Rejoicing With A Pearl Harbor Attacker

Yes. I look forward to rejoicing one day with a Pearl Harbor attacker. Let’s plunge into the Deeper Waters and talk about it.

I did know that yesterday was Pearl Harbor Day, but I honestly couldn’t think of something to say I hadn’t before. That is, until I got in my car to go home from work at the Seminary Post Office and heard them talking about how long ago it was and how people today are still learning from it and what it would be like today. Then I thought back to something else. I remember reviewing From Pearl Harbor To Calvary by Mitsuo Fuchida.

I don’t remember how high ranking he was, but he was one who was extremely high in the ranks on the attack if not the main one behind it. It was years after the event that he came to become a Christian. This is something even more incredible since Japan is so under-evangelized by Christians. (Can we start doing better people?)

What does that mean? It means that one day, Fuchida will be rejoicing in the presence of God with some of the people whose deaths he was responsible for. It means that any fighting he did in the war against people he considered bitter enemies who were Christians are ones that he will be rejoicing with. It means that their families who could understandably hold ill will towards him and want to see him dead will rejoice with him.

Years ago, skeptics were sharing a meme that I wrote a response to. It involved a little boy in Heaven and Jesus showing him a man and saying “He murdered you and your family while you were asleep, but he’s repented and he’s here now. Let’s go say hello.” Skeptics assume that fear or hatred towards people will reign supreme still.

It won’t be. It’s love and forgiveness. It’s a city of grace. There will be no antagonism. Could people still remember Pearl Harbor? Possibly, but they will see it through the eyes of grace and love. We could say they will even see it through God.

This is a victory that the gospel can bring about. The gospel is about God reconciling the world to Himself through Christ, and the world is certainly opposed to Him. If those greater reconciliations can take place, surely the lesser ones here can. It might seem odd to refer to the Pearl Harbor attack as lesser, but compared to the act of divine treason, yes it is. It is still a horrific evil and worse than many others, but not worse than divine treason.

This is also the great power of Christianity and the resurrection of Jesus. It is His love and forgiveness in us that enables us to live that way towards others. I have said before that I still pray for my ex-wife every night and it is not the prayers of judgment and wrath on her. I don’t wish ill on her, at least not for the sake of ill. I often think that if judgment must come, then in wrath remember mercy.

So yes, one day I will be rejoicing with a Pearl Harbor attacker. If you’re a Christian, so will you. Christian veterans will one day be rejoicing with people they would consider enemies on Earth.

There will be no enemies at the throne. There will only be reconciled friends.

In Christ,
Nick Peters
(And I affirm the virgin birth)

 

Jesus and Moral Issues

Can you separate Jesus from morality? Let’s plunge into the Deeper Waters and find out.

As I said yesterday, I have been reading Machen lately and something he said in a work of his was about how we have pulled away from what he calls the “supernatural Jesus.” Now I have said before about my beef with the term “supernatural“. However, I do know what he’s saying. This is a Jesus who is seen as more or less just a great moral teacher, perhaps highly enlightened, but He certainly wasn’t divine in any way and definitely didn’t rise from the dead.

However, as we have moved away from this kind of Jesus, so with that has gone much of our moral standards in society. Many people even today do not want to speak ill of Jesus. Of course, some people do, but Jesus is still by and large a respected figure in our history. (Setting aside the crackpot position that says Jesus never even existed.) Few would want to ascribe malicious intent to Jesus.

A lot of people do like the morality of Jesus to some extent, which is quite odd when one thinks about it since really, His morality is often quite difficult. I would find it easy to go through life and not commit adultery with a woman. I find it extremely difficult to go through life without looking at another woman with lust. It would be easy to go through life without murdering a brother of mine. It is far harder to go through life without anger toward him.

Jesus did change this and so you had a society soon that was changing rapidly with a people who were practicing sexual chastity, love for their fellow man, and tremendous self-sacrifice. When a plague came through the Roman Empire, the physicians fled, but the Christians stayed and tended to the sick. The Christians didn’t have the science to know how a plague worked, but they were unintentionally giving themselves some immunity to the sickness by staying and facing it to help the sick.

We have been trying an experiment to take the teachings of Jesus and somehow exclude the man of Jesus from them. Yes. This teaching is quite quaint and we like it, but we don’t need that extra baggage with it. We don’t need all this nonsense of miracles and resurrections obviously. Let’s just go with the teachings and live by them.

This experiment has been a failure.

Inevitably, Jesus’s teachings are bound up with His person, authority, and character. It’s not just that Jesus taught great truths, but He also lived them and lived them perfectly. Jesus didn’t teach these as great suggestions either. He taught them as commands and He insisted that it was only by His power that one could live them out.

Naturally, we all have strengths and weaknesses. Some of us could be very generous by nature and yet struggle with a temper. A man could be extremely peaceful and wouldn’t hurt a fly, but he struggles with the sight of the beautiful women who he passes by regularly. In our society, we have often said that we like the idea of tolerance and non-judgmentalism, which are really not the message of Jesus, but we don’t really care for messages on sexual chastity. (Isn’t it funny how those two go together also?)

However, virtue is not a buffett where you take what you want and reject the rest. You have to take all of it. Try to separate one part of Jesus’s teachings from the whole and you have the overemphasis of one trait with the neglect of another. Part of this is because of the separation of Jesus from His lifestyle as if Jesus is just incidental to His teachings.

Perhaps we can’t dispense with the miraculous Jesus after all.

Now if you have a resurrected Jesus who speaks with authority and can forgive one’s own sins so one can live out love and forgiveness in others, the system works a lot better. Jesus did not come just to teach us all how to get along. Yes. He wants us to live well and have life, but He wants us to be forgiven and free as well.

Ultimately, you have to accept the bad news of Jesus, you are a sinner in need of salvation, before you can truly live out the teachings. If you do not realize how much you are forgiven, you will be incapable of loving the way He wants you to. This can be a struggle for many of us. I see myself as the guy who grew up avoiding pornography, drugs, alcohol, staying chaste until I was married, etc. It is easy to look and say “I’ve lived a good life and don’t really have major sins to deal with”, but I need to realize that in many cases, I struggle with pride and other inner sins that could be far worse in a sense and yet, I am forgiven.

Every sin after all is ultimately divine treason. It is denying one or more attributes of God and saying that you should be on the throne. I am one who has excessive worrying and anxiety and it’s tempting to want to be in control of my own life and panic about even seemingly minor decisions. If I am guilty of divine treason, which I am and which you are as well, isn’t it a wonder we are forgiven? What person says to someone else “I forgive you for wanting me dead and acting on it.”?

If we don’t go by the strength of Christ and the Holy Spirit, then we have to do that from within. Now this does not mean that non-Christians cannot be loving people. They can be. It means that this is a struggle for all of us because our natural tendency is to love ourselves more than others. Even the suicide loves themselves more despite their thinking of how awful they are. They seek their good above that of others though trying to tell themselves everyone else will be better off without them.

The early Christians were able to love greatly because they knew that they had been loved greatly. Take that away and it all falls apart. They knew they were loved greatly not because Jesus was some nice man who was really enlightened and said they were special. It was because Jesus was the divine man who had risen from the dead and had the authority to forgive them for all they had done.

Christianity cannot be reduced to just a set of ethics. It is an entire worldview. Removing the miraculous Jesus removes the batteries and the system doesn’t work.

If our culture is to recover, the only way to do that is to return to the original system which worked fine. That is the real miracle-working Jesus who rose from the dead and forgives sins. Any other Jesus won’t do.

In Christ,
Nick Peters
(And I affirm the virgin birth)

Can Jesus Be Non-Miraculous?

Is it really possible to remove the miraculous element from Jesus? Let’s plunge into the Deeper Waters and find out.

Jesus is the figure that stands out in all of history. It’s really hard at times to find someone who has a bad word to say about Jesus, even from a non-Christian persepctive. Such does exist, but even a negative word is still there in an abundance of praises for his teachings and character.

However, is there any reason these should stand out? Jesus was a great moral teacher. As Lewis said, we have had enough of those. We didn’t listen to them. Why listen to Jesus? Our world right now shows us that we are not.

New Testament scholars often seek to go through the New Testament and separate the fact from the fiction. What is true about Jesus in this? Can we move past all this miraculous stuff such as the miracles that He did and the idea that He was God or some divine being of some kind? Surely that stuff got added on later.

The moment you say this, you have to ask why it was added on. First off, why was He crucified? I find many a New Testament scholar who presents a case for how Jesus lived gives me no reason to think He would ever be crucified. Their Jesus is more akin to a Mr. Rogers figure. Adolf Harnack used to say Jesus was teaching about ideas like the brotherhood of all men. Okay. Why would this Jesus be a threat to anyone? Not only is He not a threat, He’s not someone you would give the worst death sentence of all to.

The disciples were convinced He rose from the dead? Why? Even assuming He had risen from the dead, is there any reason for them to say “Jesus rose from the dead! He is the Son of God, Messiah, and God Himself!?” No one ever thought that before in Judaism about anyone they thought came back from the dead. Even if the Jews were convinced Moses came back from the dead, would they say such a thing about him?

There is a simple explanation for why they believed such things. Jesus said and indicated such about Himself. Of course, this is the claim the liberal New Testament scholar does not want to admit at all. It wouldn’t be rational to think something like that after all!

So the attempt is made to remove those miraculous elements again and yet even still, Jesus is hard to escape. Jesus makes grandiose claims about Himself. In the Q document, which has never been found and is purely hypothetical, you can still see Jesus speaking about the house built on the rock. Where does this put His view of Himself? “If you hear my words and obey them, you are a wise man.” Nothing about God in there. The very Sermon on the Mount is filled with this high view. Jesus speaks of what we call the Old Testament quoting it and then saying “But I say to you.” These are the Ten Commandments sometimes, the ones written by the finger of God, and Jesus is attempting by His own authority to speak even stronger than they are? Who does He think He is?

Despite this, we look at these claims that Jesus makes about Himself and say “Isn’t He the picture of humility?” If what He says about Himself is true, then He can be, but if it isn’t, Jesus is certainly suffering from delusions of grandeur. Jesus is the greatest narcissist who ever lived in that case. There is a real condition known as Jerusalem Syndrome where someone goes to Israel and becomes convinced they’re the Messiah. We know immediately such people are insane to that extent at least. Do we think that about Jesus? There are many ideas of who the historical Jesus was. I have not seen a New Testament scholar arguing for “Insane lunatic.”

Not only this, but we have the ethical teachings of Jesus and these are not the teachings of someone who is insane. Most everything about Jesus shows a well-balanced individual. At the same time, this individual never asks for help, never apologizes, never admits a wrong, etc. Some of you may recognize shades of Tom Gilson’s Too Good To Be False in here, which is influential, but I’m also talking about the miracle aspect as well. I definitely urge you to read that book on the character of Jesus.

Assuming this figure is somehow made up as the mythicists would like us to think, who did this making up? This puts us in an even more difficult position in many ways. People who foisted a lie on the world also gave an immensely brilliant ethical system if not the greatest one of all?

Some could say it’s not that hard to create a Jesus, such as Lewis’s Aslan as an example, but the difference is Lewis had a model to work with. That is the Jesus who is already in the New Testament. Anyone who did this originally did not have such a model. Whoever could create this figure would be someone practically worthy of worship himself or themselves.

Notice in all of this, I have not once argued that the text we have is perfectly reliable or accurate. I have no need to. I am asking even to go with the data that will be granted by skeptical scholars. If we take all of this still, can we present a coherent picture of Jesus? Can we explain His teaching, His crucifixion, what claims did He make about Himself, and why the belief He rose again?

I seriously urge skeptics of Christianity to try to do so.

In Christ,
Nick Peters
(And I affirm the virgin birth)

Applying Communal Passages Today

How do we apply passages to a community to us today? Let’s plunge into the Deeper Waters and find out.

One of my friends read my blog on Friday and asked about how some matters apply. If something only applies to the audience at the time, how do we work it out in our own lives? This is a good question and one that relies on our hermeneutic.

In John 13, Jesus says that since He washed the feet of His disciples, they ought to wash one another’s feet. However, when I arrived at church yesterday, I found no one there to wash my feet. Not only that, it never occurred to me that I should. Today, a visitor at a church would find it bizarre if he was told to take off his shoes and socks so someone could wash his feet.

In the days of Jesus, this made sense since people walked on dusty roads and didn’t have socks and their feet would get dirty. For us, it’s different. What could we do instead? We can supply people with a breakfast meal waiting for them at the church. If we want to get as close as possible, maybe even set up a car washing place for them or give first time visitors a coupon to a local car wash. The idea at root is hospitality.

A few places in the New Testament encourage us to greet one another with a holy kiss, a passage which many a teenage boy would like to take literally. Not just them. I used to remind my wife of that passage in greeting time at church when it took place. Never worked. However, the message is again to greet and this time, it is done more often with a handshake. Of course, there are cultures where a kiss is acceptable and that can take place.

Let’s consider the passages discussed last time. What about Philippians 1:6. He who began a good work in you will carry it to completion? That means the church should take confidence that God is at work in them and He will see through to the end what He desires. The church can take comfort in knowing God doesn’t just start something and then change His mind.

This can then relate to 2:12-13. Why do you work our salvation with fear and trembling? Because God is at work in you. This means the church should be actively involved not just in the salvation of the lost, but that of their own church members. This can be done with accountability programs and other such ideas. As a Protestant, I do think our Catholic and Orthodox friends are right with the idea of having a priest to confess your sins to, not because the priest can forgive you of your sins as God does that, but because that helps build up accountability. Are you going to be more prone to do XYZ if you know you have to face a real human being who you hopefully respect and tell them about it?

Let’s finally consider one that is really misused. How many graduation cards have Jeremiah 29:11 on them? God knows the plans He has for you after all. He wants to make you prosper. Most people ignore that that’s said to Israel in the Babylonian exile and the majority of them would die in Babylon.

Does that mean it’s useless to us today? Not at all. We can say “God was faithful to the covenant He made with Israel even when Israel sinned, therefore, we can be sure God will be faithful to us in the covenant He made with us.” Not only do we get a good usage out of the passage, the passage rightfully then returns its emphasis not to the recipients, but rather to the person of God who is behind it.

Ultimately, in each passage, find the principle that is being taught. The principle is what needs to be followed. The method might be different in fulfilling it, but the heart should be the same.

In Christ,
Nick Peters
(And I affirm the virgin birth)

What Does Scripture Mean By You?

Is there a problem with our language? Let’s plunge into the Deeper Waters and find out.

What does Scripture mean by you? Let’s plunge into the Deeper Waters and find out.

One of the great weaknesses of English can be our limited vocabulary. Consider that we have only oneword for love. A man can say he loves Jesus, his wife, his best friend, football, and pizza. He can be true in saying all of this and still mean something vastly different for each.

Another example is the word “you.” Here in the South, we have tried to correct this with the term, “Y’all.” (English was invented overseas, but we perfected it in the South.) Whatever you think of that term, it does clarify if you mean one person or a group of people.

So consider a passage like Philippians 1:6. In this, we read that He that began a good work in you will carry it to completion jn Christ Jesus. Readers who are more Calvinistic can see this as a statement on soteriology.

“See? When God begins His work in a man, He will bring it to completion. You are eternally secure.” Even those who hold to eternal security without going the way of Calvinism will use this to emphasize that.

However, that’s not what’s going on. This is about the church. The you refers not to an individual, but to the church as a whole. This doesn’t mean Calvinism and/or eternal security are false. It just means that this isn’t the right usage of the passage.

Now let’s go to the other side. In Philippians 2:12-13, we are told to work out your salvation in fear and trembling for it is God that works in you. At this, Arminians think they have a point.

“See? Your salvation isn’t secure. You have to work it all out.”

Unfortunately for them, it’s not the case again. This is the church needing to work out its own salvation. It’s not about individuals. This doesn’t mean Arminianism is true or false. It just means this isn’t the verse.

The problem is our culture is individualistic. We read the text as speaking to us as individuals, and sometimes it does, but we don’t need to assume that for a text. It requires work, but it’s worth it. It’s only looking at the word in the original language and/or careful study of the passage that can help us know what is meant.

Notice also that in all of this, no one viewpoint on soteriology was held to be true or false. I have my own opinions on that debate, but I choose to not enter into it. If anything, I chose this passage because that way I can’t be seen as going after one side and supporting another. I hold that both of them who use these passages use bad argumentation.

Next time you see you in the text, and I mean that individually now, check and see how it is used. Misread the text and you miss what God has for you in it and hold a false view instead.

In Christ,
Nick Peters
(And I affirm the virgin birth.)

The Humility of the Incarnation

What did the Son undergo? Let’s plunge into the Deeper Waters and find out.

I’ve been thinking a lot about the incarnation lately, mainly for future Ph.D. research. Even though I’m working on the Master’s, there’s no reason I can’t think about the Ph.D. now. Anyway, what has been striking to me about this lately is the humility of it all.

Picture God for all eternity and then comes the time somehow where the Son, the second person of the Trinity, has to take on humanity. Perhaps we could accept that, but notice how it even begins. It starts with the virgin birth, which I do affirm, and we could look and think “Couldn’t you have bypassed the baby stage?”

No. Our Lord came as a baby and grew up naturally with no rapid aging or anything like that. He had to be fed and put to sleep and everything else. Did He cry when He was hungry or sleepy? Did He have to be burped? Did He ever stumble when He was learning to walk?

As He grows up into adulthood, I think of all the attributes that He took on when we think about becoming a human. We all have some aspects of being a human that we like, but there are aspects that we don’t like. Christ took on all of them.

For one, we have a God who had to poop. Muslims will often present this as an argument against the deity of Christ since that would be unclean and God could not do that, but we have a God who was willing to stoop low enough to take on all of our characteristics. Jesus had to go to the bathroom like anyone else.

Jesus could work up a sweat when He was traveling or even growing up doing manual labor under Joseph. Did you ever think about it in that terminology? Jesus with body odor. Is there any indication Jesus would not have to bathe at times?

Could Jesus belch and sneeze and everything else? He got tired and had to sleep. He got hungry and had to eat. Did He ever have bad breath after eating a meal? Did He ever have morning breath in the morning?

Jesus was also fully a man and thus fully had sexual organs that a man has. I do not think Jesus was ever married, but was there any physical reason He couldn’t have? Did Jesus ever experience any desire? It sounds practically risque to say, but Jesus was fully a man and there is nothing sinful about the desires of a man in themselves as Adam in his pre-fall state definitely desired Eve.

Yet in all of this, consider the ultimate humility. Jesus came as someone who could die. Not only did He die, He died the most shameful death. He died naked and exposed in agony on a cross. Of course, He rose again after that, but He still went through it.

I really find this amazing about Christianity. We have a God who was willing to stoop. As I have thought about this at night, I have been amazed. Jesus took on humanity including those aspects of myself that I don’t really care for a lot. We might consider some things above Jesus, but He didn’t in many ways. He didn’t even consider giving up His life to be something that He should not have to do. This God was willing to stoop.

Take some time today and think about that. If you’re a Muslim reader, consider that this is what Christianity offers. If you’re an atheist, ask if you would really make up a God like this. If you’re a Jew, consider if you think YHWH would do this. If you’re a Christian though, I hope you’ll worship.

In Christ,
Nick Peters
(And I affirm the virgin birth)

A House On Sand

How do we treat the teachings of Jesus? Let’s plunge into the Deeper Waters and find out.

I’m almost done going through the Sermon on the Mount in Matthew!

“Wait. Are you telling me you’re a Christian apologist who has never read that?”

I have read it, but never the way I have this time. This time, I went through reading one verse at a time, except for the Lord’s Prayer, where I read it even slower. When you read through it this way, you really get a lot out of it. I am doing more to encourage people to do slow Bible reading.

So when the sermon closes, Jesus gives a final statement about His words. He says that the one who hears them and does them is like someone who builds His house on a rock. No matter what happens, the house will stand. The one who doesn’t do what Jesus says is like one who builds His house on sand. When the trouble comes, that house topples over.

First off, let’s consider how seriously Jesus takes His own words here. Can you imagine any prophet of the Old Testament saying something like this? Jesus is really placing Himself on a high pedestal. What does this say about how Jesus sees His identity?

Second, what if we really took this last part seriously in connection with everything else that was said. If you obey what Jesus says, then you are building your house on a rock. If you don’t, then you are building on sand. What do we have to take seriously then?

The beatitudes at the start. We have to believe those people will be blessed. We have to believe we should be those people and live accordingly.

We must take Jesus’s words seriously on our righteousness being greater than the Pharisees and Sadducees.

We must not hate our brother in our heart and we must seek to make peace whenever possible.

We must avoid lust. This definitely includes guys that you cannot watch pornography. If you are doing that, then you are building your house on sand and you will not last.

We must honor our marriages for life. If you are not taking marriage seriously, you are not taking Jesus seriously. This is one reason I stayed in my marriage even when it was hard and yes, she initiated the divorce.

We must do as we say and let our words be true. If we say we will do something, we do it. We shouldn’t have to emphasize that we are speaking the truth. Our reputations should show we do.

We must end retaliation for the sake of retaliation. If someone gives you a personal insult privately, be the bigger man. Don’t escalate the cycle of revenge.

We must love our enemies. Anyone can love friends. Jesus tells us to go further.

We must not glorify our giving. Be humble in what we do. Give anyway.

We must pray humbly and trust God with the outcome. We must live out the Lord’s Prayer.

We must forgive those who wrong us.

We must focus on treasure in Heaven. There is no wrong in having things, but we cannot let them have us. Greed must always be avoided.

We cannot worry about anything. Tomorrow will have enough troubles. Do not worry about it today.

We must not pre-judge someone. Make sure our own house is in order.

We must believe in the goodness of God that He will bless us and if we ask for things that are truly good, that He wants to give.

We must make sure we are on the straight path and realize there are false teachers who want to take us away.

We must make sure we are being real and not just going through the motions.

Jesus doesn’t limit this. All of this is to be followed. All of it. It’s a serious call and I could have easily gone in-depth on any of these. Look through. Where are you struggling?

Keep in mind, any listener back then would have known it was fallacious to build a house on sand. What idiot would do that? If you don’t listen to what Jesus says and follow it, you are that idiot.

I encourage you to take this seriously even if you’re a non-Christian. Consider seriously the call for Jesus. Does He really have good wisdom here to follow?

For me, this has been humbling and I plan to go through the sermon in Luke the same way.

Maybe you should try this exercise of reading it slowly as well, but for now, see if you’re living wisely or foolishly.

In Christ,
Nick Peters
(And I affirm the virgin birth)

 

 

Jesus and the Centurion

How did Jesus treat the centurion? Let’s plunge into the Deeper Waters and find out.

I had said I would do some talking on Jesus and the crowds. I wish to now speak a little bit more on the story of Jesus and the centurion in Matthew. To begin with, we need to try to see this from the perspective of a Jewish person living in Israel.

This centurion is said to be a good man as he paid for a synagogue for the people, but even today, in a similar situation we would be suspicious. “Of course that politician paid to get a new hospital put up! Look at how much press coverage he gets over it!” This centurion could have very well been noble in what he did, but some people will look with suspicion. Some won’t, but some will.

What was inescapable however was that this centurion is a reminder that the Israelites don’t own their own land. Who provided the synagogue? An outsider. What outsider? One that represents the ruling power in the world that hopefully, the Messiah will deliver us from.

Even if this guy has done a lot of good, Israel would by and large prefer to not have him around. They would prefer to have the land to themselves. They were still waiting on the deliverance of God.

So now here comes Jesus and how many could already be wondering if this guy is the Messiah? If so, well surely He’s going to deal with this centurion. He’s going to tell him he’s an intruder and needs to get off the land. Those who think in such a way will be highly disappointed.

This centurion has a simple request. He wants one servant healed. When he asks, he tells Jesus that Jesus doesn’t even have to enter his house. This centurion, a man or honor and prestige in Rome, is not worthy to have Jesus in his house. All Jesus has to do is say the word. The centurion illustrates this by explaining how he says a word to a servant and they do it.

This centurion is understanding that as he has authority over the realm of his servants, Jesus has authority over the realm of at least sickness. Who knows for sure how far this goes? Keep in mind this is a pagan gentile giving this statement. (He could have been a God-fearer, but we have no explicit data showing otherwise. Either way, he would have been seen as outside of the covenant.)

After the healing, Jesus turns to the crowd of people and what does He do? The exact opposite of I’m sure of what many people were expecting. He tells them He hasn’t seen a faith like this in all of Israel. Sorry guys, but this gentile here has you beat!

Not only this, but he pulls this over to the next world. He says that many will come from all over the world to join the feast of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, but many of the Jews themselves in Israel will be cast out and not entering. If you are a Jew in the audience sick of Rome and wanted to see Jesus lay down the law on these guys, you got the exact opposite of what you wanted.

This is not a good day for you.

Something we can think about here is that Jesus did not say something to please the crowd. If anything, He said something extremely offensive to the crowd. Jesus in all His talks never apologizes. He never takes back anything that He says. He says it and it’s out there and that’s it. If you don’t like it, He’s not responsible for your feelings.

I am not saying we need to be needlessly offensive, but if Jesus was not afraid of offending His audience with the truth, why should we? A huge problem in our Western society today is that offensive statements are deemed unallowable because someone’s feelings could be hurt. Everyone’s feelings will get hurt sometime and the more we coddle this, the more we make it that we can’t handle anything. As a pastor I was talking to yesterday said, “The early church was willing to face death for Jesus Christ and we breakdown if our air conditioning goes out.”

Not only this, but Jesus is considered one of the greatest personalities and speakers of all time as well as one of the holiest and best men who ever lived. Now as a Christian, I think he’s the best of all time period, but even non-Christians can praise the life of Jesus in these areas and often do. Aside from the crazy position of mythicism, most everyone would tend to agree that Jesus is a figure that is admirable in many ways.

Jesus did not sway to popular opinion.

Perhaps we should be the same way.

In Christ,
Nick Peters
(And I affirm the virgin birth)

Jesus and the Crowds

How did Jesus respond to the people? Let’s plunge into the Deeper Waters and find out.

I’m considering doing some research on the question of Jesus and the crowds. I started thinking about this because I was thinking more about the question of who Jesus is and not just the theological answer, but the more personal answer. What was Jesus like in His behavior? What is His personality like?

I have been going through the Sermon on the Mount in my nightly reading. I go through slowly, reading one verse every night and just thinking about it, so I decided to go right after that account to see how Jesus treated a leper. There’s something that’s easy to overlook.

Matthew 8:

When he came down from the mountain, great crowds followed him. And behold, a leper came to him and knelt before him, saying, “Lord, if you will, you can make me clean.” And Jesus stretched out his hand and touched him, saying, “I will; be clean.” And immediately his leprosy was cleansed. And Jesus said to him, “See that you say nothing to anyone, but go, show yourself to the priest and offer the gift that Moses commanded, for a proof to them.”

Did you notice it?

Great crowds follow Jesus, but when the leper comes forward, the crowds are nowhere to be seen. Jesus doesn’t even acknowledge them. All He cares about is the leper. The crowds could likely have been aghast that a leper would even approach Jesus. One can hardly imagine what they think when Jesus actually touches him.

Yet when do we see this crowd again? Immediately after this, we get the healing of the centurion’s servant. Here a Gentile comes forward wanting a servant to be healed and gives a great statement in the authority of Jesus. Jesus turns to the crowd, which consists not mostly if not entirely of Jews, and tells them that he has not seen such great faith in all of Israel.

Jesus doesn’t seem to care about winning over the crowds or what they think of Him.

I was intrigued and went back further. This crowd, or rather these crowds, start to follow Jesus in Matthew 4 after He does multiple healings. Then He climbs up on a mountain and gives a sermon that is one of the greatest messages of ethics the world has ever heard and yet one of the most difficult ones for anyone to follow. Jesus is not making it easy on the audience.

Naturally, I wanted to see if anyone had done anything on this that I could see. I went to Amazon and put in Jesus and crowds. Nothing. Now this doesn’t mean no one has written anything, but it means I couldn’t find anything specific. Perhaps if I look at this, it will be some of the first research done on this topic.

I still also do not want to lose sight of Jesus and divorce. Yes. That question still affects me every single day and every single day has a degree of pain to it because of that event. I was talking to my therapist about it today even and talking about some problems I have had lately and I have thought it could be boredom, but he said that could also be stemming from depression. I am sure some of that is still there.

I do find this question interesting. Jesus doesn’t seem to be a crowd-pleaser and He seems to care more about the individual in these matters instead of the people at a large who He doesn’t think are truly committed to the cause. There are sociological implications to this, but also as a Christian in daily living, gives me some thoughts on how Jesus sees us on an individual level.

Stay tuned. We’ll see what happens.

In Christ,
Nick Peters
(And I affirm the virgin birth)

No. Jesus Was Not Predicting The Transfiguration

Is the Transfiguration a prophecy fulfillment? Let’s plunge into the Deeper Waters and find out.

The Transfiguration shows up in each of the Synoptic Gospels. Before each of them comes another passage.

Matthew 16:

27 For the Son of Man is going to come in his Father’s glory with his angels, and then he will reward each person according to what they have done.

28 “Truly I tell you, some who are standing here will not taste death before they see the Son of Man coming in his kingdom.”

Mark 9:

1: And he said to them, “Truly I tell you, some who are standing here will not taste death before they see that the kingdom of God has come with power.”

Luke 9:

26 Whoever is ashamed of me and my words, the Son of Man will be ashamed of them when he comes in his glory and in the glory of the Father and of the holy angels.

27 “Truly I tell you, some who are standing here will not taste death before they see the kingdom of God.”

It makes sense to a lot of people to say that this is predicting the transfiguration. Unfortunately, both internet atheists and Christians often have the same problem. This verse is read in a literal sense often due to modern dispensationalism, but does it really fit to say this event is the fulfillment?

No.

Okay. See you next time!

Oh?

You want more than that?

Okay.

Let’s start with the fact that this event takes place a week later in the Gospels. By that, it’s usually not a great prophecy to predict something happening a week from now. Let’s suppose even if we went with something like the 2024 presidential election which at this point is in the future. Make a prediction a week before it happens and all things being equal, you likely have a 50% chance of being right. Predict something no one thinks is even possible and you might be on to something.

Not only that, but it’s hard to see how this event is the Kingdom of God coming in power. I would have no problem saying that this is a hint of what is coming. I suspect that this is part of the reason these passages are closely tied together.

Another problem with this is saying “Some here will not taste death until they see this.” Not only is it hardly a prediction to say “Some people here will not die before a week passes”, but it’s also not really a lot of some if that some consists of just three people.

This passage is also not about the return of Christ. No one had any thought really of Jesus leaving let alone returning at this point. This is something internet atheists often think is being talked about, yet they never do show where that is in the passage. It’s read into it.

As an Orthodox Preterist, I think the Kingdom of God coming into power being demonstrated was at 70 A.D. with the destruction of the temple. That would make sense also with the prediction of some would not die. It is something to say some would still be alive around 40 years later, especially in an age where most people had short lifespans.

Christians need to realize Jesus is talking about something deeper than the Transfiguration and something that should have given His listeners, and us today, pause. Internet atheists need to realize this is apocalyptic language and not read it so woodenly. If someone thinks it’s about the return of Christ, it’s on them to show it.

In Christ,
Nick Peters
(And I affirm the virgin birth)