Calling His Disciples (part 9)

In Genesis twelve, following the directive to “Go out from your country, your relatives, and your father’s household to the land that I will show you” (12:1b), from which one could easily infer a being with (I will show you) and a sending out (go out from), Abraham’s God continues His promise, saying “Then I will make you into a great nation, and I will bless you, and I will make your name great, so that you will exemplify divine blessing” (12:2).  This could very well serve to round out what Mark intends to convey with his talk of the disciples being with Jesus so as to be sent by Jesus. 

It is not difficult in the least to here create one of those points of contact between the Gospel narrative and the Abrahamic covenant.  The disciples being with Jesus is functionally equivalent to the Creator God’s promise to make Abraham into a great nation, along with blessing him  and making his name great, which clearly allows for the assertion that the sending of the disciples to preach and to have authority to cast out demons is an exemplification of divine blessing. 

Turning again to Matthew with that exemplification of divine blessing, being with, and sending in mind, the same motif can be found to be at work, as the tenth chapter commences with a record that “Jesus called His twelve disciples and gave them authority over unclean spirits so they could cast them out and heal every kind of disease and sickness” (10:1).  After an interlude in which Matthew takes the time to name the disciples as part of his narrative that will be primarily communicated orally, the reader can pick up at the fifth verse and find that “Jesus sent out these twelve” (10:5a). 

Clearly, conceptions concerning the Abrahamic covenant are strongly at play, with this mindset having been created by speaking about the leaving of a father (in the fourth chapter), along with the general Abrahamic mindset held by the people as part of their self-definition and self-understanding.  After restricting His disciples, at this point, to the land of Israel alone, Jesus further instructs them to preach that “The kingdom of heaven is near!” (10:7b)  This actually makes sense of the temporary limitation of the message to “the lost sheep of the house of Israel” (10:6b), as this message of the kingdom of heaven being near would not be immediately comprehensible to Gentiles (they would first need to be steeped in the covenant history of Israel).  In a sense then, this is yet another part of the “being with Him” that can be seen in Mark. 

Jesus goes on to describe the activities that would exemplify divine blessings to be carried out in their sending, by saying “Heal the sick, raise the dead, cleanse lepers, cast out demons.  Freely you received, freely give” (10:8).  Then, a little bit later, and just in case one may be doubting that the story of Abraham is in mind in these Gospel presentations and in the minds of the audiences, Jesus is reported to have explicitly called attention to the story of Abraham and Lot, doing so in relation to His mention of Sodom and Gomorrah. 

He effectively describes the story of Sodom and Gomorrah, before making the connection explicit at the very end, by adding “Whenever you enter a town or village, find out who is worthy there and stay with them until you leave.  As you enter the house, give it greetings.  And if the house is worthy, let your peace come on it, but if it is not worthy, let your peace return to you.  And if anyone will not welcome you or listen to your message, shake the dust off your feet as you leave that house or town.  I tell you the truth, it will be more bearable for the region of Sodom and Gomorrah on the day of judgment than for that town” (10:11-14).  

Calling Down Fire (part 6 of 6)

Beyond the action of wiping the dust from their feet (a fairly common action in their day and culture, by which one dis-associates themselves from a way of life or course of action), Jesus instructs them to say these words, “Nevertheless know this: The kingdom of God has come” (10:11b).  Even in rejection, they were to reiterate the message of the Gospel (Jesus is Lord).  There is no forcing.  Naturally, the contrast to this is that Caesar did not ask for anybody to accept him, nor did he request allegiance to his kingdom.  Rather, acceptance and allegiance was demanded at the point of a sword and the threat of the cross, as death was the only power that he truly had at his disposal. 

While the reader goes on to find Jesus saying, in regards to the rejection of the kingdom and Gospel message: “I tell you, it will be more bearable on that day for Sodom than for that town” (10:12), that falls squarely into the prerogative and business of the Creator God.  If the Creator God wants to call down fire (echoing James and John) in judgment, then it is He that will do that.  This is not the role of the disciples.  At the same time, along with this mention of Sodom and Gomorrah in association with the rejection of the Gospel message and the action of wiping the dust from the feet, it is worth noting that, for all practical purposes, Lot wiped the dust of those cities from off of his feet when he fled with his family.  

To these words Jesus adds: “The one who listens to you listens to Me, and the one who rejects you rejects Me, and the one who rejects Me rejects the One Who sent Me” (10:16).  For what it’s worth, there are echoes of Sodom and Gomorrah in this statement as well.  Of course, Caesar could say much the same thing, and he could then justify his murderous actions to the people of his kingdom (empire) by saying that those that he slaughtered (or ordered to be slaughtered) had rejected Rome and the people of Rome (the one who had sent him).  In his eyes, this would be something akin to a cardinal sin.   

So no, the job of the disciple was not to pronounce judgment and call down fire and condemn, but rather, to preach the kingdom of God while caring for and bringing healing to the sick and those that perhaps have been cast off by the world.  The job of the disciple is to preach that Jesus of Nazareth was, is, and forever will be the crucified and resurrected Messiah of Israel and Lord of all, while consciously recognizing that it is the Creator God, through the mysterious activity of His Spirit, that goes to work to make that message effective and impactful and transformational in the hearts, minds, and lives of those who hear it and see it in action, doing so according to His purposes for them and for the world. 

When one desires to call down fire, urging “conversion” or “acceptance” through the coercive preaching of hell’s eternal fires of judgment, or act as if he or she is functioning as the God of Israel’s duly appointed representatives when propositionally calling down said fire through referencing the judgment that the covenant God Himself brought to Sodom, it would seem that such is an act of simply rejecting Jesus and asserting that His Gospel message lacks any true functional power. 

Is Jesus as weak as Caesar?  Is death the only tool at those that believe in Him and His disposal when it comes to extending His kingdom?  Are those that believe in Him, call Him Lord, and order their life accordingly, not charged to speak the words of life in Resurrection?  When these things are grasped, and believers are brought to the point at which they fully and truly believe that there really is a power in the very proclamation of the Gospel, that there really is a Spirit that brings, activates, and works within that power, and that there really is a God in heaven that has a purpose and a plan for His creation, it is then that they can hear Jesus speaking and saying, “Blessed are the eyes that see what you see!  For I tell you that many prophets and kings longed to see what you see but did not see it, and to hear what you hear but did not hear it” (10:23b-24).      

Preparing For God (part 1 of 2)

Therefore thus I will do to you, O Israel; because I will do this to you, prepare to meet your God, O Israel. – Amos 4:12  (ESV)

What precedes this statement that we would think of as being rather ominous?  Beginning in the sixth verse of this chapter, and keeping in mind that the prophet and his audience would have Israel’s historical narrative in mind as the framework within which to understand what is happening in and to Israel, we hear their God telling His covenant people that “I gave you cleanness of teeth in all your cities, and lack of bread in all your places” (4:6a).  Now, we would normally think of “clean teeth” as a good thing, but in this case it means, as indicated by what follows it, that there was no food.  The Creator God of Israel had sent famine upon His covenant people.  We have a tendency to think that calamity will somehow always drive a person to seek God, but that is simply our modern interpretation.  Such thinking does not necessarily line up with the example of Scripture.  In the case of Israel, which we will continue to see as we look through the remainder of this chapter, this did not happen.  After speaking of the cleanness of teeth and the lack of bread, God says, “yet you did not return to Me” (4:6b). 

We go on to find the Lord saying “I also withheld the rain from you” (4:7a).  He said that He “would send rain on one city, and send no rain on another city; one field would have rain, and the field on which it did not rain would wither” (4:7b).  With this, it was also said that “two or three cities would wander to another city to drink water, and would not be satisfied” (4:8a).  In spite of directing this upon His covenant people, God said “you did not return to Me” (4:8b).  Lest one think that the rain that came on one city or a particular field could be construed as a blessing for the people of that city or the owner of that particular field, the Lord continues on and says, “I struck you with blight and mildew” (4:9a).  Both blight and mildew result from the presence of water, and serve to ruin crops.  Accordingly, just in case there were plants that escaped the blight and the mildew, the people are reminded that “your many gardens and your vineyards, your fig trees and your olive trees the locust devoured” (4:9b).  Nothing was escaping God’s cursing, even when there seemed to be a blessing at hand, and the Lord declares that even then “you did not return to Me” (4:9c). 

Things just go from bad to worse for the people of the Creator God, as we see in the tenth verse that “I sent among you a pestilence after the manner of Egypt; I killed your young men with the sword, and carried away your horses, and I made the stench of your camp go up into your nostrils” (4:10a).  Yet surprisingly, or perhaps not so surprisingly by this point in time, we find that the people “did not return” (4:10b).  Having done all of that, with no proper response on behalf of these people that He had elected to be a witness of His power and glory and blessings to all of the nations of the earth, and to serve as the vehicle by which He would bless all the earth, we find God now saying, “I overthrew some of you, as when God overthrew Sodom and Gomorrah, and you were as a brand plucked out of the burning” (4:11a).  In this, they could have seen themselves as Lot, who had been directly rescued by God from the destruction of Sodom and Gomorrah, but they did not, and they “did not return” (4:11b). 

Why would all of this be a cause for return?  Would it not simply be a reason to become even more angry at God, if indeed He was controlling and sending all of these things?  It should have been a cause for return, because it should have been recognized by His covenant people for what it was, which was God’s faithfulness to His promises to them.  Those promises can be found in the books of Leviticus and Deuteronomy.  In the twenty-eighth chapter of Deuteronomy, we can read about the curses for disobedience that God promised to bring about if His people were unfaithful to His plans and purposes for them.  Through Moses, the Lord said, “Cursed shall be your basket and your kneading bowl.  Cursed shall be the fruit of your womb and the fruit of your ground, the increase of your herds and the young of your flock” (28:16-18).  Tying this to Amos, certainly, this will produce a cleanness of teeth and a lack of bread.  Reading on, we find that “The Lord will send on your curses, confusion, and frustration in all that you undertake to do, until you are destroyed and perish quickly on account of the evil of your deeds” (28:20a).  Why is this promised to happen?  “Because you have forsaken Me” (28:20b) is the clear answer, as God’s people would venture outside of their covenant responsibilities and obligations, and fail to provide the appropriate response of gratitude to the grace shown to them.