An Explosive Kingdom Realized

However, don’t be deceived into thinking that Jesus is particularly fond of putting John the Baptist in his place. He is not. He turns to the crowds and appears to be a little riled up after His interaction with John’s disciples. While John’s disciples are leaving (making the reader think that they still might be within earshot), Jesus begins quite the monologue:

As John’s disciples were leaving, Jesus began to speak to the crowd about John: “What did you go out into the wilderness to see? A reed swayed by the wind? If not, what did you go out to see? A man dressed in fine clothes? No, those who wear fine clothes are in kings’ palaces. Then what did you go out to see? A prophet? Yes, I tell you, and more than a prophet. This is the one about whom it is written:

“ ‘I will send my messenger ahead of you,
    who will prepare your way before you.’

Truly I tell you, among those born of women there has not risen anyone greater than John the Baptist; yet whoever is least in the kingdom of heaven is greater than he.

That would be a pretty good epitaph to have on your tombstone. Jesus is far from dissing a cousin, a good friend, and a possible rabbi. But then, Jesus offers a teaching confounding many Bible students to this day:

From the days of John the Baptist until now, the kingdom of heaven has been subjected to violence, and violent people have been raiding it. For all the Prophets and the Law prophesied until John. And if you are willing to accept it, he is the Elijah who was to come. Whoever has ears, let them hear.

Violently advancing? Violent men take hold of it? I thought the kingdom of God was like a mustard seed and we were on a mission to love our enemies, be on a mission of mercy, and offer forgiveness. Violent men?

While the Greek is translated correctly here, some context will be rather helpful. The Greek word that is used here is biastes. It is used in the Septuagint to translate the Hebrew word pratz. There was a young Hebrew boy in the Old Testament who was named after pratz; we translate his name “Perez.” Perez was one of the sons of Judah and Tamar. You may remember the story (found in Genesis 38) where Tamar becomes pregnant with twins. As the first son begins to emerge, they tie a red cord around his wrist; the marked wrist disappears back into the womb and the second twin “explodes” out of the womb ahead of the other. They named him “Exploder” or Perez.

This is one case where I believe we find evidence that Matthew was written in Hebrew. If this passage was contracted from Hebrew, the word here would be pratz. This would mean that an appropriate understanding of this teaching would be that the kingdom has been “exploding” and “explosive” men take hold of it.

It’s a nice theory, Marty, but you don’t get to arbitrarily make decisions about translation.

No, but there’s more evidence in the Text. Jesus says that people who have ears should hear — a rabbinical clue that Jesus has buried something from the Text in His teaching. He says that John is the “Elijah who was to come.” One of the main passages that speaks of this “Elijah to come” was found in the prophesy of Micah. This is especially interesting, since Jesus just finished teaching on Micah earlier. The prophesy reads like this:

“I will surely gather all of you, Jacob;
    I will surely bring together the remnant of Israel.
I will bring them together like sheep in a pen,
    like a flock in its pasture;
    the place will throng with people.
The One who breaks open the way will go up before them;
    they will break through the gate and go out.
Their King will pass through before them,
    the Lord at their head.”

God speaks of gathering His people together who have been penned up in captivity. A gathered flock of sheep that have been penned up in a sheepfold for some time are a real antsy bunch. Some of us may have experienced letting a herd of cattle out into pasture after a long haul or a season in another overgrazed pasture. The “one who breaks open the way” could easily be read in the Hebrew as NOT the same person as the King/LORD mentioned later. In this picture, the “Elijah to come” will be the character who kicks open the gate of the sheepfold. The gate “breaks open” and the sheep “break through” the gate.

The word for “break open” and “break through”? Pratz.

The kingdom is EXPLODING FORWARD and EXPLOSIVE MEN take hold of it. Jesus casts the vision of God’s people in His day like a flock of sheep in a sheepfold. “From the days of John the Baptist until now…” John has come to kick open the gate of the sheepfold and ever since he started his ministry, people who have been waiting for the kingdom have been breaking forth — exploding forward — to do God’s will.

It leads to an observation that the Kingdom isn’t something we sit back and contemplate intellectually in a classroom (although there is a time and place for that). The kingdom is something that is explosive and it’s something that explosive people take part in. We don’t lazily strut through the gates of the kingdom. We don’t prance into the way of God. It’s something that we should be champing at the bit to take part in, just waiting for the opportunity to rush out into the open fields.

It’s an explosive kingdom. Am I an explosive participant?

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?

Innocent as Doves

A few stories later, Jesus prepares to send His disciples out on a little missional field trip. While we already addressed this in a previous post, it’s worth noting again the list of the disciples and the different worldviews that are represented in the list. Wouldn’t you like to have known how Jesus grouped these guys up? Did He send them out with like-minded individuals, good friends who would provide great fellowship and perspective, knowing that upon their return the debrief session would be full of fireworks? Or did He pair them up with people they completely disagreed with? I wish we knew.

These twelve Jesus sent out, instructing them, “Go nowhere among the Gentiles and enter no town of the Samaritans, but go rather to the lost sheep of the house of Israel. And proclaim as you go, saying, ‘The kingdom of heaven is at hand.’ Heal the sick, raise the dead, cleanse lepers, cast out demons. You received without paying; give without pay. Acquire no gold or silver or copper for your belts, no bag for your journey, or two tunics or sandals or a staff, for the laborer deserves his food. And whatever town or village you enter, find out who is worthy in it and stay there until you depart.”

Jesus puts this little ministry trip at the mercy of the people’s hospitality. It should be noted that Jesus did not send them to the pagans, the Gentiles who serve the gods of Hellenism. He sent them to the religious folk — the people who claim to have it all together and represent God well. The disciples will have to depend on others “getting it” and being there for them during this time.

“As you enter the house, greet it. And if the house is worthy, let your peace come upon it, but if it is not worthy, let your peace return to you. And if anyone will not receive you or listen to your words, shake off the dust from your feet when you leave that house or town. Truly, I say to you, it will be more bearable on the day of judgment for the land of Sodom and Gomorrah than for that town.”

Notice again the harkening back to Sodom and Gomorrah, a story about failed hospitality and Jesus’s affirmation of what the gospel is all about: bringing shalom to the chaos. He tells them to find a house that is worthy — in Luke, this is more literally “a person of peace” — and hunker down for a bit with them and their hospitality. He tells them to helps those cities and towns and explain the good news of the Kingdom of Heaven. They are to bolster the work of God in places where it’s already taking place.

This isn’t a message of new teaching or fiery prophesy. This is a mission of finding where God is already at work and joining Him. Their mission is to come alongside and call out the Kingdom wherever they find it. This is a time where Jesus is teaching them how to have eyes to see the Kingdom of God at work in people. And they are to take good notes; it will be an incredible learning experience.

Jesus tells them that it will not be easy, as there are plenty of religious people who want no part in God’s redemptive project:

“Behold, I am sending you out as sheep in the midst of wolves, so be wise as serpents and innocent as doves. Beware of men, for they will deliver you over to courts and flog you in their synagogues, and you will be dragged before governors and kings for my sake, to bear witness before them and the Gentiles. When they deliver you over, do not be anxious how you are to speak or what you are to say, for what you are to say will be given to you in that hour. … A disciple is not above his teacher, nor a servant above his master. It is enough for the disciple to be like his teacher, and the servant like his master. If they have called the master of the house Beelzebub, how much more will they malign those of his household.”

And then Jesus shifts gears in a way that leaves many readers completely confused. He tells the disciples that He has come to bring division and not peace. He quotes a passage from Micah and then tells them they will need to “take up their cross.” The passage is quite confusing, as it seems to run counter to the other teachings of Jesus; it is “Zealot-minded.”

“Do not think that I have come to bring peace to the earth. I have not come to bring peace, but a sword. For I have come to set a man against his father, and a daughter against her mother, and a daughter-in-law against her mother-in-law. And a person’s enemies will be those of his own household. Whoever loves father or mother more than me is not worthy of me, and whoever loves son or daughter more than me is not worthy of me. And whoever does not take his cross and follow me is not worthy of me. Whoever finds his life will lose it, and whoever loses his life for my sake will find it.”

Hopefully by now in our series, you have begun to ask the repetitive and redundant question: Where is it in the Text? Especially when the Text is easily placed for our western eyes to see (in this case, a direct quote), we should travel back to the original source of the quotation and find out what the rabbi is trying to teach by quoting that particular passage.

(When I asked my students what we should read, they all gave a resounding response of, “The context!”; my favorite response was, “The whole prophesy of Micah!” Yes!)

When we travel back to Micah, we find the prophet is calling the people of Judah to realize that God is asking for them to repent. They happen to know what it is God requires of them: pursuing justice, loving mercy, and having a posture of humility. The prophesy goes on to describe what it is like in Micah’s day. It’s a day where nobody can trust their neighbor and everybody is pursuing their own good. It’s a day when even a person’s family members will betray each other and division will run rampant.

The section ends with this:

But as for me, I will look to the Lord;
    I will wait for the God of my salvation;
    my God will hear me.

It happens to be the perfect quotation for what the disciples are embarking upon. They are going to find a world where some people are ready to show hospitality, but others will not. There will be people who fit the description found in Micah incredibly well. The Kingdom of God is not going to sit well with everyone and they are going to be persecuted. But the rabbinical remez for this teaching would be an invitation for them to trust the story. They are invited to wait on God and trust in His provision.

As we go, will we do the same thing? Will we be on the lookout for “people of peace” who are interested in taking God’s kingdom of peace into the chaos? Will we partner with them to celebrate the Kingdom at work?

Will we be ready for persecution? Will we be prepared for all of the religious folk who are not ready for such a priority shift? Will we leave it up to God and wait on His provision?

Will we trust the story?

The Forgiveness of Abel

Jesus returns to the Triangle and begins teaching in a house. The home is so jam-packed with students that when a group of buddies come carrying their friend on a stretcher, they cannot enter the home. They proceed to climb to the roof of the insula and begin tearing through it. Now, in this culture, tearing through the roof is quite an ordeal; it’s going to take you many minutes, if not hours, to work up a sizable hole. This is a roof consisting of multiple layers of branches covered in mud, with more branches and more mud.

Keeping this in mind, it’s interesting to note the difference in cultures. In our world, upon seeing the determination of this group of do-gooders, we would stop the teaching, call them to come down (before they ruin someone’s home), and make space. But, in beautiful rabbinic fashion, this is not how the situation proceeds. We are not told the details, but you can imagine Jesus stops teaching, takes a seat, stares up at the hole appearing above Him, and crosses His arms with a look of, “Oh, this will be good!” Or does he keep teaching as dirt and other pieces of roof fall on His head?

Eventually, the paralyzed man is lowered through the roof and Jesus, having had time to think about His response, declares to the man that his sins are forgiven. Another fun detail to notice in the Text is that it says Jesus saw the faith of his friends. Does this intentionally suggest the man had no faith? It’s hard to say. But if he was struggling with faith, it wasn’t helped by the Rabbi talking about his sins. 

“Yes, thank you, Rabbi. I was obviously lowered through the roof to have my sins forgiven. Don’t mind my paralysis; it’s no big deal.”

But Jesus, as any Rabbi, is more concerned with His teaching point than His miracle. The miracle is a tool and the man is a prop for Jesus’s greater point. I don’t say this to be cold, as if Jesus was lacking in compassion; we are told quite the opposite multiple times in the gospels. Jesus is a very compassionate teacher, but the rabbinical method is about teaching the Text, and Jesus is going to do that through this paralyzed man.

I believe this teaching gives us a window into what Jesus’s lesson was about that day in the house. I think Jesus was talking about forgiveness.

As we’ve mentioned multiple times already, forgiveness was a tough conversation for Jews of the first century. They sat under the oppressive rule of Rome and were wrestling with the big questions of injustice.

Okay, it’s one thing to go to captivity because of disobedience; Babylon was understandable. But now, we are trying to do the right thing and God is not rescuing us from the Romans. Why? How can God let this happen?

And so the Jews looked for answers where they always look for answers: in the Text. They asked themselves, who was the first person in the Scriptures to suffer injustice for doing what was right? The answer: Abel.

Abel, the son of Adam. In Hebrew: Avel ben Adam.

But Adam is more than just a name. Adam in Hebrew also means “mankind.” So to be the “son of Adam” also means to be the son of man.

And the Jews said, “God has spoken to us about a Son of Man before! He told us in Daniel that the Son of Man will come riding on the clouds!”

And the belief began that Abel would come back and avenge the injustice of the ages. (How literal that belief was is the wrong question to ask.) Abel would avenge his blood, right the wrongs of the world, and bring shalom back to the chaos. Abel would be the fulfillment of the prophesy of Daniel.

Jesus’s words are stunning if this happens to be the context of His conversation that day in the house:

But Jesus, knowing their thoughts, said, “Why do you think evil in your hearts? For which is easier, to say, ‘Your sins are forgiven,’ or to say, ‘Rise and walk’? But that you may know that the Son of Man has authority on earth to forgive sins”—he then said to the paralytic—“Rise, pick up your bed and go home.”

And Jesus says that, in fact, Abel might come back and forgive the sin of Cain.

That’s scandalous.

I was told by my teacher that Jesus is the only Jewish teacher in recorded history (before His day and since) ever to suggest that Abel will forgive the sin of Cain.

Not only that, but Jesus is facing the accusation of doing what they believed only God could do. There are only two figures who can forgive sins; one is God Himself, and the other is the High Priest, who has to be very careful about doing so without God’s blessing. It’s something that is done very rarely. But I think Jesus’s lesson that day was His continued invitation to join God in His pursuit of forgiveness.

If we’re going to put the world back together, we are going to have to partner with God to show mercy to those who don’t deserve it. And they don’t buy it. “Who can forgive sins but God alone?” they ask.

And Jesus puts a stamp of authority on His teaching by causing the paralytic to rise and walk. Jesus’s claim that Abel would forgive sins, Jesus’s invitation to join God in His redemptive work, His insistence that this is, in fact, what God asks of us — has the final exclamation point of a paralyzed man rising to his feet, dusting off his mat, and walking out of the house.

BOOM!

And the last line of Matthew’s account?

When the crowds saw it, they were afraid, and they glorified God, who had given such authority to men.

Authority to men. Authority to forgive sins. Authority to set people free.

Which is easier? To say to a man, “Your sins are forgiven,” or to make him walk? Luckily, it’s easier to forgive, because it’s been a while since I last healed a paralytic.

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.

Bad Trees and Good Fruit

There are some teachings of Jesus that show up repeatedly throughout His ministry. Whenever I see this, I sit up and take notice, as it gives me the impression Jesus taught that particular idea frequently. Anything the Son of God is going to repeat over and over again is going to get my attention. The last teaching I want to touch on with the Sermon on the Mount is a teaching I feel like we don’t deal with enough. It’s a teaching that Jesus covers multiple times and in different contexts. And it’s a teaching we could find very useful in our world today — even though it will upset our common assumptions that help us feel safe.

The teaching goes like this in Matthew 7:

“Watch out for false prophets. They come to you in sheep’s clothing, but inwardly they are ferocious wolves. By their fruit you will recognize them. Do people pick grapes from thornbushes, or figs from thistles? Likewise, every good tree bears good fruit, but a bad tree bears bad fruit. A good tree cannot bear bad fruit, and a bad tree cannot bear good fruit. Every tree that does not bear good fruit is cut down and thrown into the fire. Thus, by their fruit you will recognize them.”

The teaching is so straightforward — I am surprised (but not really) that we don’t like it more. Simply put (at the risk of being redundant): You cannot get bad fruit from a good tree; you cannot pick good fruit from a bad tree. It does not work.

And yet, we can’t seem to get our minds around this idea. Talk to anybody about “false teachers” and you’ll immediately hear about their alignment with Christian orthodoxy and “sound doctrine.” Very rarely will anyone mention the teachings of Jesus. Sound doctrine isn’t the measurement for false teachers, however; fruit is.

Jesus said so.

I don’t care how sound the doctrine is, if you have a teacher who produces (in their teaching and lifestyle) anger, division, fits of rage, debauchery, malice — you have a bad tree. You cannot get bad fruit from a good tree. Yet time and time again, our Christian subculture justifies the bad fruit with all kinds of trite explanations. Of course, I’m not talking about the occasional mistake or misstep; I’m talking about fruit — the fruit of their life.

And Jesus makes the truth go the other direction. If you have a teacher who produces love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, and self-control, you have yourself a good tree. You cannot pick figs from thistles, nor grapes from thornbushes.

This is the part that messes us up. I have repeatedly heard Bible teachers teach that when non-Christians produce peace in their lives, it’s not really peace. Jesus blatantly disagrees. When you see peace, it comes from God. Period. Because God is at work in all people. To quote Rob Bell in Velvet Elvis, this means that whenever you find truth and good fruit, you are free to call it out for what it is, because all truth is God’s truth.

This helps us when we have those people in our lives who produce the fruit of Godliness, but don’t have their “labels” right. When you find truth, celebrate it. It’s God’s truth. And God doesn’t need your labels. Besides, trying to figure out everybody’s label is exhausting; trying to figure out what box everything belongs in will drive a person insane. And we love our boxes. We love them because we believe that it will make everything clean and easy and tidy. But life isn’t clean and tidy and labels don’t stick to people very well.

Jesus comes with some good news: If we use his measuring stick for discerning light and darkness, the discernment process gets a lot easier.

“Do people pick figs from thistles?”

Of course not. So why do we think it’s different with people? When you see God at work, then God is at work. Why would we be surprised by this? Isn’t God always at work? We spend far too much time trying to figure out the appropriate designation for things, rather than discerning light from darkness. In every encounter, in every situation, in every church event, in every teaching — what is the fruit here? Goodness? Love? Self-control? Anger? Division?

“By their fruit you will know them.”

It will blow up our world of labels and assumptions. It will disrupt our false sense of tidiness. And it will surprise us to find where God shows up (and even where He isn’t at times).

But God’s been showing up in weird places since the creation of the world. It almost seems like a hobby of His.

Narrow Gates and Foolish Men

At this point, I want to deal with two of Jesus’s final three teachings in this section we call the Sermon on the Mount. Specifically, I want to deal with the first and the last teaching of these three, as the second teaching warrants a full post for itself.

The next picture of Jesus is one about wide roads and narrow gates.

“Enter through the narrow gate. For wide is the gate and broad is the road that leads to destruction, and many enter through it. But small is the gate and narrow the road that leads to life, and only a few find it.”

There are a couple observations about this teaching right off the bat. Jesus does not connect this teaching to salvation and there is no implication that Jesus is speaking of eternal destinies. On the contrary, the context of Jesus’s teaching (not to mention the tense He uses in His speech) in this sermon would demand the opposite assumption. This teaching speaks directly to how we find and experience both life and destruction TODAY, not later. The invitation is to find the narrow gate today, because it will be easy to find the road that leads to destruction. Furthermore, the point of Jesus’s teaching is not HOW MANY PEOPLE, but instead the ease at which these two options come. I cannot tell you how many times I have heard this used to talk about how few people will make it to heaven and how many will be destined to hell. Please notice that Jesus’s point has nothing to do with this.

I once heard a teaching by Rob Bell at Mars Hill Bible Church that really helped me understand this better. While he connected it to a local interchange in Michigan, I immediately connected it in my mind to the interchange that exists in the Tri-Cities of Washington (Richmond, Kennewick, Pasco). There is one particular interchange that leads to a precarious — at times impossible — lane change a driver must make in order to connect with the appropriate highway. The onramp puts the driver on the left side of the interstate, needing to change three lanes to make the exit on the RIGHT side of the interstate, moving 50+ mph, all within a distance of a couple hundred yards.

You have to be fully engaged in your task. You have to be completely intentional about your decisions. You have to be resolutely set on making your exit.

For narrow is way that leads to Pendleton and few can find it, but wide is the road that leads to Portland, and many are driving it.

You get the idea. The way leading to life is difficult. You don’t just stumble upon it without trying. The way leading to life will require your intentional resolution to find peace in the midst of chaos.

The second teaching will be discussed in our next post, but Jesus’s final picture is of a fool who builds his house on sand and a wise man who builds his house on the rock.

“Therefore everyone who hears these words of mine and puts them into practice is like a wise man who built his house on the rock. The rain came down, the streams rose, and the winds blew and beat against that house; yet it did not fall, because it had its foundation on the rock. But everyone who hears these words of mine and does not put them into practice is like a foolish man who built his house on sand. The rain came down, the streams rose, and the winds blew and beat against that house, and it fell with a great crash.”

While most teachings I’ve heard focus on the material used for the building, I have been told by contractors that sand is a very useful building material. It’s easy to transport, it packs well, and is used in most building projects. This begins to point us to the fact that we may be missing the “big idea” in this teaching. There are two understandings of sand in Jesus’s day. There is the “sand of the seashore”; this is not the sand that is being referenced here. Then, there is the sand that settles in the bottom of a wadi after the floodwaters come.

Now, I’ll say that again. The sand settles at the bottom of the wadi.

Only a fool would build his house at the bottom of a wadi; it would be a ticking time bomb, just waiting for the next rainfall. However, the wise man would build his house on the “rock” — the word here refers to bedrock or a cliff face — where they would be far away from the dangers of desert floods. While the point of the teaching remains the same, the picture’s details now work correctly. The rains fell and the floodwaters rose. Jesus is saying that even though his teachings are at times counter-intuitive, you would be foolish not to put them into practice. For the way of Jesus is the best way to live.

It prompts the reader to reflect on just how seriously we take the teachings of the Sermon on the Mount. Do we trust forgiveness? If we don’t, it’s like building your house at the bottom of a wadi. Do we love our enemies? If not, we are asking for the rains of destruction to dismantle our life.

It’s the continual invitation to trust the story.