says,
“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.” (ESV)
While reading Tim Keller’s book King’s Cross, which has subsequently been renamed Jesus the King, I ran across this commentary upon Luke 14:26:
“Why does [Jesus] talk about hating? in a number of other places Jesus says that you’re not even allowed to hate your enemies. So what is he saying regarding one’s father and mother? Jesus not calling us to hate actively; he’s calling us to hate comparitively. He says, ‘I want you to follow me so fully, so intensely, so enduringly that all other attachments in your life look like hate by comparison.’ If you say, ‘I’ll obey you, Jesus, if my career thrives, if my health is good, if my family is together,’ then the thing that’s on the other side of that if is your real master, your real goal. But Jesus will not be a means to an end; he will not be used. If he calls you to follow him, he must be the goal.
Does that sound like fanaticism? Not if you understand the difference between religion and the gospel. Remember what religion is; advice on how you must live to earn your way to God. Your job is to follow that advice to the best of your ability. If you follow it but don’t get carried away, then you have moderation. But if you feel like you’re following it faithfully and completely, you’ll believe you have a connection with God because of your right living and right belief, you feel superior to people who have wrong living and wrong belief. That’s a slippery slope: If you feel superior to them, you stay away from them. That makes it easier to exclude them, then to hate them, and ultimately to oppress them. And there are some Christians like that – not because they’ve gone too far and been too committed to Jesus, but because they haven’t gone far enough. They aren’t as fanatically humble and sensitive, or as fanatically understanding and generous as Jesus was. Why not? They’re still treating Christianity as advice instead of good news.
The gospel isn’t advice: It’s the good news that you don’t need to earn your way to God; Jesus has already done it for you. And it’s a gift that you receive by sheer grace – through God’s thoroughly unmerited favor. If you seize that gift and keep holding on to it, then Jesus’s call won’t draw you into fanaticism or moderation. You will be passionate to make Jesus your absolute goal and priority, to orbit around him; yet when you meet somebody with a different set of priorities, a different faith, you won’t assume that they’re inferior to you. You’ll actually seek to serve them rather than oppress them. Why? Because the gospel is not about choosing to follow advice, it’s about being called to follow a King. Not just someone with the power and authority to tell you want needs to be done – but someone with the power and authority to do what needs to be done and then offer it to you as good news.
One of the dangers of growing up in the church is that we can be exposed to Bible Stories without allowing them to impact and change us. I recently discovered this while reflecting on the story of Nicodemus in John 3.
I have become increasingly aware that I seek to validate my existence through accomplishment. I want to be good at my job, I want to be good at ministry, I want to be a good husband, I want to be a good father, I want to be a good writer, I want to be a good . . .
This has led to a constant drive to do more while finding less and less satisfaction in the accomplishment. On the flip side, it has led to emotional devastation when I fail in any of these areas. Which then leads to a need for more accomplishment which then leads to additional failure. This is not a happy merry-go-round to be on.
In reflecting on this and asking the Holy Spirit for guidance on getting out of this cycle, I was led to the story of Nicodemus in John 3.
Nicodemus was one who accomplished stuff. He was a leader of the Jews. He qualified for leadership through a combination of academic achievement with a lifestyle of rigorous living-out of what he learned in his academic studies.
He had the respect of the nation and his peers, yet he was attracted to Jesus and sought him out. One can assume that Nicodemus felt some dissatisfaction despite all his accomplishment.
In the text, we see that Jesus went right to the heart of the matter. His first words to Nicodemus were, “unless someone is born again, he cannot see the kingdom of God.”
In bold, capital letters Jesus is saying life is not about accomplishment. It is about belief in Jesus and trust in his love for us. It is all about the grace of God and not about earning God’s favor.
Certainly, if given this as a test question, I would have gotten the answer correct, but I have not done well at living it out. I have not fully relied on the Grace of God and have continued to try to earn what I have already been granted. It is sort of like Bill Gates working at Burger King.
I could articulate a long list of excuses as to why I have not fully trusted in God’s grace, but none of them are valid. The disconnect between my intellectual understanding and my emotional understanding of God’s grace has kept me chained to the merry-go-round.
But like the perfect father that he is, God has brought me to the place where I am over-committed and unable to maintain the trajectory that I have been on. I am forced to see the merry-go-round for what it is and how sick it has made me.
I am also forced to admit that I made the chains binding me to the merry-go-round. They are of my own manufacture. But they no longer need to bind me. I am reminded of a stanza from the hymn, “And can it be that I should gain”:
Long my imprisoned spirit lay
Fast bound in sin and nature’s night;
Thine eye diffused a quickening ray,
I woke, the dungeon flamed with light;
My chains fell off, my heart was free,
I rose, went forth, and followed Thee.
In Psalm 89, verses 19 through 37 speak of how God chose David and set him up to be a great king. This comes as no surprise to anyone who has read the Bible or knows anything about Jewish history. David was the king who presided over the growth and stabilization of Israel as a nation.
It is a bit surprising that when Samuel went to the house of Jesse to anoint one of Jesse’s sons as king, David was the last one that either Jesse or Samuel thought had the raw material for kingship (the story is found in 1 Samuel 16). It does not appear that while David was growing up that anyone looked at him and said, “you’re going to be king one day.”
Even as king, David had his foibles. He was certainly not immune to scandal during his reign. For example, David had one of his soldiers murdered so that he could marry that soldier’s wife. Nor was David an exemplary father. He ignored one of his sons to the point where that son attempted to take the throne from David through civil war.
Yet, in spite of all of David’s mess, God chose to work through him. David chose to participate with God in God’s program.
It is good to be reminded of this since we may think that our own failures and weaknesses disqualify us from being of service to God. When we are tempted to think this way, it would be good to remember the words of Paul:
“But he said to me, “My grace is sufficient for you, for my power is made perfect in weakness.” Therefore I will boast all the more gladly of my weaknesses, so that the power of Christ may rest upon me. For the sake of Christ, then, I am content with weaknesses, insults, hardships, persecutions, and calamities. For when I am weak, then I am strong.” (2 Corinthians 12:9–10, ESV)
Our weakness can be used by God to accomplish his purposes. Take some time to think about that.
