Tag Archives: righteousness

Psalm 112 An Authentic Life Shaped by Wisdom

The Presentation of the Torah By Édouard Moyse – Own work Musée d’art et d’histoire du Judaïsme, CC BY-SA 4.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=41893002

Psalm 112

¹Praise the LORD! Happy are those who fear the LORD, who greatly delight in his commandments.
²Their descendants will be mighty in the land; the generation of the upright will be blessed.
³Wealth and riches are in their houses, and their righteousness endures forever.
⁴They rise in the darkness as a light for the upright; they are gracious, merciful, and righteous.
⁵It is well with those who deal generously and lend, who conduct their affairs with justice.
⁶For the righteous will never be moved; they will be remembered forever.
⁷They are not afraid of evil tidings; their hearts are firm, secure in the LORD.
⁸Their hearts are steady, they will not be afraid; in the end they will look in triumph on their foes.
⁹They have distributed freely, they have given to the poor; their righteousness endures forever; their horn is exalted in honor.
¹⁰The wicked see it and are angry; they gnash their teeth and melt away; the desire of the wicked comes to nothing.

Psalm 112 and Psalm 111 share a lot of commonalities. Both are acrostic poems with each cola beginning with successive letters of the Hebrew alphabet. They share commonalities in vocabulary[1] with each other and with wisdom literature in general. If Psalm 111 is the beginning of wisdom then Psalm 112 would be a life lived in wisdom. The fear of the LORD[2] here leads to a delighting in the commandments of the LORD and a life that is authentic and in harmony with God, society, and the creation.

Like Psalm 111 and 113, the first word of the psalm is Hallelujah (NRSV Praise the LORD). The acrostic poem begins with the second word asre (NRSV happy) which is a common indicator of wisdom literature. Like Psalm 1, which also begins with asre we are examining the contrast between a righteous life in harmony with God’s will for the world and a wicked life in conflict with God’s will. The Hebrew asre often translated ‘happy’ or ‘blessed’ or even ‘contented’ but the concept in Hebrew thought is closer to ‘wholeness’ or ‘completeness.’ This integrated life is a life of shalom, itself a word that has a much larger function than the standard English translation of peace. The way of wholeness and completeness is the way of wisdom. Those who ‘fear’ the LORD greatly delight in the LORD’s commandments. This is not a burdensome set of commands but the boundaries which provide the safe space where an individual can live a whole and integrated life.

The blessings of this whole person reflect the ideals of Hebrew thought. Abraham when he begins his journey with God is promised descendants, a blessing, house, land and prosperity and through his household all the nations will be blessed. For the ‘happy’ ones who follow the way of wisdom their descendants are mighty, their generation is blessed, their households are prosperous, and their righteousness endures. The Hebrew scriptures trust that God will provide for the righteous ones who follow God’s ways. Those who fear, love, and trust the LORD above all things will find that they have enough and even an abundance beyond what they need.

These wise and righteous ones reflect the God who they worship and serve. In Psalm 111 the LORD’s righteousness endures forever, and in verse three now the righteousness of these ‘happy’ ones endures forever. In Psalm 111 God was characterized as gracious and merciful and now these ones who fear the LORD are also gracious, merciful, and righteous. They become the image of the LORD they fear, obey, and worship. They become a light that reflects the light of the LORD for the upright in the darkness of the world.

This life of faithfulness is a life of generosity. They do not hoard what they have but deal generously and lend. They distribute freely and give to the poor trusting that God will provide what they need. They conduct their affairs in justice/righteousness[3] and that justice/righteousness has a gracious and merciful character. Their practices remain constant throughout their lives and they are examples who are remembered of a life well lived. They trust in the LORD and even in evil/wicked times they remain secure in their trust. Their horn, which is reflective of power and status, is exalted in honor.

In classical wisdom literature duality these ‘happy’ ones are contrasted with the wicked. The wise and the wicked are opposing ways of life. The wise life is generous and merciful while the wicked one does not care for the poor, does not live generously, and may aggressively attempt to take advantage of both the vulnerable and the generous righteous ones. Yet, the anger and aggression of the wicked melts away before the sustaining power of the LORD that the wise ones fear. The desire of the wicked comes to nothing.[4]

The way of wisdom in the Hebrew scriptures is a way of life that lives in harmony with God’s commandments. The law and wisdom are connected in Hebrew thought. The law provides the vision of a society where the weak are protected and harmony and peace are possible. A way that is wise fears and reverences the LORD, the God of Israel and reflects the generous and merciful nature of that God. It trusts that even when the wicked seem to prosper that their foolish path will lead to their demise.

[1] Nancy deClaissé-Walford notes eleven key terms and phrases that occur in both relatively short psalms including: fear, delight in, upright, good, gracious, merciful, righteousness, remember, steady, give, and for all time. (Nancy deClaisse-Walford, 2014, p. 843)

[2] See the discussion of the Hebrew word yare translated fear in English in my notes on Psalm 111.

[3] The Hebrew tsaddik is a key idea in the Hebrew Scriptures. Both justice and righteousness emerge from the family of terms in Hebrew, like the Greek dikaios/dikaisune.

[4] This is the same word that ends Psalm 1, ‘abad which means to perish.

Ezekiel 33 The Beginning of Ezekiel’s Role After Jerusalem’s Fall

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Poole, Paul Falconer; Sketch for ‘Vision of Ezekiel’; Tate; http://www.artuk.org/artworks/sketch-for-vision-of-ezekiel-201293

Chapter 33 of Ezekiel functions structurally as a hinge between the judgment of the previous thirty two chapters and the messages of hope that much of the remaining fourteen chapters involve. This chapter rearticulates numerous themes from throughout the early chapters but also helps to prepare us for the changed situation as the majority of the people find themselves in exile. Like the other biblical prophets, the movement to hope does not mean an abandonment of their message God’s desired repentance.

Ezekiel 33: 1-9 The Sentinel for the People

¹ The word of the LORD came to me: ² O Mortal, speak to your people and say to them, If I bring the sword upon a land, and the people of the land take one of their number as their sentinel; ³ and if the sentinel sees the sword coming upon the land and blows the trumpet and warns the people; ⁴ then if any who hear the sound of the trumpet do not take warning, and the sword comes and takes them away, their blood shall be upon their own heads. ⁵ They heard the sound of the trumpet and did not take warning; their blood shall be upon themselves. But if they had taken warning, they would have saved their lives. ⁶ But if the sentinel sees the sword coming and does not blow the trumpet, so that the people are not warned, and the sword comes and takes any of them, they are taken away in their iniquity, but their blood I will require at the sentinel’s hand.

⁷ So you, mortal, I have made a sentinel for the house of Israel; whenever you hear a word from my mouth, you shall give them warning from me. ⁸ If I say to the wicked, “O wicked ones, you shall surely die,” and you do not speak to warn the wicked to turn from their ways, the wicked shall die in their iniquity, but their blood I will require at your hand. ⁹ But if you warn the wicked to turn from their ways, and they do not turn from their ways, the wicked shall die in their iniquity, but you will have saved your life.

This rearticulation of Ezekiel’s role as a sentinel to the people of Israel echoes a similar passage in Ezekiel 3: 16-20. The word for sentinel in Hebrew (sopeh) comes from the shofar (trumpet/horn) which the watcher would blow. Ezekiel’s warning to the wicked and even the righteous may not be heeded, but he is under an obligation to sound the alarm announcing God’s judgment regardless. Both Hosea and Jeremiah[1] have performed this role of sounding a trumpet in the land or acting as a sentinel before and even if the people do not heed the trumpet call. Yet the prophet’s calling is to raise the alarm even if the people ignore the sound.

The wicked and the righteous are a common polarity used throughout wisdom literature, and Ezekiel who likely grew up schooled to be a priest was likely familiar with this way of engaging the world. Ezekiel uses the term wicked (rasa) more than any prophetic book, but the character of God is to desire repentance even among the wicked. The prophet is not to judge the worthiness of the recipients of God’s alarm but to raise the sound that they may hear. Even those who were once righteous but who commit iniquity are not exempt from God’s judgment. The ‘stumbling block’ (miksol) is “not an occasion for sin but a cause of downfall and ruin.” (NIB VI: 1135) As Katheryn Pfisterer Darr states about Ezekiel’s task,

His life depends solely on his performance of the task; it does not hang on the people’s response. Lives may be saved as a result of his warning. But Ezekiel is not told to hold that possibility before his audience. (NIB VI: 1135)

Like his older contemporary Jeremiah[2] he is charged with bearing an unpopular message to resistant people. Yet, as mentioned above the prophet is not in control. Ezekiel is called as a sentinel to the people, but his call does not come from the people. The words he is to speak are not his words, he is animated by a spirit not his own, and God’s hand will be upon him. Any unfaithfulness of Ezekiel will not save the wicked or righteous, but they will endanger the prophet.

Ezekiel 33: 10-20 The Justice of God’s Ways

¹⁰ Now you, mortal, say to the house of Israel, Thus you have said: “Our transgressions and our sins weigh upon us, and we waste away because of them; how then can we live?” ¹¹ Say to them, As I live, says the Lord GOD, I have no pleasure in the death of the wicked, but that the wicked turn from their ways and live; turn back, turn back from your evil ways; for why will you die, O house of Israel? ¹² And you, mortal, say to your people, The righteousness of the righteous shall not save them when they transgress; and as for the wickedness of the wicked, it shall not make them stumble when they turn from their wickedness; and the righteous shall not be able to live by their righteousness when they sin. ¹³ Though I say to the righteous that they shall surely live, yet if they trust in their righteousness and commit iniquity, none of their righteous deeds shall be remembered; but in the iniquity that they have committed they shall die. ¹⁴ Again, though I say to the wicked, “You shall surely die,” yet if they turn from their sin and do what is lawful and right — ¹⁵ if the wicked restore the pledge, give back what they have taken by robbery, and walk in the statutes of life, committing no iniquity — they shall surely live, they shall not die. ¹⁶ None of the sins that they have committed shall be remembered against them; they have done what is lawful and right, they shall surely live.

¹⁷ Yet your people say, “The way of the Lord is not just,” when it is their own way that is not just. ¹⁸ When the righteous turn from their righteousness, and commit iniquity, they shall die for it. ¹⁹ And when the wicked turn from their wickedness, and do what is lawful and right, they shall live by it. ²⁰ Yet you say, “The way of the Lord is not just.” O house of Israel, I will judge all of you according to your ways!

This is the first time we have a confession of sin from the house of Israel in Ezekiel. The people have come a long way from when Ezekiel and other prophets were mocked for their words of doom that had not transpired. Now we hear, through Ezekiel, of a realization by the people that their actions have led to the deathlike state they inhabit. They are weighed down by their sin and it has caused them to waste away[3] and they openly ask how they can live under the weight of their actions. This plaintive cry fits within the Hebrew tradition of lament to attempt to mobilize the God of Israel to bring about their deliverance from the deathlike state of exile. The answer that God grants through the prophet has a hopeful element to it that is often missed.

God’s response begins with the ‘oath of denial’ (NIB VI: 1446) “As I live” which places the trustworthiness of these words in connection with God’s life. The God of Israel immediately declares that God takes no pleasure in the death of the wicked and argues in a manner similar to Ezekiel 18. This may indeed be good news for people who are finally willing to accept responsibility for their previous actions and who are willing to turn from their past wickedness and embrace the way of righteousness. There is an opportunity for those who previously ignored their sentinel and continued in the ways of wickedness to turn and have their sins no longer remembered against them.

Throughout the book of Ezekiel the prophet has argued for the ‘justness’ of God. The current generation look at God’s patience with previous generations who continued to live in the land while they sinned and may have viewed their generation as bearing the judgment of their ancestors. Yet, for Ezekiel, God is just. God has repeatedly sent sentinels for the people, God has desired their repentance, and even now the judgment of God is not eternal. For Ezekiel the ways of God are simple: if the people turn from wickedness and live in righteousness there is a future. If they turn from righteousness to wickedness there is death. It is the classic pattern of wisdom literature in the bible.

Post Reformation Protestant readers often read scripture through the lens of God’s mercy, but the Hebrew Scriptures are probably better understood through being at the mercy of God. Both individuals and the people as a whole are dependent upon God for their protection and provision. There are times where they will protest the perceived injustice of God’s ways, but this is to provoke God to action rather than as a lack of faith. Ezekiel perceives the people’s future as dependent upon God’s action, and God’s action is tied to the people’s righteousness or wickedness.

Ezekiel 33: 21-29 The Fall of the City and Those Who Remain

²¹ In the twelfth year of our exile, in the tenth month, on the fifth day of the month, someone who had escaped from Jerusalem came to me and said, “The city has fallen.” ²² Now the hand of the LORD had been upon me the evening before the fugitive came; but he had opened my mouth by the time the fugitive came to me in the morning; so my mouth was opened, and I was no longer unable to speak.

²³ The word of the LORD came to me: ²⁴ Mortal, the inhabitants of these waste places in the land of Israel keep saying, “Abraham was only one man, yet he got possession of the land; but we are many; the land is surely given us to possess.” ²⁵ Therefore say to them, Thus says the Lord GOD: You eat flesh with the blood, and lift up your eyes to your idols, and shed blood; shall you then possess the land? ²⁶ You depend on your swords, you commit abominations, and each of you defiles his neighbor’s wife; shall you then possess the land? ²⁷ Say this to them, Thus says the Lord GOD: As I live, surely those who are in the waste places shall fall by the sword; and those who are in the open field I will give to the wild animals to be devoured; and those who are in strongholds and in caves shall die by pestilence. ²⁸ I will make the land a desolation and a waste, and its proud might shall come to an end; and the mountains of Israel shall be so desolate that no one will pass through. ²⁹ Then they shall know that I am the LORD, when I have made the land a desolation and a waste because of all their abominations that they have committed.

Ezekiel reports the community in exile receiving the news of Jerusalem’s fall. The dating system makes the best sense if it follows the dating system referred to in Ezekiel 24, which follows the dating of 2 Kings and Jeremiah, rather than Ezekiel’s normal dating system. This allows the word to reach the exiles just under five months after the fall of Jerusalem, which seems like a long time for us, but if this is a person traveling with the first wave of new exiles traveling with families and animals by foot, the slow passage from Judah to Babylon is understandable. Travel in the ancient world was a slow and arduous process, especially when we are talking about moving entire communities. This confirmation of the destruction of the city now opens the possibility of Ezkiel opening his mouth to intercede for the people. Previously the prophet was not to intercede for the people, God no longer wanted to listen, but now the prophet’s mouth is opened.

Yet not all the inhabitants of Judah are deported. There is a remnant of people in the country and the poorest in the land. Now this remnant believes that they can now inherit the land, just as Abraham’s descendants did. This reference back to Abraham may involve a return to the story of the people, but the prophet’s words indicate that the actions of these remaining in Judah have not changed. The evocation of Abraham’s name has not brought about a reformation of practices. They still eat meat with blood in it, like the Gentiles, shed blood, and lift up their eyes to idols. The practices of the people have not changed. They depend on their ability to force their will by the sword, they commit the abominations that Ezekiel has protested throughout his time as a prophet, and they do not respect the boundaries of relations between neighbors. They have continued to practice wickedness and although they may have avoided punishment previously, their actions have not gone unseen by God. They stand under the same judgment that their neighbors enroute to Babylon or deceased in Judah endured. The evocation of Abraham’s name do not make them the heirs to the land.

If the people remaining in the land began appropriating the land, resources, and wealth left behind by the exiles and the dead they did not endear themselves to the exiles in Babylon or those enroute. Like the villainous Thenardiers couple in Les Misérables looting the corpses of the dead to ensure their prosperity, these remaining Judeans who benefited from the looting of Judah would likely be viewed in a similar way to the nations which took advantage of Jerusalem’s precarious position during and after the siege of the city. Ezekiel is one of our windows into this time in the life of the people of Judah, and we see a shattered and conflicted community. Sometimes the vultures picking over the corpse of the nation are not from outside the community, but those who see an opportunity for profiting off their neighbors’ misfortune.

Ezekiel 33: 30-33 The Toleration of the Prophet

³⁰ As for you, mortal, your people who talk together about you by the walls, and at the doors of the houses, say to one another, each to a neighbor, “Come and hear what the word is that comes from the LORD.” ³¹ They come to you as people come, and they sit before you as my people, and they hear your words, but they will not obey them. For flattery is on their lips, but their heart is set on their gain. ³² To them you are like a singer of love songs, one who has a beautiful voice and plays well on an instrument; they hear what you say, but they will not do it. ³³ When this comes — and come it will! — then they shall know that a prophet has been among them.

Even the people who now listen to Ezekiel’s words have not changed. The prophet may be the talk of the community, his words have not caused them to change. They like to listen to his words, they may have enjoyed his metaphors or sign actions, but they are entertained, not challenged to change. There will come a time when they understand this strange messenger is indeed a prophet among them, and many of Ezekiel’s words have come to pass. At this point, but for now the heart of the people has not changed. Their words may be kind or flattering. They may appreciate the prophet’s artistry, but they miss the point of the art.

[1] Hosea 9:8, Jeremiah 4: 5, 19, 21; 6: 1, 17; 51:27

[2] As Daniel Block notes (assuming that the thirtieth year at the beginning of Ezekiel reflects his age) Jeremiah would begin his ministry about the time Ezekiel was born. (Block, 1997, p. 148) It is likely that Ezekiel may have grown up knowing Jeremiah’s voice or message and both prophets share the challenging job of dismantling the theology that had grown up around Jerusalem, the temple, and the Davidic kings. Both were probably never popular but proved to be essential voices to make sense of the destruction of Jerusalem and the temple by Babylon.

[3] The Hebrew maqoq (NRSV waste away) is used elsewhere of gangrenous flesh. (Block, 1997, p. 246)

Ezekiel 18 Life for the Righteous Ones

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Grigory Mekheev, Exodus (2000) artist shared work under Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 3.0

Ezekiel 18

¹ The word of the LORD came to me: ² What do you mean by repeating this proverb concerning the land of Israel, “The parents have eaten sour grapes, and the children’s teeth are set on edge”? ³ As I live, says the Lord GOD, this proverb shall no more be used by you in Israel. ⁴ Know that all lives are mine; the life of the parent as well as the life of the child is mine: it is only the person who sins that shall die.

⁵ If a man is righteous and does what is lawful and right — ⁶ if he does not eat upon the mountains or lift up his eyes to the idols of the house of Israel, does not defile his neighbor’s wife or approach a woman during her menstrual period, ⁷ does not oppress anyone, but restores to the debtor his pledge, commits no robbery, gives his bread to the hungry and covers the naked with a garment, ⁸ does not take advance or accrued interest, withholds his hand from iniquity, executes true justice between contending parties, ⁹ follows my statutes, and is careful to observe my ordinances, acting faithfully — such a one is righteous; he shall surely live, says the Lord GOD.

¹⁰ If he has a son who is violent, a shedder of blood, ¹¹ who does any of these things (though his father does none of them), who eats upon the mountains, defiles his neighbor’s wife, ¹² oppresses the poor and needy, commits robbery, does not restore the pledge, lifts up his eyes to the idols, commits abomination, ¹³ takes advance or accrued interest; shall he then live? He shall not. He has done all these abominable things; he shall surely die; his blood shall be upon himself.

¹⁴ But if this man has a son who sees all the sins that his father has done, considers, and does not do likewise, ¹⁵ who does not eat upon the mountains or lift up his eyes to the idols of the house of Israel, does not defile his neighbor’s wife, ¹⁶ does not wrong anyone, exacts no pledge, commits no robbery, but gives his bread to the hungry and covers the naked with a garment, ¹⁷ withholds his hand from iniquity, takes no advance or accrued interest, observes my ordinances, and follows my statutes; he shall not die for his father’s iniquity; he shall surely live. ¹⁸ As for his father, because he practiced extortion, robbed his brother, and did what is not good among his people, he dies for his iniquity.

¹⁹ Yet you say, “Why should not the son suffer for the iniquity of the father?” When the son has done what is lawful and right, and has been careful to observe all my statutes, he shall surely live. ²⁰ The person who sins shall die. A child shall not suffer for the iniquity of a parent, nor a parent suffer for the iniquity of a child; the righteousness of the righteous shall be his own, and the wickedness of the wicked shall be his own.

²¹ But if the wicked turn away from all their sins that they have committed and keep all my statutes and do what is lawful and right, they shall surely live; they shall not die. ²² None of the transgressions that they have committed shall be remembered against them; for the righteousness that they have done they shall live. ²³ Have I any pleasure in the death of the wicked, says the Lord GOD, and not rather that they should turn from their ways and live? ²⁴ But when the righteous turn away from their righteousness and commit iniquity and do the same abominable things that the wicked do, shall they live? None of the righteous deeds that they have done shall be remembered; for the treachery of which they are guilty and the sin they have committed, they shall die.

²⁵ Yet you say, “The way of the Lord is unfair.” Hear now, O house of Israel: Is my way unfair? Is it not your ways that are unfair? ²⁶ When the righteous turn away from their righteousness and commit iniquity, they shall die for it; for the iniquity that they have committed they shall die. ²⁷ Again, when the wicked turn away from the wickedness they have committed and do what is lawful and right, they shall save their life. ²⁸ Because they considered and turned away from all the transgressions that they had committed, they shall surely live; they shall not die. ²⁹ Yet the house of Israel says, “The way of the Lord is unfair.” O house of Israel, are my ways unfair? Is it not your ways that are unfair?

³⁰ Therefore I will judge you, O house of Israel, all of you according to your ways, says the Lord GOD. Repent and turn from all your transgressions; otherwise iniquity will be your ruin. ³¹ Cast away from you all the transgressions that you have committed against me, and get yourselves a new heart and a new spirit! Why will you die, O house of Israel? ³² For I have no pleasure in the death of anyone, says the Lord GOD. Turn, then, and live.

The eighteenth chapter of Ezekiel is one of the portions of Ezekiel that does get utilized in the readings of churches that follow the lectionary, particularly the first four verses combined with verses twenty-five through thirty-two. Many readers of the particular Ezekiel text have found the prophet advocating for an individualistic spirituality of responsibility, ignoring the corporate influence present throughout other portions of the book. In Ezekiel’s context where the destruction that comes in the aftermath of King Zedekiah’s rebellion against King Nebuchadrezzar of Babylon appears imminent for those still in Jerusalem, the actions of individuals may seem futile. If society is going to be judged as wicked or bearing the sins of previous generations a malaise can set in where living according to the covenant seems pointless.

The theme of individuals attempting to live righteously in an unrighteous time is not new to Ezekiel. In Ezekiel 9 a scribal figure is sent out into the city of Jerusalem to mark the righteous and preserve them from judgment and in Ezekiel 14: 12-20 the themes of this chapter are prefigured when even Noah, Daniel, and Job can only save themselves by their righteousness. Here the prophet takes central ideas from the law (torah) and wrestles with the tradition. As Ellen Davis states,

Ezekiel appears primarily in conversation with the tradition. Like a creative archivist, he desires not only to preserve the treasures of the past but also to make them available and meaningful for the present. Even his disputation speeches are aimed as much at the tradition as at the people, purging it of its useless elements (12,22-28, 18.2-4) and correcting disastrous interpretations (33. 24-29. (Davis, 1989, p. 62)

The proverb spoken by the people about parents eating unripe grapes and the children’s teeth being blunted (or set on edge)[1] is also found in Jeremiah 31: 29-30 and both prophets answer in identical ways. Unlike Jeremiah, Ezekiel proceeds into a much longer discussion of the implications of righteousness and unrighteousness from a perspective of the law.

The proverb seems to derive from language of the second commandment:

You shall not make for yourself an idol, whether in the form of anything that is heaven above, or that is on the earth beneath, or that is in the water under the earth. You shall not bow down to them or worship them; for I the LORD your God am a jealous God, punishing children for the iniquity of parents, to the third and fourth generation of those who reject me, but showing steadfast love to the thousandth generation of those who love me and keep my commandments. Exodus 20:4-6; Deuteronomy 5: 8-10

This people attempting to make sense of the impending destruction probably understood that they were bearing the judgment of previous generations and that they were powerless in their actions to change the course of events for the nation or for their own lives. Yet, throughout this chapter the LORD’s response is that the life of the parent and child belongs to the LORD and the LORD will judge each by their actions. The word translated life throughout is the Hebrew nephesh which is not the Greek idea of soul (which English translations sometimes render it) but is that which is the essence of life. As Daniel Block helpfully states,

“life” is not merely the absence of judgment, any more than šālôm, “peace,” is simply the absence of war. Ezekiel holds out life in all its fullness and blessing to the righteous person, even for those who are exiles in Babylon. (Block, 1997, p. 574)

This promise of life for the righteous is not merely survival. Like Moses in Deuteronomy, Ezekiel holds out before the people a choice between a way that leads of condemnation and death and a way that leads to life. Yet, one of the crucial differences within Ezekiel is there is a provision for the righteous surviving in the midst of an unrighteous people.

To wrestle with this multigenerational judgment outline in the commandment Ezekiel goes to another portion of Deuteronomy:

Parents shall not be put to death for their children, nor shall children be put to death for their parents; only for their own crimes may persons be put to death. Deuteronomy 24: 16

This portion of the law meant to restrain human judgments is now applied to God’s working with humanity. On one hand this is a surprising use of the law of interpersonal judgments in the relationship between God and the people. On the other hand, the justice of God is expected to be at least as fair as the justice of humanity. Now this pattern is examined over three hypothetical generations.

The first generation is a prototypical righteous man according to the law. Eating on the mountains was probably associated with the worship of the idols.[2] Defiling a neighbor’s wife would violate the commandment on adultery. Ezekiel shares the Levitical view of menstruation in particular (and blood in general) causing uncleanness. (Leviticus 18:19) The concerns for the proper economic treatment of the neighbor: not oppressing, restoring the pledge, not robbing, giving food and clothing to the needy, not taking interest, and living in justice are present throughout the law (for example Deuteronomy 24:6-22) and this is the pattern of a wise and righteous life. Ezekiel is following both the pattern of the law and wisdom literature which differentiate between wise choices that lead to life and foolish choices that lead to death.

The wise father has an unwise son who does all the things the father does not do in addition to being violent. The violations of idolatry, the neighbor’s household, and economic justice all are characteristics of an unrighteous life that leads to death. These are the type of people Ezekiel was informed he would have to warn at the Chebar River. (Ezekiel 2:17-21) Yet the sins of the father do not dictate the life of the child. When a third generation sees the folly of their parents and returns to the way of righteousness they are promised life.

Ezekiel and Jeremiah engaged in the deconstruction of a Zion theology which focused on Jerusalem, the temple, the Davidic king, and the land as central symbols of the LORD’s relationship with Israel. Yet, the reorganization of faith without these central symbols was challenging and probably involved multiple attempts to reconstruct faith in the aftermath of disaster. The Deuteronomic history attempts to understand the destruction of Jerusalem and the loss of the land in terms of this multigenerational pattern of unfaithfulness, and this attempt to make sense of their world probably brought comfort to the people attempting to reorganize their life and faith as exiles in a strange land. In verse nineteen there appears to be resistance to Ezekiel’s message of a path forward for individuals who are righteous and a return to the way of thinking behind the proverb. The rhetorical question “should not the son suffer for the iniquity of the father?” may seem strange to our individualistic mindset but it may have brought some comfort for people attempting to understand the time they were navigating. Blaming their situation on their ancestors also allowed the current generation to avoid an examination of their own practices. If God’s justice was unjust to them, but fair over the course of the generations, then they only had to wait for God’s wrath to pass and endure. Yet, Ezekiel is calling them to a path of examination in light of the covenant expectations. Ezekiel clings to the pattern of Deuteronomy 24:16 and presses forward with his claims that God’s ways are just.

The actions of individuals will not turn away the armies of Babylon from the walls of Jerusalem or save the temple, nor will they save the lives of the entire people. Ezekiel is committed to the idea of God delivering the righteous individuals from this situation and providing for them in the time of exile. Yet, the provision of God is dependent upon the actions of the individual in this portion of Ezekiel, and people are called to choose the way of life. Surprisingly, they are called to get for themselves a new heart and a new spirit, an action that will be God’s work in other parts of Ezekiel. Yet, the LORD as presented here is not a God who wants judgment, but who desires the people of Israel to individually and collectively adopt the practices of righteousness that will lead them to life.

Sometimes modern believers can break apart two ideas that ancient people had no problem holding together. I was formed by the Lutheran tradition of Christianity where there is a heavy focus on God’s gracious action and a discomfort with anything that seems to be legalistic or require a person to work out their own salvation. Other traditions focus exclusively on a person’s actions to be in a right relationship with God. Individual responsibility is a heavy focus of our modern age while corporate responsibility is often obscured. Ezekiel, like most authors of scripture, hold both God’s action and personal responsibility together as well as individual and corporate responsibility. At some points they may lift up one aspect, while at others they will lift up another. Sometimes multiple aspects can appear together baffling modern theological systems like Philippians 2: 2-13

Therefore, my beloved, just as you have always obeyed me, not only in my presence, but much more now in my absence, work out your own salvation with fear and trembling; for it is God who is at work in you, enabling you both to will and to work for his good pleasure.

Ezekiel can appeal to the people to get a new heart and new spirit here, and then can point to God’s action to place a new heart and new spirit in the people. (Ezekiel 11:19, 36:26) Sometimes people need to hear, in Luther’s terms, law that causes them to take responsibility for their own actions and sometimes they need gospel to give them hope in their hopelessness of God’s actions. Ezekiel attempts to get his hearers to claim their own agency in how they live their life despite the destruction occurring around them. There is promise that if they persist in righteousness they individually can find life even if their society corporately is choosing unrighteousness and death. In all this Ezekiel want to demonstrate the justice of God in a way that highlights many previous themes in the prophet’s imagery.

[1] The Hebrew qaha is a rarely used word and outside of this proverb is only used in Ecclesiastes 10:10 for iron being blunt. (Block, 1997, p. 558)

[2] Again, Ezekiel’s derogatory term gillum which Block and others argue means something like “shit gods.” See comments in Ezekiel 6.

Ezekiel 15 The Unfruitful Vine

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By Giancarlo Dessì – self-made (from archive of Istituto Professionale Statale per l’Agricoltura e l’Ambiente “Cettolini” di Cagliari), CC BY-SA 3.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=3859575

Ezekiel 15

¹ The word of the LORD came to me: ² O mortal, how does the wood of the vine surpass all other wood — the vine branch that is among the trees of the forest?

³ Is wood taken from it to make anything? Does one take a peg from it on which to hang any object?

⁴ It is put in the fire for fuel; when the fire has consumed both ends of it and the middle of it is charred, is it useful for anything?

⁵ When it was whole it was used for nothing; how much less — when the fire has consumed it, and it is charred — can it ever be used for anything!

⁶ Therefore thus says the Lord GOD: Like the wood of the vine among the trees of the forest, which I have given to the fire for fuel, so I will give up the inhabitants of Jerusalem. ⁷ I will set my face against them; although they escape from the fire, the fire shall still consume them; and you shall know that I am the LORD, when I set my face against them. ⁸ And I will make the land desolate, because they have acted faithlessly, says the Lord GOD.

One of the frequently used images in scripture as an allegory for Israel is the grapevine or the vineyard. In Psalm 80 Israel is the vine brought out of Egypt that God clears a place for, and it grows to fill the land under God’s protection, until God removes the walls that protect it from the wild animals (Psalm 80: 8-13). Isaiah’s parable of the unfruitful vineyard tells of a vineyard on a fertile hill that God does everything for, and it produces wild grapes where it should have yielded cultivated grapes (Isaiah 5: 1-7). Jeremiah uses similar imagery when he states:

Yet I planted you as a choice vine, from the purest stock. How then did you turn degenerate and become a wild vine? Jeremiah 2: 21 [1]

According to Tova Ganzel Ezekiel uses allegories and metaphors more often than any other prophet. (Ganzel, 2020, p. 130) Ezekiel takes the familiar allegorical image of the grapevine or the vineyard and uses it in a unique way. Grapevines are useful for the production of grapes, and that is the focal point of most of the uses of the grapevine in the scriptures. Here Ezekiel assumes the vine is unfruitful and asks is it good for anything else?

The initial statement from the LORD is translated in the NRSV (and most other translations) as a comparative statement between the wood of the vine and the wood of the other trees, but in Hebrew it is not a comparison. Daniel Block translates this, “What becomes of the wood of the grapevine?” (Block, 1997, p. 453) The wood of the vine is not strong enough to build anything, even a peg. If it does not produce fruit it is only suitable for burning and once it is burned it is even less valuable. Allegorically if Israel is unfruitful and unusable before undergoing judgment, how much less useful is it once it has undergone these trials. The allegory is made specific once the interpretation of the image is given in verses six through eight. Jerusalem is an unproductive vine that is only good for the fire and therefore the LORD will set God’s face against them and make the land desolate because the vine is fruitless. The divine act of choosing Israel and placing it in the promised land is no replacement for Israel being fruitful in the place where they have been planted.

In our world we often use the language of rights without the discussion of responsibilities. Within both the Jewish and Christian worldview election (rights and benefits) are always connected with covenant responsibilities (obedience to God and one’s responsibilities towards one’s neighbors and the vulnerable in society). The fiber that the people of faith are made of, to use Ezekiel’s imagery, are not useful if they are fruitless, whether they are the original vine or the later grafts onto the vine.

[1] See also Hosea 9:10, 10:1; Ezekiel 19: 10-14.

Psalm 97 The Righteous Reign of God

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Supercell Thunderstorm over Chaparral, New Mexico on April 3, 2004

Psalm 97

¹ The LORD is king! Let the earth rejoice; let the many coastlands be glad!
² Clouds and thick darkness are all around him; righteousness and justice are the foundation of his throne.
³ Fire goes before him, and consumes his adversaries on every side.
⁴ His lightnings light up the world; the earth sees and trembles.
⁵ The mountains melt like wax before the LORD, before the Lord of all the earth.
⁶ The heavens proclaim his righteousness; and all the peoples behold his glory.
⁷ All worshipers of images are put to shame, those who make their boast in worthless idols; all gods bow down before him.
⁸ Zion hears and is glad, and the towns of Judah rejoice, because of your judgments, O God.
⁹ For you, O LORD, are most high over all the earth; you are exalted far above all gods.
¹⁰ The LORD loves those who hate evil; he guards the lives of his faithful; he rescues them from the hand of the wicked.
¹¹ Light dawns for the righteous, and joy for the upright in heart.
¹² Rejoice in the LORD, O you righteous, and give thanks to his holy name!

One of the losses of our modern, technology filled world is the patient hope of the psalmist and the prophets for the arrival of God’s kingdom. James L. Mays notes that Psalm 97 shares several key images and ideas with the portions of Isaiah most scholars attribute to Judah’s time in exile.[1] (Mays, 1994, p. 311) The psalmist’s proclamation of God’s reign causing the earth, Judah, and the righteous to rejoice were always contested claims. Israel and Judah lived in a world of multiple religious options and empires who exercised military, economic, and political might over Israel or Judah. Yet, the psalms and the prophets exhibit a persistent faith that despite the evidence to the contrary the God of Israel reigns over creation, is chief among the gods of the nations, and continues to sow joy and righteousness in the upright in heart. It is only through the eyes of faith that these poets can rejoice with the earth and the coastland because their vision has revealed to them that the LORD, the God of Israel and Judah, is king.

The vision of God in the psalms and the prophets may, as Brueggemann and Bellinger comment, retain the “remnants of a storm god.” (Brueggemann, 2014, p. 418) but as in Psalm 29 the use of the language of clouds and darkness, fire, lightning, and earthquake takes the primary language for the power of the Canaanite god Baal and now uses it to describe the power of the LORD the God of Israel. This imagery also resonates with the appearance of the LORD to the people at Mount Sinai in Exodus 19:16-19. The psalmist longs for the day for all the people to see what the eyes of faith trust: that the idols of the nations are worthless, that the kings of the earth and the gods of the nations are powerless before the LORD who is king, and that the power of the wicked over the faithful will end as God rescues them.

God’s righteousness and justice are the foundation of God’s throne, and they are also the foundation for the hopeful imagination of the psalmist. The heavens can proclaim God’s righteousness and the people of Judah can find reasons for rejoicing and gladness because of God’s judgments. Because God’s reign is based on righteousness it opens the possibility that people in Judah and beyond the borders of Judah can live as righteous ones rather than adopting the ways of the wicked. The response throughout the poem to the righteousness and justice of God is joy and gladness. The earth can rejoice, and the coastlands can be glad because the creation bears witness to the just reign of God. Zion can be glad, and the towns of Judah can rejoice because God judges with righteousness. The ones loving the LORD will hate evil[2] and God will guard their lives and sows[3] light and joy in these faithful ones of upright hearts. These righteous ones planted with light and joy in the rejoicing earth now join the earth’s joy at the celebration of God’s reign.

[1] See for example Isaiah 40: 5, 9-11; 42:17, and 52: 7-10

[2] In both the MT (Hebrew) and LXX (Greek translation) the direct translation is “The ones loving the LORD hate evil” as the NIV captures. The NRSV follows the translation of scholars who in their attempt to smooth our the translation change the subject to God, but there is no reason to make this change to the original text. (Nancy deClaisse-Walford, 2014, p. 724)

[3] Some change this word to a similar Hebrew word for ‘rise, shine’ (hence the NRSV translation) but the metaphor of sowing light fits with the imagination of the psalmist. (Nancy deClaisse-Walford, 2014, p. 724)

Matthew 15: 1-20 Piety and Righteousness Revisited

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James Tissot, The Blind in the Ditch (1886-1894)

Matthew 15: 1-20

Parallel Mark 7: 1-23; Luke 11: 37-41; 6: 39

Then Pharisees and scribes came to Jesus from Jerusalem and said, ² “Why do your disciples break the tradition of the elders? For they do not wash their hands before they eat.” ³ He answered them, “And why do you break the commandment of God for the sake of your tradition? ⁴ For God said, ‘Honor your father and your mother,’ and, ‘Whoever speaks evil of father or mother must surely die.’ ⁵ But you say that whoever tells father or mother, ‘Whatever support you might have had from me is given to God,’ then that person need not honor the father. ⁶ So, for the sake of your tradition, you make void the word of God. ⁷ You hypocrites! Isaiah prophesied rightly about you when he said:

⁸ ‘This people honors me with their lips, but their hearts are far from me; ⁹ in vain do they worship me, teaching human precepts as doctrines.'”

¹⁰ Then he called the crowd to him and said to them, “Listen and understand: ¹¹ it is not what goes into the mouth that defiles a person, but it is what comes out of the mouth that defiles.” ¹² Then the disciples approached and said to him, “Do you know that the Pharisees took offense when they heard what you said?” ¹³ He answered, “Every plant that my heavenly Father has not planted will be uprooted. ¹⁴ Let them alone; they are blind guides of the blind. And if one blind person guides another, both will fall into a pit.” ¹⁵ But Peter said to him, “Explain this parable to us.” ¹⁶ Then he said, “Are you also still without understanding? ¹⁷ Do you not see that whatever goes into the mouth enters the stomach, and goes out into the sewer? ¹⁸ But what comes out of the mouth proceeds from the heart, and this is what defiles. ¹⁹ For out of the heart come evil intentions, murder, adultery, fornication, theft, false witness, slander. ²⁰ These are what defile a person, but to eat with unwashed hands does not defile.”

Jesus and the Pharisees and scribes, as presented here, have different points of reference as they enter this argument. The Pharisees in the gospel have had a growing list of complaints about the practices of Jesus and his disciples: they eat with the wrong people (9:11), they do not fast (9:14), they pluck grain on Sabbath when they are hungry (12:2), Jesus heals on Sabbath (12:10), in our current passage they don’t wash their hands before eating and in future readings will come questions of paying taxes to the Temple (17:24) and the emperor (22:17) (Case-Winters, 2015, p. 197) All of these visible practices which are not wrong or evil and may even be life giving in the right context (I’m writing on this passage on washing hands before eating in the context of the Covid-19 pandemic) also become ways of judging the righteousness of others or practicing one’s piety before others. These conflicts resonate strongly with Jesus’ words in the Sermon on the Mount which I will discuss below, but also highlight the difference between piety and righteousness.

The Pharisees and scribes that come to engage Jesus’ practices now come from Jerusalem, and this is the first time we have indication, since the very beginning of Jesus’ ministry when great crowds from Galilee, the Decapolis, Judea, Jerusalem and beyond the Jordan came to Jesus, (4:25) that Judea and Jerusalem and their authorities are aware of Jesus’ ministry predominantly in Galilee. Jesus’ practices, or at least the practices of his disciples in this instance, do not fit within the frame of what holiness practiced by visible actions that demonstrate one’s faithfulness, one’s piety, according to the practices of these Pharisees and scribes. There is a lack of openness to the works that Jesus is doing because they do not fit within the expectations of these leaders who have come to challenge the worker of the acts of power and the teacher of a different understanding of the relationship between the law and the tradition.

Jesus has very little interest in piety, and this is one of the reasons that most English translations of Matthew 6 of dikaisune as piety instead of righteousness misunderstand what Jesus is attempting to state. Jesus in Matthew 6: 1 stated, “Beware of practicing your righteousness (not piety) before others in order to be seen by them;” because the very practices that Jesus is being judged for here are the things that fail to produce changed hearts. Pietas (often translated piety from Latin) was an important Roman concept which the orator and statesman Cicero describes as that, “which admonishes us to do our duty to our country or our parents or other blood relations.” Jesus’ understanding of righteousness is not limited to ‘doing one’s duty’, particularly as it is viewed by others. Central to the language of the Sermon on the Mount were these practices of righteousness done in a way not to call attention to the individual’s practices. The actions of the community of the faithful may be visible, but the individual practices of the disciple will not be. Jesus may not look like he and his disciples are ‘doing their duty’ as viewed by the Pharisees but Jesus does not view them as faithful guides for how a community should practice righteousness.

The practice of washing hands comes from places in the law like Exodus 30: 19-21 (priests washing before entering the tent of meeting), Leviticus 15: 11 (washing after a bodily discharge) and Deuteronomy 21: 6 (where washing absolves the leaders of a community of responsibility an unsolved murder). The tradition of the elders mentioned here would be an expansion of the practices outlined in the law which only become troubling when they become standards for judging the holiness or acceptability of others. Jesus’ response goes directly back to the commandment and the justifications, often religious, that people might use to not fulfill their covenant responsibility to others. As I mentioned in the discussion of the commandment on honoring parents in both Exodus 20 and Deuteronomy 5, this commandment is not primarily about young children being obedient to parents but instead older children continuing to honor, respect, and care for elderly relatives. If this practice of dedicating wealth and property to the temple or to the priests in order to abandon one’s responsibility to a family member occurred, it would be masking unrighteousness in the appearance of socially respectable piety.

Jesus may bring about divisions in families and may call his followers to ‘let the dead bury their own dead’ or declare those who do the will of his Father in heaven are his ‘brother and sister and mother.’ But it is important for Matthew to continue to link Jesus as the fulfillment of the intent of the law. Jesus never declares that families do not have value and that family connections are not to be honored; they are simply not ultimate. The Pharisees who would practice this ‘dedication of one’s resources to God’ through the temple or the Pharisees, in lieu of caring for family probably felt they were making the same argument. Eyes opened to faith can see what is at the center of practicing righteousness and how faithfulness to Jesus takes a higher place than loyalty to temple or a religious community. The inability to distinguish between piety and righteousness leaves these Pharisees and scribes as blind guides leading the blind.

Hypocrites is a word that Matthew uses more than the rest of scripture, but its use here connects us both with its usage in the Sermon on the Mount (6:2, 6:5. 6:16, 7:5) and Matthew’s frequent use of the term in the conflicts with the Pharisees in Jerusalem (22:18; 23: 13, 15, 23, 25, 27, 29; 24: 51). As I mentioned when discussing 7:5, when righteousness becomes reduced to piety to demonstrate our own faithfulness or righteousness, we become like the one blind to the log in their own eye while trying to remove the splinter from another’s eye. Our expectations of what piety should look like allow us to pre-judge (where the term prejudice comes from) others and may make us blind to the ways our own practices may lead others astray.

Jesus, like the prophets before him, continually had to remind people that religious practices were not enough. Anna Case-Winters, picking up on the language of the Isaiah quotation, cleverly calls attention to reality that ‘lip-service” is not enough. A heart oriented on God and the way of life God calls God’s people to live is far more central and allows the right intentions to flow out of the mouth and to proceed from one’s hands (washed or unwashed). The Pharisees are scandalized (took offense, NRSV) according to the disciples but Jesus remains unconcerned by their judgments. He views them similarly to the weeds sewn among the wheat (13: 24-30) and as those who in their blindness are leading others in blindness. Like the Pharisees in John 9 who cannot accept the blind man who can now see and become spiritually blind, these Pharisees remain unable to see and participate with the reality of the Kingdom of Heaven’s work and presence in Jesus. Their prejudgment of Jesus makes them unable to properly see the road they are walking down which leads them and others who follow them into a pit.

The Pharisees are not the only ones who have trouble seeing and understanding what Jesus is saying, even the disciples have to ask for clarification. Peter, on behalf of the other disciples presumably, asks for clarification and Jesus explains that it is not what goes into a person, but what comes out of a person that defiles. A clean heart is more important than washed hands, and the actions which destroy community cause far greater harm than the practices of how or what one eats. Yet, Matthew also does not include Mark’s note in the parallel story that “Thus he declared all foods clean.” (Mark 7:19b) Matthew does not discard all the practices that the Jewish people practiced, and many in Matthew’s community may have refrained from eating foods traditionally declared unclean like pork or shellfish. But Matthew also does not allow these practices to give the disciples permission to prejudge others who practice their righteousness in a different way. There will be surprisingly faithful ones among those who were once considered Gentile dogs.

Matthew 11: 16-30 The Wisdom of Christ in a Foolish Generation

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Farewell Melody by Ravil Akmaev Shared under the Creative Commons 3.0

Matthew 11: 16-30

Parallel Luke 7: 31-35; 10: 12-15, 21-22

Highlighted words will have comments on translation

¹⁶ “But to what will I compare this generation? It is like children sitting in the marketplaces and calling to one another,

¹⁷ ‘We played the flute for you, and you did not dance; we wailed, and you did not mourn.’

¹⁸ For John came neither eating nor drinking, and they say, ‘He has a demon’; ¹⁹ the Son of Man came eating and drinking, and they say, ‘Look, a glutton and a drunkard, a friend of tax collectors and sinners!’ Yet wisdom is vindicated by her deeds.”

²⁰ Then he began to reproach the cities in which most of his deeds of power had been done, because they did not repent. ²¹ “Woe to you, Chorazin! Woe to you, Bethsaida! For if the deeds of power done in you had been done in Tyre and Sidon, they would have repented long ago in sackcloth and ashes. ²² But I tell you, on the day of judgment it will be more tolerable for Tyre and Sidon than for you. ²³ And you, Capernaum, will you be exalted to heaven? No, you will be brought down to Hades. For if the deeds of power done in you had been done in Sodom, it would have remained until this day. ²⁴ But I tell you that on the day of judgment it will be more tolerable for the land of Sodom than for you.”

²⁵ At that time Jesus said, “I thank you, Father, Lord of heaven and earth, because you have hidden these things from the wise and the intelligent and have revealed them to infants; ²⁶ yes, Father, for such was your gracious will. ²⁷ All things have been handed over to me by my Father; and no one knows the Son except the Father, and no one knows the Father except the Son and anyone to whom the Son chooses to reveal him.

²⁸ “Come to me, all you that are weary and are carrying heavy burdens, and I will give you rest. ²⁹ Take my yoke upon you, and learn from me; for I am gentle and humble in heart, and you will find rest for your souls. ³⁰ For my yoke is easy, and my burden is light.”

Throughout this reading of Matthew’s gospel, I’ve pointed to the similarity in the simple wise/foolish dichotomy of wisdom literature in many of the teachings of Jesus. The prophets also use this type of language to demonstrate the wise path of following God’s call to repent and the consequences of remaining among the foolish. As Jesus addresses the lack of repentance among those who have heard the proclamation of the kingdom of heaven, those who have not heard the wisdom the God has offered them. He points both the judgment for those who have chosen the foolish road and promise for those who have wisely taken his yoke upon them instead of remaining in servitude to other masters. The way Jesus responds to the unwillingness of many who would consider themselves wise and intelligent again helps us consider the identity of the one who speaks to this generation who seems not to have ears to hear.

We transition quickly from the identification of John the Baptist with Elijah and Jesus’ link by allusion with the LORD to the generation that accepts neither John the Baptist nor Jesus. Those who consider themselves wise now act like children who don’t want to dance when the song is played or beat their breast when it is time to mourn. Those who think they are wise are out of step with the times, like a child who throws a tantrum in the middle of someone else’s party. John the Baptist is too cold, Jesus is to hot and they are looking for someone who is just the right temperature for their group. John drinks to little, Jesus drinks to much and with the wrong people. John (and Jesus) will be accused of having or being in alliance with demons. Jesus doesn’t demonstrate a piety that would please some others judging from what constitutes a wise path from their perspective. But the works of Christ should, in Jesus’ view, point the wise towards a realization of who this proclaimer of the kingdom of heaven is and what righteousness rather than piety looks like.

Jesus’ words of woe towards the cities of Chorazin, Bethsaida and even the place that starts as his home in Capernaum are meant to bring about repentance but may also express frustration to the resistance Jesus experiences among the people in those places. These may be places where disciples or Jesus had to shake the dust of their sandals and move on to the following town. They are places that without repentance will be like the traditionally wicked cities of Sodom, Tyre and Sidon who come under God’s judgment. The response to the message that Jesus carries matters because to fail to acknowledge Jesus is to fail to acknowledge the one who sent him and to remain aligned against the approach of the kingdom of heaven.

For Matthew’s gospel there is a time of judgment, and the presence of John and Jesus indicate that the time is at hand. The coming of the kingdom of heaven is good news for those who wisely receive it, but it is condemnation for those who oppose it. I know that some of my own discomfort with Jesus’ condemnation of the towns of Chorazin, Bethsaida and Capernaum reflect my location within an American version of Christianity which in H. Richard Niebuhr’s famous words involves, “A God without wrath brought men without sin into a kingdom without judgment through the ministrations of Christ without a cross.” The reality that the God portrayed in the bible judges is necessary in a world where men and women do sin and treat their neighbor in unrighteous ways and empires and kings abuse those without power.

One of the reasons many may have rejected to take the offer of Jesus’ yoke may be the ways they have already accommodated the yoke of Rome and those who ruled on her behalf. People must understand what time the stand in to inform the choices they make and to most rational people of Jesus’ time this was the time of the empire of Rome rather than the kingdom of heaven. As Warren Carter can point out, more than half of the times the work yoke (Greek zugos) is used in the Septuagint (the Greek translation of the Hebrew Scriptures and Apocrypha) it refers to “political control, particularly the imposition of harsh imperial power.” (Carter, 2001, p. 122) I do think it is important to acknowledge that Jesus in his proclamation of the kingdom of heaven is proposing an alternative to the way things are conducted under the reign of Rome. Like the prophets who made audacious claims about God’s actions in the presence of attractive alternative ways of viewing the world, those who hear the words of Jesus should wonder what authority he possesses to make such broad claims.

Paradoxically, much like in Paul’s letter to the Corinthians, the wise of this world have rejected the wisdom of God and those who are not wise in the world’s eyes can see God’s wisdom. As we’ve seen in Matthew, it is often those who have no reason to demonstrate faith who demonstrate great faith in Jesus’ authority while those who have the witness of the scriptures remain deaf to the message and identity of Jesus. In the words of John’s gospel:

He was in the world, and the world came into being through him; yet the world did not know him. He came to what was his own, and his own people did not accept him. John 1: 10-11

My use of John and allusion to Paul here are intentional because the language in this section resembles the language that in different ways Paul and John use to refer to Jesus. Verse 27 where Jesus talking about all authority being handed to him by the Father and no one knows the Father except the Son, and no one knows the Son except the Father would feel at home in the gospel of John. It bears the same type of pattern as John 14

Jesus said to him, “I am the way and the truth and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me. If you know me you will know my Father also. From now on you him and have seen him. John 14: 6-7

Both John and Paul identity Jesus with being the ‘wisdom of God’ (John uses the masculine word (Greek logos) instead of the feminine wisdom (Greek Sophia)). We’ve had wisdom themes throughout the gospel but here Jesus in an offhand way alludes to the character of wisdom by stating, “wisdom is vindicated (literally justified or made righteous) by her deeds. Is Matthew pointing towards a wisdom Christology where Christ is identified with the Divine Wisdom?

The discussion is made richer by hearing two other ancient sources. Richard B. Hays and others have pointed to the similarity with the end of the Apocryphal book the Wisdom of Sirach (also called Sirach or Ecclesiasticus)

²³ Draw near to me, you who are uneducated, and lodge in the house of instruction. ²⁴ Why do you say you are lacking in these things, and why do you endure such great thirst? ²⁵ I opened my mouth and said, Acquire wisdom for yourselves without money. ²⁶ Put your neck under her yoke, and let your souls receive instruction; it is to be found close by. ²⁷ See with your own eyes that I have labored but little and found for myself much serenity. ²⁸ Hear but a little of my instruction, and through me you will acquire silver and gold. ²⁹ May your soul rejoice in God’s mercy, and may you never be ashamed to praise him. ³⁰ Do your work in good time, and in his own time God will give you your reward. Sirach 51: 23-30

While the prayer that ends the book of Sirach is not attributed to the divine wisdom of God, it does appeal to the hearer to place oneself under her yoke. Here Jesus now takes upon the characteristic of wisdom offering her yoke to those who need rest for their souls. By choosing the wise path, the path of Christ one will find rest for one’s souls. A second text possibly alluded to here is Jeremiah 6. Again, Jeremiah is appealing to the people of Judah to turn from their foolish ways to embrace the good ways of God.

¹⁶ Thus says the LORD: Stand at the crossroads, and look, and ask for the ancient paths, where the good way lies; and walk in it, and find rest for your souls. But they said, “We will not walk in it.” ¹⁷ Also I raised up sentinels for you: “Give heed to the sound of the trumpet!” But they said, “We will not give heed.” ¹⁸ Therefore hear, O nations, and know, O congregation, what will happen to them. ¹⁹ Hear, O earth; I am going to bring disaster on this people, the fruit of their schemes, because they have not given heed to my words; and as for my teaching, they have rejected it. ²⁰ Of what use to me is frankincense that comes from Sheba, or sweet cane from a distant land? Your burnt offerings are not acceptable, nor are your sacrifices pleasing to me. ²¹ Therefore thus says the LORD: See, I am laying before this people stumbling blocks against which they shall stumble; parents and children together, neighbor and friend shall perish. Jeremiah 6: 16-21

While the tone of Jeremiah 6 has similarities to the judgment on the cities of Chorazin, Bethsaida and Capernaum it also begs the people to turn and find rest for their souls. It also resonates with the earlier statement about not taking offense (Greek skandalizo which the verbal form of the word translated stumbling block in Paul’s letters) when God has placed a stumbling block before the people. People become unable to receive God’s path. While Jeremiah doesn’t point to the character of divine Wisdom, he does point to the LORD the God of Israel being the speaker.

It is easy to want to assign to the gospel a fully developed understanding of all the ways that the later church and even other books in the New Testament will talk about Jesus, but even though they share common language, they also speak from different perspectives and answer different questions about Jesus’ identity. Yet, the language here points to something that Matthew wants to communicate about the identity of Jesus. Richard B. Hays is worth quoting at length here:

To paraphrase the point in characteristically Matthean fashion, something greater than Wisdom is here. Jesus who is “gentle and lowly in heart,” transforms and redefines what is meant by “wisdom” by virtue of the specifically narrated character of his teachings, his life, and his death and resurrection.

At the same time, however the metaphorical linkage with Sirach 51 does suggest a cosmic, divine aspect to Jesus’ teaching. He is more than a sage, more than a prophet: he can speak authoritatively of “my yoke” as none of Israel’s sages could ever do. He does not merely point the way to wisdom as a source of rest; rather, he is the one who can promise actually to give rest to all who come to him. (Hays, 2016, p. 158)

There is something more than just a sage here, some greater understanding of what the Son of Man or Messiah mean. There is some cosmic aspect that the words of Jesus’ point to here where only the Son knows the Father and wisdom is justified by her works. Jesus will embody what the gentleness (Greek praus, translated meek in Matthew 5:5) and humility (Greek tapeinos, literally lowly or subservient) would be part of the merciful righteousness that Jesus demonstrated and proclaimed. Jesus’ merciful righteousness will stand in contrast to the pietas (or piety) practiced by Caesar.

On the other hand, there is something compelling about the wise/foolish nature of wisdom literature being spoken from one who is linked to wisdom and the way the wise of the world reject the wisdom of God. As Hays can say again, referencing Jeremiah:

Many of Jesus’ hearers, especially the wise and the learned, say in effect, “We will not walk in it.” Therefore, the promise of “rest for your souls” remains open to those who hear and obey Jesus, but those who refuse the summons come under dire judgment. (Ibid, p. 159)

Perhaps the commonality of those who were called as emissaries of the gospel of Jesus being rejected would inform much of the language of the New Testament that would become the later wisdom/Logos/cosmic Christology of many early church theologians. Jesus is greater than the wisdom of Solomon or the proclamation of Jonah (Matthew 12: 41-42) and Matthew and others continue to deploy a wide range of titles, scripture quotations and allusions, as well as hearing about the acts of power that should have caused Chorazin, Bethsaida and Capernaum to turn towards the one who knows the Father and reveals him. Many will reject the message of Jesus as foolishness, but in the words of Paul:

but to those who are the called, both Jews and Greeks, Christ the power of God and the wisdom of God. 1 Corinthians 1: 24

Matthew 9: 14-17 The Nature of Discipleship Part 2B

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Carvaggio, The Calling of St. Matthew (1599-1600)

Matthew 9: 14-17

Parallels Mark 2: 18-22, Luke 5: 33-39

¹⁴ Then the disciples of John came to him, saying, “Why do we and the Pharisees fast often, but your disciples do not fast?” ¹⁵ And Jesus said to them, “The wedding guests cannot mourn as long as the bridegroom is with them, can they? The days will come when the bridegroom is taken away from them, and then they will fast. ¹⁶ No one sews a piece of unshrunk cloth on an old cloak, for the patch pulls away from the cloak, and a worse tear is made. ¹⁷ Neither is new wine put into old wineskins; otherwise, the skins burst, and the wine is spilled, and the skins are destroyed; but new wine is put into fresh wineskins, and so both are preserved.”

I’ve been a pastor long enough and have seen enough conflicts among people to know that sometimes the action of welcoming someone into a congregation who is viewed as an outsider can create a schism in the fabric of the community. Sometimes the people who are the most invested in the community will be the ones who tear away when the community no longer looks or acts like they expect. In this continuation of the reflection about what the nature of the community of disciples will look like we see some older groups, like the disciples of John and the Pharisees, who are uncomfortable in the way in which this community of Jesus’ disciples practice their righteousness. The question the disciples of John ask about fasting identifies one of the differences in practice between Jesus and these other two groups of people attempting to faithfully embody their relationship to but the two portions of Jesus answer point to a different understanding of time and the inability to fit Jesus’ merciful conception of righteousness in the established practices of righteousness of either John’s disciples or the disciples of the Pharisees.

Jesus did address fasting in the Sermon on the Mount (Matthew 6: 16-18) and as I mentioned there fasting is often conceived in terms of a personal piety, but even though most translations of Matthew 6 refer to practicing piety before others the term translated piety is righteousness. One thing to notice is the difference in the practice, the disciples of John are looking for a visible practice of fasting, while in the community of Jesus’ disciples the fasting does not exempt one from interacting with the community in a normal fashion. Their righteousness is practiced in their relationship with their Father who sees their action done in private and their interaction with the community in public ways. They may be those who hunger and thirst for righteousness who enter this time in the hope that they will be filled, but not so that their practice of righteousness is seen by others.

Jesus’ answer to the disciples of John consists in two parts, one focuses on the time in which the disciples of Jesus find themselves and the second takes the two images of old things being incompatible with new. In relationship to time, the time is now a time of celebration, like a wedding. Jesus is metaphorically cast as the bridegroom, an image that in both Psalm 19:5 and Isaiah 62:5 use to refer to God’s presence and Matthew may want us to hear this echo. Weddings are a time of joy in the ancient world, a time of feasting and celebration where the community is invited to share in the joy of the bridegroom and the bride. There are times that are inappropriate for the joyous feasting and celebration of a wedding, like the context of judgement we see in texts like Jeremiah 7:34, 16:9, 25: 10 and Joel 2: 16, but in Jesus’ view the time when he is present with the disciples is a time for eating and drinking and rejoicing rather than a time of mourning and fasting. The Pharisees and John’s disciples may view the times they find themselves in differently. They may look at the continued occupation of Galilee and Israel by Rome or the reign of Herod Antipas over Galilee, who will later execute John the Baptist (Matthew 14: 1-12), as indicative of a time closer to Jeremiah and Joel where feasting is inappropriate. Yet, Jesus views this as a time where tax collectors and sinners are welcomed to recline around the table with him as evidence of the kingdom of heaven continued expansion to those previously excluded.

The two images of an unshrunk patch on old clothing and new wine in old wineskins also point to the inability to fit Jesus’ practices and authority into old patterns of piety or old conceptions of righteousness. The way of Jesus is not the way of John or the Pharisees. The forgiveness of sins and the eating with sinners is bound to create a schism in among the religious community. The word translated tear is the Greek schisma where our English schism comes from. Like a wineskin without the ability to stretch with the release of gas that is a part of the fermentation process or a fabric which shrinks and tears away from the fabric it is sewn onto, sometimes the old is unable to contain the new. Yet, Jesus doesn’t try to force this new wine into the existing wineskins of the disciples of John or the Pharisees. Instead for those who are able to receive this new wine he allows them to receive it rather than attempting to patch up the existing movements that Jesus encounters. Perhaps in God’s economy there is a place where both have value and meaning and both can be preserved. As a person who has seen a church go through a schism in the past, I can only hope that those who viewed the practices and boundaries of the community differently still have a place in the coming of God’s kingdom. Jesus will have conflicts with the Pharisees and different practices than John’s disciples, and yet he seems content with welcoming the sinners and tax collectors that have been previously excluded rather than expecting the Pharisees and followers of John the Baptist to join him in the practice of this manner of righteousness.

The Imperfect Church and the Kingdom of Heaven

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The Ruins of Holyrood Chapel by Louis Daguerre (1824)

One of the tensions in any type of interpretation of scripture that embraces a communal perspective is the distance between the church or whatever type of community of faith the individual is a part of and the vision of community outlined in the Sermon on the Mount and Matthew’s gospel as a whole. The church in all of its forms: the local congregation and the various denominational (and even non-denominational assemblies) are communities in need of reconciliation, healing, forgiveness, reform, compassion, grace, and as institutions they often are as invested in the kingdom of the world as they are in the kingdom of heaven. This is a place where I think a greater familiarity with scripture helps me to live with this tension. The people of God have always struggled to live into their vocation: from Israel’s call to be a treasured possession, a priestly kingdom and a holy nation (Exodus 19: 5-6 )to the quick transition in the early church from a community where the believers hold everything in common, distribute to any in need and eat with glad and generous hearts (Acts 2: 44-45; 4: 32-33) into communities like Corinth, Galatia, and the seven churches mentioned in Revelation. This familiarity can lead to a pessimism about the human potential to embody these seemingly utopic visions of community, and there are times where even a person who loves the church may consider walking away after encountering the brokenness that is a part of many church and religious communities but I believe the scriptures also offer us another perspective that is a reason for hope. The God who the scriptures point to is the reason I still think speaking, dreaming and imagining the kingdom of heaven among people who are ensnared by the lures of wealth and the cares of the world still makes sense.

Learning from Israel’s Relationship with the LORD the God of Israel in Scriptures

Israel’s relationship with God that we see in the scriptures is complicated, and yet God and those called to speak for God to the people (and to God on behalf of the people) refuse to abandon the covenant people. Israel’s God desires for Israel to be an alternative to the models of acquisition and accumulation of power practiced by Egypt, Canaan, Assyria, Babylon, Persia, Greece, Rome and the rest of the nations that they will encounter, but frequently Israel (despite the witness of the Law, prophets and wisdom literature) turned to these attractive alternatives practiced by their neighbors or (in some cases) masters. The bulk of the Hebrew Scriptures lives in this tension between “the LORD, the LORD, a God merciful and gracious, slow to anger, and abounding in steadfast love and faithfulness keeping steadfast love for the thousandth generation, forgiving iniquity and transgression of sin,” and “yet by no means clearing the guilty, but visiting the iniquity of the parents upon the children, and the children’s children, to the third and fourth generation.” (Exodus 34: 6-7) God is a God who is merciful, gracious, abundant love, steadfast faithfulness and forgiveness and God is a God who refuses to be taken for granted, to live with continued disobedience, to allow the way things are because of human greed, destruction and idolatry to continue unchecked. Moses stands between faithless community and the God who desires faithfulness. The prophets also are called to stand between a community that has forgotten or misused their identity and the God who desires them to return to their calling.

Yet, God is for the people of Israel a God of hope. God’s anger at their failure will not endure forever. God can take the desolate boneyard of their failures and knit them together and breath new breath into them and make them a new people. God can take their hearts of stone and turn them into soft, malleable hearts and even write God’s law upon their hearts so that it may order their lives. God can take the brokenness of their community in their exile and give them a vision of homecoming and return where once again God brings life out of death and hope out of humiliation. God has chosen to be a God merciful and gracious, slow to anger, and abounding in steadfast love and faithfulness keeping steadfast love for the thousandth generation, forgiving iniquity and transgression of sin. Even in the community’s failures God’s steadfast love and faithfulness remains.

Learning from the ‘little faith ones’ and the ekklesia in the New Testament

In Matthew’s gospel the disciples are not portrayed as paragons of unwavering faithfulness, or even people of great faith. The disciples are the ‘little faith ones’ as I render the translation of oligopistos throughout this reading. They misunderstand Jesus, fail to act in line with Jesus teaching, abandon Jesus at the critical moment of betrayal and still these ‘little faith ones’ are the ones that Jesus chooses to embody Israel and to carry on the ministry once Jesus is done. Matthew is kinder to the disciples than Mark’s unrelentingly negative portrayal of these followers drawn into the close circle around Jesus, but they are still fallible and yet they are the foundation for the community to come.

Ekklesia is the Greek word often translated church in the New Testament. Matthew is the only gospel to use this term and to talk about the ekklesia.[1] While the term means assembly, in the New Testament it is often the community of believers and so bearing a common vocation with the church. Even though the early communities of Christians would seem strange to those who have worked and lived with almost two thousand years of church growth and tradition, they like Israel before them, struggled to embody the vocation they were called to. Peter, Paul, James and John were not able to establish communities of faith able to easily embody the kingdom values of Jesus and yet, I believe that God has not abandoned or forgotten either Israel or the church in all their imperfections.

The theological tradition that shaped me as a follower of Christ focused on God’s grace in Christ instead of the human ability to faithfully embody God’s commandment. Maybe it is my own deeply ingrained Lutheran theological identity that embraces the paradox that I can be at the same time justified (to use a Pauline term) and a sinner[2], and that the church is filled with these justified sinners and sinners who continue to rely upon God’s forgiveness and mercy. Luther once said, when explaining the petition of the Lord’s prayer about the coming of God’s kingdom, “God’s kingdom comes on its own without prayer, but we ask in this prayer that it may also come about in us.” (Luther, 1978, p. 34)

I do think there is a vision in the Sermon on the Mount of the kind of community that God calls his followers to embody. God has a dream or a vision for us, and it is a vision for life instead of destruction, of wholeness instead of brokenness. We may be ‘little faith ones’ caught between the kingdom of God’s approach and the kingdoms of this world, and yet I do think that in some way God is at work in these words bringing this kingdom of heaven into being among us. Going into Matthew’s gospel and the rest of scripture and seeking the wisdom it offers does change us and perhaps we become the salt and light that (albeit imperfectly) preserve the community and the world around it and shine a light into the darkness of the world. Yet, the kingdom of heaven’s approach is based on the steadfast love and faithfulness (or to use the New Testament’s favored term grace) of God instead of the perfect righteousness of God’s followers at any particular time and place.

[1] Matthew 16: 18 where Jesus declares to Peter “on this rock I will build my ekklesia (church) and Matthew 18:17 in the context of attempting reconciliation with a brother or sister who is unrepentant, “and if the member refuses to listen to them, tell it to the ekklesia (church); and if the offender refuses to listen even to the ekklesia (church), let such a one be to you as a Gentile and a tax collector. The other two times the NRSV uses church (18:15 and 21) the term is adelphos, literally brother and commonly rendered in the NRSV inclusively as brother and sister unless context dictates the referenced individuals are male.

[2] Martin Luther’s famous paradox referring to Christians as simul justus et peccator, popularly simultaneously saint and sinner, literally simultaneously justified and sinner.

Matthew 7: 1-6 Nonjudgmental Righteousness

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Sermon on the Mount by Carl Bloch (1877)

Matthew 7: 1-6

Parallels Mark 4: 24-25; Luke 6: 37-42

¹ “Do not judge, so that you may not be judged. ² For with the judgment you make you will be judged, and the measure you give will be the measure you get. ³ Why do you see the speck in your neighbor’s eye, but do not notice the log in your own eye? ⁴ Or how can you say to your neighbor, ‘Let me take the speck out of your eye,’ while the log is in your own eye? ⁵ You hypocrite, first take the log out of your own eye, and then you will see clearly to take the speck out of your neighbor’s eye.

⁶ “Do not give what is holy to dogs; and do not throw your pearls before swine, or they will trample them under foot and turn and maul you.

There is a rhythm that underlies the Sermon on the Mount where the individual pieces, which are so often broken apart, attempt to flow together to form a linguistic and thematic resonance. There is a necessity to the practice of addressing things in smaller pieces but I do think it is important to hear the resonance of “Do not judge, so that you may not be judged” with “blessed are the merciful, for they will receive mercy” or the imperatives of reconciliation and peacemaking outlined in the interpretation of the commandments and the imperative in the Lord’s Prayer to “forgive us our debts, as we also have forgiven our debtors” and its restatement on forgiving trespasses and finally doing to others as you would have them do to you. This has the rhythm of wisdom literature which tells us to make the wise, or perhaps the whole/complete/authentic choice, in contrast to the hypocritical/inauthentic/self-righteous or pious choice. The Sermon on the Mount, and Matthew’s Gospel in general, is a tightly composed unit that needs to be heard and practiced together.

Matthew uses the terms hypocrite, hypocrites and hypocrisy more than the rest of the Bible combined, we saw it used three times in chapter six and again here. This is an important term for Matthew since it differentiates the practice Jesus is calling his disciples to in contrast with the practices of other groups. In the Sermon on the Mount the focus is on righteousness as it is practiced in the community, but within the individualistic way of hearing scripture most modern people use it is easy to transform communal practices of righteousness into individual acts of piety and instead of being those who hunger and thirst for righteousness who will be filled (see Matthew 5: 6) we attempt to become those whose practices of piety fill ourselves with our own self-righteousness. When righteousness is reduced to piety we find ourselves among those who Jesus has previously called hypocrites (see chapter 6) and here when we judge others by the standards we set we may be unaware (willfully or unwilfully) of out own failure to seek justice and righteousness.

When we talk about not judging so that we are not judged, we are not negating everything that has been discussed previously. We know that unreconciled anger, uncontrolled sexuality, broken relationships, untrue speech, violence and love for a limited group of people and excludes enemies are contrary to the kingdom of heaven. Exchanging piety for righteousness or attempting to secure our own future instead of trusting in God’s providence are contrary to the wisdom which is offered in these words. On the one hand there is truth to scholars who make this passage about not placing ourselves in the place of God and condemning a person or group as outside of the kingdom of heaven, but my worry about this type of interpretation is that it limits the way refraining from judging is not only about salvation/damnation matters. Matthew’s Sermon on the Mount is about imagining a community where relations are key to righteousness.

The parable of the person with a log in their eye also points to the reality that we often judge others most harshly in the areas we are least secure. Judgment is often a tool people use to compare themselves to another and to prop us their own insecurity as the critique another. Like Luke’s parable of the Pharisee and the tax collector where the Pharisee compares himself to the other by saying, “God, I thank you that I am not like other people: thieves, rogues, adulterers, or even like this tax collector.” (Luke 18: 11)which is lifted up as an example of how the disciples are not to trust in their own practices, this humorous visual of a person with a log in their eye is used to highlight the lack of self-awareness of the situation of the judging one. Instead of comparison we are invited throughout the Sermon on the Mount to practice forgiveness and reconciliation, to value even those who we may have called enemies previously, and to learn to value the other person as a worthy part of the community.

Yet, a certain type of judgment, or perhaps better discernment, is necessary in our relations with others. The kingdom of heaven that the Sermon on the Mount proclaims encounters the kingdom of the world, not completely eliminating it. The individuals in the community may have those who label them as enemies or dangers. The community may love, pray and forgive others but it also doesn’t place the holy and precious among those who will reject or destroy it. The righteousness the community is to practice is not only practiced in a perfect world free from those who practice different values. How to be the salt of the earth and the light of the world in among others who may not value that role calls for wisdom among the people of God.

Sign of the Rose

Searchings: Sacred and Secular

Tag Archives: righteousness

Psalm 112 An Authentic Life Shaped by Wisdom

Psalm 112

Ezekiel 33 The Beginning of Ezekiel’s Role After Jerusalem’s Fall

Ezekiel 33: 1-9 The Sentinel for the People

Ezekiel 33: 10-20 The Justice of God’s Ways

Ezekiel 33: 21-29 The Fall of the City and Those Who Remain

Ezekiel 33: 30-33 The Toleration of the Prophet

Ezekiel 18 Life for the Righteous Ones

Ezekiel 18

Ezekiel 15 The Unfruitful Vine

Ezekiel 15

Psalm 97 The Righteous Reign of God

Psalm 97

Matthew 15: 1-20 Piety and Righteousness Revisited

Matthew 15: 1-20

Matthew 11: 16-30 The Wisdom of Christ in a Foolish Generation

Matthew 11: 16-30

Matthew 9: 14-17 The Nature of Discipleship Part 2B

Matthew 9: 14-17

The Imperfect Church and the Kingdom of Heaven

Learning from Israel’s Relationship with the LORD the God of Israel in Scriptures

Learning from the ‘little faith ones’ and the ekklesia in the New Testament

Matthew 7: 1-6 Nonjudgmental Righteousness

Matthew 7: 1-6