The Theosabes

Barnabas and Paul arrive in Pisidian Antioch and follow their typical script. They immediately find their Jewish brethren and join them in fellowship and worship at the local synagogue. After the normal synagogue service, visiting guests are invited to share a word of encouragement with the people gathered there. This is a basic gesture, especially for visiting teachers — let alone the fact that Paul is a student of one of the most renowned Jewish teachers of their day. I’m sure people couldn’t wait to hear from Paul.

And hear from Paul, they do.

We are told Paul stood up and motioned with his hand for the assembly’s attention. One thing to notice is this thirteenth chapter of Acts seems to signify the arrival of Paul as a teacher. Prior to the story of Pisidian Antioch, Luke is very intentional to say “Barnabas and Saul/Paul,” which would signify Barnabas is the leader (by putting his name first). After this story, it will become, for the rest of the book of Acts (with one exception), “Paul and Barnabas.”

This story appears to be a defining moment for Paul. It seems the church in Antioch sent Paul out with Barnabas as his teacher, and it is in this story where the roles switch. Barnabas will give Paul the nod, Paul will seize the moment, and Barnabas will become the student. Incredible humility.

Paul stands up and begins his presentation, “Men of Israel and you Gentiles who worship God…”

Now wait a minute. We have to unpack a lot of context in this brief address.

We need to expound on the rabbinical climate of Asia Minor in the first century. Decades before the ministry of Jesus, the Jewish world in Asia Minor was having to figure out what they did with the Gentiles in their synagogues who wanted to worship the God of Israel. While this was not a problem in the world of Judea and Jerusalem, the rest of the Roman world was a different story. We are told by modern scholars that the population of Asia Minor was somewhere close to 20% Jewish.

That’s significant — one out of every five people.

Folks knew about the Jews; people in Asia Minor had exposure to the Jewish faith. And some of them really liked it. They learned to love the God of Israel and to love His words. They came to synagogue and tried to find a place of worship. And the Jews had to figure out what to do with that.

Is it acceptable for a Gentile to worship the God of Israel? All Jews were in agreement. “Of course.”

But one rabbi said, “Hey Gentiles, we are glad you are here. We love that you love the God of Israel. But it won’t do you any good unless you convert, take on circumcision (and the rest of the law that it represents), and become Jewish.” If you're thinking that such a position sounds a lot like Shammai, then you’re dead on.

But the other rabbi — indeed, a guy by the name of Hillel — said, “Gentiles, we are thrilled you are here and we love that you love the God of Israel. You are welcome to worship God and you can even find justification. If Abraham was justified by faith before he was circumcised, so can you!” Now, Hillel would have remained quite steadfast that these Gentiles were not Jews; they were not brothers in the family of God, but they were welcome to be distant cousins.

This is all well and good, but what does this have to do with the story of Pisidian Antioch? Well, Pisidian Antioch sits on the edge of the region known as Galatia. While almost all of Asia and Asia Minor was very Hillel driven (which makes sense; a Jewish world finding its place within a Roman context would like to lean toward inclusion), the region of Galatia was very definitely Shammai country. As we mentioned in the last post, Galatia was very rugged, primitive, “off-the-beaten-path,” backwoods territory. The Jewish population that settled there purposefully did so NOT to assimilate into a Roman context. There are six quotes from Galatian rabbis in the Mishnah and all six of them are Shammai quotations.

So this argument created three different people groups referenced in the land of Asia Minor within a Jewish context. There are people the Jews would call “brothers”; this indicated they were fellow ethnic Jews. They also spoke of “children of Abraham”; this was a designation given to proselytes — converts who were not born Jewish but had decided to take on circumcision and follow the law and become completely Jewish. Then there was a group of people who were called in the Greek theosabes; it’s a term we translate “God-fearer” or “God-fearing Gentiles.”

The Jewish argument was swirling about the theosabes. What do we do with the God-fearing Gentile? Everybody agreed about the “brothers” and the “children of Abraham,” but what do we do about the theosabes? It’s impossible to know which direction the synagogue in Pisidian Antioch leaned, but it’s safe to say the cultural argument was a tense one.

We also know that, whatever their position, Paul references the presence of all three groups more than once. When Paul stands up and says, “Men of Israel (Jews) and you Gentiles who worship God (theosabes),” that tells you that you have a little bit of everybody in the room.

Paul will later address all three groups directly. If Acts 13:26 is translated correctly (as it used to be in the 1984 edition of the NIV), it will read, “Brothers, children of Abraham, and you God-fearing Gentiles…”

Brothers (group one), children of Abraham (group two), and you God-fearing Gentiles (group three).

Paul has some good news that’s going to stir the pot. What will their reaction be? I think we may be surprised.

A Dry Tree

At the end of the story about Stephen, one of the most dominant characters of the New Testament makes his entrance. We are introduced to a man named Saul, who stands and holds the cloaks of the accusers while he oversees and approves the execution. While we will talk much more about Saul in the time to come, the next thing we see is this early church being persecuted and scattered throughout the land. At the beginning of Acts 8, we are told Saul continues to be one of the leaders of this persecution.

Nevertheless, it is the very next paragraph that assures the reader God’s redemptive plan for the world goes on unhindered. They continue to bring shalom to chaos and healing to brokenness. While the church gets pushed to different corners of the empire, Philip ends up in Samaria; he preaches to those in Samaria and the Kingdom of God advances explosively, just as Jesus taught them.

There is a sorcerer there who latches onto Philip and begins to follow him. When the church hears the news that people in Samaria are jumping in on God’s redemptive plan for the world, they excitedly send Peter and John to investigate. When Simon (the former sorcerer) sees them casting out evil spirits, his old self can’t help but want a piece of the action. But this early movement is not interested in cheap thrills, spiritual gimmicks, or economic advancement. They are wanting to grow deep roots and they exhort Simon accordingly.

I find the next story so inspiring to my walk as a Jesus follower. Continuing to follow the prompting of the Spirit, Philip heads down the road that runs from Jerusalem to Gaza. There he meets an Ethiopian eunuch who has traveled to Jerusalem to worship the God of Israel. It’s at this point where most of us might appreciate some context.

This Ethiopian eunuch is the treasurer for the Queen of Ethiopia; he’s an important guy.

He is on his way back from worshipping the God of Israel. We are not told he is a Jew, though it’s possible he might be. (I personally find it unlikely that Luke would leave such a detail out of his account.)

Even if he is a Jew, as a eunuch he will not be allowed to worship Adonai and would have been excluded from the assembly; he would have been forced to worship God as an outsider. The book of Deuteronomy explicitly excluded those with damaged (or altered) genitalia from entering the assembly of worship (cf. Deut. 23:1).

The guy is carrying around a scroll of Isaiah — this is unheard of. You may remember us talking about how an entire village would only have a few scrolls for the entire town of hundreds or thousands. The fact that this guy is carrying around Isaiah tells you he is obviously of incredible wealth (which is expected as the treasurer for Candace) and takes his Bible study very seriously. He knows everything we mentioned above — and he went to worship the God of Israel anyway. He is coming back from Jerusalem where he stood in the court of the Gentiles and caught glimpses of the House of God.

This outsider is content with what he is able to receive from God. And he’s serious about his Text.

Now, back to our story. Philip sees he is reading Isaiah and asks him if he understands what he is studying. Like a typical middle-easterner, the man responds with, “Who could understand by studying these words by themselves? How could I understand it without your help?”

I imagine, sensing this is the reason God had him on this road, Philip climbs into the chariot and begins to expound on the message of Isaiah. The passage tells us the eunuch is studying Isaiah 53. Being a holiday reading, it would make perfect sense for the eunuch to read this on his way to the Temple for worship and possibly still be thinking on it and studying it on his way back. This is the prescribed reading for his trip. Every Jew would be reading these words on that day.

But now watch what Philip does because HE KNOWS HIS TEXT.

What the passage says directly is that Philip tells the eunuch about Jesus, starting in Isaiah 53 (and the assumption is that he continues reading). You don’t suppose he got through the next few chapters, do you? Isaiah 56:

Thus says the Lord:

“Keep justice, and do righteousness,
for soon my salvation will come,
    and my righteousness be revealed.
Blessed is the man who does this,
    and the son of man who holds it fast,
who keeps the Sabbath, not profaning it,
    and keeps his hand from doing any evil.”

Let not the foreigner who has joined himself to the Lord say,
    “The Lord will surely separate me from his people”;
and let not the eunuch say,
    “Behold, I am a dry tree.”

For thus says the Lord:

“To the eunuchs who keep my Sabbaths,
    who choose the things that please me
    and hold fast my covenant,
I will give in my house and within my walls
    a monument and a name
    better than sons and daughters;
I will give them an everlasting name
    that shall not be cut off.”

No, that would be crazy if Philip went to THAT passage! Crazy brilliant.

But now wait. We need to look at the question the eunuch asked and Philip is answering, because I think therein lies the lesson. The eunuch had asked him: “Is this passage [Isaiah 53] talking about the prophet or someone else?”

You might remember that we talked about this entire ending to Isaiah as being a call for Israel to be God’s servant. Because they suffer, they will be building the future. For the historical readers of Isaiah, this is not a “messianic” prophecy. This is an exhortation to suffer for the LORD. My point is that the eunuch’s question has nothing to do with the Messiah.

His question is about himself.

His question is this: “Does this exhortation belong only to the prophet and the people of God? Does it apply to outsiders like me?”

And Philip explains to him, using Isaiah (possibly chapter 56), that in Jesus, this good news and call from God is for ALL PEOPLE. While he may be excluded from the assembly of worshippers at the Temple, he is not excluded from the community of God and the invitation to partner with Him in putting the world back together.

And as they were going along the road they came to some water, and the eunuch said, “See, here is water! What prevents me from being baptized?” And he commanded the chariot to stop, and they both went down into the water, Philip and the eunuch, and he baptized him.

The Mountain

One of the most fascinating things my teacher pointed out was that the Great Commission and the Ascension of Jesus were not the same event. Being the culminating event of more than one gospel, I had always assumed that Jesus had given the Great Commission in the same speech where he ascended. But this is clearly not so in the Text — and I couldn’t believe I had missed it before that moment!

It is plain to see from the opening of the book of Acts that Jesus ascends from the Mount of Olives, just outside of Jerusalem. This is found within the records (both Luke and Acts; as we discussed earlier, Mark is circumspect, at the very least) of the ascension and is not disputed, historicity aside. What I never realized is the record of where the commissioning took place. Look at the record within Matthew 28:

The angel said to the women, “Do not be afraid, for I know that you are looking for Jesus, who was crucified. He is not here; he has risen, just as he said. Come and see the place where he lay. Then go quickly and tell his disciples: ‘He has risen from the dead and is going ahead of you into Galilee. There you will see him.’ Now I have told you.”

So the women hurried away from the tomb, afraid yet filled with joy, and ran to tell his disciples. Suddenly Jesus met them. “Greetings,” he said. They came to him, clasped his feet and worshiped him. Then Jesus said to them, “Do not be afraid. Go and tell my brothers to go to Galilee; there they will see me.”

And a little later in the chapter we read this:

Then the eleven disciples went to Galilee, to the mountain where Jesus had told them to go.

Beside the fact that it seems Jesus has to show up to repeat the angel’s instructions, I find this to be a brilliant rabbinical move. While I’ve never been able to find any hints as to which mountain Jesus is referring to, the disciples seem to understand.Whether it was Mt. Arbel, some other “peak” in the region of the triangle, or some other mountain in the larger region of the Galilee (Lower and Upper “Galil”) is debatable, but Jesus does not instruct the women to tell the disciples about a mountain, nor are we given any indication that they did. 

I like to suggest that they went to Mt. Hermon, where I personally believe the Transfiguration happened (I know — traditional sites put it on Mt. Tabor, I have my reasons in the Text). I think this because of the phrase that appears in both sets of instructions, from Jesus and the angel: “There you will see him.” It seems to me that one of the most crucial moments of Jesus’s ministry was the Transfiguration where Jesus was seen in his glory. Of course, this is neither here nor there (no pun intended).

If I am correct about Mt. Hermon, the reason I think this is so brilliant is because it accomplishes two things:

1) The disciples, who are in Jerusalem (at least at some point after the resurrection), have to travel all the way to the northernmost point of Jesus’s ministry. Located just north of Caesarea Philippi, Mt. Hermon is one of three sources of the Jordan River. It would force the disciples to walk right past (almost literally) every moment of Jesus’s ministry. They would have the opportunity to walk by and unpack all of Jesus’s teachings. Once they get to “the mountain” and receive the commission, they would then have to walk BACK by all of those spots again and continue discussing all of the teachings of Jesus. What a brilliant field trip from the rabbi! But since we mentioned Caesarea Philippi…

2) This was a huge, defining moment in Jesus’s ministry. This is where Jesus said, “I will build my church.” Wouldn’t it make sense, as he wraps up his time on earth before his ascension, that he would utter the Great Commission in the same location where he said he would do his work? And wouldn’t it make sense to utter his command to make disciples of “all nations” at the same place where he marched his disciples to teach them that the Kingdom of God was coming to ALL people — even to the very “Gates of Hell”?

But then there is the command Jesus actually gives to his disciples…

Jewish Hermeneutics

The next parable Jesus tells will be the parable of the weeds in the wheat. This parable will be “explained” later by Jesus, so I’ll wait to unpack it until then. I believe this package of teaching is supposed to be heard in a particular order, so I will work hard to keep it in place. However, this does provide the perfect break to talk about the art of Jewish hermeneutics — especially with regard to parables — and bring a whole new understanding to how we read the parables and teachings of Jesus.

First, we need to state that a parable is not designed to make the teaching easier, but “harder.” This helps us understand why Jesus, when asked why He taught in parables, essentially answered, “So that people won’t understand.” Key to understanding learning in an eastern context is realizing that an easterner believes if something can be learned by DISCOVERY, it is understood so much better than through EXPLANATION. This means that a good eastern teacher is going to bury the truth in a process of discovery. This requires a certain level (and expectation) of work; not everyone will be willing to engage learning in this way. But for people who are willing to do the “digging,” they will unearth treasures the teacher has buried. And because of the process of discovery, those truths will do so much more work than they would as simple propositions.

To serve this end, rabbinical Jewish teaching has “levels” of interpretation:


P’SHAT
P’shat is a surface-level reading. The p’shat meaning of a parable is the one that is the easiest to discern and has the shallowest depth. Most Christian Bible students are familiar with this level of teaching and nothing else. The truth that is found on a p’shat level can be incredibly profound and profoundly applied. There are many good preachers and teachers who can take p’shat-level teaching and make it come alive and dance in a way that is a blessing to others. This is a gift of the western world and we should rejoice in it. Such a statement brings up a couple of points:

There is nothing wrong with p’shat. Even though the learner on this level is swimming in the shallow end, there is nothing wrong with the meaning that can be mined from a p’shat reading of the Text. The deeper levels are not “more true” or “more inspired” than p’shat. The different levels will not contradict each other. As western Christianity has proven, we can spend centuries in this level and not exhaust the truths it contains.

If a person does not know their Text, p’shat is all they are left with. This makes the preceding paragraph even more of a blessing. Understanding Jewish hermeneutics does not make the student more “learned” or give them special access to special truths that aren’t available to the ignorant. This is a good thing, as 90% of Christian teaching, exegetical interpretation, and expository preaching are based on nothing more than p’shat.


REMEZ
However, for the Jewish student who has put their time into the Text — who has the Text memorized — the rabbi has hidden a special treasure that is unlocked with a familiarity of the Text. The rabbi buries what is called a remez into the teaching; remez is a Hebrew term that means “hint.” And the remez is going to link the student to a passage in the Hebrew scriptures that will give context to the deeper meaning the teacher is driving at. In short, once a student has interacted with the p’shat reading of the Text, their intimate knowledge of the Text allows them to follow the “treasure map” (the remez) to the…


DRASH
Drash is the idea of “truth hidden in story.” Once a student has found the “hint” in the Text, they are given tools that are going to help them unlock and understand the deeper meanings of the rabbi’s teaching. It should be noted here that the remez in a teaching is always up for debate. Oftentimes, there might not be only one remez intended for the teaching. In light of this, it stands to reason that the drash is never a simple idea either. Please do not confuse these levels as some form of “Bible Code” — it is not. There is not some hidden proposition found by applying a code. In fact, Jewish hermeneutics demands the interaction of more than one student. The remez and the drash have to be discussed, examined, and critiqued as a group for the process of discovery to take place. That is why learning is done in the context of a havurah, or a group of disciples.

The parable is designed to confound and perplex. The parable is a form of teaching that is provocative and difficult. It is not a teaching method that is supposed to bring surface clarity to the material. In fact, the parable often confounds the reader into even more wrestling. But that is the point. All of these disciples, wrestling with the parable, are now wrestling with the Text. What more could we ask for?


SOD
While we won’t discuss this level at the moment, it also bears mentioning that the fourth and deepest level of Jewish interpretation is sod. Sod is connected to “mystery” and cannot be learned or taught. Sod is a supernatural gift from God (or we might even say the Holy Spirit). An example of this would be Peter’s great confession (Matthew 16) where Jesus remarks that “man has not revealed this to you, but only my Father who is in Heaven.”


This whole discussion is designed to help us realize there is so much more under the surface of Jewish teaching than we realize. There is still so much more to learn and so much more to hear. Again, we are confronted with the need to know our Text and greatly increase our familiarity with the Old Testament. I am not going to try to convince you of this in this post — I will let the parables themselves do the teaching and the compelling. But I will raise a question:

If we do not understand the deeper levels and ultimate intentions of Jesus’s teachings, how can we call ourselves His followers?

An Explosive Kingdom

**Before you read this post, I recommend going back and refreshing your memory on the "Tavilah T'Shuvah" conversation. This is actually the follow-up post to the questions posed there.

The next story in Matthew is the story of John the Baptist questioning Jesus’s identity. The whole episode is quite confusing to the reader as it appears as though John’s faith is starting to waver on the identity of Christ.

Now when John heard in prison about the deeds of the Christ, he sent word by his disciples and said to him, “Are you the one who is to come, or shall we look for another?”

It seems like John is not sure about who Jesus is anymore. The same guy who declared to the crowds the identity of Jesus is now asking Him who He is. But the passage does give us a few clues; it tells us John asks this question in response to hearing about “the deeds of Christ.” What is it that John has heard about?

Well, if we use the gospel of Luke, we find that Jesus may have just healed the centurion’s servant, and this appears to have rubbed John the wrong way. A further study of John’s identity will help us understand his frustration. If we happen to be correct that John the Baptist was shaped by an Essene community, then John would carry the popular eschatology of his day. I often refer to this eschatology as the “two-part” Jewish eschatology of the first century. The Jewish conversation about eschatology revolves around their understanding of “ages.” There is the Age of This World (“This Age”) and the Age to Come (the Kingdom of God).

The popular eschatology of their day was to believe that God (or Messiah) would bring forth the Kingdom of God with glory and splendor. Messiah would come and usher in the Kingdom, call the world to repentance, and deal with evil. The Age of This World would come to an end in judgment and wrath, and the Age to Come would remain for eternity.

There was an understanding, however, that I refer to as the “three-part” eschatology. This understanding was that Messiah would come to usher in the Age to Come, but he would not kick out This Age for a time. There would be an era where the two ages co-exist. It is clear that this is Jesus’s understanding of Jewish eschatology in His teachings. Where John spoke of Jesus coming with an ax at the root of the tree and a winnowing fork in hand to purge God’s threshing floor, Jesus spoke of weeds and wheat growing together. Where John spoke of fire and judgment, Jesus spoke of planting mustard seeds. You may remember us posing the question of whether or not John’s worldview was correct; it’s now time to return to that conversation.

Jesus has some good news and some bad news.

The good news is that Jesus is, in fact, the one who is to come. The bad news is that John has his eschatology all wrong. In another gospel account, Jesus turns and heals a bunch of bystanders and then turns to share the words that are recorded next in Matthew:

And Jesus answered them, “Go and tell John what you hear and see: the blind receive their sight and the lame walk, lepers are cleansed and the deaf hear, and the dead are raised up, and the poor have good news preached to them. And blessed is the one who is not offended by me.”

Jesus answers John’s question by acting out the Text. In a quote from Isaiah and Jeremiah, Jesus says that He is bringing the Kingdom, but He’s not bringing the cup of wrath John the Baptist wants Him to pour out on the Romans. Apparently, Jesus’s healing of the centurion’s servant has sparked some frustration in John and John has some words for his buddy Jesus.

But Jesus isn’t done giving bad news. Some scholars have pointed out that Jesus’s answer is strangely void of one theme that consistently appears in the prophets that may be quoted here by Jesus:

“…and the captives will be set free.”

John asks his question of Jesus while he sits in prison. It seems that Jesus’s answer hints at the fact that not only is John’s eschatology in need of an overhaul, but he also isn’t going to see the restoration of God like he planned. He’s going to die in prison.

And now, Jesus’s last statement makes perfect sense, where it never did before:

“And blessed is the one who is not offended by me.”

This is a hard word to hear. My personal belief, albeit hard to prove, is that John the Baptist was Jesus’s rabbi. If this is even remotely true, then Jesus’s interaction with John in this story is a true test of John’s character, belief, and trust.

We are not told how John responds to the news, but it does draw a few questions: How would you respond if Jesus told you that your entire worldview, your theology, and your core beliefs, were off? What if He corrected you to a worldview that didn’t excite you at all and you found completely unattractive? And what if He invited you not to take offense at His correction?
How would you do?

Get Out of the Boat

** It should be noted that I heard this lesson multiple times from Ray VanderLaan. I am indebted to him for the entirety of the content in this post.

After the Sermon on the Mount, Matthew moves on to speak of a few stories that deserve mention in passing. The next story is the healing of a leper, followed by the demonstration of a Roman centurion’s faith. In keeping with Matthew’s emphasis on the mumzer, he points out the interactions of Jesus with people who are unclean and unacceptable to this hyper-religious region of “the Triangle” (the region of northern Galilee, where the religious and orthodox communities lived). In fact, the refrain will become quite recognizable throughout Matthew, as we see Jesus’s exclamation in Matthew 8:10 that He hasn’t found faith like this in all Israel. We will consistently see Matthew point out a mumzer who has faith, followed by a mumzer who has faith, followed by a mumzer who has faith — then a religious person or community who doesn’t have faith.

Eventually, toward the end of the chapter, Jesus tells His disciples to get into a boat and they depart for “the other side.” This game plan would have struck the disciples as a horrible idea. First, there’s the ultimate destination: the other side of the lake would be the land of the Decapolis. Standing in stark contrast to the region of the Triangle, this area is completely pagan. There are no synagogues and no Jews — nothing good happens on the other side of the lake. We even have ancient oral traditions mentioning the fact that even uttering the word “Decapolis” made you unclean for seven days. This is the kind of place where each one of these talmidim’s parents told them never to be found. You can hear them thinking, “My mom is going to KILL me!”

And second, the mode of transportation is bothersome, as well. Walking around the lake (the Sea of Galilee) isn’t so daunting a task. The Jewish people are not “water people.” They have been desert nomads for centuries. If you think about it, water is always a problem in the Hebrew scriptures. It’s the representation of the watery chaos in the story of Creation. It’s what destroys the earth in the Flood. It’s the Red Sea which needs to be crossed in the Exodus. It’s the Jordan River serving as a barrier between them and the Promised Land. Water is not their friend. Now, I have many students come to me and quickly point out that the disciples are fishermen. This does not point to them being water people. This was a job which people in the Galilee took because it was a dependable living — not one which was sought after since childhood. Furthermore, you would fish only a few yards off the shore in shallow water.

The Jews called the sea “the abyss,” which is used by Luke in his telling of this story. It was the home of evil and the gateway to the underworld. This is NOT their preferred mode of travel.

But take off across the lake they do and — of course — a storm comes up. They find Jesus sleeping on a cushion in the bottom of the boat and they wake Him in order to plead with Him to save their lives. He awakes and tells the storm to be still. The storm obeys and most of us miss the greater point. When was the last time we saw someone sleeping in the bottom of a boat?

Jonah.

And who was Jonah called to? The Gentiles.

And where is Jesus heading? The Gentiles.

Jesus is retelling the story of Jonah. I picture Him “sleeping” with one eye open to see if his talmidim are paying attention to the rabbinic lesson.

They land on the other side and Jesus gets out of the boat. Immediately, a demon-possessed man comes to Him on the beach and they begin having a colorful conversation. Again, none of this would surprise the disciples, who know they are messing with evil; coming across the abyss to the land of the Decapolis is asking for trouble.

Jesus casts the demonic legion out of the man and into a herd of pigs who run into the abyss and drown. The herdsmen run into town and the people come out to see a formerly possessed man sitting dressed and in his right mind. The response is not one of joy, but one of fear and frustration. This strange, tasseled visitor is disrupting their social order and just put a considerable dent in their economy. They want no part in the shalom Jesus has come to bring.

Jesus gets back into the boat and begins to leave. The newly-redeemed man begs to go with Him. Now, we all know what we want Jesus to do. This is the perfect candidate for a new disciple. He has no true home; no family or friends have claimed him for quite some time. He has no Godly community or local synagogue to take him in. There is no job tying him down. He would be the ideal companion to teach the disciples about humility. He is set up in every way to drop everything and follow Jesus.

But Jesus tells him no. Jesus says that he needs him to stay and tell his story.

Now, you can hear my entire teaching of this lesson here, but this story leads me to make a couple of observations.

Apparently, having an encounter with Jesus is enough. This guy has no education and no spiritual community. Unless Jesus gave him a cursory course in Theology 101 on the beach (very doubtful), he has no trying in the Scriptures. This man has nothing except his story and Jesus leaves him to change the Decapolis. What a crazy idea. But it seems to work. Jesus will come back to this area only once more in the gospels. He does not send His disciples here and we aren’t told of any interaction with anybody from the Decapolis elsewhere after this story. But when Jesus swings back through this region, He’s going to be met by “a great crowd” who comes out to greet Him and He’ll feed 4,000 of them.

You don’t suppose this guy actually went and did it, do you? It’s hard to explain otherwise. Not only this, but the Nicene Creed, one of the most influential creeds of the Christian faith will be penned (according to church tradition) by the Bishop of Susita, the same city the demoniac called home. This guy, armed only with his story, may have had quite an influence on Christian history.

But not only this, as one begins to study the gospel accounts more and more, we begin to notice that it doesn’t appear the disciples ever left the safety of their own boat. The gospel writers have no problem in their accounts using the term “they” or “Jesus and the disciples.” However, the disciples are mysteriously absent from the pronouns of this story. THEY get into the boat. THEY sail across the lake and battle the storm. THEY get to the other side. But it’s JESUS who gets out of the boat. JESUS talks to the demoniac. JESUS interacts with the townspeople. JESUS gets back in the boat. And it will be THEY who go back to the other side.

Not one gospel writer put a single sandal of a disciple on the shore of the Decapolis. The disciples never get out of the boat.
The problem with being a follower of Jesus is that at some point we actually have to FOLLOW Jesus. When we find Jesus in places that scare us to death — when Jesus orders us to sail across the lake — our life-altering call is to follow Him wherever He goes.

Jesus is going to be found in the Decapolis of our world. He’ll bring shalom to the chaos. But in order to impact the chaos, we’ll have to enter the chaos and run hard after Jesus.

Jesus is looking for partners; but those partners will have to get out of the boat.

A Gospel of Two Kingdoms

Back in the beginning of our study, I argued the narrative God was telling through His Text was “A Tale of Two Kingdoms.” We spent much of our time in the Old Testament showing how these two agendas continued to pop up as the central theme to the story of the people of God. Whether it was their time in the desert, learning how to lead with their voice and not the stick, the tension of living in shephelah, the challenge of living with abundance, or the way that we approached the socio-economic realities of our world, we kept seeing an agenda of empire and an agenda of shalom.

This narrative makes a prominent appearance at the very beginning of the gospel records. There are two birth narratives in the New Testament, one in Matthew and one in Luke; in a very interesting fashion, both of them set the stage for the life of Jesus in a world of contrast.

The gospel of Matthew draws out the deep background of the rule of Herod the Great. It showcases how paranoid Herod was that a future ruler would ever pose a threat to his kingdom.

Depending on how reliable one finds our historical sources (extra-biblical as well as biblical), Herod was the richest man ever to walk the face of the planet. If history is correct, there would not be even a close second; Bill Gates would mow Herod’s lawn. One of my teachers taught me that Herod’s income came in at well over a hundred times the national GDP of his country (don’t ask me how the math is done on those numbers, but just imagine even a fraction of that being true).

In Israel, everywhere you go you can see signs of the impact that Herod had on the world. Herod desired to be the greatest man who ever lived. He took this pursuit very seriously and did everything so wildly over-the-top that to this day, we are not sure how he and his architects did what they did at that point in history. The list is quite staggering. Whether the stones that we still find on the Temple mount (we’re talking about the sheer size of the stones, the perfection of the construction, the magnitude of the project), the underwater harbor poured in the self-built city of Caesarea, the construction and opulence of the famous fortress of Masada — even a cursory study of one of these sites would impress any student.

Yet, the King of the Universe wraps Himself in flesh and is born in a stable in Bethlehem, which isn’t just the backwater town of Joseph and his family. Bethlehem also happens to be the location for one of Herod’s three great palaces, the Herodium. Herod built an entire palace on top of a mountain that he had constructed.

Yes, I said that Herod built a mountain.

The ruins of the Herodium

And to steal a phrase from my teacher, Ray Vander Laan, the subversive nature of God’s plan is that He will send His son to be born in the shadow of the palace of the “greatest” man to walk on Roman soil. There are two kingdoms that are being put on display in Matthew’s gospel.

One king is the richest man ever to live. He constructs incredible buildings that stagger the mind and accomplishes incredible feats of human engineering. His ingenuity and wealth are second to none. He builds mountains where there aren’t any, pipes in water to places that it could never previously reach, and corners the market on beauty and innovation. He is the most powerful human being that the world has ever seen. His life is decorated with silver, gold, and the richest of fare.

The other king is born to a poverty-stricken, rejected family from the rural town of Nazareth. He is born in sheep crap surrounded by the ash of shepherd’s fire and the feces of cattle. His birth is announced to the marginalized of society and his advent is celebrated by shepherds.

One king is the leader of Empire. The other is the king of Shalom.


Luke’s gospel seeks to accomplish a similar juxtaposition. With a very brief phrase, Luke sets his audience on alert:

In those days Caesar Augustus issued a decree that a census should be taken of the entire Roman world.

And in those five words, Luke says more than we probably realize. These words are chosen deliberately by Luke. It should be noted that in no historical setting can Quirinius be the governor of Syria during the birth of Jesus. I have watched some biblical literalists do incredible gymnastics to try to explain how this is accurate; however, in no possible scenario is Jesus born during the census of Quirinius. We do not have record of a census taken by Augustus for those details, either, so this could be a marginal addition by somebody trying to make sense of the story, or Luke may be trying to make a statement that we are missing context for, or we may not have all the pieces of history yet. Regardless, it’s worth noting that something is taking place there.

At any rate, Luke is trying to set his own stage for his own narrative about the tale of two kingdoms. His version of the Christmas story puts us in the juxtaposition between two other kings.

One king thought himself to be god incarnate. The son of an ascended Julius Caesar, Augustus claimed that a mighty star in the sky (apparently seen by many), referenced today as “Caesar’s Comet,” was actually his father Julius ascending to his rightful throne as god. If Julius was god, then that would make Augustus the son of god. From this point in Roman history, emperors would — almost without exception — claim incarnate deity among their many attributes. Augustus was exclaimed by Roman propaganda (we already looked at the “gospel” plague found in Priene) to be “the Son of the Most High,” the “eternal Prince of Peace,” the “King of kings,” the “Lord of lords,” etc. It was often proclaimed that there was no other name under heaven which a man could be saved from terror except that of Caesar Augustus.

And yet in a stable is born a baby, who Luke claims to be the true King of kings, Lord of lords, Prince of Peace, and Son of the Most High God.

One king plays the part well. The other king challenges everything we expect of the Ruler of the Universe.

It’s a Tale of Two Kingdoms. And we’re being invited to consider our deepest assumptions about the world. What is real power? What is wealth? Where does security come from? Who is God? What is God trying to save me from?

What do I really want and what do I strive for? Empire? Or shalom?

Would I have even noticed the King of the Universe, born in a stable, or would I simply look for a better Caesar? Is this a problem?

Who is truly King?

JOHN: Grafted

Most have presumed that the gospel of John is written as the latest of the gospel accounts, in an effort to help fill in all the gaps that the “synoptic” gospels (Matthew, Mark, and Luke) missed. While I agree that the gospel of John is certainly written late, I do not believe that his intent was to help tell some of the lost stories of Jesus’s ministry. As the case has been for Matthew, Mark, and Luke, I believe the story is much deeper once we look at the audience of John.

As a matter of context, it’s helpful to know that John is often referred to in historical circles as “the pastor to Asia.” By “Asia,” they would be referring to the modern-day region of Turkey, what was known in the Greco-Roman world as Asia and Asia Minor. John was the pastor of Asia, and church tradition has John frequently traveling amongst the seven churches of Revelation (and there’s a good chance that he did). Church history, on the other hand, has him living at Ephesus and Sardis. John is a disciple who has taken his leadership into the Greco-Roman world and into the Judaism of the Diaspora (“Diaspora” refers to the dispersion of the Jews who went to live throughout the regions of Rome, Macedonia, Greece, Asia, and Asia Minor).

It would be too much to write about who John is and how his gospel works, but you could listen to my teaching of Luke and John here.

It will be enough to say that John’s gospel is a gospel of a grafted people. By grafted, I am referring to a Jesus community that consists of both Jews and Gentiles. This Jesus movement that spread through Asia and Asia Minor was a movement that invited all kinds of people to the table. This community consisted of committed Jews and passionate Gentiles. This means that John’s gospel would need to be written in such a way that it communicates the message of Good News to both groups simultaneously. John is known for many unique attributes. One example would be the “I am” statements.

I am the bread of life.
I am the Good Shepherd.
I am the light of the world.
I am the resurrection.
I am the way, the truth, and the life.

These statements can be found in Jewish teaching, predating the gospel of John, in reference to Torah. One of John’s main teaching points is that Jesus is Torah, wrapped in flesh. Any Jew who heard Jesus’s “I am” statements would hear in them a claim to be Torah. But what if a Greek heard these same teachings? They would be ignorant of the teachings of Torah and the traditions surrounding them. However, they too would have experiences that shine light on Jesus’s teachings. When Jesus claims to be the bread of life, they would hear the claim of Demeter, the goddess of provision — who also claimed to be the bread of life. They would hear Dionysius in Jesus’s claim to be the resurrection. Each of these teachings would carry incredible weight for a Gentile in the Roman world.

Ruins of the Temple of Demeter in Pergamum

Both groups would hear the same message: Jesus is what you’ve been chasing your whole life.

John writes his gospel in such a way that both groups hear the same message in two separate ways in the same Text — simultaneously.

It’s almost impossible to wrap your head around how an author is able to do that throughout an entire gospel. And this is a characteristic of John’s writing in his other books as well. John is a masterful cultural storyteller. John isn’t simply trying to “fill in the gaps” that the other gospels missed. John is trying to tell the stories of Jesus that relate to the culture he’s ministering to.

John is living in shephelah; and his gospel is a shephelah gospel.

John wants the world to know — the whole world, the world he’s living in — who this Jesus is and who He can be in their lives. He’s willing to take the life of Jesus and pick out the stories that help accomplish this purpose, and the stories which confront the Roman agenda in the clearest way, in order to reach his goal. As John will say in one of his letters:

That which was from the beginning, which we have heard, which we have seen with our eyes, which we have looked at and our hands have touched—this we proclaim concerning the Word of life. The life appeared; we have seen it and testify to it, and we proclaim to you the eternal life, which was with the Father and has appeared to us. We proclaim to you what we have seen and heard, so that you also may have fellowship with us. And our fellowship is with the Father and with his Son, Jesus Christ. We write this to make our joy complete.

LUKE: Ordered

The good doctor Luke is the one author of Scripture that we can say is a Gentile author. Actually, I’m not sure we can, since Luke would more than likely be a proselyte (a convert), converting to the Jewish faith before the introduction to the Gentiles. Everything about Luke’s account (predominantly from Acts) puts him as a fellow follower of the Way — a Jewish faith movement — and a working companion to the apostles.

Nevertheless, we can be fairly confident that Luke has Gentile roots and comes from pagan stock. In fact, some would say that if Luke is a doctor, then it would mean that he was trained in the worship of Asclepius, the Greek god of healing. We will talk more about this pagan belief later, but the Greco-Roman version of health care was seen in Asclepion worship; if this is the case, he has very pagan roots indeed.

Many have used Luke’s Gentile roots to make the case that Luke is trying to write a gospel that is more detail-oriented than his Jewish counterparts. We’ve talked before about how western Gentiles would be much more concerned with accuracy, details, and a literal rendering of the historical account. Many have proposed that Luke set out to do this very thing. The introduction to Luke’s gospel seems to point in this direction, as well:

Many have undertaken to draw up an account of the things that have been fulfilled among us, just as they were handed down to us by those who from the first were eyewitnesses and servants of the word. With this in mind, since I myself have carefully investigated everything from the beginning, I too decided to write an orderly account for you, most excellent Theophilus, so that you may know the certainty of the things you have been taught.

It would appear that Luke is telling Theophilus that he is attempting to give an “orderly” and accurate account, so that he might know with certainty what happened. For many years, Textual critics maligned Luke for his inaccuracy, stating that too many details are off in his account of history. However, as the search through archaeology continues, we have often found Luke to be the most accurate in his accounts of history.

However, the translation of the Greek in this passage may be a bit more interpretive than we usually assume. There is a book written by M.D. Goulder called The Evangelist’s Calendar which proposes the gospel of Luke is written to accompany the weekly parashah readings in the synagogue. This would assume that the early church was indeed a Jewish movement and that they wanted to read about the life and teachings of Jesus as a part of their worship services. In this light, Luke would be writing his gospel to be separated into weekly readings, thus changing the purpose and design of his gospel — as well as its intent and agenda — entirely.

The Greek could literally be translated, “I too decided to write an ordered account for you…” The word in the Greek, if translated “ordered” (instead of “orderly”) would mean in order or sequenced. This would definitely fit a view of Luke being written as a lectionary accompaniment to the weekly parashah readings in the synagogue. This would also explain the discrepancies that we find in Luke’s account in reference to chronology (if Luke is trying to write an accurate account, why does it appear to be the least chronological?) and other small details.

Now, this is simply one of many theories, but Goulder is far more studied than I am on the matter, and I encourage you to read the book if you get the chance and can stomach scholarly writing. (The book is very hard to find and used copies can run hundreds of dollars.)

Nevertheless, it would be very safe to say that Luke is writing his gospel to be a gospel of order. Which order (orderly or sequenced)? We may never know. However, Luke is certainly not without his own literary genius and brilliant tools of written communication. In fact, the more I study Luke, the more that I find deeply seeded literary devices (chiasms, parallelism, etc.) and brilliant teaching points. One of Luke’s main agendas under the surface appears to be that Jesus is the second Moses.

Was Luke written to a Gentile? The name Theophilus (“Friend of God”) is a Greek one; but it is one that speaks of God. It could also be a code name for God’s people or a particular body of faith or a church. It could also be a Jewish name of a more Herodian bent.

Was Luke written to Jews? The theory of Goulder would point toward a Jewish audience, as would the theme of a second Moses and the presence of eastern literary tools.

At the end of the day, we may not have answers to the many questions that are raised, but the truth of the matter is that Luke provides us with one of the most thorough accounts of Jesus’s life, as well as one that differs from the two gospels that appear to have shared source information.