Transcription
Well, we finally finished a lot of the background for our understanding of the New Testament world. Now we're going to launch into the literature itself. Before doing that, I want to make an important distinction.
We're going to talk about the big picture of the story of Jesus. Jesus is known, the gospel is a great teacher; of course, he's often called Rabbi, and many are amazed at what he says. The evangelists remarked how he is one who spoke with authority, the rashuth idea in Hebrew; the teaching Authority was conveyed through the right of ordination called shimikah. When a rabbi passes, he would place his hands on his disciple; a disciple of his, usually rabbis in that day only had one or two disciples, and the chain of rashuth is unbroken and traced back—traces back—to Moses. Haderan tried to defeat Judaism by forbidding; however, Jesus claimed an authority coming not from human hands but directly from God.
So his teaching style was, uh, to use overstatement and exaggeration. "If your hand causes you to sin, cut it off." Puns and word plays are very frequent. He calls Peter Petros, The Rock, Petra, on which the church would be built. The Hebrew is achhephis and Aramaic so similes and metaphors are also prevalent in Parables. When Faith is like a mustard seed, the disciples are the salt of the earth, the light of the world. In other words, Jesus used things that are common in everyday world to illustrate spiritual truths. The Pharisees are like whitewashed tombs. Proverbs: "Where your treasure is, there your heart will be also." But these kind of paradoxes as well: "For whoever wants to save his life will lose it, but whoever loses his life will save it."
Uh, parabolic acts rather than merely lecturing about God's love for the outcasts—cast—he actually ate meals with tax collectors and sinners. He underscored his, uh, his criticism of Sabbath laws by actually breaking them. Locking Mark II: Miracles and exorcisms; these demonstrations—demonstrations—were God's power at work. You know, his kingdom was entering into the world, and that power was demonstrated through the Miracles and the exorcisms, uh, that he performed.
So let's talk about The Parables just for a second. Uh, Michelle in Hebrew, a figurative speech, a riddle, an allegorical story of—of such. I like Blomberg's, uh, description that in Parables there's as many points to the parable as there are major characters or events in the parable. So you know, his parables are brief, clear word pictures from everyday life, common images that have enigmatic meanings that Michael Lister wandered, and they exclude and invite both. Literary analysis of the parable is a recent discovery, as I said. Their poetic form, uh, reversals or chiasmas, makes them poignant to hear and retain, and there's an allegorical element, but also the element of crass—crasses—or crasses. And these Parables, a decision often has to be made.
So, for example, in his teaching on the kingdom of God, there's a general sense in which God ruled and sustained the whole Cosmos; that's in Genesis and in wisdom literature that was common of that day and in the Old Testament. There is a specific sense pronounced by the prophets claiming God's kingdom would fully manifest; Israel's enemies would be vanquished; the Exile would come back, the Exiles would come home; Jerusalem's Everlasting Kingdom would be established in Zechariah 14. So this, uh, eschatological theme is an important theme in Jesus's teaching. A final or climatic coming was the subject of apocalyptic literature such as Jubilees and Exams of Solomon in, uh, literature of come—come—room. The eschatological and Messianic expectations ran high during the time of Jesus' life and Ministry. Uh, he said something very dramatic and ethical was happening in the present: the kingdom of God was now taking hold of the world. "The kingdom of God is Not—is not—something that can be observed, nor will people say, 'Here it is,' or 'There it is,' because the kingdom of God is in your midst," Luke 17. This kingdom is often seen in Jesus's Parables of growth, uh, the king when we lock the kingdom of God to, he says it's like a sower going out to sow and so the seeds scattered on the ground unexpectedly growing, a small Mustard Seed becoming a giant Bush, yeast which causes the dough to rise. All these are illustrations of the coming Kingdom that grows in a way that's mysterious, but Jesus taught that you are as soil must make a decision whether to be the good soil or not, to belong to the kingdom or not. Weeds grow with the wheat and must be sorted out at the Harvest. Jesus is the sower, and you have to decide again what kind of soil you're going to be. He altered the basic framework of Jewish eschatology. Rather than the kingdom arising in the climatic definitive event, Jesus spoke at an interim State, that of the church, when God's power would come through the spirit to transform the present. So in John 3, "You must be born again." He—there's also a list in the, uh, all of it discourse in Mark 13, that's Matthew 24 and 25, where, uh, there's a series of events that has to precede his own coming, and there's a—a—a sense in which all of these are happening in—in the normal course of human events, human history because of the fallenness of man. So there's nothing really unique about these particular, uh, preceding events, but, um, what's unique about it is the intensity of it that he talks about in the Kingdom. There's, uh, all kinds of emphasis on, uh, staying in the Kingdom, of being informed, uh, and growing and continuing to, uh, develop.
Jesus formed disciples to obey him in his words. He didn't merely call them to recall Jewish Traditions or revive wisdom and ethics, but to follow him. So it, uh, the Jesus movement, so to speak, people left their trades to follow him and understood personal obedience to him to mean everything. So Jesus formed this circle who lived on the margins of society—Society—the pious, Sinners, Jews, Samaritans, Gentiles, and his unique compassion for Humanity was shaped by his unique vision of God as father of everyone. So he models, for example, our prayer life when he called God Abba, Our Father. The ethics of the Kingdom, uh, the great commandment orders Jesus's Kingdom of Ethics: "Love you the Lord your God," that's very common in both the Old Testament and New. The second: "Love your neighbor as yourself," that's the starting point, uh, but he goes in and goes way beyond what was expected and what was taught by their other rabbis; for example, "Love your enemies." The starting point for ethics is a righteous inner life, more precisely A Renewed heart, rather than merely performing external actions or rituals. Conversion is essential to living authentic ethical life, integrating religious experience into life where he thinks major questions like, "Who is my neighbor?" and "And what do I owe them?" For example, in the parable of the Good Samaritan, "How many times should I forgive?" and all those kinds of questions are reframes the concepts that were current in Judaism.
The cross in the Kingdom; the expectation of death. In the parable of the vineyard, Jesus taught how God sent prophets to call forth fruit from his people who worked in the vineyard, but the vineyard workers killed them, and the landowner's son, uh, also, rather than bringing forth fruit, they actually killed the son of the owner. Jesus's death was not an accident; then he predicted it three times on his journey to Jerusalem. He was accomplishing something for the kingdom. He didn't come to be served but to serve, to give his life a ransom for many. John referred to him as the lamb who takes away the sin of the world, and that would of course be illustrative of the sacrificial Lambs that they were well aware of at the Mill. The evening before he died, he taught that his body and blood were offered up as a sacrifice for the New Covenant. And then the resurrection, of course, uh, forced the early church to understand his life and teaching through different categories; a unique relationship to God that he had, yes, but now more than that, uh, something that, uh, reframed their thinking was the Resurrection. The Hebrew, the anointed one, refers to Kings and Prophets and those who Usher in eschatological Kingdom, and they applied that then to Jesus. Jesus, uh, even said, "I am he," to the woman at the well, remember. Son of God, another Old Testament title for Israel's King and Heavenly beings, but unique due to Jesus's unparalleled intimacy with the Father. The Son of man is another common term Jesus used for self-designation, uh, meaning man but also an apocalyptic figure such as in Daniel.