How does one know what issue a book is addressing? Are we merely guessing? More specifically, how do I know that Matthew is addressing a rift in the church between Jewish Christians and Gentile Christians (and perhaps, other Jewish Christians who associate with Gentile Christians)? There is evidence within the books themselves by what arguments they make, and these arguments can be seen by the various themes and statements made throughout. Looking at the beginning and end of a book or a section like Christ’s teaching in Matthew that begins in Chapter 5 and ends in Chapter 25 can relate what the book is about. Looking at the unique material in Matthew by comparing it to Mark and Luke certainly helps to understand Matthew’s purpose. There is also external evidence that may be relevant when compared to all of that internal evidence. So let’s look at the evidence.
If we take Matthew’s emphases on reconciliation between believers seriously, as well as his argument that the judgment will center on how one treated the least of Christ’s brothers, we must conclude that the book is about how a covenant member treats another covenant member.
The teaching of Christ in Matthew is sandwiched in by an inclusio that focuses on the judgment of Christians. In Chapter 7, Christ teaches that it is not everyone who claims that Christ is his Lord that will enter the kingdom of God, but only those who do the will of the Father. Many Christians will come to Him and argue that they did ministry in His name and should enter in, but He will tell them that they practiced lawlessness and that He never knew them. The judgment in 24 and 25 is clear that it concerns how Christians treat one another (if one begins to beat his fellow servants, how one treated the least of these brothers of Mine). It also repeats the phrases of Chapter 7: “I do not know you,” “depart from Me.” The Sermon on the Mount is also focused in on the same thing (reconciling with fellow brothers, with one’s spouse, with those with whom one is at odds in the community, forgiving other Christians, giving to other Christians and not to pagans (i.e., dogs and swine).
What this tells us is that Matthew is concerned about how Christians are treating one another within the covenant community.
Matthew is clearly written to Jewish Christians. This is not disputed, as even the way he speaks of the Kingdom of God for the most part is geared toward a Jewish audience (kingdom of Heaven, where "heaven" represents God so as to diminish offense to Jews who had begun to worry about using even the word "God").
Since he is writing to Jewish Christians, and is concerned about how Christians are treating one another, there must be an issue where Jewish Christians are mistreating other Christians.
One of Matthew’s main arguments is that the ritual law does not make one Israel, but having the King of Israel as Lord does causes Him to argue that Jesus is the true Israel, and that He has interpreted the ritual law as non-binding upon the Church/the New Israel.
It is clear that the contrast between the moral law as the expression of love and the ritual law as something that is not inherently moral is meant to remove the idea that the cleanliness laws should be maintained. Hence, all foods are clean, but the evil that comes out of a man's thoughts defile him, the Sabbath is made for man and Jesus is the Lord of the Sabbath who can interpret its intent correctly, ritual washings and willing one's earthly goods to the temple are traditions and not the law, rituals are old wineskins and new wine is not to be put in them, etc. These are characterized as things the Pharisees who were condemned by Christ emphasized over the moral law, and Christ commands His disciples throughout to have a greater righteousness than the Pharisees and to beware of their teaching.
Indeed, for the Second Temple Jerusalem Jew, the purity laws are what identify one as a true Jew, so much so that even ethnic Jews who do not practice all of them are considered "Hellenists" in distinction from Jews even in the NT.
So this tells us that there is a conflict that involves Jewish Christians rejecting other Christians on the basis of ritual purity laws, or what they consider Jewish identity markers.
Then we see Matthew arguing throughout his Gospel that since the true follower of God is he who obeys Christ as Lord, and there are Gentiles who have greater faith than anyone (the Centurian, the Canaanite/Syro-Phoenician woman), and many ethnic Jews are unfaithful to God's commands, that the kingdom of God will be taken away from the ethnic descendants of Abraham and given to a nation (i.e., another nation than ethnic Israel) producing the fruit of it. We begin to understand that there is a conflict between the Jewish Christians and the Gentile Christians that largely centers on the question of what makes one a true Jew/Israelite, ritual purity laws or having Jesus as one's King/Lord.
The unique parable to Matthew that displays this feud is the parable of the workers. One group has labored all the day, and another group comes at the last of the day and receives the same reward. In context, this must be referring to Jews and Gentiles.
When we go out of Matthew and look at the rest of the New Testament, this seems to be a massive problem in the early church that is created by the current interpretation of ritual purity laws summed up by Peter in Acts 10:28:
He said to them: “You are well aware that it is against our law for a Jew to associate with or visit a Gentile. But God has shown me that I should not call anyone impure or unclean.”
This is said to Cornelius, who the text tells us is a God-fearer, and not some pagan worshiping Zeus. Yet, even as a God-fearer, Peter declares that it is against the law, i.e., the current Jewish interpretation of the purity laws, to associate with a Gentile. It is the reason why Peter is eventually caught up in separating himself from the Gentile Christians in Galatia and refusing to eat with them any longer. It is the reason why the question of circumcision is such a big issue throughout the NT.
This is what causes the conflicts in the churches throughout the Book of Acts, Galatia, Rome, Thessalonica, and Smyrna in Revelation. And this is also what has caused the conflict that Matthew is addressing. These Jewish-Christians were teaching that Jews could not associate with Gentiles, even when they had become Christians, persecuting those Jews who did, and separating the church of God into two groups, the greatest and least, first and last, the true Jews and the second-class, Gentile converts. Yet, it is true faith in Christ that makes one a member of true Israel, and hence, these Jews were rejecting Christ and the gospel by doing this.
Now, THAT is what Matthew is addressing when he is talking about those who persecute, i.e., slander in Matthew’s context, you and are “enemies,” “opponents,” at odds with one another within the covenant community. Instead of perpetuating the problem by withdrawing further into cliques and factions that do not associate with one another, the true disciple is to pray for these wayward Christians in the hope that they will repent, do good to them, invite them to eat with them, and the Jewish Christians are to do the same for those Gentile Christians against whom they are embittered due to their history of oppression. Matthew is arguing that reconciliation must take place between professing Christians, that ritual purity laws should not be an obstacle any longer, and that all must be made true Israel by submitting to the teaching of Jesus the Messiah through His appointed messengers the apostles.
Matthew is not arguing that giving kingdom resources to pagans is a good thing, as Christ explicitly commands to not give kingdom resources to unbelievers (dogs and pigs are images of the unbeliever), but instead that Christians are to consider everyone within the covenant community as representing Jesus the Messiah Himself, and therefore, whatever they do to one another, they are doing to Him. The kingdom resources belong to them because they belong to Christ. This creates the love ethic in Matthew that centers the love of the Christian around Christ and all of those who a part of the kingdom over which He rules.
Hence, Matthew uniquely adds that the problem in the time of judgment is that lawlessness will increase and will cause the love of the many to grow cold. This means that when Christ comes there will be servants who are practicing sin and beating their fellow slaves. It is for this reason that He will cut them to pieces and assign them a place with the unbeliever.
Finally, after Matthew has made his argument, he records Christ’s commission to His disciples as the logical conclusion to what he has argued. Since the kingdom is for Jew and Gentile alike, they are to go unto all of the Gentiles and make them disciples by baptizing them and teaching them all that Christ commanded concerning love and the endurance of the moral law that expresses it accurately.
Therefore, as said many times before, Matthew is about how Christians treat one another in the covenant community, and has nothing to say about how one treats unbelievers, except that it calls all men everywhere to repent and receive Christ as Lord if he or she would enter into to the eternal
kingdom of Heaven. To interpret passages within it as referring to something else, i.e., how we should love pagans, is to remove the context that Matthew has provided and to replace it with our own tradition. This context replacement is unfaithful to the Word of God, as it creates our own ethics instead. Ironically, then, it is the very antinomian practice of setting aside what God has said for the sake of our own traditional teachings that Matthew condemns as lawlessness, i.e., a replacement of Christ’s teaching and law, which He says is the same as the Law and the Prophets, with our own.
As the Law and the Prophets did not tell Israelites to hand over kingdom resources to pagans, as it would have been seen as unfaithful and evil to give the inheritance God had given them to the nations that reject YHWH, so in the New Testament, the law is fulfilled completely, without one deficiency, according to Jesus and the apostles, by loving fellow Christians.
Those who would argue against this context do so, not on the basis of providing anything from the context that would present Matthew as arguing for Christian-pagan relations, but rather on the basis of their eisegetical reading of the text that they feel is well established due to the majority rule principle (i.e., if the majority believes it, it must be the rule).
However, both the internal and external context is clear, and if those wishing to hold onto their traditions had nothing at stake, they would gladly grant it as well due to the fact that the evidence is so overwhelming.
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ReplyDelete"No doubt Jewish/Gentile relationships are a major theme across the board. I just have my doubts that the matters addressed are *exclusively* within the covenant community, and not variously about Gentiles both within and without. So my point with the Beatitudes was that those persecuting the church due to Jesus' name are at least non-Christians - i.e., those outside the covenant community of the church. So it seems natural to apply the passages about those who abuse and hate you, etc., to non-Christian persecutors."
ReplyDeleteI'm not sure you followed the argument above, Ben. The entire point is that Matthew is rebuking Jewish-Christians who are persecuting/beating their fellow servants rather than associating with them and taking care of them. That's why Matthew warns about the things he does at the beginning and end of Christ's teaching ministry. Persecution in the Sermon is specifically described as insult and slander (5:11). You keep going outside of the context to find your referents and this is an exegetical fallacy that will ensure you never interpret the text correctly.
I argued above that Matthew clearly describes a conflict within the church in terms of the treatment of fellow believers. There is no evidence that he is dealing with the mistreatment of unbelievers by believers, so that has to be shoved into the text in order to get it there, and has nothing to contribute to the larger argument once it is there, which shows that it should not be inserted.
"That's why I can agree that 'Blessed are the poor' is about the Christian poor since the Beatitudes are to be read as a unity of factors, not taken apart as some would do. It's the one about persecution that looks out beyond the church."
That's because you keep thinking that persecution is something unbelievers do to believers. The prophets are mainly killed by other Israelites/Jews, and hence, Jesus condemns them, not the pagan, for their deaths (Luke 11:47-51). The "they," therefore, is a reference to people in the covenant community. And just to be clear, Moses persecutes Pharaoh and Balak/Balaam, not the other way around. They persecute Israel, but not the prophet.
"Isaiah 2 would suggest that, when the law goes out to the Gentiles, it will be in a new pacific form, with instructions to not make war any longer and judgement left to God. I'd suggest that's how Jesus fulfilled 'the law and the prophets', with a witness to the eschatological peace of the kingdom that they both head for, the warfare commands typologically transposed to the spiritual plane in this age for the church, the OT law remaining the source code that has lost its splendour and is ready to fall away. We embody a costly mercy to the world as Christ did, no more contradictory to the OT law than any act of mercy contradicts God's absolute justice."
ReplyDeleteSure, When it comes to preaching the gospel as the church. That has nothing to do with God ridding the world of government opposition to physical chaos. You're essentially arguing that Christians should only resist spiritual chaos, but allow physical chaos free reign. I'm sure you would allow all sorts of remedies to physical chaos when violence is not involved, but again, why is it just violence via warfare that is prohibited? If pacificism were true, then you should argue against any laws that are backed by physical force, allow murder, rape, and the most heinous of crimes to be unhindered except by a preaching of the peace of the eschatological kingdom (which Jesus brings about through physical violence btw).
"As for money, I'm not pushing a thorough-going social gospel. I agree that the church's full centralised support should only go to church members in need. Giving on an informal individual basis to 'anyone who asks' need not be much or exactly what they ask for. There are degrees of kindness and love, as God Himself shows some degree of kindness to unbelievers, is merciful to them in various ways, etc."
You're not reading the command very closely. You're to do with your "enemies" the same that you are to do for your "brothers." If this refers to pagans, then you are making a distinction that Jesus is not.
"We've talked about this before, but I wonder if you tend to see the temporal/visible world through the lens of eternal election and reprobation in a way that Scripture doesn't, logically shaping everything through that grid. It seems to me there's a dialectic there that can't be given too much weight at either end without pulling it things out of shape. So we honour all men and show respect to outsiders (seasoning our conversation with salt as 'the salt of the earth'...), regardless of their eternal destiny - 'love your neighbour' obviously doesn't exhaust who we do some sort of good to. I presume you're kind to non-Christians in manner and speech, even though they're not believers. There is also of course Christ's sacrifice for us while we were still enemies of God as an example."
ReplyDeleteNo, not at all. I'm arguing that even the elect who have not yet believed should not be treated as those within the visible covenant community, even those in the community who are not true believers. So it is the lens of believer vs. unbeliever that Scripture absolutely teaches about which I am concerned.
"You might also be overly sacralising money, in the sense that it becomes a holy resource. But Jesus would seem to place it out of God's realm - 'unrighteous mammon', 'Give to Caesar what is Caesar's', etc, a useful tool but not to be seen as holy or given more value or importance than it deserves. In that light, the pearls before swine would more naturally refer to the gospel message or church teaching, in a similar way to 'brush the dust off your feet' when faced with hard hearts. The riches of the OT were a type of the riches in Christ, a shadow of the fullness of the gospel that we have now and offer to all."
You might be overly profaning money. lol. What belongs to the believer belongs to Christ. What belongs to Caesar does not belong to the believer. What belongs to Christ belongs to other believers because it is now a part of the kingdom. To give it to unbelievers as though the gift of the kingdom was their own apart from faith in Christ is preaching a false gospel, and assumes the inclusivism of the social gospel (i.e., what belongs to Christ belongs to unbelievers too). It's a gnostic distinction to say that what is spiritual is holy and Christ's, whereas money, being rudimentary and a base thing of the world, even when it belongs to a believer, is profane. If an empty tin soda can belongs to Christ it is holy and does not belong to the unbeliever.
"I'd still be interested to know if there's any precedent for your approach? Not that majority views absolutely prove anything, but just out of interest, since you usually put a lot of emphasis on what 'the church' has taught, however you define that - even majority positions, as I think you've said helped change your mind on infant baptism or have illustrated from the early church with regards to financially supporting Christians (with no snark intended: was/is it now 'the church' when it agrees with your interpretations?)."
ReplyDelete1. I don't quote the church's position on something as authoritative even if not biblical. My showing that the church has believed something biblical for such and such amount of years is the point I'm usually making. The church has been wrong on lots of things. Do you believe baptism regenerates you? Do you believe you should pray to the saints? Do you believe salvation is by faith and works together? Or that Matthew was written first, and Paul wrote Hebrews? The church is in error on lots of things. We can go over more of them if you'd like. It's quite the list. My point in talking about a unified belief or practice that stems from the Bible is that the entire church has also seen what I have brought out exegetically. So yes, it is only when the church agrees with good exegesis of the Bible that it is correct. It has no authority otherwise. That's why I believe in sola Scriptura. It can help us identify wrong presuppositions but it can also have the wrong presuppositions itself.
2. Having said that, this is a case of what the church practiced first. Both in the NT and in the earliest church, there is no indication that believers took care of anyone financially but their own. Other scholars have said the same. So who is right? The older church or the younger one?
3. Another thing to consider is that this issue really wasn't as important until the modern age. The early church largely interacted with only themselves, as they were often in hiding and hated by the pagan culture when not, so in practice, even if claimed that they give to the pagan, they largely would have not had much opportunity for it. When Christendom came about not many years later, everyone was in the visible covenant community so that the question was never asked or thought about that deeply. That remained the case until after the Reformation and for much of the West's history until the past couple hundred years (if that).
"Excommunicated church members don't get association or table fellowship (although that needn't be offered to all anyway), which would cause a similar problem for your own view if we are to absolutise what it is to love our enemies either way."
ReplyDeleteIf you think so then I don't think you understand my view. The enemy is a fellow covenant member with whom we are at odds, not an excommunicated individual who is declared to no longer be a covenant member. Nor is the enemy a mere pagan, so it poses no problem to my view. It still does to yours because you're attempting to act as though the command is to treat others lesser than Christians when the text would demand that you treat everyone the same.
"But we could still turn the other cheek to them, not react to any abuse, etc, so be loving to some degree as God is kind in some way to the ungrateful and selfish. The hope is still that they repent and return, so the condemnation is not absolute, as with the death penalty in OT Israel."
The hope is that they are elect. No one who is not elect will repent, so that would be a false hope. However, if you think that Christians should insult unbelievers, I'm not sure what Jesus and Paul are doing when they do but breaking the very command Jesus gives to His people. That would make His people more loving than He is. I don't think you've adequately dealt with that conundrum. Are Christ's people more loving than Christ if love entails not insulting or being physically violent toward them?
"Finally, could it be that you have your own motivations for preferring your interpretation?"
I held your view for years. I only changed because I learned how to exegete and realized that the inclusivist religion of antichrist was taking over the church by using these passages. Yet, every passage about giving is about believers giving to other believers, explicitly or implicitly in the context. So I have no motivation. If the text taught otherwise, I would believe otherwise. It teaches this, so now I have to argue against the tradition of the brainwashed masses.
I now challenge you, Ben, to construct an argument from Matthew, all of it, not merely from part of it, that shows that Matthew is concerned about Jewish-Gentile relations in general, and not about the least of these brothers of Christ, the workers in God's field, the fellow servants, etc. If you can't do that then you hold your interpretation not due to exegesis but because of a tradition that has eisegeted the text.
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ReplyDeleteActually, it's very fruitful to talk about the Gospels because I don't think you understand them well. That's not a dig at you, but it is a rebuke that you've concluded all sorts of things about them without ever having exegeted them. You might want to ask more questions than assume you already get it. I just went through the Gospel of Matthew for the past year and a half for the second time, being very careful to relate everything that is said to the purpose presented by the inclusio and the book as a whole, and so I do think you might want to ask me why my definitions are the way they are.
ReplyDeleteWhat you identify as an imprecision when it comes to defining the covenant community is from Matthew, not me. This is because Matthew is using things Christ said in His context and applying it to things he wants to say in his own. All Jews are considered in the visible covenant community during the time of Christ's ministry until they evidence a rejection of Christ. The Jews make up the covenant community along with some Gentiles who exercise faith during that time. Matthew then takes that context and applies it to the church in conflict in his own day. Hence, the covenant community in Matthew's Gospel is the church made up of Jewish and Gentile believers. So he is using commands that are given to the visible covenant community from the OT to the NT. But there is no confusion in the book or in what I am saying between believer and unbeliever, covenant community and those outside.
The reason why your general view that sees Jews and Gentiles, whether believers or unbelievers, as the subject of Matthew's address must be rejected is laid out by me above. The judgment scenes are about whether someone has obeyed what Christ has taught in Matthew. That's the point is pointing out that Chapters 7 and 25 are parallel. Since they are about how one has treated fellow Christians, Christ's teaching must be about fellow Christians ONLY. If it were also about how one treats unbelievers, then that would be part of the judgment too, and limiting the judgment scenes in the Gospel to the "fellow servants,"least of these brothers of Mine," "brothers," etc. makes no sense. If to not love an unbeliever in the way Christ has commanded is to reject what Christ has commanded, then this is lawlessness and the judgment should be about how one loves and treats people in general. Limiting it to those in Christ would be incredibly confusing to the reader. It isn't, of course, about unbelievers at all, and therefore, along with the fact that everything else that is said in Christ's teaching in Matthew pertains to the commands for which Christians will be judged if they do not do them, your interpretation is invalid.
Now, if you want to say that believers should treat unbelievers this way or that way, that's fine. You can construct an ethic from the Bible elsewhere. But that isn't what Matthew is saying. That's my point. You are trying to make Matthew say that because it supports a traditional interpretation of the "enemy" in the Sermon. You aren't getting it from the Gospel itself, and have so far made no argument to that effect, only to say that you don't like my interpretation of it. That's fine, but you haven't answered my claims and objections adequately either.
I didn't ask you if God remained righteous. I asked you if love demands that one is not physically violent toward another person then are believers being commanded to be more loving than God? Your view is contradictory if you say that God can do whatever He likes and He is still loving but it would be unloving for someone else to be physically violent toward another. What makes it unloving for us but not for God or Christ?
"Similarly with terms such as persecution, which are accompanied by various shades of hate, verbal abuse, etc, just as the concept of love is given a number of shades of meaning and application. So my point with church discipline is that under your view loving your enemies in the church, turning the other cheek, etc. would contradict with then throwing them out, potentially cutting off full financial support. Another approach to these texts becomes necessary either way."
ReplyDeleteTurning the other cheek is about not trading insults with another believer. If the church, that has the authority to declare whether one is a believer or not, decides in the manner of Matthew 18, that someone is not a believer, then none of these things apply to him. So my view is not caught in any conundrum. Jesus isn't telling believers to love those who the church deems unbelievers (that would be your view and the contradiction remains with you). These commands are only for those who the church considers to be in the covenant community.
"Again, it's a matter of letting overall themes be structured by the details, rather than logically developing a certain idea ('ordering chaos') beyond those shaping factors. Proto's also written a fair amount about dialectical theological method in that sense (not meaning Neo-Orthodoxy), which I'm in broad agreement with."
Thanks Ben. That's exactly what I do. That's what exegesis is. Your attempt to pit the logic of a passages against what the passages say is a bit odd. Everyone is logically developing their theology and ethics from allowing overarching themes to be directed by the individual details, so that statement doesn't help at all. What you're really trying to do is ignore the contradictions that your faulty interpretations create. I believe that if you interpret things correctly, you don't have those contradictions. And clarification/nuance is not a contradiction. When I challenge your position as contradiction, I mean it is a real contradiction that you need to resolve, and in fact, can allow you to see that maybe you have misinterpreted something.
"On money: apart from the fact that all coins with Caesar's image on are therefore his and not holy,"
ReplyDeleteSo, in that overliterlizing of Jesus' statement, you would have to say that no money is God's, and therefore, we are not required ever to give money to God, since it does not belong to Him.
In my view, Jesus is merely stating that God has given to Caesar the right to declare of what amount of money that is his will go to the people as their own and will go to him as his (i.e., via taxes). That means that Jesus is not saying that all money remains Caesar's, but rather that what Caesar requires of the money that bears his image, again taxes is the subject at hand, is to be given to him as his. He is not saying that no physical resources are to be considered a part of the kingdom and holy. Is that your position? So the money in Jesus' treasury is unholy? In that view, are you allowed to just do whatever you wish with money? The whole stewardship issue goes out the window because it doesn't belong to Christ anyway. I think federal headship is something that helps us understand that EVERYTHING that is owned by the Christian is a part of the Christian, and therefore, a part of Christ. I don't compartmentalize myself.
"it's interesting that, where you have previously relied on emphasising the church being only a spiritual kingdom, it now sounds like the church is a physical kingdom after all."
I'm not sure what you mean by this. The church is the spiritual kingdom today. That doesn't mean that I think what is spiritual is non-physical. That's a gnostic take on spirituality. The church is made up of physical people with physical needs that are met with physical resources. Their bodies are a part of Christ's body. Everything they own physically is a part of them, including their money. Hence, it is a part of Christ and the unbeliever has no claim to it.
"Of course, 1 Tim also instructs the church not to give to church members under certain circumstances, again showing that the instructions in the Sermon are not unalterable by other considerations and priorities even within the church."
Ben, you almost just caught yourself there. Why the need to make excuses by arguing that Paul's contradiction of Jesus is just due to nuancing and the ability of Christ's words to be flexed to the opposite of what He says? Again, you're trying to salvage a tradition that is, in fact, contradictory to both the context and what the apostles teach later. Paul isn't giving nuance to what Jesus teaches if he is saying to not do what Jesus says to do. Either they are contradicting one another, or you've misunderstood what is being said by one or both of them. Variation is nuance. Contradiction is not. This is what people do with what Jesus says about divorce as well. Suddenly an absolute claim can be dismissed by exceptions because supposedly the apostles say otherwise. I would take a second look at any hermeneutic that causes you to not question your interpretation of two passages when you conclude that they contradict one another and that is somehow still consistent with the teaching of both.
"As for church history, I was saying nothing of my own view of the use of tradition. I was merely wanting to clarify your own view, as at times you have bolstered your views with an appeal to 'the church' or 'orthodoxy' which suggests some kind of authoritative source. Yet what falls under those two terms is only what accords with your own interpretations, so I've been unclear as to the utility of such appeals in your arguments."
ReplyDeleteLet me be clear about then.
1. Seeing what the church has believed on different subjects takes us out of our own cultural context and may allow us to ask questions of our own views we did not think about before. In other words, it helps to go back and see why they concluded what they did and where we may have gone right or wrong.
2. I think that when the church confirms an exegetically derived teaching from Scripture it helps our faith in it when other Christian teachers have seen it too. That doesn't mean that they can't be wrong. It's just faith affirming when they do see it (the same goes for today frankly).
3. The Holy Spirit is with the church to guide it in faith and practice, even when their theology and ethics are off (that's why I said that the church has largely practiced my view even though you can see some church fathers hold to the traditional one in theory).
4. However, if the church has authority over the Bible as the final source of revelation, then there is no hope of reformation. Whatever the church concluded in A.D. 35 should be held over all other conclusions, but that would mean we have tons of Christian teachers who contradict themselves, as that which was held in the first century is not necessarily what is held in the second or third or fourth.
So Christ still raises up teachers, not merely in the beginning, but now, because the church is growing but not yet grown.
BTW, as a follow up, I think that I am actually the one doing dialectal theology when it comes to Jesus and Paul because I don't take Jesus' words to be absolute. If I believed that it was about all people, then it would have to be absolute. Because it is about the covenant community, Paul can discriminate about who receives kingdom resources. In your view, however, you would have to believe that Paul is just setting Jesus' teaching aside as inapplicable in his situation for some reason. That's a contradiction and rejection of what Christ has said, not an affirmation of it.
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ReplyDelete"As far as I can know my own heart I'm sincerely trying to exegete. So it seems no less confusing to me for Matthew to be saying people are blessed for being persecuted due to speaking of Christ in the Beatitude, indicating at least non-Christian Jews (and I would say Gentiles), but actually meaning persecutors within the church."
ReplyDeleteThat's not an exegetical question. You're eisegeting by assuming to what persecution refers. 5:11 defines it and 5:10 tells us what those obeying Christ in the church are being persecuted for. The rest of Matthew tells us that it is fellow members of the covenant community that are persecuting, condemning, not reconciling, not loving other covenant members because they are not practicing a Christian version of Judaism. That's the picture we get from Matthew, and that is what exegesis looks like. You're asking questions as to how something reads to you (persecution, enemey, etc.). That's eisegesis.
Where does it say that they are being persecuted for speaking of Christ? The context indicates they're being persecuted for not being like the Pharisees and practicing Jewish ritual purity laws, but are instead practicing the morality of the Law and Prophets. That's what is implied by 5:10. The Jewish Christians are practicing the righteousness of the Pharisees, and the Jewish believers who are obeying Christ, as well as the Gentile believers who are doing the same, are following the righteousness of the Sermon and the rest of the teaching in Matthew.
"Or placing a missional context of the world at large, but actually meaning only a context of Christians. He would be leaving the audience under one impression until the end of the book, with no guarantee that they'd 'get it' even then. Which is, of course, how so many people from the start (maybe even the writer of the Didache), have ended up reading it the traditional way... it's not blindingly obvious from the beginning that another sense is intended."
The missional aspect at the end flows from the argument. Since Gentiles are to be included as equal members of the covenant community, the church is to go and make disciples of the Gentiles by teaching all that Christ commanded. That isn't a different message. You're simply spinning that to mean that the whole of Matthew is about evangelism, and therefore, it's about how you treat everyone. That's to destroy the entire context and replace it with an outward focus on unbelieving Gentiles when it is actually focused on making disciples who truly obey Christ's teaching in how fellow Christians are treated. That's why Matthew constantly contrasts the crowds who merely hear His teaching with disciples who hear and do it.
"Which is, of course, how so many people from the start (maybe even the writer of the Didache), have ended up reading it the traditional way... it's not blindingly obvious from the beginning that another sense is intended."
ReplyDeleteThen you shouldn't bother reading Matthew and just read what the church fathers believed if you're going to pull their assumptions into it. Lack of exegesis on the part of the early church does not mean that there is a lack of clarity in the biblical text. It's pretty clear to me. What makes the author of the Didache a better interpreter? Because he's earlier?
"Unless I've misunderstood you, I can't see that chapter 7 specifies the nature of the judgement in the way you describe, unless your reading of the Sermon and chapter 25 is already assumed. I agree on your reading of chapter 25, but that doesn't necessitate seeing everything else in those terms. It doesn't mention various other lawful things from the Sermon about how we treat others, covenant or not - turning the other cheek, for example, matters of conflict - so it just homes in on and emphasises what I agree is an absolutely central concern of providing for Christians."
You're not understanding. The two texts are parallel. It is the one singular judgment. There are not two. The last judgment and basis of judgment is the same as the first and throughout Matthew. He's not saying, Depart from Me, I do not know you because of A in one passage and then B in another. It's the same group being dismissed: false Christians. Everything is the same. If you make the basis different, you need to then argue that there are two different judgments. You can't use your interpretation of turning the other cheek or loving the enemy because that is under dispute. You're just begging the question. So you have to use what we both agree is clear: the judgments of those who do not reconcile with their brothers and those who commit adultery on their wives, both groups within the covenant. The judging others has to do with believers as it refers to what is in your brother's eye. That means the entirety of the undisputed part is about how one treats fellow believers, the rest of Matthew is about how one treats fellow believers, and the end judgment that is in parallel to this one is about how one treats fellow believers. So you have to have some overwhelming data that Matthew steps away to talk about how one treats unbelievers for a couple sentences, even though it doesn't make up the basis for any judgment in the judgment scenes. It is simply ripping it out of context to do so.
" Indeed, it's no less reasonable a construal to see that chapter nuancing the instructions of the Sermon, such that the bulk of giving and pledges should go to Christians, with perhaps little or nothing left over for others who request help."
ReplyDeleteYou're not reading the text carefully, Ben. You don't have that option. The text is saying to treat them all the same, to give to them all the same, so you can't give the bulk to Christians and maybe not have anything leftover for non-Christians. You would be disobeying the command. That's not nuance. That's just disobedience. You would have to give to everyone without priority, which biblically means, ironically, without love.
"Given that the Jewish Christians of Matthew's audience would be still facing persecution from non-Christian Jews, I can't see how that's a less plausible context for the gospel in general, to be taken with the internal conflict context as well."
Because you didn't get it from the immediate context, but are simply putting it into it. So that's why it is not plausible. It's not that it is not happening, and even mentioned briefly later for different reasons, but there is no evidence indicating that such is the issue Matthew is addressing in the Sermon.
"My point with money is more that it remains 'unrighteous mammon' even as we 'make friends' with it and use it for some kind of good."
So God does not sanctify it? A part of you remains unholy? Again, I think this is where the lack of understanding to how federal headship works leads to bad theology and ethics in general. You cannot divorce what you own from yourself, and you cannot compartmentalize yourself into holy and unholy. Even your body that is still considered the body of sin/flesh is considered holy and to be used for redeemed purposes here and now.
"And the physical/spiritual kingdom distinction intrigued me because some conversations ago you were emphasising the church as a spiritual kingdom to say why we shouldn't use its internal ways as a standard to critique worldly kingdoms by."
Hmm. I'm not sure to what you're referring. Certainly, the kingdoms of the world have a different purpose and therefore are not to be confused in terms of how we evaluate whether they are functioning as they should. That doesn't contradict anything I've said here.
"On providing for widows: I meant that the Sermon's blanket command to 'give to whoever asks', even under your view, is still modified by 1 Tim which would say *not* to give to some Christians if they ask under some circumstances."
Actually, I think you may have misuderstood 1 Tim. 1. It's giving a teaching so that people who are not qualified should not ask for it. 2. The people that are to be refused as characterized as false Christians and people who are to be excommunicated from the covenant community (e.g., they have denied the faith). 3. Jesus is talking about giving to those in need. Paul is talking about who is in need within the covenant and not giving to those who are not in need within the covenant. He then proceeds to talk about those who are to be excommunicated, or rather, have done so themselves. So, again, there is no modification in my view. But there must be a complete setting aside of the commandment in yours. If commands can be modified in such ways then one should obey all of them perfectly without the need of any divine assistance. My kids would love that sort of fulfillment. lol. But I'm afraid that goes against the very fabric of Christ's point in Matthew, which is that the modification of commands that would limit their original intent so that the command is not fulfilled is the condemned righteousness of the Pharisees.
"No contradiction neccessary, just a nuance as to how absolute the Sermon is in application for different situations. And with church discipline, I mean that the Sermon suggests complete acceptance of and non-retaliation against the attacker... implying no moment of change when he's thrown out of the church and you treat him as a pagan rather than doing good to him. Again, no contradiction need be seen but different circumstances affect exactly how we love someone."
ReplyDeleteYou mean verbal attacker? Because there is nothing physical going on here.
You're still not getting it. These passages talk about personal insults and persecutions toward another. The person is told to love them and even reconcile with them by going to them. They are told to try and lovingly reconcile in the discipline passage as well. They are going to the church to seek that reconciliation, not vengeance. It is the church that decides to excommunicate and then tells the individual that they are not to associate with the person who remains in the unrepentant sin. The church, because it has the authority to declare who is a Christian and who is not, declares that the responsibility to turn the other cheek and give etc. is for covenant members, and the excommunicated person is no longer one. So, again, I don't think you're getting that. You seem to want to say this command is given to the church authorities who decide the matter of covenant status, but it isn't. It's to personal disputes and enmities that must be reconciled by the command of Christ. The Church then stands in for Christ, who is with it, to make its judgment upon their covenant status. That's not a personal retaliation, but obedience to seek reconciliation and declare all those who do not as having no membership within the covenant community. No modification of the command required, and indeed, a perfect obedience to it if pursued in that manner.
"As for God being more unloving than us it would be hard to quantify that since He is constantly kind in providing food and withholding judgement for all non-Christians."
ReplyDeleteActually, it's really easy to do so because He gives us the standard in your view. You don't physically retaliate, and that's what love looks like. If He physically retaliates, as He does when every single person who has ever lived dies or falls under other judgments, then He is commanding Christians to be more loving than He is, whether for missional purposes or whatever. The reason is irrelevant. If He does not turn the other cheek, and does not give to everyone who asks, then when He does not save lives when people ask for it, does not spare from judgments, or from hell, He is being unloving. He is then commanding His people to be better than He is in terms of love. Jesus also fails because He is going to come back and cut people to pieces and set their city on fire, so He is less loving than Christians (and that happened in this age, not the one to come).
"1 Cor 6, putting the church's non-violent internal judiciary and methods on a par with - or in fact far superior to - worldly government"
It is superior in settling personal disputes among believers, which is the context. It is not superior in dealing with murder and violent crime though, precisely, because it isn't the means through which God deals with that kind of chaos in the world. The secular government is.
"That doesn't make it unrighteous for God to also hate and judge people, just a difference in role - "
Again, I'm not arguing whether God is righteous in hating people. He is. However, in your view I'm not sure how to sustain that if loving people is righteous, and hating people by not giving to them or loving them in general is evil. The issue is whether it is loving to do X and not loving to not do X. If Christians must love and therefore do X or they are not loving, then how is God not doing X and still loving? Or if He does less than X, but requires his people to do X completely, how are they not more loving than He is?
" I just think that the particular NT theme of victory through defeat and suffering throws a particular curve-ball for what you might assume from the idea of overcoming physical chaos. Not to negate the Creation Mandate as it clearly continues in the NT in childbearing and general family life, but its vision of worldwide dominion for the Garden-Temple was a this-worldly project cancelled out by the fall, our hopes now set on dominion of the New Heavens and Earth as Israel's land, Temple, and riches were always the types of. That changes our priorities and outlook in this doomed world in a number of significant ways."
That's a one-sided reading. Victory is obtained over chaos BOTH through the non-violent gospel and through absolute violence. Both via glorification in resurrection to life and through eternal shame and devastation in the resurrection to damnation. God's activity in the world now through His two means of accomplishing them reflects that dualistic judgment and victory. You're reducing it to a single method, and that's not what the biblical testimony tells us. Victory through non-violence for all who believe. Victory through violence for all who do not. That is what the Bible actually teaches, and so that is why both servants, the government and the church exist today.
"Not to negate the Creation Mandate as it clearly continues in the NT in childbearing and general family life, but its vision of worldwide dominion for the Garden-Temple was a this-worldly project cancelled out by the fall, our hopes now set on dominion of the New Heavens and Earth as Israel's land, Temple, and riches were always the types of. That changes our priorities and outlook in this doomed world in a number of significant ways."
ReplyDeleteThe pacifist relies on the violence of the non-pacifist to survive the world so that he can actually obey the creation mandate. The creation mandate really cannot be picked apart. If it stands then all of it stands, and all of the ethics that are consistent with it stand. If one is to create and preserve covenant human life, then he must not only bear children, but kill the murderer to protect them. He must feed them, overcoming physical chaos, clothe them and clean them, overcoming physical chaos, and kill the murderer in order to preserve those who would be murdered. You're essentially just arguing that you think all of the ethics that flow from the creation mandate (e.g., procreation, giving to the poor, preaching the gospel, etc.) should be kept, but not the singular one that has to do with killing humans who are physical threats to the lives of the innocent. Again, I would argue the only means of constructing this argument is by reducing God's righteous work to one kingdom and taking a few passages that don't actually pertain to the subject out of context.
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ReplyDelete"There's a difference between understanding and agreeing with someone's view, surely?"
ReplyDeleteSure. I'm just saying you're doing the former because you seem to caricature what I'm saying as being non-missional. My point is that the missional aspect of Matthew is not a different subject than the internal conflict that is occurring among believers, so there is nothing about how one treats unbelievers as part of the missional focus (if there even is one in this text). Instead, a consistent understanding of any missional focus in the context would see that the main message of Matthew is presenting the correct gospel and reconciled community to the unbeliever, so that when he becomes a Christian he may glorify God by bearing that same fruit. It is more likely, however, that the earth and world refer to not just Jews but also Gentiles, meaning that Christians are a light to everyone who is a Christian, not just one group, so they should not just do their good works to their own ethnic group, but shine before all men. That's using the context to define "world," "earth," "men," etc. You're not using the context to define those terms and just assuming that they mean what you think they mean. Although both interpretations can be sustained without harming my view at all (you can argue that "world" and "earth" are more ambiguous and don't gain their references from the context), I think the latter is more probable given the situation Matthew is addressing according to the context, and only the latter would take the referents of those words from the context.
ReplyDeleteAlong with this, what you just gave me is a perfect example of eisegesis. You're interpreting things according to what the seem to be saying to you, what they sound like to those like you who place them in the context of your tradition. That's context replacement. Who is glorifying the Father? Unbelievers? The same ones who are blaspheming God? Turning the cheek is about someone physically attacking you? No, it isn't. It's an idiomatic expression taken from the OT that is used in rabbinic literature and refers to insulting someone. Your understanding of persecution is not contextual either. You keep wanting to put it in the context of the world persecuting Christians, but persecution is defined as insult and slander, which connects it to the internal conflict Matthew is addressing. The persecutors in the Gospels are those who claim to be apart of the covenant community, and that's why there is a Jewish-Gentile conflict going on. The "everyone" sounds to you like it refers to everyone without exception in the world, but the context is dealing with the conflict within the church, so that the everyone would refer to all believers, whether in good standing with one another or at odds with one another, Jew or Gentile. In fact, that is to what everyone refers in the immediate context (not just those who are friends but also enemies). It does not refer to everyone, including pagans. Matthew, in fact, uses the term "brothers" to refer to not just loving one's own ethnicity, but you interpret it to mean "fellow Christians" because that's the definition with which you are most familiar. Exegesis draws out from the text. You are putting your own ideas into the text. That isn't exegesis. You say that you have an explicit context, but it's only explicit to you when you supply the meanings of those words from elsewhere. The context forms a very different picture of those terms, and these become referents that you just replace. You have to blank out on your preconceived definitions, Ben. You have to let the text define for you what the terms mean. Otherwise, you are committing word study fallacies where you try to dictate the context with referents to words that you are not getting from the context, rather than letting the context dictate the meaning/referents of the words.
The persecution addressed is Jewish Christians shunning Gentile Christians and the other Jewish Christians who will not shun them. Insults and slander are flying around. Christians are at odds with one another, enemies. They have things against one another. They are calling one another horrible names, degrading their humanity. They are treating their wives like garbage by looking at other women and divorcing them, causing them to sin against God. They are setting aside what the OT demands of God's covenant community, not forgiving one another, not giving to one another, condemning one another without going through the proper process of self evaluation and church discipline, and not treating one another as they would be treated. The Jewish Christians are jealous and angry that God would give to the Gentile Christians the same status as He gives to them, as the parable indicates, and believe that one must practice the ritual purity and ceremonial laws in order to be considered a true covenant member. This is an awful witness to other believers/future believers who would glorify God of what the gospel demands and the Christian community is supposed to be. That's all you can get from the context of Matthew, Ben. Anything else is reading into it and is not exegesis.
"So we reach the judgement of chapter 25, which focuses on the particular issue of care for the church. I'd suggest there are bigger differences between the Sermon and the nature of that judgement than you're allowing for. So the command to give in ch 5 is within an antagonistic context that includes theft/extortion, and the giving is reactive to being specifically asked (as with Luke's variant). The care mentioned in the judgement seems much more proactive and not about actions within a context of antagonism. The pericope is therefore about a specific issue, rather than encompassing all the issues Matthew has to mention elsewhere, and so doesn't, as a matter of *necessity* affect the working interpretation of the Sermon."
ReplyDeleteYeah, this is what I mean that you are not interpreting things in context. The judgment at the end is completely out of the context of the rest of Matthew in your view. The entire book has been dealing with Jewish Christians who are mistreating and not taking care of other Christians due to their unclean status. The Sermon mentions this and so does 24:45-51 that begins the judgment scene at the end of Christ's teaching. You're divorcing the judgment scenes from what is said in the book, and yet, they are all rooted in what Matthew records as Christ saying in the book. The words that are to be obeyed are the words about forgiveness and reconciliation and giving to other believers in both pericopes. They are both about bearing the fruit of love of God and fellow covenant member because that is what Matthew is about and what he says the entire Law and Prophets are about. Hence, Christians are not taking care of other Christians precisely because they are antagonistic toward them. They've judged them as unclean and therefore they have no responsibility toward them. They can beat them instead of giving to them when in need. They don't need to love them because they are their enemies. Both scenes bear this out, both scenes are dealing with the same issue (Matthew isn't suddenly switching issues midstream), and that is why both use parallel language (i.e., not because it is merely the same judgment, but because it is the same judgment using the criteria for the judgment of professed believers). Again, you're not letting Matthew's context tell you what the judgment is about, but rather, because you want to maintain your traditional interpretation, you are attempting to divorce one from the other, as well as divorce it from everything Matthew has been arguing throughout concerning the internal covenant conflict going on.
"With that in mind, it's not hard to see how the early church took the shape it did, being both pacifist and yet focusing giving almost exclusively on Christians, as you've suggested happened historically. Maybe they were wrong in their interpretation - I meant nothing more than to say it's not hard to see how the text can end up being read that way since another context is not immediately obvious (i.e. Prologue: 'I, Matthew, have written this gospel in order to deal exclusively with matters pertaining to antagonistic relationships within the church, and nowhere else.') - which doesn't rule it out per se."
ReplyDeleteAre you arguing that the Bible is unclear? It's not unclear, Ben. That's why I can make my argument by appealing to it and you have to go elsewhere for your definitions of these words. So I agree that it is not hard to see how one can misinterpret the text when one does not pay attention to the context, as some of the teachers in church history have done, but that doesn't mean Matthew is unclear simply because he didn't explicitly state his purpose as though he was writing an epistle and not a narrative presentation of theology and ethics. My point being that he doesn't have to write out a thesis statement in order to be clear about the issues he is addressing. The church just needed to read it in a way that wasn't so presumptuous.
In terms of us being more loving than God, it may be observed that as Christ's body our actions are effectively God's actions as well, so he gets the credit for that love too (we are only servants, etc) - all kudos returns to Him. If He wants to use the church to carry out His loving purposes in a particular way, then that's up to Him."
ReplyDeleteThat doesn't answer the question. If we are 100% loving because love is defined by non-violence, even if just in this age for whatever purposes, then if God is only 99% loving by not retaliating, even if much of that is through us, He is still 1% less loving than we are. The issue is that if you interpret Jesus here to be talking about non-violence toward the wicked, you end up arguing that whenever Jesus or the Father are violent toward the wicked, they are not loving as much as they require their people to love. That has nothing to do with whether they have the right, whether it's for this purpose or that, whether it's indirectly or directly, etc. It has to do with Christ, in your view, defining love in terms of non-violence toward chaotic agents/unbelievers who may physically attack you. There can be no retaliation if one is loving, but God/Christ do retaliate, and so are not being loving when they do. If this refers to the covenant community, however, as God is loving toward His covenant community, seeking repentance from its wayward members, so we are to be as well. Our love is the same as His. We only shun when they are identified by Christ through His Church as non-covenant members, again, as God/Christ also do. I can see no correspondence between what God does and what believers are to do in your view.
"So, while acknowledging the compacted nature of Isaiah 2, it looks like God doesn't expect His new international people to behave in any way but non-violently. Of course, Isaiah doesn't envision the overlap of ages we're in and the continuing threats from outside the church, but He doesn't see the law taking any other shape. It's part of the sacrificial cost of belonging to Christ in the last gasps of this evil age."
That's the problem with trying to make an argument in the Prophets concerning the eschatological age. Of course there isn't any violence in an age when chaos no longer exists in the created order. Isaiah isn't discussing the already-not yet as you yourself note. So it really can't be used to establish a point being made concerning how believers in government should address physical evils in the present age.
ReplyDeleteTaken to that logical conclusion, there will be no sickness so believers will get rid of all of their medicine. There will be no sin, so believers need not avoid temptation. There will be no marriage or commerce, so believers should not engage in them. Saying that believers will not war in the eschaton because there is no opponent against whom to wage war, again, says nothing as to what we do when there is.
"With a change in a few details (i.e. I don't think you'd say the church is to dominate the Earth in spatial terms as the Garden was to), I could actually agree with a fair bit in your last two paras."
ReplyDeleteI guess it depends upon what you mean by that. I do think that the church is to dominate the earth spatially as the garden because it is the expanding garden. If you mean by that that the church, in accordance with its mission, doesn't violently dominate, I would agree. It would encourage the government to violently dominate though when it comes to the threat of chaos.
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ReplyDeleteI'm not seeing commands in Isa 2, just description of the age as having no more wars. We're not in a time that sees no wars. Chaos still exists so I'm really not sure how Isaiah 2 applies. The Israelites can be described this way once they control the empire and there is no more threat of another nation, but that doesn't mean if a nation were to arise and threaten them that God requires them to no longer meet it in battle. The eschatological age is the age of a single kingdom, where no other kingdom has a physical threat toward God's people. That isn't the age we live in.
ReplyDelete"With a change in a few details (i.e. I don't think you'd say the church is to dominate the Earth in spatial terms as the Garden was to), I could actually agree with a fair bit in your last two paras."
Sure. I agree. That doesn't say anything as to whether Christians should join the work of that kingdom to preserve other Christians.
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ReplyDelete"I think it follows that if the people seek to know God's ways, and that the only behaviour we're subsequently told about is that they don't 'learn war anymore', that would be an indication of what has been taught, i.e. that no one should disturb the new peace."
ReplyDeleteHow are they God's ways? His ways when confronted with chaos are to defeat it both through transformation and violent expulsion. The eschaton is a time that has no more war so the people don't learn war anymore. That's because there is no chaos to war against anymore. If it were to raise up its ugly head again, then God's nature and theirs would be to war against it again. Since it will no longer exist, they don't. You're assuming that they have a change of nature because of a change of environment, but the creation mandate is reflective of God's character in a world of chaos. In world without it, there is no need for the activity, any of the activity, of the creation mandate. So this is not a good argument for your position. That's like saying that since they no longer marry in that age, that's the highest reflection of God's desires and character He wishes His people to emulate, and hence, no Christian should ever get married, or buy things, or take medication, etc.
"My point is that other kingdoms are a distinct reality to the church and so can't be considered part of its uniquely righteous Temple-project, which had no holy second-kingdom counterpart in the OT."
I disagree with this statement. Even Israel is aided by other nations. The work of God's kingdom in a world of chaos can only function and exist in the context of God holding chaos at bay with the governmental role He has given to the city of man.
"So Romans 12 teaches that Christians should 'never' take vengeance but leave vengeance entirely to 'God's wrath'
Never take vengeance as Christians toward one another. Yes. You're reading the text as absolute outside the context in which it is being said. Paul is talking about Christians who are seeking their own vengeance against other Christians (the entire context of Romans). They are to see government in that role and not as their individual responsibility to punish others for crimes they think have been committed. In light of that, it's interesting that you think Paul is degrading the government, since in Rom 13 he gives it a higher role than the church for dealing with actual crimes. Your interpretation would lead to a pretty glaring contradiction. 1 Cor 6 is about personal disputes that one can sue another Christian over. Romans 13 is about actual crimes committed (e.g., that which may carry the death penalty). Christians are to settle the one for themselves but not the other.
"Since chapter 13 (not originally a 'new chapter' seperate from 12) makes clear that it is the non-Christian State authorities carry out 'God's wrath', I can't see how Christians should take up such authority if they are to leave such matters to God,"
ReplyDeleteWhere does he say the state is non-Christian? You're importing that into the text again. He's arguing that the state has the authority to deal with crimes, and individual Christians don't, especially when directed toward one another (again, as is the context). They are to love other Christians with whom they are at odds. If they have a real crime committed against them they are to trust that God has set the government as the authoritative entity to deal with that sort of thing, not the Chritian, as an individual in the covenant community, bent on vengeance. Again, this says nothing was to whether a Christians should be in the state.
"To aid my pondering on the Sermon, could you give me a couple of references for 'turn the other cheek' in the OT and (extra-Biblical?) rabbinic literature? I've had a look but can't find much."
Sure. I'll give you a few scholars and they have some primary references in the quotes,
Craig Keener:
“A backhanded blow to the right cheek did not imply shattered teeth ( " tooth for tooth " was a separate statement); it was an insult, the severest public affront to a person’s dignity (Job 16:10; Lam 3:30; m. B. Qam. 8:6; Plut. Platonic Questions 9.4, Mor. 1010F).112 God’s prophets had sometimes suffered such ill-treatment (1 Kings 22:24; 2 Chron 18:23; Is 50:6; Jeremias 1963: 29), as Jesus would himself (26:67; cf. Mic 5:1). Yet though this was more an affront to honor, a challenge, than a physical injury, ancient Near Eastern societies typically provided legal recourse for this offense within the lex talionis regulations (e.g., Hammurabi 202-6; cf. Gaius Inst. 3.220).”
R. T. France “To slap another’s cheek was a serious insult (2 Cor 11:20; cf. Lam 3:30) for which legal redress could be claimed (the code of Hammurabi deals with this too, in paragraphs 202-5, with penalties ranging from a small fine to the cutting off of an ear, depending on the social standing of the two parties involved), but to slap the right cheek required (if the assailant was right-handed) a slap with the back of the hand,681 which was far more insulting and would entail double damages (m. B. Qam. 8:6). This is more a matter of honor than of physical injury,682 and honor required appropriate recompense. Yet Jesus tells the disciple to forgo the financial benefit to which he is legally entitled, to accept the insult without responding,683 and even to offer the left cheek for a further, if less serious, insult. Such a response follows the model of God’s servant, who “gave my back to those who struck me, and my cheeks to those who pulled out the beard [LXX has “to slapping”]; I did not hide my face from insult and spitting” (Isa 50:6).684 In a culture which took honor and shame far more seriously than ours, this was a paradoxical and humiliating demand.”
Hans Dieter Betz “It has been observed that beating someone on the right cheek requires use of the back of the right hand,an extreme humiliation in the Greco-Roman736 as well as the Jewish world,and indeed, in our own time. Why the right cheek? The right side is always the more important one; thus the strike is even more humiliating. The term pa7rl(w ("strike," "slap") is forceful, but so is the term TV7TTW, used in the SP parallel.
“People open their mouths to jeer at me; they strike my cheek with insult and unite together against me” (Job 16:10).
“Let him give his cheek to the one who slaps it, Let him be completely insulted” (Lam 3:30).
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ReplyDeleteChapter 12 does suggest a distinction between the way the world lives against the way the law commands us to live. Paul is arguing that since the church is Israel, it lives according to the principles of the law that are all about the worshiping God by loving one another in the community, not seeking vengeance, etc. However, because it is by faith that one is united to Christ and made Israel, the Jewish customs of the law are no longer the distinguishing marks of the true Israel. Hence, as he goes on to say in Chaps 14-15, holy days, foods, etc. are optional. What is important is to love the brethren. Nothing here contributes to a view that one should not defend himself or others against a violent pagan. Even if it were against one who claimed to be a Christian, the issue is vengeance not self-defense, a distinction which I find pacificists to consistently confuse.
ReplyDeleteI didn't mention the missional aspect because it is a conclusion of what Matthew is arguing for and not what Matthew is arguing for. Hence, the Great Commission is a "therefore." Since Gentiles are included as full members of Israel who are made up of those who are united to Christ, God's disicples are to go and make disciples of the Gentiles. So Matthew is not arguing how to evangelize, and therefore, how to deal with the pagan in evangelism. He is arguing what the church should look like in terms of its refraining from sinning against one another and loving one another in real support. Hence, discipleship is defined in the Great Commission as baptizing them and teaching them all that Christ's commanded, not meeting their physical needs through financial support. The teaching of Matthew, in other words, should bring the newly discipled believer into a community that is obeying Christ in both word and deed. That's Matthew's missional point.