8:33 Get Behind Me, Satan!

8:33 Get Behind Me, Satan!

When, on Schweitzer’s reading of the evidence, the hope of that manifestation was disappointed, what happened to the interim ethic? Logically, it should have been forgotten when its basis was removed. Actually, the interim ethic survived in its own right, as is magnificently evident from Schweitzer’s own career. It was the driving force behind his life of service to others in West Africa. What, on his understanding, was but the prologue to the expected drama “has become the whole drama … the ministry of Jesus is not a prelude to the Kingdom of God: it is the Kingdom of God.”13

[13 T. W. Manson, Studies in the Gospels and Epistles (Manchester: Manchester University Press, 1962). pp. 9–10.]

The commission to the Twelve, as given in Matthew 10:5–23, has two parts, each with its own perspective. The first part (Mt 10:5–18) deals with the immediate situation, within the context of Jesus’ own Galilean ministry. The second part (Mt 10:19–23) envisages a later period, when the apostles will be engaged in a wider ministry—the kind of ministry in which they were in fact engaged in the period following the resurrection of Jesus and the coming of the Spirit. Think of the warning “Be on your guard against men; they will hand you over to the local councils and flog you in their synagogues. On my account you will be brought before governors and kings as witnesses to them and to the Gentiles” (Mt 10:17–18). This reference to the Gentiles presents a contrast with the reference to them in Matthew 10:5, where they are excluded from the scope of the earlier preaching tour. The warning just quoted has a close parallel in Mark 13:9–10, where the situation is that leading up to the destruction of Jerusalem in a.d. 70. And in both places the warning is followed by an assurance that, when the disciples are put on trial and required to bear witness to their faith, the Holy Spirit will put the right words into their mouths. It is this second part of the commission in Matthew 10 that is rounded off with the hard saying “You will not finish going through the cities of Israel before the Son of Man comes.”

What, then, does the saying mean in this context? It means, simply, that the evangelization of Israel will not be completed before the end of the present age, which comes with the advent of the Son of Man. The parallel passage in Mark has a similar statement, which, however, takes more explicit account of Gentile as well as Jewish evangelization: before the end time, “the gospel must first be preached to all nations”

(Mk 13:10). (This statement is reproduced in slightly amplified form in Mt 24:14:

“And this gospel of the kingdom will be preached in the whole world, as a testimony to all nations, and then the end will come.”) Paul, from his own perspective, expresses much the same hope when he foresees the salvation of “all Israel,” the sequel to the ingathering of the full sum of Gentile believers, being consummated at the time when

“the deliverer will come from Zion” (Rom 11:25–27).

The wording of Matthew 10:23 is earlier in its reference than that of the other passages just mentioned: here witness-bearing to the Gentiles receives a brief mention, but all the emphasis lies on the mission to the Jews. This mission, as we know from Galatians 2:6–9, was taken seriously by the leaders of the Jerusalem church in the early apostolic age, and they carried it out with some sense of urgency. For anything they knew to the contrary, the Son of Man might come within their own generation. We must not allow our understanding of their perspective to be influenced by our own very different perspective. We know that their mission, in the form in which they pursued it, was brought to an end by the Judean rebellion against Rome in a.d. 66, but it would be unwise to say that that, with the fall of Jerusalem four years later, was the coming of the Son of Man of which Jesus spoke.

10:28 Whom Should We Fear?

See comment on luke 12:4–5.

10:34 Not Peace but a Sword?

This is a hard saying for all who recall the message of the angels on the night of Jesus’

birth: “Glory to God in high heaven, and peace on earth among human beings, the objects of God’s favor” (as the message seems to mean). True, the angels’ message appears only in Luke (Lk 2:14) and the hard saying comes from Matthew. But Luke records the same hard saying, except that he replaces the metaphorical “sword” by the nonmetaphorical “division” (Lk 12:51). Both Evangelists then go on to report Jesus as saying, “For I have come to turn ‘a man against his father, a daughter against her mother, a daughter-in-law against her mother-in-law’” (Mt 10:35; Lk 12:53), while Matthew rounds the saying off with a quotation from the Old Testament: “a man’s enemies will be the members of his own household” (Mic 7:6).

One thing is certain: Jesus did not advocate conflict. He taught his followers to offer no resistance or retaliation when they were attacked or ill-treated. “Blessed are the peacemakers,” he said, “for they will be called sons of God” (Mt 5:9), meaning that God is the God of peace, so that those who seek peace and pursue it reflect his character. When he paid his last visit to Jerusalem, the message which he brought it concerned “what would bring you peace,” and he wept because the city refused his message and was bent on a course that was bound to lead to destruction (Lk 19:41–

44). The message that his followers proclaimed in his name after his departure was called the “gospel of peace” (Eph 6:15) or the “message of reconciliation” (2 Cor 5:19

RSV [RSV Revised Standard Version] ). It was called this not merely as a matter of doctrine but as a fact of experience. Individuals and groups formerly estranged from one another found themselves reconciled through their common devotion to Christ.

Something of this sort must have been experienced even earlier, in the course of the Galilean ministry: if Simon the Zealot and Matthew the tax collector were able to live together as two of the twelve apostles, the rest of the company must have looked on

this as a miracle of grace.

But when Jesus spoke of tension and conflict within a family, he probably spoke from personal experience. There are indications in the gospel story that some members of his own family had no sympathy with his ministry; the people who on one occasion tried to restrain him by force because people were saying, “He is out of his mind” are called “his friends” in the KJV [KJV King James Version] but more accurately “his family” in the NIV [NIV New International Version] (Mk 3:21). “Even his own brothers did not believe in him,” we are told in John 7:5. (If it is asked why, in that case, they attained positions of leadership alongside the apostles in the early church, the answer is no doubt to be found in the statement of 1 Cor 15:7 that Jesus, risen from the dead, appeared to his brother James.)

So, when Jesus said that he had come to bring “not peace but a sword” he meant that this would be the effect of his coming, not that it was the purpose of his coming. His words came true in the life of the early church, and they have verified themselves subsequently in the history of Christian missions. Where one or two members of a family or other social group have accepted the Christian faith, this has repeatedly provoked opposition from other members. Paul, who seems to have experienced such opposition in his own family circle as a result of his conversion, makes provision for similar situations in the family life of his converts. He knew that tension could arise when a husband or a wife became a Christian and the other spouse remained a pagan.

If the pagan spouse was happy to go on living with the Christian, that was fine; the whole family might become Christian before long. But if the pagan partner insisted on walking out and terminating the marriage, the Christian should not use force or legal action, because “God has called us to peace” (1 Cor 7:12–16 RSV [RSV Revised Standard Version] ).

In these words, then, Jesus was warning his followers that their allegiance to him might cause conflict at home and even expulsion from the family circle. It was well that they should be forewarned, for then they could not say, “We never expected that we should have to pay this price for following him!”

11:11 Who Is Greater Than John the Baptist?

See comment on luke 7:28.

11:12 Violently into the Kingdom?

See comment on luke 16:16.

11:27 The Father and the Son

No one would have been surprised had this saying appeared somewhere in the Gospel of John. The language is characteristically Johannine; the saying has been called “an aerolite from the Johannine heaven” or “a boulder from the Johannine moraine.” For all its Johannine appearance, it does not come in the Gospel of John but in the non-Mark material common to the Gospels of Matthew and Luke, drawn (it is widely supposed) from the Q collection of sayings of Jesus, which may have been in

circulation not long after a.d. 50. The nearest thing to it in the Synoptic Gospels is the utterance of the risen Christ at the end of Matthew’s Gospel: “All authority in heaven and on earth has been given to me” (Mt 28:18).

In both Matthew and Luke (and therefore presumably also in the source on which they drew), the saying follows on immediately from words in which Jesus thanks God that things hidden from the wise and understanding have been revealed to “babes”—that is, apparently, to the disciples. The one who has revealed those things is Jesus himself; indeed, he is not only the revealer of truth; he is the Son who reveals the Father. In this context the “all things” that have been delivered to him by the Father would naturally be understood to refer to the content of his teaching or revelation. But the content of this teaching or revelation is not an abstract body of divinity; it is personal, it is God the Father himself. Jesus claims a unique personal knowledge of God, and this personal knowledge he undertakes to impart to others. Unless it is imparted by him, it is inaccessible. He is the one who at his baptism heard the Father acclaim him as his Son, his beloved, his chosen one (Mk 1:11). He enjoys a special relation and fellowship with the Father, but that relation and fellowship is open to those who learn from him. As he calls God “Abba, Father,” they may know him and call him by the same name. All the other gifts which the Father has to bestow on his children come with this personal knowledge, which is mediated by Jesus.

Matthew and Luke give the saying two different literary contexts; if we look for a historical context, we might think of some occasion when the disciples showed that they had grasped the heart of his teaching to which the minds of others remained closed, as at Caesarea Philippi.

There is nothing hard in this except to those who cannot accept the claim to uniqueness, the “scandal of particularity,” implicit in the gospel. But to those who accept the presuppositions current in a plural society this can be hard enough.

But what of the statement that “no one knows the Son except the Father”? One line of traditional interpretation takes this to mean that the union of the divine and human natures in the one person of the Son of God is a mystery known only to the Father.

But it is anachronistic to impart later christological teaching into the context of Jesus’

ministry. More probably the two clauses “no one knows the Son except the Father”

and “no one knows the Father except the Son” constitute a fuller way of saying “no one except the Father and the Son know each other.” It has been suggested, indeed, that there is an argument from the general to the particular here—that a saying to the effect that “only a father and a son know each other” (and therefore only the son can reveal the father) is applied to the special relation of Jesus and God: “only the Father and the Son know each other” (and therefore only the Son can reveal the Father).

Whatever substance there may be in this suggestion, it is clear that a reciprocity of personal knowledge between the Son of God and his Father is affirmed. As none but the Father knows the Son, so none but the Son knows the Father, but the Son shares this knowledge with those whom he chooses, and in the present context that means his disciples.

There is a fascinating collection of variant readings in the textual transmission of this saying; they bear witness to difficulties which early scribes and editors found in it. The only variation at which we need to look is that between Matthew’s wording and Luke’s: whereas Matthew says “knows the Son … knows the Father,” Luke says

“knows who the Son is … or who the Father is.” Luke’s wording might appear to

weaken the emphasis on direct personal knowledge expressed by Matthew’s wording, but this was probably not Luke’s intention. If consideration be given to the Semitic construction behind the Greek of the two Gospels, Matthew’s wording can claim to be closer to what Jesus actually said.

12:30 For or Against Christ?

See comment on luke 11:23.

12:31–32 An Unpardonable Sin?

See comment on mark 3:28–29.

12:39 No Sign?

See comment on luke 11:29–30.

12:40 How Long Was Jesus in the Tomb?

While referring to the example of Jonah (Jon 1:17) Jesus uses a phrase which appears only here, in Jonah and in 1 Samuel 30:12. Yet it is clear even in Matthew that Jesus was raised “on the third day” (Mt 16:21; 17:23; 20:19; compare Mt 27:63 “after three days”), and this agrees with the narrative (Mt 27:57–28:1). What are we to make of this?

First, we know what we would mean by the phrase in Matthew 12:40: we would mean a seventy-two-hour period or at least most of that period. Second, we know that Jesus was not in the tomb more than thirty-six to thirty-eight hours, since he was buried at evening (which began at about 6 p.m.) on Friday and rose by morning (about 6 a.m.) on Sunday. Third, we know that the phrase “three days and three nights” was not a problem for Matthew, for he can use both that and “on the third day” and include no explanation, which he does in other cases where he senses a problem.

Having seen what we know, we now need to look at what we may be assuming erroneously. First, we may be assuming that first-century Jews thought about time in the same way that we do. In fact they did not. Any part of a day could be counted as if it were a full day, much as in Canada and the U.S.A. a child is deductible for income-tax purposes at the full year rate even if he or she was born at 11 p.m. on December 31. The “three days and three nights,” then, may simply refer to three twenty-four-hour days (sunset to sunset periods), and Jesus was in fact in the tomb parts of three different days.

Second, we may be assuming that Jesus was simply making a statement, when, given the unusual nature of this phrase, he was actually quoting Jonah. The sign of Jonah was that the prophet was “buried” for three days and then “rose again,” so to speak, to announce judgment (and, implicitly, salvation). In quoting the scriptural phrase Jesus probably did not mean that he would be buried the exact length of time as Jonah was in the fish, but that he would like Jonah be “buried” for that approximate time and then be “raised.” The phrase is used to remind the hearers of the familiar Scripture. This is

much like a modern person saying, “I laid a ‘fleece’ before God.” They do not mean to indicate that they put out wool before God, but that, like Gideon in the Bible, they asked God for a particular sign to see if something was or was not his will. Thus, when he wants to remind people of Jonah, Jesus uses the phrase found there, but when he is not citing Jonah and simply intends to describe how long he would be in the tomb, he uses the more accurate “on the third day.”

While either of these explanations above resolves the apparent problem, the second is more likely the central reason for the phrase. Together they remind us that there are a number of ways of using language. We must be certain we understand how a phrase is being used before jumping to conclusions; the fact that ancient scripts did not have quotation marks does not make this job any easier. The main clue for us is that Matthew does not indicate that he feels a problem, so either he did not see the two phrases as meaning anything different or else he realized that what Jesus intended was simply a citation of Jonah.

See also comment on luke 11:29–30.

13:13 Why in Parables?

See comment on mark 4:11–12.

13:32 How Small Is a Mustard Seed?

There is no doubt but that the mustard seed is a small seed. All the same, even the naked eye can tell that there are smaller seeds. While the round mustard seed is smaller than wheat, millet, barley, caraway and dill, it is debatable whether it is smaller than the sesame seed (a flat seed, which is larger in one dimension but about the same volume as the mustard seed), and it is several times the size of a poppy seed. How then could Jesus in Matthew make the statement in Matthew 13:32 (which literally reads, “the smallest of seeds”; the NIV [NIV New International Version] has added an interpretive

“all your” based upon Mk 4:31, “It is like a mustard seed, which is the smallest seed you plant in the ground”)?

First, we notice that the purpose of the passage is not to teach about botany, but to make a natural comparison to the kingdom of God. Jesus is pointing out something as an illustration, not trying to give an absolute truth. Holding Jesus responsible for something he had no intention of teaching or implying shows the inability of the accuser to understand language, not a failure of Jesus or the Gospel writers.

Second, the context of Jesus’ point is found in the version in Mark: “the smallest seed you plant in the ground.” Which seeds did Palestinian Jews plant? The mustard seed is smaller than any other they commonly planted. In fact, it is quite possible that the original setting of the saying was near some garden toward which Jesus motioned as he taught. (This assumes that he was intending the cultivated or black mustard, brassica nigra; there is a wild mustard, brassica arvensis, which he might have pointed out had he been teaching in some rural setting.)

Third, the focus of Jesus’ saying is to make a contrast between the smallness of the seed planted and the size of the resulting shrub. It does not grow into a thin grass or weak-stemmed flower, unable to support the weight of anything more than insects, but

into a sturdy shrub perhaps three feet high with stems strong enough to support the weight of small birds. Here is a seed which is as tiny as a large grain of sand. A person plants it in the garden. A shrub sprouts that grows large enough to support the weight of birds. The kingdom of heaven is like that. It begins with Jesus and his small band of followers, hardly noticeable in the towns and cities of Palestine, let alone the Roman Empire (Roman historians do not even mention him). Yet, he predicts, that kingdom will grow until it becomes something large and strong.

What was this supposed to mean for the listener? The smallness of this nucleus of the kingdom of heaven was easy to ignore. One could listen to Jesus and say, “That was interesting,” and turn aside to one’s business. Yet the kingdom is not going to go away. It will become something large and strong. It is even possible that the reference to the birds implies that the Gentiles would find shelter in the kingdom (birds are sometimes used in that symbolic way in rabbinic teaching). Jesus is not something for the people to ignore. Now is the time for decision, for the future will prove their foolishness if they ignore the small beginning they see in the present.

15:21–28 The Children First?

See comment on mark 7:27

16:4 No Sign?

See comment on luke 11:29–30.

16:18–19 Peter the Rock?

Why should this be reckoned a hard saying? It does, to be sure, contain some figures of speech which require to be explained—“the gates of Hades” (which RSV [RSV

Revised Standard Version] has interpreted for us as “the powers of death”), “the keys of the kingdom,” “binding” and “loosing.” But it is not because of these figures of speech that the saying is widely reckoned to be hard—so hard, indeed, that some interpreters have tried not only to explain it but to explain it away.

One reason for regarding it as a hard saying is that Peter in the Gospels is too unstable a character to serve as the foundation for any enterprise or to be given such authority as is conveyed in these words. But the main reason for finding a difficulty in the text is strictly irrelevant to its straightforward reading and interpretation. Few Protestants, asked to name their favorite text, would think of quoting this one. It has been invoked to support the supremacy of the Roman Church over other churches—more precisely, to support the supremacy of the bishop of Rome over other bishops—and those who do not acknowledge this use of it as valid have sometimes reacted by trying to make it mean something much less positive than it appears to mean. Some have suggested, with no manuscript evidence to justify the suggestion, that the text has been corrupted from an original “you have said” (instead of “you are Peter”); others have argued that the Greek wording is not an accurate translation of the Aramaic form in which the saying was cast by Jesus—that what he said was, “I tell you, Peter, that on this rock I will build my church.” But this too is conjecture. If we can get rid of the idea that the text has any reference to the Roman Church or to the papacy, we shall lose interest in

such attempts to remove what has been felt to be its awkwardness.

Certainly there is nothing in the context to suggest Rome or the papacy. But the context of the saying presents us with a problem of a different kind. All three Synoptic Evangelists record the incident in the neighborhood of Caesarea. All of them tell how Jesus, after asking his disciples what account people were giving of him, next asked them what account they themselves gave: “Who do you say that I am?” To this question Peter, acting as their spokesman, replied, “You are the Christ” (that is the form of his answer in Mk 8:29; the other Gospels have variations in wording). All three Evangelists add that Jesus strictly forbade them to repeat this to anyone. But Matthew inserts, between Peter’s answer and Jesus’ charge to the disciples not to repeat it, a personal response by Jesus to Peter.

How are we to account for the fact that this response, with its introductory benediction, does not appear in Mark’s or Luke’s record of the occasion? If Matthew were the source on which Mark and Luke depended, then we could say that they abridged his record for purposes of their own, and we should try to determine what those purposes were. If, however, we are right in thinking that Mark was one of the sources on which Matthew drew, then we have to say that Matthew has amplified Mark’s record by incorporating material derived from elsewhere. This is not the only place where Matthew expands Mark’s record by the inclusion of material about Peter not found in the other Gospels. We may think, for example, of the episode of Peter’s getting out of the boat and beginning to sink when he tried to walk to Jesus on the water (Mt 14:28–31).

It has been argued that the passage we are considering belongs to a later period in Christian history rather than that to which Matthew assigns it. Some have seen in it the report of words spoken by Jesus to Peter when he appeared to him in resurrection—

words which Matthew transferred to the Caesarea Philippi context because of the aptness of the subject matter. Others would date them later still. Is it likely, they ask, that the historical Jesus would speak of his “church”? Certainly it is not likely that he used the word in the sense which it usually bears for us, but it is not unlikely that he used an Aramaic word which was represented in Greek by ekkleµsia, the term regularly rendered “church” in the New Testament. And if he did, what did he mean by it? He meant the new community which he aimed to bring into being, the new Israel in which the twelve apostles were to be the leaders, leading by service and not by dictation.

A helpful analogy to Jesus’ words to Peter is provided by an allegory found in rabbinical tradition setting forth God’s dealings with humanity from the beginning to the time of Abraham. The written documents in which this allegory is found are later than our Gospels, but behind the written form lies a period of oral transmission. In Isaiah 51:1 Abraham is called “the rock from which you were cut,” and the allegory undertakes to explain why Abraham should be called a “rock.” It tells how a certain king wished to build a palace and set his servants to dig to find a foundation. They dug for a long time and took soundings twice, but they found nothing but morass. (The soundings were taken first in the generation of Enosh, Adam’s grandson, and then in the generation of Noah.) After further digging they took soundings again, and this time they struck rock ( petra). “Now,” said the king, “at last I can begin to build.”14 [14 Yalqut ShimÕni (medieval compilation) 1.766.]

In the allegory the king, of course, is God; the palace which he planned to build is the

nation of Israel, and he knew that he could make a beginning with the project when he found Abraham, a man ready to respond to his call with implicit faith and obedience. It would be precarious to envisage any direct relation between this allegory and Jesus’

words to Peter as recorded by Matthew, but there is a notable resemblance.

According to John’s account of the call of the first disciples, it was during John the Baptist’s ministry in Transjordan that Peter heard his brother Andrew say, with reference to Jesus, “We have found the Messiah” (Jn 1:41). Evidently Peter then believed Andrew’s testimony, but that would have been an instance of what Jesus now described as “flesh and blood” (a human being) telling him. There were various ideas abroad in the popular mind at that time regarding the kind of person the Messiah was and the kind of things he would do, but Jesus’ character and activity, as his disciples had come to know them, probably corresponded to none of those ideas. If Peter believed Jesus to be the Messiah when he first received his call, and now confessed him to be the Messiah a year or more later, the concept “Messiah” must have begun to change its meaning for him. Not long before, he had seen his Master repel the attempt of a band of eager militants, five thousand strong, to make him their king so that he might lead them against the occupying forces of Rome and their creature, Herod Antipas (Jn 6:15). The Messiah as popularly conceived ought surely to have grasped such an opportunity. Some at least of the disciples were disappointed that he refused to do so.

The fact that Peter, even so, was prepared to confess Jesus as the Messiah was evidence that a change had at least begun to take place in his thinking—that he was now coming to understand the term Messiah in the light of what Jesus actually was and did, rather than to understand Jesus in the light of ideas traditionally associated with the term Messiah. Hence the pleasure with which Jesus greeted his response; hence the blessing which he pronounced on him. For, like the king in the Jewish parable, Jesus said in effect, “Now at last I can begin to build!”

It is well known that “You are Peter, and on this rock I will build my church” involves a play on words. In Greek “Peter” is petros and “rock” is petra (the difference being simply that between the masculine termination -os, necessary in a man’s name, and the feminine termination -a). In the Aramaic which Jesus probably spoke, there was not even such a minor grammatical distinction between the two forms: “You are keµphaµ,” he said, “and on this keµphaµ I will build my church.” The form keµphaµ, as applied to Peter, appears in many New Testament versions as Cephas (for example, in Jn 1:42; 1 Cor 1:12), an alternative form of his name. As a common noun, the Aramaic keµphaµ means “rock”; the Hebrew equivalent keµp÷ is used in this sense in Job 30:6 and Jeremiah 4:29. In some modern languages the play on words can be exactly reproduced: thus in most editions of the French New Testament Jesus says to Peter, “Tu es Pierre, et sur cette pierre je bâtirai mon église.” But this cannot be done in English; if the play on words is to be brought out, a rendering like that of the NEB [NEB New English Bible] has to be adopted: “You are Peter, the Rock; and on this rock I will build my church.” Now that someone has been found who is prepared to confess Jesus as what he really is, and not try to fit him into some inherited framework, a start can be made with forming the community of true disciples who will carry on Jesus’ mission after his departure.

Peter personally might be thought too unstable to provide such a foundation, but it is not Peter for what he is in himself but Peter the confessor of Jesus who provides it. In

that building every other confessor of Jesus finds a place. What matters is not the stature of the confessor but the truth of the confession. Where Jesus is confessed as the Messiah or (as Matthew amplifies the wording) as “the Christ, the Son of the God,”

there his church exists. It is in the one who is thus confessed, and not in any durable quality of its own, that the church’s security and survival rest. While it maintains that confession, the gates of the prison-house of Hades (that is, death) will never close on it.

And what about the “keys of the kingdom”? The keys of a royal or noble establishment were entrusted to the chief steward or major domo; he carried them on his shoulder in earlier times, and there they served as a badge of the authority entrusted to him. About 700 b.c. an oracle from God announced that this authority in the royal palace in Jerusalem was to be conferred on a man called Eliakim: “I will place on his shoulder the key to the house of David; what he opens no one can shut, and what he shuts no one can open” (Is 22:22). So in the new community that Jesus was about to build, Peter would be, so to speak, chief steward. In the early chapters of Acts Peter is seen exercising this responsibility in the primitive church. He acts as chairman of the group of disciples in Jerusalem even before the coming of the Spirit at the first Christian Pentecost (Acts 1:15–26); on the day of Pentecost it is he who preaches the gospel so effectively that three thousand hearers believe the message and are incorporated in the church (Acts 2:41); some time later it is he who first preaches the gospel to a Gentile audience and thus “opens a door of faith” to Gentiles as well as Jews (Acts 10:34–38).

Both in Jerusalem at Pentecost and in the house of Cornelius at Caesarea, what Peter does on earth is ratified in heaven by the bestowal of the Holy Spirit on his converts.

This divine confirmation was specially important in his approach to Gentiles. As Peter put it himself, “God, who knows the heart, showed that he accepted them by giving the Holy Spirit to them, just as he did to us. He made no distinction between us and them, for he purified their hearts by faith” (Acts 15:8–9).

“Binding” and “loosing” were idiomatic expressions in rabbinical Judaism to denote the promulgation of rulings either forbidding or authorizing various kinds of activity. The authority to bind or loose given to Peter in the present context is given to the disciples as a body in Matthew 18:18, in a saying of Jesus similarly preserved by this Evangelist only. Again, the record of Acts provides an illustration. Where church discipline is in view, Peter’s verbal rebuke of Ananias and Sapphira received drastic ratification from heaven (Acts 5:1–11). And Paul for his part, though he was not one of the disciples present when Jesus pronounced these words of authorization, expects that when judgment is pronounced by the church of Corinth on a man who has brought the Christian name into public disrepute, “and I am with you in spirit, and the power of our Lord Jesus is present,” the judgment will be given practical effect by God (1 Cor 5:3–

5). Again, when “the apostles and the elders” came together in Jerusalem to consider the conditions on which Gentile believers might be recognized as fellow members of the church, their decision was issued as something which “seemed good to the Holy Spirit and to us” (Acts 15:28). Here, then, Luke may be held to provide a commentary on Matthew’s record by showing how, in pursuance of Jesus’ words, the keys of the kingdom were used and the power of binding and loosing was exercised in the primitive church in preaching, discipline and legislation.

This may be added. The words in which Peter is singled out for special commendation and authority were probably handed down in a community where Peter’s name was specially esteemed. The church of Antioch in Syria was one such community. There

are other reasons for envisaging a fairly close association between the church of Antioch and the Gospel of Matthew, and it may well have been from material about Peter preserved at Antioch that Matthew derived these words which he incorporates into his account of what Jesus said at Caesarea Philippi.

16:28 What Is This Coming?

See comment on mark 9:1.

17:20 Faith Moves Mountains?

See comment on mark 11:23.

18:8–9 Pluck Out Your Eye?

See comment on matthew 5:29.

18:10 Guardian Angels?

See comment on acts 12:15.

18:35 No Forgiveness for the Unforgiving?

This is a very hard saying. The so which introduces it refers to the severe punishment which the king in a parable inflicted on an unforgiving servant of his. The parable arises out of a conversation between Jesus and Peter. Jesus repeatedly impressed on his disciples the necessity of forgiveness; they were not to harbor resentment, but to freely forgive those who injured them. “Yes, but how often?” Peter asked. “Seven times?”—

and probably he thought that that was about the limit of reasonable forbearance. “Not seven times,” said Jesus, “but seventy times seven” [RSV [RSV Revised Standard Version] ] (or in NIV [NIV New International Version] , “seventy-seven times”).

Perhaps by the time one had forgiven for the seventy-times-seventh time, forgiveness would have become second nature!

Some commentators have seen an allusion here to the war song of Lamech in Genesis 4:24. Lamech was a descendant of Cain, who (surprisingly, it may be thought) was taken under God’s protection. “If any one slays Cain,” said God, “vengeance shall be taken on him sevenfold” (RSV [RSV Revised Standard Version] ). Lamech boasted in his war song that no one would injure him and get away with it: “If Cain is avenged sevenfold, truly Lamech seventy-sevenfold” [RSV [RSV Revised Standard Version] ]

(or perhaps “seventy times sevenfold”). Over against seventy-times-sevenfold vengeance Jesus sets, as the target for his followers, seventy-times-sevenfold forgiveness.

The gospel is a message of forgiveness. It could not be otherwise, because it is the gospel of God, and God is a forgiving God. “Who is a God like you, who pardons sin?” said one Hebrew prophet (Mic 7:18). “I knew,” said another (protesting against God’s proneness to forgive those who, he thought, did not deserve forgiveness), “that

you are a gracious and compassionate God, slow to anger and abounding in love” (Jon 4:2). It is to be expected, then, that those who receive the forgiveness that God holds out in the gospel, those who call him their Father, will display something of his character and show a forgiving attitude to others. If they do not, what then?

What then? Jesus answers this question in the parable of the unforgiving servant, which he told to confirm his words to Peter about repeated forgiveness “until seventy times seven.” A king, said Jesus, decided to settle accounts with his servants, and found that one of them (who must have been a very high officer of state) had incurred debts to the royal exchequer which ran into millions. The king was about to deal with him as an Eastern potentate might be expected to do, when the man fell at his feet, begged for mercy and promised that, if the king would be patient with him, he would make full repayment. The king knew perfectly well that he could never repay such a debt, but he felt sorry for him and remitted the debt. Then the man found someone else in the royal service who was in debt to him personally—a debt that was minute by comparison. He demanded prompt repayment, and when this debtor asked for time to pay he refused and had him consigned to the debtors’ prison. The king got to hear of it, summoned the man whom he had pardoned back into his presence, revoked the pardon and treated him as he had treated the other: “In anger his master turned him over to the jailers to be tortured, until he should pay back all he owed.” “So,” said Jesus, “in this way my heavenly Father will deal with any one of you if you do not forgive your brother (or sister) from your heart.” Revoke a pardon once granted? God would not do a thing like that, surely? Jesus said he would. A hard saying indeed!

That this emphasis on the necessity of having a forgiving spirit had a central place in the teaching of Jesus is evident from the fact that it is enshrined in both versions of the Lord’s Prayer. In Luke 11:4 the disciples are told to pray, “Forgive us our sins, for we ourselves forgive every one who is indebted to us” (RSV [RSV Revised Standard Version] ). It is difficult to believe that anyone could utter this prayer deliberately, knowing at the same time that he or she cherished an unforgiving spirit toward someone else. In the Aramaic language which Jesus spoke the word for “sin” is the same as the word for “debt”; hence “every one who is indebted to us” means

“everyone who has sinned against us” (NIV [NIV New International Version] ). In the parallel petition of Matthew 6:12 this use of “debt” in the sense of “sin” occurs twice:

“Forgive us our debts, as we also have forgiven our debtors” (RSV [RSV Revised Standard Version] ) means “Forgive us our sins, as we for our part have forgiven those who have sinned against us.” This wording implies that the person praying has already forgiven any injury received; otherwise it would be impossible honestly to ask God’s forgiveness for one’s own sins. Immediately after Matthew’s version of the prayer this is emphasized again: “For if you forgive men their trespasses, your heavenly Father also will forgive you; but if you do not forgive men their trespasses, neither will your Father forgive your trespasses” (Mt 6:14–15).

The meaning is unambiguous, and it is unwise to try to avoid its uncomfortable challenge. One well-known annotated edition of the Bible had a comment on the clause

“as we forgive our debtors” that ran as follows: “This is legal ground. Cf. Eph. 4:32, which is grace. Under law forgiveness is conditioned upon the spirit in us; under grace we are forgiven for Christ’s sake and exhorted to forgive because we have been forgiven.”15 [15 The Scofield Reference Bible, 2nd ed. (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1917), p. 1002. The sharpness of the antithesis is modified in The New Scofield Reference Bible (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1967), p. 1000.] But forgiveness is neither given nor received on “legal ground”; it is always a matter of

grace. What Paul says in Ephesians 4:32 is this: “Be kind and compassionate to one another, forgiving each other, just as in Christ God forgave you.” But if some of those to whom this admonition was addressed (and it is addressed to all Christians at all times) should persist in an unforgiving attitude toward others, could they even so enjoy the assurance of God’s forgiveness? If Jesus’ teaching means what it says, they could not.

Jesus told another parable about two debtors to illustrate another aspect of forgiveness. This was in the house of Simon the Pharisee, who neglected to pay him the courtesies normally shown to a guest, whereas the woman who ventured in from the street lavished her grateful affection on him by wetting his feet with her tears (Lk 7:36–50). The point of the parable was that one who has been forgiven a great debt will respond with great love, whereas no great response will be made by one whose sense of having been forgiven is minimal. (It might be objected that the man who had been forgiven a colossal debt in the parable in Mt 18:23–35 showed little love in return, but the two parables are addressed to two different situations, and forgiveness and love are not subject to cast-iron rules of inevitable necessity.) Where there is a genuine response of love, there will be a forgiving spirit, and where there is a forgiving spirit, there will be a still greater appreciation of God’s forgiving mercy, and still greater love in consequence. Some commentators find difficulty with Jesus’ words about the woman: “Her sins, which are many, are forgiven; for she loved much” (RSV

[RSV Revised Standard Version] ); the logic of the parable would suggest “She loves much, for her sins have been forgiven.” But if that had been the meaning, that is what would have been said. Love and forgiveness set up a chain reaction: the more forgiveness, the more love; the more love, the more forgiveness.

See also comment on luke 7:47.

19:9 No Divorce and Remarriage?

See comment on mark 10:11–12.

19:12 Eunuchs for the Kingdom’s Sake?

This saying occurs in Matthew’s Gospel only; it comes immediately after his version of the saying about marriage and divorce. When their Master ruled out the possibility of their getting rid of their wives by divorce, the disciples suggested that, in that case, it was better not to marry. To this he replied, “Not all men can receive this precept, but only those to whom it is given” (Mt 19:11 RSV [RSV Revised Standard Version] ).

This means that the only ones who can successfully live a celibate life are those who have received the gift of celibacy. This context shown how the following reference to eunuchs is to be understood; it certainly shows how Matthew understood it.

The saying, as reproduced by Matthew, consists of three parts. The first two present no problem. Some men are born eunuchs, and as for being “made eunuchs by men,”

that was no unfamiliar practice in the ancient Near East. The hard saying is the third part: what is meant by making oneself a eunuch “for the sake of the kingdom of heaven” (RSV [RSV Revised Standard Version] )?

It is reported that one eminent scholar in the early church, Origen of Alexandria (a.d.

185–254), took these words with literal seriousness in the impetuousness of youth, and performed the appropriate operation on himself.16 [16 Eusebius Ecclesiastical History 6.8.2.] In later life he knew better; in his commentary on Matthew’s Gospel he rejects the literal interpretation of the words, while acknowledging that he once accepted it, and says that they should be understood spiritually and not “according to the flesh and the letter.”

What then did Jesus mean? These words are no more to be taken literally than his words about cutting off the hand or foot or gouging out the eye that leads one into sin.

In the Jewish culture in which he lived and taught, marriage was the accepted norm and celibacy was not held in the high esteem which it later came to enjoy in many parts of the church. That men such as John the Baptist and Christ himself should deny themselves the comforts of marriage and family life may well have aroused comment, and here is Jesus’ answer to unspoken questions. Some men and women have abstained from marriage in order to devote themselves more wholeheartedly to the cause of the kingdom of heaven. The man who marries and brings up a family incurs special responsibilities for his wife and children; they have a major claim on his attention. Jesus indicated his attitude toward the ties of the family into which he was born when he said that anyone who did the will of God was his brother, sister or mother (Mk 3:35). It was people like these—those who had taken on themselves the yoke of the kingdom he proclaimed—who constituted his true family. To incur the more restricted obligations that marriage and the rearing of children involved would have limited his dediction to the ministry to which he knew himself called.

At the same time, Jesus made it plain that only a minority among his followers could

“receive” this course: for most of them marriage and family life should be the norm.

Twenty-five years later the same teaching was repeated in different language by Paul.

Paul himself found the celibate way of life congenial, but he knew that the consequences would be disastrous if those who were not called to it tried to follow it.

Hence his advice for the majority of his converts was that “each man should have his own wife, and each woman her own husband”—for, as he went on to say, “each man has his own gift from God; one has this gift, another has that” (1 Cor 7:2, 7). Those whom God called to the celibate life would receive from him the “gift” of celibacy—of making themselves “eunuchs for the sake of the kingdom of heaven” (RSV [RSV

Revised Standard Version] ).

19:17 Why Do You Ask Me About What Is Good?

See comment on mark 10:18.

19:21 Sell Your Possessions?

See comment on mark 10:21.

19:24 Easier for a Camel?

See comment on mark 10:25.

19:30 The First Will Be Last?

See comment on mark 10:31.

20:14–15 The Rate for the Job?

One of the complaints that right-living and religious people made about Jesus arose from his treatment of the more disreputable members of society. They might have agreed that such persons should not be entirely excluded from the mercy of the all-loving God. Even for them there was hope, if they showed by practical repentance and unquestionable amendment of life that they were not beyond redemption. But not until such evidence had been given could they begin to be accepted as friends and neighbors.

Jesus, however, accepted them immediately; he did not wait to see the outcome before he committed himself to them. This was disturbing; it was even more disturbing that he seemed to think more highly of them than of those who had never blotted their public copybook. He gave the impression that he actually preferred the company of the rejects of society; he not only made them feel at home in his company, so that they felt free to take liberties with him that they would never have thought of taking with an ordinary rabbi, but even accepted invitations to share a meal with them and appeared genuinely to enjoy such an occasion. When he was challenged for this unconventional behavior, his reply was that this was how God treated sinners; and he told several parables to reinforce this lesson.

One of these parables tells of the man who hired a number of casual laborers to gather the grapes in his vineyard when the appropriate time of year came round. It is a disconcerting parable on more levels than one because it seems to defend the unacceptable principle of equal pay for unequal work.

There are certain seasons when a farmer or a vinegrower requires a large supply of labor for a short period. In the economic depression from which most of Palestine suffered in the time of Jesus, anyone who wanted such a short-term supply of labor was sure of finding it. The vinegrower in the parable had only to go to the village marketplace and there he would find a number of unemployed men hanging around in hope that someone would come and offer them a job.

At daybreak, then, this vinegrower went to the marketplace and hired several men to do a day’s work for him gathering grapes. The agreed rate for such a day’s work was a denarius, which was evidently sufficient to keep a laborer and family at subsistence level for a day. Apparently the vinegrower wanted the job completed within one day.

As he considered the amount of work to be done and the speed at which the men were working, he decided that he would need more hands, so at three-hour intervals he went and hired more. He did not bargain with them for a denarius or part of a denarius: he promised to give them what was proper. Then, just an hour before sunset, in order to ensure that the work would not be left unfinished, he went back and found a few men still unemployed, so he sent them to join the others working in the vineyard.

An hour later the work was finished, and the workers lined up to receive their pay, the last-hired being at the front of the line. They had no idea what they would get for an hour’s work; in fact, each of them received a denarius. So did the men who had

worked three hours, six hours and nine hours. At last came those who had been hired at daybreak and had done twelve hours’ work. What would they get? Each of them similarly got a denarius. They complained, “Why should these others get as much as we have done? Why should not we get more after a hard day’s work?” But the vinegrower told them that they had no cause for complaint. They had agreed to do a day’s work for a denarius, and he had kept his promise to give them that. It was no business of theirs what he gave to others who had entered into no agreement with him for a fixed sum. He might have said, “They and their families have to live.” But he did not; he simply said, “Can’t I do what I like with my own money?”

The law-abiding people whom Jesus knew tended to feel that they had made a bargain with God: if they kept his commandments, he would give them the blessings promised to those who did so. They would have no reason to complain if God treated them fairly and kept his promises. But what about those others who had broken his commandments, who had started to do his will late in the day after their encounter with Jesus and the way of the kingdom? They were in no position to strike a bargain with God; they could do nothing but cast themselves on his grace, like the tax collector in another parable who could only say, “God, have mercy on me, a sinner” (Lk 18:13).

What could they expect? The lesson of the parable seems to be this: when people make a bargain with God, he will honor his promise and give them no cause for complaint; but there is no limit to what his grace will do for those who have no claim at all on him but trust entirely to his goodness. If it be said that this gives them an unfair advantage, let it be considered that they were terribly disadvantaged to begin with. If it be urged that their rehabilitation should involve some payment for their past misdeeds, the truth may be that they have paid enough already. Should those who have turned to God at the eleventh hour and given him only the last twelfth of life get as much of heaven as those who have given him a whole lifetime? If God is pleased to give them as much, who will tell him that he should not? If God did not delight in mercy, it would go hard with the best of us.

Though justice by thy plea, consider this,

That, in the course of justice, none of us

Should see salvation.17 [17 Shakespeare, The Merchant of Venice, IV, i.]

The first arrivals might not have complained if the last comers had been paid only a small fraction of what they themselves received. There was in fact, as T.W. Manson points out in his treatment of this parable, a coin worth one-twelfth of a denarius: “It was called a pondion. But there is no such thing as a twelfth part of the love of God.”

18 [18 T. W. Manson, The Sayings of Jesus (reprint; Grand Rapids, Mich.: Eerdmans, 1979), p. 220.]

20:16 The First Will Be Last?

See comment on mark 10:31.

20:20 Who Asked for the Seats of Honor?

See comment on mark 10:35.

20:30 Two Blind Men or One?

See comment on matthew 8:28–34.

21:2 How Many Donkeys?

See comment on luke 19:30.

21:19 Why Was the Fig Tree Cursed?

See comment on mark 11:14.

21:21 Faith Moves Mountains?

See comment on mark 11:23.

21:27 Neither Will I Tell You?

See comment on luke 20:8.

22:12 What Is the Wedding Garment?

The incident of the man who had no wedding garment is attached in Matthew’s Gospel to the parable of the wedding feast (Mt 22:1–14). The parable of the wedding feast has a parallel in the parable of the great banquet in Luke 14:16–24. There are differences of detail between the two parables, but the main outline of the story is the same: the host (a king, in Matthew’s version) invites many guests, but on the day of the feast they excuse themselves for various reasons. But all the preparations have been made: the food (and plenty of it) is waiting to be eaten. The host therefore sends his servants out into the streets and lanes to round up those whom they find there and bring them to the banqueting hall. All the empty places are filled, and filled by people who are only too glad to be given a square meal. They do full justice to what has been provided, even if those who were originally invited are not interested.

This is readily understood as a parable of Jesus’ proclamation of the kingdom of God.

The religious people, those who attended synagogue regularly, were not really interested in what he had to say and despised the good news which he brought. But the outcasts of society recognized his message as just what they had been waiting for. The blessings of the gospel, the Father’s loving forgiveness, exactly suited their need, and they eagerly seized what Jesus had to give.

But the wedding garment presents a problem. How could people who had been swept in from the streets be expected to have suitable clothes for a festive occasion? One man was asked how he got in without a wedding garment, but they might all have been expected to be similarly unprovided with suitable attire. It would have been more surprising if one of them had come in actually wearing a wedding garment. It may be suggested that the royal host thoughtfully provided them with suitable clothes, but this

is not said in the parable, and the implication is that the man who was improperly dressed could have come properly clad. When taxed with his failure he had no excuse: he was “speechless.”

It is most probable that this was originally a separate parable. If the host was a king, he would expect those whom he invited to a banquet to honor him by coming appropriately dressed; failure in this respect would be a studied insult to him. The culprit in this case might count himself fortunate if nothing worse befell him than to be trussed up and thrown out into the darkness, to grind his teeth in annoyance with himself for having been so foolish. The requirement of a wedding garment, unsuitable for people peremptorily conscripted from the streets to come and enjoy a free supper, was eminently suitable for the guests whom a king or magnate would normally invite to dine with him. What then is the point of the garment in the parable, if it was originally a parable on its own? Clothes are not infrequently used in the Bible as a symbol of personal character, and it is possibly implied that some might think themselves entitled to be counted among the “children of the kingdom” or the followers of Jesus whose character was out of keeping with such a profession. If so, then the parable of the wedding garment would be a warning against false discipleship; it is not saying “Lord, Lord” that admits one to the kingdom, but doing the heavenly Father’s will (Mt 7:21).

22:14 Many Are Called, But Few Are Chosen?

In the original text of the Gospels, these words appear once—as a comment on Matthew’s parable of the marriage feast. In the course of transmission of the text it came to be attached to the parable of the laborers in the vineyard also (Mt 20:16), where it appears, for example, in the KJV [KJV King James Version] , but it is not really relevant there.

In form this seems to be a proverbial saying; other sayings with the same construction are found elsewhere in ancient literature. Plato quotes one with reference to the mystery religions: “Many are the wand-bearers, but few are the initiates”19 [19 Plato Phaedo 69 c.] ; that is to say, there are many who walk in the procession to the cult-center carrying sacred wands, but only a few are admitted to the knowledge of the innermost secret (which confers the prize of immortality). Two sayings with this construction are ascribed to Jesus or his disciples in the second-century Gospel of Thomas. In Saying 74 one of the disciples says to him, “Lord, there are many around the opening but no one in the well.” (The well is the well of truth; many approach it without getting into it. In this form the saying has a Gnostic flavor; in fact, Celsus, an anti-Christian writer of the second century, quotes it from a Gnostic treatise called the Heavenly Dialogue. ) 20 [20 Origen Against Celsus 8.16.] Jesus’ reply to the disciple is given in Saying 75: “Many stand outside at the door, but it is only the single ones who enter the bridal chamber.” (In Gnostic terminology the bridal chamber is the place where the soul is reunited with its proper element, and the “single ones” are those who have transcended the distinctions of age and sex. Hence Saying 49 makes Jesus say, “Happy are the single and the chosen ones, for you will find the kingdom.”)

The Gnostic ideas of the Gospel of Thomas will give us no help in understanding the saying as it appears at the end of the parable of the wedding feast. There the “called”

are those who were invited to the wedding feast; the “chosen” are those who accepted the invitation. The king invited many guests to the feast, but only a few, if any, of those

who were invited actually came to it. The feast is a parable of the gospel and the blessings which it holds out to believers. The invitation to believe the gospel and enjoy its blessings goes out to all who hear it. But if all receive the call, not all respond to it.

Those who do respond show by that very fact they are “chosen.” Protestant theologians used to distinguish between the “common call,” addressed to all who hear the gospel, and the “effectual call,” received by those who actually respond. In part two of Bunyan’s Pilgrim’s Progress Christiana and her family are taught this lesson in the Interpreter’s house by means of a hen and her chickens: “She had a common call, and that she hath all day long. She had a special call, and that she had but sometimes.”

The only way in which the effectual call can be distinguished from the common call is that those who hear it respond to it. “Effectual calling is the work of God’s Spirit, whereby, convincing us of our sin and misery, enlightening our minds in the knowledge of Christ, and renewing our wills, he doth persuade and enable us to embrace Jesus Christ, freely offered to us in the gospel.”21 [21 Westminster Shorter Catechism, Answer to Question 31.]

Paul insists that “it is not the hearers of the law who are righteous before God, but the doers of the law who will be justified” (Rom 2:13 RSV [RSV Revised Standard Version] ), and it is those who live “according to the Spirit” in whom “the just requirement of the law” is fulfilled. James, to the same effect, urges his readers to “be doers of the word, and not hearers only” (Jas 1:22 RSV [RSV Revised Standard Version] ).

The Gnostic teachers whose ideas are reflected in the Gospel of Thomas rather liked the idea that “the single and the chosen ones” were a small minority, provided they themselves were included in that elite number. On one occasion the disciples tried to make Jesus commit himself on the relative number of the called and the chosen, asking,

“Lord, are only a few people going to be saved?” (Lk 13:23). But he refused to gratify their curiosity; he simply told them to make sure that they themselves entered in through the narrow gate, “for many, I tell you, will try to enter and will not be able to”

(RSV [RSV Revised Standard Version] ).

It has frequently been taken for granted that Jesus’ words about the relative fewness of the saved had reference not only to the period of his ministry but to all time. Enoch Powell has interpreted Jesus’ words “few are chosen” as an assertion “that his salvation will not be for all, not even for the majority,” and has insisted that

“ignorance, incapacity, perversity, the sheer human propensity to error are sufficient to ensure a high failure rate.”22 [22 J. E. Powell, “Quicunque Vult,” in Sermons from Great St. Mary’s, ed. H. W.

Montefiore (London: Fontana, 1968), p. 96.] They are sufficient, indeed, to ensure a 100-percent failure rate, but for the grace of God. But when divine grace begins to operate, the situation is transformed.

It may well be that Jesus was speaking more particularly of the situation during his ministry when he spoke of the few and the many. Even the casual reader of the New Testament gathers that there was a great and rapid increase in the number of his followers after his death and resurrection. Within a few months from his crucifixion, the number of his followers in Palestine was ten times as great as it had been during his ministry. And Paul, the greatest theologian of primitive Christianity, speaks of those who receive the saving benefit of the work of Jesus as “the many” (Rom 5:15, 19). No reasonable interpretation can make “the many” mean a minority, for, as John Calvin put it in his commentary on those words of Paul, “if Adam’s fall had the effect of producing the ruin of many, the grace of God is much more efficacious in benefiting many, since admittedly Christ is much more powerful to save than Adam was to ruin.”

23 [23 J. Calvin, Romans and Thessalonians, English translation (Edinburgh: St. Andrew’s, 1961), pp. 114–15.]

22:21 Render to Caesar?

See comment on mark 12:17.

23:9 Call No Man Father?

In his criticism of the scribes, contained in the discourse of Matthew 23, Jesus speaks disapprovingly of their liking for honorary titles: “They love to be greeted in the marketplaces, and to have men call them ‘Rabbi’” (Mt 23:7). Then he turns to his disciples and tells them not to be like that: “You are not to be called ‘Rabbi,’ for you have only one Master and you are all brothers” (Mt 23:8). “Rabbi” was a term of respect given by a Jewish disciple to his teacher, and a well-known teacher would be known to the public as Rabbi So-and-so. Jesus was called “rabbi” by his disciples and by others; it was given to him as a mark of courtesy or respect. For Matthew, however, the word “rabbi” has a dubious connotation: in his Gospel the only disciple who calls Jesus “rabbi” is Judas Iscariot, and he does so twice: once at the supper table, when he responds to Jesus’ announcement of the presence of a traitor in the company with “Surely not I, rabbi?” (Mt 26:25), and once in Gethsemane, where the

“Greetings, rabbi!” which accompanies his kiss is the sign to the temple police that Jesus is the person to arrest (Mt 26:49). This attitude to the term “rabbi” may throw some light on the setting in which Matthew worked and the polemics in which he was engaged.

So, said Jesus to his disciples, refuse all courtesy titles: you have one teacher, and you are all members of one family. Members of a family do not address one another by formal titles, even if some of them indicate high distinction. When John Smith is knighted, his brothers, who have hitherto called him “John,” do not begin to address him to his face as “Sir John,” although others may properly do so. To them he is still John.

But what about calling no man father? Did Jesus mean that his followers ought not to address their fathers in a way that acknowledged their special relationship? It could be thought that he did mean just that, in view of the fact that he is never recorded as calling Mary “mother.” But this is unlikely; he is speaking of the use of honorific titles among his disciples. It is equally unlikely that he meant “Call no man ‘Abba’ but God alone.” For one thing, Matthew’s Greek-speaking readers would not naturally take the saying to mean this; for another thing, the whole point of calling God “Abba” was that this was the ordinary domestic word by which the father was called in the family, and to reserve “Abba” as a designation for God alone would do away with its significance (see comment on Mt 11:27). But Jesus’ meaning could very well have been: In the spiritual sense God alone is your Father; do not give to others the designation which, in that sense, belongs exclusively to him. Jesus was his disciples’ teacher, and they called him “Teacher,” but they never called him “Father”; that was his designation for God.

But did not Paul speak of himself as his converts’ father, since, as he said, he had become their “father in Christ Jesus through the gospel” (1 Cor 4:15 RSV [RSV

Revised Standard Version] )? He did, but he was using a spiritual analogy, not

claiming a title. Well, in insisting on his authority as an “apostle of Christ Jesus,” was he not infringing at least the spirit of Jesus’ admonition? No, for again he was not claiming a title but stating a fact; he was indeed commissioned and sent by the risen Lord, and from that was derived the authority with which he spoke. Similarly, if someone is doing the work of a bishop (say) or pastor, then to call him “Bishop So-and-so” or “Pastor So-and-so” simply recognizes the ministry which he is discharging.

Some Christians have interpreted these words of Jesus so literally that they would refrain from the use even of the very democratic “Mister,” perhaps because of its derivation from “Master,” either using no handle at all or preferring something reciprocal like “Friend” or “Brother.” Others, considering (probably rightly) that it is the use of honorific titles in religious life that is deprecated by Jesus, would refuse the designation “The Reverend” to a minister, replacing it by “Mister” (which is perfectly proper) or (in writing) putting it between brackets (which is foolish) or even between quotation marks (which is offensive). But, as with so many of Jesus’ injunctions, this one can be carried out in a stilted or pettifogging way which destroys the spirit of his teaching. If the local Catholic priest is known throughout the community as Father Jones, I am simply being silly if I persist in calling him something else. If I stop to think what is meant by my calling him Father Jones, I shall probably conclude that he is not my father in any sense but that he is no doubt a real father in God to his own congregation. “Father” in this sense is synonymous with “Pastor”; the former views the congregation as a family, the latter as a flock of sheep.

When a new bishop arrived in a certain English diocese a few years ago, he quickly let it be known that he did not wish to be addressed as “my lord.” That, it may be suggested, was a genuine compliance with the spirit of these words of Jesus.

23:33 You Brood of Vipers!

The chapter in Matthew’s Gospel from which this saying is quoted presents a series of woes pronounced against the scribes and Pharisees—or perhaps we should say laments uttered over them. The series may be regarded as an expansion of Mark 12:38–40, where the people who listened to Jesus as he taught in the temple precincts in Jerusalem during Holy Week were warned against “the teachers of the law [who] like to walk around in flowing robes and to be greeted in the marketplaces, and have the most important seats in the synagogues and the places of honor at banquets. They devour widows’ houses and for a show make lengthy prayers. Such men will be punished most severely.”

Most of the scribes (NIV [NIV New International Version] “teachers of the law”)—

certainly most of those who appear in the Gospels—belonged to the party of the Pharisees. The Pharisees traced their spiritual lineage back to the pious groups which, in the days of the Maccabees, resisted all temptations to assimilate their faith and practice to pagan ways, and suffered martyrdom rather than betray their religious heritage. In the first century a.d. they are reckoned to have numbered about six thousand. They banded themselves together in fellowships or brotherhoods, encouraging one another in the defense and practice of the law. The law included not only the written precepts of the Old Testament but the interpretation and application of those precepts—what Mark describes as “the tradition of the elders” (Mk 7:3). They were greatly concerned about ceremonial purity. This concern forbade them to have social contact with Gentiles, or even with fellow Jews who were not so particular

about the laws of purity as they themselves were. They attached high importance to the tithing of crops (that is, paying 10 percent of the proceeds of harvest into the temple treasury)—not only of grain, wine and olive oil but of garden herbs as well. They would not willingly eat food, whether in their own houses or in other people’s, unless they could be sure that the tithe had been paid on it.

From their viewpoint, they could not help looking on Jesus as dangerously lax, whether in the sovereign freedom with which he disposed of the sabbath law and the food laws or in his readiness to consort with the most questionable persons and actually sit down to a meal with them. It was inevitable that he and they should clash; their conflict, indeed, illustrates the saying about the second-best being the worst enemy of the best.

The Pharisaic way of life lent itself to imitation by people who had no worthier motive than the gaining of a popular reputation for piety. The rabbinical traditions illustrate this fact: seven types of Pharisee are enumerated, and only one of these, the Pharisee who is one for the love of God, receives unqualified commendation.24 [24 Palestinian Talmud, tractate Berakot, 9.7.] The New Testament picture of the Pharisees is generally an unfavorable one, but more so in the Gospels than in Acts. In Acts they are depicted as not unfriendly to the observant Jewish Christians of Jerusalem; the two groups had this in common (by contrast with the Sadducees): they believed in the resurrection of the dead.

The gathering together of the woes or laments regarding the Pharisees in Matthew 23

probably reflects the situation in which this Gospel was written, later in the first century, when the Pharisees and the Jewish Christians were engaged in polemical controversy with one another. That provided an opportunity to collect from all quarters criticisms Jesus had voiced against the Pharisees and to weave them together into a continuous speech, with its refrain (as commonly translated) “Woe to you, teachers of the law and Pharisees, you hypocrites!” Pharisees as such were not hypocrites, and Jesus did not say that they were; he was not the one to bear false witness against his neighbor. Hypocrite in New Testament usage means “play-actor”; it denotes the sort of person who plays a part which is simply assumed for the occasion and does not express his real self. The “hypocrites” in this repeated denunciation, then, are those who play at being scribes and Pharisees, who “preach but do not practice”

(Mt 23:3 RSV [RSV Revised Standard Version] ), who assume the actions and words characteristic of scribes and Pharisees without being motivated by true love of God.

The genuine Pharisee might disapprove of much that Jesus said and did, but if he was a genuine Pharisee, he was no play-actor. So we might render the recurring refrain of Matthew 23 as “Alas for you, hypocritical scribes and Pharisees!”—alas for you, because you are incurring a fearful judgment on yourselves.

But what about the “brood of vipers”? This expression was used by John the Baptist as he saw the crowds coming to listen to his proclamation of judgment and his call to repentance: “You brood of vipers! Who warned you to flee from the coming wrath?”

(Lk 3:7). He compared them to snakes making their way as quickly as possible out of range of an oncoming grass fire. In Matthew 3:7 John directs these words to Pharisees and Sadducees among his hearers. Jesus’ use of the same figure may convey a warning that those who pay no heed to impending doom cannot escape “the judgment of Gehenna” (to render it literally). And if it is asked how they had incurred this judgment without being aware of it, the answer suggested by Matthew’s context would be that by their unreality they were hindering, not helping, others in following the way of

righteousness. (In Mt 12:34 those who charged Jesus with casting out demons by the power of Beelzebul—see comment on Mk 3:28–29—are similarly addressed as “You brood of vipers!”)

Finally, Matthew himself apparently indicates that this hard saying, with its context, should be understood as lamentation rather than unmitigated denunciation. For at the end of the discourse, after the statement that the martyr-blood of all generations would be required from that generation (see comment on Mk 13:30), Matthew places the lament over Jerusalem (“O Jerusalem, Jerusalem … ”) which Luke introduces at an earlier point in Jesus’ ministry. It is easy to see why Luke introduces it where he does: Jesus has been warned in Galilee that Herod Antipas wants to kill him, and he replies that that cannot be, since Jerusalem is the proper place for a prophet to be put to death (Lk 13:31–33). Then comes “O Jerusalem, Jerusalem, killing the prophets … ” (Lk 13:34–35 RSV [RSV Revised Standard Version] ). Actually, the lament would be chronologically appropriate if it were uttered at the end of Jesus’ last visit to Jerusalem before the final one, for it ends with the words “You will not see me again until you say, ‘Blessed is he who comes in the name of the Lord’” (Lk 13:35; Mt 23:39). This may simply mean, “You will not see me until festival time.” (T. W. Manson compares two people parting today and saying, “Next time we meet we shall be singing ‘O come, all ye faithful,’” that is, “Next time we meet will be Christmas.”)25 [25 T. W. Manson, “The Cleansing of the Temple,” Bulletin of the John Rylands Library 33 (1950–51), p. 279, n. 1. (He, however, accepted the setting of Lk 13:35 as original and supposed that Jesus was bidding temporary farewell to the people of Galilee, saying that they would next see him in Jerusalem.)] But Luke and Matthew place the lament in contexts where it is topically appropriate; Matthew in particular, by placing it where he does (Mt 23:37–39), communicates something of the sorrow with which Jesus found it necessary to speak as he did about those who should have been trustworthy guides but in fact were leading their followers to disaster.

24:28 There the Eagles Will Be Gathered Together?

See comment on luke 17:37.

24:34 This Generation Will Not Pass Away?

See comment on mark 13:30.

25:11–12 Why Were the Virgins Shut Out?

The picture of people arriving after the door has been shut and finding it impossible to gain entrance appears elsewhere in the teaching of Jesus. In Luke 13:25–28 Jesus speaks of such people who, seeing themselves shut out, protest to the master of the house, “We ate and drank with you, and you taught in our streets.” But even so they are refused admittance; they are excluded from the kingdom of God. Matthew’s version of the Sermon on the Mount contains a parallel to that passage in Luke; in Matthew’s account those who are shut out produce what might be regarded as even stronger credentials entitling them to admittance: “Did we not prophesy in your name, and in your name drive out demons and perform many miracles?” (Mt 7:22)—but all to no avail.

The memorable setting of the picture, however, is in the parable of the ten virgins, as it

is traditionally called. The haunting pathos of the latecomers finding the door closed in their faces was caught and expressed by Tennyson in the song “Late, late, so late! and dark the night and chill!” which was sung to Guinevere by the little maid in the nunnery where the queen had sought sanctuary. True, in the scene from real life depicted in the parable the maidens’ disappointment was keen, but they suffered no irreparable loss; they had missed the wedding feast, indeed, but there would be other wedding feasts, and they would remember to take an adequate supply of oil another time. But in the application of the parable the loss is more serious.

The parable is one of three which Matthew appends to his version of Jesus’ Olivet discourse—the discourse which has its climax in the glorious coming of the Son of Man.

There was a wedding in the village. A wedding story with no mention of the bride seems very odd to us, but different times and different lands have different customs.

Just possibly she does receive a mention, but if so, only in passing; some authorities for the text of Matthew 25:1 say that the ten maidens “went to meet the bridegroom and the bride.” The ten maidens do not appear to have been bridesmaids, or even specially invited guests; they were girls of the village who had decided to form a torchlight procession and escort the bridegroom and his party to the house where the wedding feast was to be held. They knew that, if they did so, there would be a place at the feast for them, so that they could share in the good cheer. To this day there are parts of the world where a wedding feast is a public occasion for the neighborhood, and all who come find a welcome and something to eat and drink.

No time was announced for the bridegroom to set out for the feast, and the day wore on. That was all right; a torchlight procession is more impressive in the dark. The

“torches” were long poles with oil-lamps tied to the top, and the more provident girls took a supply of olive oil with them in case the lamps went out. As the evening wore on and the bridegroom still not come, one after another dropped off to sleep.

However, their lamps were lit, ready for the warning shout. Suddenly the shout came:

“Here he is!” They set off to join his party, but as they trimmed the wicks of their lamps, five of them found that their lamps were going out, and they had no extra oil.

The others could not lend them any of theirs, for then there would not be enough to last the journey. So the improvident girls had to go and buy some, and that would not be too easy at midnight; yet by persistence they managed at last to get some. But by that time they were too late to join the procession, and when they reached the house, they could not get in. They hammered on the door and shouted to the doorkeeper, “O

sir! O sir! please let us in.” But all the answer they received was “No; I don’t know you.” So they had to go back home in the dark, tired and disappointed, because they had not been ready.

The oil was good oil, while it lasted; but the oil that was used yesterday will not keep today’s lamps alight. So perhaps we may learn not to depend exclusively on past experiences; they will not be sufficient for the needs of the present. Daily grace must be obtained for daily need. The explicit lesson attached to the parable is “keep awake, then, for you do not know the day or the hour” (Mt 25:13 NEB [NEB New English Bible] ). Later forms of the text (represented by the KJV [KJV King James Version] ) add the words “when the Son of Man comes.” Certainly in the context of the parable those words are implied, but the fact that the Evangelist did not include them suggests that the parable has a more general application. Keep awake, because a time of testing may come without warning. Be ready to resist this temptation (whatever form it may

take); be ready to meet this crisis; be ready to grasp this opportunity. Somebody needs help; be ready to give it, “for you do not know the day or the hour” when the call may come.

See also comment on luke 18:8.

25:26 Salvation by Works?

See comment on john 5:28–29.

26:26–28 This Is My Body and Blood?

See comment on mark 14:22–24.

26:63–64 You Will See the Son of Man?

See comment on mark 14:61–62.

27:5 How Did Judas Die?

See comment on acts 1:18.

27:9–10 Wrong Prophet?

While commenting on what happened to Judas Iscariot and his blood money, Matthew introduces a reference to the prophets as part of his favorite theme of the fulfillment of Scripture. He clearly cites Jeremiah as the prophet who gave the saying, but the saying itself is from Zechariah 11:12–13. Did Matthew make a mistake?

The quotation is not entirely a quotation of Zechariah. The majority of the quotation does come from Zechariah 11:13, but there is a change from the first person singular (“I”) to the third plural (“they”). Furthermore, there is no field mentioned in Zechariah (in fact, in Matthew the NSRV [NSRV New Revised Standard Verision] follows the Syriac translation and has “the treasury” instead of “the potter” because Matthew clearly is not quoting Zechariah about the location). Finally, Zechariah does not include the phrase “as the Lord commanded me.”

Second, Jeremiah is also involved with potters (Jer 17:1–11; 19:1–13—in this second passage he purchases something from a potter). Furthermore, Jeremiah purchases a field (Jer 32:6–15), although the price is seventeen pieces of silver rather than thirty.

Finally, Jeremiah 13:5 has the phrase “as the Lord commanded me” (RSV [RSV

Revised Standard Version] ) (which also has to do with a purchase).

In the first century the Old Testament did not come as a bound volume with chapters and verses. Instead, the work was a series of scrolls. Shorter books were often put together on a single scroll. For example, Zechariah would be part of “The Book of the Twelve,” a single scroll containing all twelve minor prophets. There were paragraph divisions, but they were not numbered. It would be after a.d. 1500 before chapter and

verse divisions and numbering were introduced. That means that Jesus in Matthew would have cited an Old Testament passage simply by the name of the author.

When it came to interpreting the Old Testament, it was common to bring passages together based on words they had in common (this is the second of Hillel the Elder’s seven rules of interpretation). In this case, it is clear that Jeremiah and Zechariah have several words in common, especially potter and shekel. Probably potter is the key term.

As even the English reader might suspect from the information above, the quotation in Matthew is really Zechariah mixed with several phrases taken from Jeremiah. Again, we need to remember that while this may not be an acceptable way of citing Scripture today (although it is still done by accident!), it was a perfectly acceptable technique in the Palestine of Matthew’s day. (Matthew was probably written in Syria or northern Palestine; he is certainly focused on the Jewish community. Thus he reflects the usage of Scripture in such communities.)

What we have, then, is Matthew pulling together at least two texts in Jeremiah with one text in Zechariah to show that there was a type of biblical prefiguring of Judas’s actions, down to the amount of blood money and the fact that it was given to a potter and was used for the purchase of a field. While the logic of this type of exegesis is strange to the modern Western way of thinking, it would have been viewed as quite normal in Matthew’s time. Likewise it was normal for Matthew to cite the more important prophet, Jeremiah, despite the fact that most of his material came from Zechariah. Thus judged by first-century standards, Matthew is quite accurate and acceptable in what he does.

27:37 What Was the Crime?

See comment on john 19:19.

27:46 Why Have You Forsaken Me?

See comment on psalm 22:1; mark 15:34.

27:53 What Resurrection Happened at the Cross?

First, what does it mean that many holy people were raised to life? Is this a resurrection or simply the appearance of ghosts of some type? Second, why did they wait until after the resurrection to enter “the holy city” (Jerusalem)? Finally, what does this event mean? It sounds like a fantastic detail, a legend which has slipped into the text.

Matthew’s version of the crucifixion has a far more triumphant ending than that in Mark. After underlining that Jesus was crucified as the king of the Jews and fulfilled Scripture in his death (so it was part of God’s plan), Matthew includes four unique incidents after Jesus’ death: (1) the earthquake, (2) the resurrection of the holy people, (3) the setting of the guard at the tomb and (4) the second earthquake before the women arrive at the tomb.

Earthquakes, of course, are relatively well known in Palestine (compare Amos 1:1).

The Jordan Valley itself is the result of earthquake activity, and the country has fault

lines not unlike those around San Francisco, another earthquake-prone locality.

Earthquakes were also part of Jewish belief about the end times (Zech 14:4). The unusual thing in this passage is the timing of the earthquakes, their close association with both the death and the resurrection of Jesus. In each case the earthquakes appear to open tombs. That in itself is not surprising. The tombs of the wealthier people were generally natural caves suitably enlarged or else artificial caves carved into softer rock.

Several hillsides around Jerusalem had many of them. The tombs were closed with a rock door which was like a cork worked into the small opening of the cave. An earthquake which moved the rock around it could pop such a door open. So far, however, we only have a natural event with unusual timing, a timing which indicates that God is behind it, but only for those who notice the coincidence.

But it is one thing for an earthquake to open tombs and quite another for the dead in them to come out! Matthew makes it clear that this is a resurrection, for he refers to the “bodies” as having been raised. This is also in line with a typical Jewish view of the afterlife, for they believed that any spirit departed from the dead when the body began to decay. Thus there would be no ghosts or spirits in tombs to come out, only corpses or their ultimate remains, skeletons (the bones of which were gathered and put into stone boxes called ossuaries). Thus Matthew obviously believed that this was a real resurrection, and for him the appearances of these people to others simply provide witnesses to the fact that the bodies were raised. The crucial thing for him is the resurrection of the “holy people” itself.

It was a belief of many of the Jews (and also later of Christians) that the dead would be raised.26 [26 Sadducees and perhaps other Jewish groups did not believe in the resurrection of the dead, but Pharisees and Essenes did, and this was probably the belief of the vast majority of the people of the land. All the same, their views of the resurrection varied.

We are only giving one common version here.] For the Jews the stress was on the raising of the righteous dead (the “holy people”), for it is they who had a reward coming from God and thus must be raised to receive it. Furthermore, this resurrection was normally associated with the coming of Messiah. At some point in his setting things right and ushering in the age to come, the resurrection of the righteous would take place. The various Jewish groups disagreed on the details, but generally agreed on the overall outline.

Now we can see what Matthew is saying. The Messiah has come, although he was rejected and crucified at the request of the leaders of the people. Yet the King of the Jews died, not as simply some terrible miscarriage of justice, but as part of God’s plan as laid down in the Old Testament Scripture. (This is why Matthew underlines the fulfillment of Scripture in the crucifixion narrative.) Now the Messiah is dead, yet God points out that this is not the end of his story, but the beginning of the end of the age, by sending an earthquake and along with the earthquake, a partial resurrection of

“many” of the righteous dead buried in the Jerusalem area. It is as if the death of Jesus lets loose a wave of resurrection power that begins to ripple out, starting in Jerusalem.

Why were all of the righteous dead not raised? That is a tension endemic to the Gospels, especially the Synoptic Gospels. Teleologically it is expressed as the tension between the “already” and the “not yet.” That is, many sick were healed when Jesus was in Palestine, but not all of the sick were healed. There are stories of Jesus’ feeding the hungry, but that does not mean that all the hungry in Palestine were fed. Demons were cast out, but not every demon in Palestine was expelled. We could continue with every aspect of the ministry of Jesus (and later of his apostles and others). The coming age is characterized in both typical Jewish and Christian eschatology by “all.” All of the

righteous dead are raised, perfect justice reigns, no righteous person is sick, and so forth. When these things are experienced in part now we say that “already” we are experiencing a taste of what will eventually take place fully. When we notice that not everyone was blessed in this way (although we do not hear of Jesus ever turning anyone away), we note that that perfect state is “not yet” come. This is a tension not only of the Gospels, but also of the whole New Testament. Thus it does not surprise us to discover that many of the righteous dead in a certain area are raised, for “already”

we experience a taste of the final resurrection, but that “not yet” are all of the dead raised, for Matthew still anticipates the making of disciples from “all nations” (Mt 28:19–20) before the end of this age fully comes.

Thus the righteous dead are raised through the power of the crucifixion, according to Matthew, but they do not go into the city yet. Why would they remain in the tombs? It would be inappropriate for them to precede their leader. (Matthew does not tell us if this is conscious or unconscious, if they knew why they remained in the tombs or if God simply did not empower them to leave.) They wait until his resurrection occurs and then leave the tombs. Of course no one would try to close the tombs again, for during a festival time Jews would avoid the tombs which would have made them ritually impure and thus unable to participate in the festival. Even if someone had noticed the open tombs, it was not something that needed to be done right away. Once Jesus appears in public, the resurrected dead are free to go into the city as a type of corroborating witness. We do not hear that they say anything about Jesus, or even that they know anything about him. Yet they are aware that God has raised them and when this happened, and such a resurrection is a sure sign of the presence of Messiah or, to put it another way, the beginning of the age to come.

The final obvious question is “What happened to these ‘holy people’ after they

‘appeared to many’?” The answer is “We do not know.” Since this appears to be the firstfruits of the eventual general resurrection of the righteous, it is unlikely that Matthew thought for a minute that they later returned to their tombs. It is possible that he believed that they were waiting around on earth for the return of Jesus, but it is far more likely that he believed that they went to heaven with Jesus (although Matthew does not have a story of the ascension). The fact is, once their witness function is finished, they are of no more interest to Matthew, for his Gospel is the story of Jesus, not of the righteous dead.

28:1–8 What Really Happened at the Resurrection?

See comment on john 20:1–8.

Mark

1:2 Wrong Prophet?

After the title verse of the Gospel of Mark we find a quotation that comes from Malachi 3:1, apparently introduced with the phrase “It is written in Isaiah the prophet.”

Mark seems to have confused his prophets, for the passage is obviously by Malachi, and no duplicate is found in Isaiah. Did Mark make a mistake?

To answer this question we first have to look at the text more carefully. The problem quotation reads, “I will send my messenger ahead of you, who will prepare your way.”

The next verse reads, “A voice of one calling in the desert, ‘Prepare the way for the Lord, make straight paths for him’” (Mk 1:3).

Now we need to look at three Old Testament passages:

See, I am sending an angel ahead of you to guard you along the way and to bring you to the place I have prepared. (Ex 23:20)

See, I will send you the prophet Elijah before that great and dreadful day of the Lord comes. (Mal 4:5)

A voice of one calling: “In the desert prepare the way for the Lord; make straight in the wilderness a highway for our God.” (Is 40:3)

All three of these passages have elements in common. Each of them is preparing for something. The angel in Exodus is to lead the people to the Promised Land. Elijah is to prepare the people for the day of the Lord. The voice in the wilderness is to prepare a way for the coming of God.

Each of them is also a warning. The angel (“my messenger”) in Exodus will bring blessing if obeyed, but will not pardon their sins if disobeyed. Elijah in Malachi (the name of the book means “my messenger”) will set the families right so that the Lord does not come and “smite the land with a curse.” The voice in Isaiah proclaims that every valley will be exalted and every mountain and hill be made low, probably indicating the exaltation of some people and the humbling of others.

Finally, two of the passages specifically mention a “way” for something, either preparing a way for the people or guarding the people in a certain way. “Way” in this case means “road.”

What does all this information add up to? Here in the beginning of Mark we have not one passage from the Old Testament but three passages which are brought together because of common words or themes. The title of the person (“my messenger”) comes from one Old Testament text, the general function (“I will send … who will prepare your way”) from another, and the specific character and message (“in the desert” and

“prepare the way for the Lord”) from a third. When verses are brought together like this as proof texts for a particular point we refer to them as testimonia and to the fact that the verses are chained together as a catena (Latin for “chain”). Mark has probably not invented this particular catena of testimonia, for they were often used in the early church, but he has included in his Gospel testimonia known in the church.

Now we can see why he appears not to get the reference correct. We look at the nearest obvious quotation following Mark’s reference to Isaiah and say, “It is from Malachi.” That misses the fact that we have already skipped over a phrase from Exodus. More importantly, that misses the fact that Mark looked at the whole quotation as one unit and that it is the end of the testimonia that gives the most details about John the Baptist. This part is from Isaiah.

It is also true that the vast majority of people did not own any of the Scriptures, and most could not read, although literacy was more common among Jews than among the

rest of the Greco-Roman world. The people might well recognize the phrases as being from the Scripture which was read in the synagogue, but would not be able to go to their Bibles to look it up. Since he does not expect people to look it up, Mark cites the longest of the two prophetic works in the testimonia chain, which is also the most important for his purposes.

Finally, it is also possible that the NIV [NIV New International Version] has mistranslated the passage. In two other places where Mark uses “as it is written” (a more literal translation of the Greek behind the NIV [NIV New International Version]

’s translation “it is written”) the phrase follows what it refers to rather than introduces the next quotation. It may well be that Mark is saying that the gospel of Jesus Christ began (Mk 1:1) as it is written in Isaiah. By this he would mean to refer to the whole of the beginning part of the Gospel, Mark 1:1–15, indicating that this fulfilled Isaiah.

What is clear is that Mark had at least three good reasons for saying “Isaiah” rather than “Malachi.” When we accuse him of inaccuracy, far from pointing out a reality in Mark, we are exposing our own lack of knowledge about how he and other ancient authors used Scripture. What is more, we are missing the point that Mark is making.

The good news about Jesus continues the story of God’s work with humans begun in the Old Testament. In fact, the opening of the Gospel fulfills parts of the Old Testament, as the narratives included after the Old Testament quotations show.

See also comment on matthew 27:9–10.

1:4 What Was John’s Baptism of Repentance?

The first event to appear in Mark’s Gospel is the appearance of John the Baptist preaching “a baptism of repentance for the forgiveness of sins.” What is intended by this phrase? How does baptism relate to the forgiveness of sins? Is this related to Christian baptism, or is it not?

There are three terms which are significant in this problem. The first is baptism, which simply means to dip or immerse. In Judaism one washed to remove certain types of ritual impurity. This was a repeated baptism. Later, and possibly during the period covered by the New Testament, converts to Judaism (proselytes) were cleansed of their past Gentile impurity and reborn as Jews by a once-for-all proselyte baptism.

Finally, there is evidence of both repeated and initiatory baptisms in the Jewish sectarian group that wrote the Dead Sea Scrolls, which fits their character as a group that wanted to maintain the highest level of ritual purity. Mark’s Gentile readers could understand these concepts, for in some pagan groups (for example, in the so-called mystery religions) there also were baptisms as initiatory or purificatory rites.

John was identified as “the Baptist” because baptism was so central to his message, and this baptism had the specific meaning of repentance, the second important term in this passage. In the Jewish world repentance meant not simply a change of mind (which is what the Greek term means in other contexts), but a change of life or a change of direction in life. Previously the person had not been living according to God’s way (thought of as a direction to go in or a road to be walked), but now they have changed their direction and are going in that way. This involves a recognition that the way one is going is the wrong way, that God’s way is the right way, and the decision to turn around and change direction. John does not tell us what specific sins

or ways of life the people he preached to needed to repent of. Perhaps that is because it was individual to each person. Yet it is clear that he wanted them all going God’s way as it was proclaimed by him.

Now one often cannot see immediately if a person’s way of life has changed. Decisions do not register on the outside, nor is there an arrow on people showing which way their hearts and minds are headed in. When one makes a decision, however, one can pledge oneself to it by a symbolic act. Naturally such an act carried out before God falsely would bring condemnation, like an unfulfilled vow, so it was not something done lightly. The act which John called for was baptism, a baptism that would be meaningless if the person did not in fact repent inwardly and then bring “forth fruit of repentance” after the baptism.

The reason for changing one’s way of life was that the Messiah was coming (Mk 1:7–

8); in other words, God was drawing near to his people, which would mean both blessing for the righteous and condemnation for the unrighteous. This brings us to the third term, forgiveness of sins. There would be no impetus to baptism if the message were “It is too late. God is coming and all of your sins will be tallied up.” One might as well “eat, drink and be merry, for tomorrow we die.” Instead, John’s message is “If you repent and pledge this through baptism, God will not hold your sins against you.”

This is also the theme of the Isaiah and Malachi passages quoted by Mark in the preceding verses. If the people repent, then God (or God’s Spirit, which may be implied by the fact that Messiah baptizes with Holy Spirit) will remove their sin. That is the result of the baptism.

Thus we have a chain of events. The people accept John’s message that God is drawing near and the Messiah is coming. They realize from this message that they need to “clean up their act” and be ready for God’s coming. They understand that the way to do this is to decide to change their lives to accord to God’s way (repent) and to make a pledge to do this by allowing John to baptize them. The result will be that their sins will be forgiven and they will be ready for the coming of God and his Messiah.

Mark must have realized that John’s baptism was in continuity with Christian baptism.

For example, in Acts 2:38 people are called to (1) believe that Jesus is the resurrected Messiah (which is what “in the name of Jesus Christ” implies), (2) change their minds to accord with this fact which will include conforming their lifestyles to his teaching (that is, repent) and (3) pledge themselves to this through baptism. The promise is that they will (1) have their sins forgiven and (2) receive the Holy Spirit. Thus we get a five-part sequence: repentance, faith in (that is, personal commitment to) Jesus, baptism, forgiveness of sins, reception of the Holy Spirit. This is exactly like John, except that, whereas John does not yet know who the Messiah is, only that he is coming, now the name of the Messiah is known.

In Acts 22:16 Saul, who has already had an encounter with Jesus and repented of what he was doing (persecuting Christians), is told to act on this inward change and be baptized, the result being that his sins will be washed away.

Thus whether we look at John’s baptism or Christian baptism in Acts, baptism results in the forgiveness of sins. Baptism is not viewed as an automatic thing regardless of the state of one’s heart, but as an effective act, because it expresses the person’s inward disposition. The difference between John’s baptism and Christian baptism is found in what is known about Jesus. John only knew that someone was coming and that that

person would appear soon. In Acts the preachers know that Jesus was that person and that he is now resurrected and about to return. Yet whether the belief is in the coming One or the One who came and is coming again, the call is to turn from one’s own way, align oneself with God’s way, pledge oneself to this in baptism and so receive forgiveness of sins.

In the modern church this is often forgotten. Many modern churches connect baptism to forgiveness of sins, but do not seek repentance first. Others call for repentance and faith, but ask people to pledge themselves to it through praying a “sinner’s prayer” or signing a “decision card.” Baptism then becomes an “extra” and its connection to forgiveness of sins is forgotten. In this context John’s message seems strange to many of us, but for those who first received the New Testament he was right in line with how they had become Christians.

See also comment on 1 peter 3:21.

1:34, 44 Why the Secret?

Each of the Gospels is designed to proclaim who Jesus is, to present him to the world, so that people will commit themselves to him and become disciples. But within the Gospels, especially in Mark, is the curious phenomenon of Jesus’ commanding people not to tell others who he is. If he wishes people to believe, why does he not allow the open confessions of those who really know him? In the case of demonized people, is this not one time that demons were telling the truth? Could this mean that Jesus had doubts about who he was? This is the problem of the so-called messianic secret in Mark.

In responding to such an issue we must look at the evidence. Jesus commands silence on three types of occasions. The first involves demons, who “knew who he was.” The second involves people who have been healed, who may not understand who he is, but who do have a story to tell about what he has done. “See that you don’t tell this to anyone,” Jesus says to a leper he heals (Mk 1:44; compare Mk 5:43). The third occasion involves the disciples after they confess him as “the Christ” (Mk 8:30; 9:9).

What is the purpose of all this secrecy? Each of these situations has a somewhat different explanation. We will discuss them in reverse order.

The disciples, whose confession Peter boldly states in Mark 8:29, had come to recognize Jesus over a period of time. They had followed him around, heard his teaching, observed his miracles and gone out to do the same at his command. Their faith had grown during that time. More important, Jesus had been able to define for them how he saw his own mission. Even though their understanding was far from perfect (the predictions of the cross still mystified them), their obedience made it relatively safe for them to think of him as “the Christ,” or “the Messiah” (“Christ” is Greek for “Messiah”; both terms mean simply “the anointed one”).

Unfortunately, Judaism did not have the same clarity about the Messiah and his mission. Some groups among the Jews were not looking for any Messiah. The golden age had come with the Maccabean victories in 164 b.c. As long as the temple functioned, deliverance was not needed. Others (for example, the people who wrote the Dead Sea Scrolls) believed in two Messiahs. One would be a descendant of David who would rule as king, while the other would be a descendant of Aaron who would

purify temple worship as high priest. For both groups Scripture and the experience of Hasmonean priest-kings from 164 to 163 b.c. had proved that the roles of ruler and priest could not be combined. Still others were looking for a warrior-king who would deliver them from the Romans. In fact several people presented themselves as candidates for the office (Acts 5:36–37 has only a partial listing), and one, Simeon Ben Kosiba, would lead the Jews to a final defeat in a.d. 135.

Therefore the title “Christ,” or “Messiah,” was a dangerous one. It would immediately excite people’s preconceived imaginations about what that figure was supposed to do.

It would mark him out to the Romans as a rebel leader. And it would close people off to Jesus’ own self-definition of his role. Because of this Jesus always referred to himself as the “Son of Man.” In Ezekiel this phrase means “human being.” In Palestinian Aramaic it could simply be a modest way of saying “I” (similar to Paul’s modesty in 2 Cor 12:2–3). But it also appears in Daniel 7:13 for a being who receives power and authority from God. Therefore the phrase had three possible meanings, and only context could determine which was intended. Because of this ambiguity, people had to listen to Jesus to see how he used the term rather than attach to it their own preconceived meanings. This is precisely what Jesus wanted and needed until he had accomplished all he had to do. So he told his disciples not to say anything until he had

“risen from the dead”; he did not need their semiunderstanding assistance in explaining who he is.

The people Jesus heals are another matter. Here the issue is in part modesty, for Jesus is not looking for a following as a wonder-worker, nor does he wish to “blow his own horn.” This must be the case in Mark 5:43, for many individuals knew that the child had died, and they would recognize the miracle as soon as they saw her up and around the house. But Jesus was not looking for a string of requests to come to funerals! So he “gave strict orders not to let anyone know about this.” This same motif can be seen in the “nonsecrecy” of the previous incident. Jesus tells the delivered Gerasene man to

“tell [your family] how much the Lord has done for you” (Mk 5:19). While the man then tells “how much Jesus had done for him,” Jesus had drawn the attention to God rather than to himself.

A second concern in keeping the healed quiet is the problem of publicity. In the case of the Gerasenes Jesus was leaving the area, so publicity would be no problem. But the healed leper he tells to keep quiet (Mk 1:44) caused real problems when “he went out and began to talk freely, spreading the news. As a result, Jesus could no longer enter a town openly but stayed outside in lonely places” (Mk 1:45).1 [1 B. Malina, The New Testament World (Atlanta: John Knox, 1981), p. 122, argues that this was because the healed man’s report included the fact that Jesus had touched him and thereby had himself become unclean. Jesus is thus forced to stay outside villages, where unclean people were to stay.

While this is a possible interpretation, the fact that the text of Mark 1:45 stresses that many gathered to him and implies that he went back to Capernaum as soon as the crowd dissipated makes this a less likely interpretation.] This popularity was bad in two ways. As we see in Mark 6:31, it made life difficult. The situation appeared so crazy to his relatives that they wanted to take him into protective custody (Mk 3:20–

21)! In fact, it even made ministry difficult, for frequently crowds became a hindrance in people’s attempts to get to Jesus (Mk 2:2–4). Furthermore the popularity attracted the attention of the authorities, which could be dangerous (Mk 6:14). So this problem reinforced Jesus’ own humble modesty about his healing activities.

Finally, we turn to the demonized. The demons did indeed know who Jesus was. In fact, they knew who Jesus was far better than even his disciples did, for only they use the title “Son of God” until the very end of the Gospel (Mk 15:39). We are never told what their motives are for crying out; it could simply be a spontaneous astonished wail

upon meeting their match, or it may have had a more sinister purpose. Jesus always silenced them, whatever their motives. While he also never says why he did so, we can see from the text that he would have had several reasons for wishing to keep them silent. First, “the teachers of the law” associated him with Beelzebub, “the prince of demons” (Mk 3:22). Any tendency to show that he accepted the demonic would have given extra evidence to these opponents.

Second, to accept the testimony of demons about himself would give a precedent to his followers to accept (or even seek) testimony of demons about other things. This would threaten to make Jesus’ movement an occult movement. Here is also a parallel to the temptation narratives in Matthew and Luke: Jesus will not receive the kingdoms of this world from the devil (Mt 4:9–10), and neither will he receive help in his mission from the devil’s agents.

Third, and most important, Jesus’ whole mission was a call to faith based on evidence, not on authoritative testimony. Jesus proclaims the kingdom of God and acts according to kingdom values. Those who take the risk of faith and commit themselves become disciples and learn more, but others receive teaching only in obscure parables (Mk 4:11–12, 33–34). When John the Baptist requests more information, Jesus simply tells the messengers to report the events that they saw (Mt 11:4–6; Lk 7:21–23). Only in the account of his trial before the Sanhedrin does Jesus make a direct statement about himself. Therefore the demons were short-circuiting Jesus’ whole methodology.

His command to them was a sharp “Shut up!” His invitation to the crowd at their expulsion was “See and believe that the kingdom of God has come.”

2:10 The Son of Man Forgives Sins?

When the four friends of the paralyzed man broke through the roof of the house in Capernaum where Jesus was teaching and lowered him on his pallet at Jesus’ feet, Jesus appreciated their faith and determination and healed the man. But before he told the man to pick up his pallet and walk out with it, he said to him, “Son, your sins are forgiven” (Mk 2:5). Nothing is said of the cause of the man’s paralysis, but Jesus evidently recognized that the first thing he needed was the assurance that his sins were forgiven. If this assurance were accepted, the physical cure would follow.

His words to the paralyzed man constituted a hard saying in the ears of some of the bystanders. Who was this to pronounce forgiveness of sins? To forgive injuries that one has received oneself is a religious duty, but sins are committed against God, and therefore God alone may forgive them. One may say to a sinner, “May God forgive you”; but by what authority can one say to him, “Your sins are forgiven”? Probably Jesus’ critics would have agreed that a duly authorized spokesman of God might, in the words of the General Absolution, “declare and pronounce to his people, being penitent, the absolution and remission of their sins”; but they did not acknowledge Jesus as such a duly authorized spokesman, nor was there any evidence, so far as they could see, that repentance was forthcoming or that an appropriate sin offering had been presented to God. It was the note of authority in Jesus’ voice as he pronounced forgiveness that gave chief offense to them: he imposed no conditions, called for no amendment of life, but spoke as though his bare word ensured the divine pardon. He was really arrogating to himself the prerogative of God, they thought.

How could Jesus give evidence of his authority to forgive sins? They could not see sins

being forgiven, but they could see the effect of Jesus’ further words in the man’s response. It is easy to say, “Your sins are forgiven,” because no one can ordinarily see whether sins are forgiven or not. But if one tells a paralyzed man to get up and walk, the words will quickly be shown to be empty words if nothing happens. “But,” said Jesus to his critics, “that you may know that the Son of Man has authority on earth to forgive sins,” and then, addressing himself to the paralytic, “get up, take your mat and go home.” When the paralytic did just that, Jesus’ power as a healer was confirmed—

but more than that, it was the assurance that his sins were forgiven that enabled the man to do what a moment previously would have been impossible, so Jesus’ authority to forgive sins was confirmed at the same time.

This is the first occurrence of the designation “the Son of Man” in Mark’s Gospel, and one of the two occurrences in his Gospel to be located before Peter confessed Jesus to be the Christ at Caesarea Philippi (the other being the statement in Mk 2:28 that the Son of Man is lord of the sabbath). “The Son of Man” was apparently Jesus’ favorite way of referring to himself. Sometimes the “one like a son of man” who receives supreme authority in Daniel’s vision of the day of judgment (Dan 7:13–14) may provide the background to Jesus’ use of the expression, but that son of man is authorized to execute judgment rather than to pronounce forgiveness (one may compare Jn 5:27, where the Father has given the Son “authority to judge, because he is the Son of Man”). Here, however, the expression more probably points to Jesus as the representative man—“the Proper Man, whom God himself hath bidden.” This is how Matthew appears to have understood it. He concludes his account of the incident by saying that the crowds that saw it “praised God, who had given such authority to men”—that is, to human beings (Mt 9:8). The authority so given is exercised by Jesus as the representative man—or, as Paul was later to put it, the “last Adam” (1 Cor 15:45). To pronounce, and bestow, forgiveness of sins is the highest prerogative of God, and this he has shared with the Son of Man.

See also comment on mark 14:61–62.

2:17 Not the Righteous but Sinners?

Nineteen centuries and more of gospel preaching and New Testament reading have familiarized us with the idea that Jesus’ ministry was specially directed to sinners—not simply to sinners in the sense in which most people will admit that “we are all sinners,”

but to sinners in the sense that their lives offended the accepted moral code of their community. “The saying is sure and worthy of full acceptance, that Christ Jesus came into the world to save sinners” (1 Tim 1:15 RSV [RSV Revised Standard Version] ); this is a great gospel text, and if the writer goes on to speak of himself as first and foremost among sinners, that serves to underline his claim on the saving grace of Christ. But during the ministry of Jesus it gave great offense to many respectable people that a religious teacher should have so little regard for what was expected of him as to consort with those who were no better than they should be. “If this man were a prophet,” said Simon the Pharisee to himself, when Jesus allowed a woman of doubtful reputation to touch him, “he would know who is touching him and what kind of woman she is—that she is a sinner” (Lk 7:39). But Jesus knew perfectly well what sort of woman she was, and for that very reason would not prevent her from paying him such embarrassing attention (see comment on Lk 7:47).

Among all the traditional designations of Jesus, probably none is more heartwarming

than “the friend of sinners.” But this designation was first given to him by way of criticism: “a glutton and a drunkard,” they said, “a friend of tax collectors and

‘sinners’” (Lk 7:34)—tax collectors occupying the lowest rung on the ladder of respectability, matched only by harlots. It was not that he tolerated such people, as though he did them a favor by taking notice of them in a condescending way, but he gave the impression that he liked their company, that he even preferred it; he did not condemn them but encouraged them to feel at home with him. “This man welcomes sinners,” the scribes said by way of complaint; and more than that, he actually “eats with them” (Lk 15:2). To accept invitations to a meal in the homes of such people, to enjoy table-fellowship with them—that was the most emphatic way of declaring his unity with them. No wonder this gave offense to those who, sometimes with considerable painstaking, had kept to the path of sound morality. If a man is known by the company he keeps, Jesus was simply asking to be known as the friend of the ne’er-do-wells, the dregs of society. And would not many religious people today react in exactly the same way?

On one occasion when Jesus had accepted a dinner invitation to the home of one of these disreputable people, his disciples were approached by the scribes. The disciples were included in the invitation, but some of them may have had misgivings. “Why does he eat with tax collectors and sinners?” they were asked. But Jesus interposed with the answer. “It is not the healthy who need a doctor, but the sick” he said. “I have not come to call the righteous, but sinners” (Mk 2:17). To call means to invite; he had accepted their invitation, but they received an invitation from him—to take and enjoy the love and mercy of the heavenly Father. It is inevitable that the “ninety-nine righteous persons who need no repentance” (Lk 15:7 RSV [RSV Revised Standard Version] ) should feel that too much fuss is made over sinners, but since the gospel is for sinners first and foremost—indeed for sinners only—it cannot be otherwise.

These words of Jesus are reproduced by the two other Synoptic Evangelists (Mt 9:13; Lk 5:32), but Luke adds a short explanatory gloss: “I have not come to call the righteous, but sinners to repentance. ” Repentance figures more frequently in Luke’s Gospel than in the other two (it does not figure at all in the Gospel of John). It has sometimes been suggested that Luke’s addition betrays a misunderstanding on his part, but this is not really so. If repentance in the teaching of Jesus implies change of character rather than reformation of behavior,2 [2 As is pointed out by T. W. Manson in The Teaching of Jesus, 2nd ed. (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1935), p. 308.] then Jesus believed in dealing with the root of the disease and not merely with the symptoms. And the root could be dealt with effectively only by the practical assurance and demonstration of outgoing, self-giving love.

2:26 Who Was the High Priest?

In Mark we read that Jesus said that Abiathar was priest when David received and ate some of the bread of the Presence from the tabernacle. In terms of the point that Jesus is making it really does not matter who was priest, for the issue is the breaking of the rule about a layperson eating consecrated bread and its application to Jesus’ disciples breaking the sabbath regulations. However, when we look up the incident in 1 Samuel 21:1–6, the text reads “Ahimelech” rather than “Abiathar.” Was Jesus mistaken?

Surely the Pharisees would have caught the error?

The first point to note is that Abiathar and Ahimelech are son and father. The son,

Abiathar, first appears in 1 Samuel 22:20 as the one son of Ahimelech who escaped when Saul slaughtered the priests of Nob and their families for having helped David.

Abiathar then remains with David and later serves as high priest during his reign. It looks like the son has been switched with the father.

The second thing we should look at is the textual tradition. There is no evidence that this switch is a textual error. It is true that the Western text does omit the priest’s name, but none of the other textual traditions do, and the Western text does sometimes correct or add to the text in various books. When the Western text’s reading remains unsupported by other textual traditions, it is not taken as very weighty. In fact, the Western text actually follows the other Synoptics, for Matthew 12:4 and Luke 6:4

both drop this offending name. Thus there appears to be solid evidence that Mark wrote “Abiathar.”

There have been attempts to solve the problem by arguing that “in the days of Abiathar the high priest” should be understood to mean “In the section [of Samuel] entitled

‘Abiathar,’” since this section explains how Abiathar joined David (and there were no chapter and verse numbers for citing Scripture in Jesus’ day). However, if that is what it means, Mark found a most awkward way of expressing it. To mean this, the Greek phrase with “Abiathar” in it should have been placed in Mark 2:25 right after “Have you never read?”

Likewise some argue that the phrase means “when Abiathar who became high priest was alive.” However, if this was what were intended (if Jesus had forgotten the name of Abiathar’s father or thought his listeners would not recognize it), a phrase like “in the days of the father of Abiathar the high priest” or “in the childhood of Abiathar the high priest” would have expressed the thought clearly. The phrase as it stands would express such an idea so unclearly and awkwardly that it is unlikely that it means this.

What, then, are the possibilities? First, we can be fairly certain that Mark is not covering up the Pharisaic response to an error Jesus made. If Mark had been aware of such a problem, he would have omitted the whole story or changed the name rather than simply omitted the Pharisaic response. Mark probably did not see any other problem with this passage than the issue of Jesus’ defending his disciples’ breaking the sabbath regulations.

Second, if Mark did not see the problem, he did not see it for one of three reasons: (1) he actually wrote Ahimelech and the more familiar name crept into the text at a very early stage, perhaps as an error in the first copying (often texts were read aloud to scribes making copies, so an oral substitution of the more familiar name for the less familiar would be quite possible), or (2) he received the story as it is and did not himself realize that there was a problem with it (in the latter case, we do not know if Jesus actually said “Abiathar” or if he said “Ahimelech” and the more familiar Abiathar was substituted in the course of oral transmission), or (3) his view of historical accuracy was not bothered by such an issue, since the main point is not affected by it.

Whatever the case, Mark apparently did not realize that there was a problem.

The truth is that this is one of the problems in Scripture for which we do not have a fully satisfactory solution. We do not have Mark’s original edition to check which name was in it, nor do we have Mark here to question about his state of mind. We do not have a tape recording of the preaching of Peter (thought by many to be the source of Mark) to see if he was using the right or the wrong name. While many ancient

historians would not have been bothered by such an innocuous slip, it did seem to bother Matthew and Luke, so we cannot be sure that it would not have bothered Mark. Thus we can either arbitrarily select one of the speculative solutions mentioned in the previous paragraph, perhaps choosing the one which pleases us the best, or we can say, “We honestly don’t know what the answer is to this problem, nor are we likely to ever know.” In that case, this verse makes plain that our knowledge is always partial so that our trust remains in God rather than in what we know.

2:27–28 The Sabbath for Man?

This is the second occurrence of the designation “the Son of Man” in Mark’s Gospel—

one of the two occurrences which he places before the Caesarea Philippi incident. The words were the conclusion of Jesus’ reply to those who criticized his disciples for plucking ears of grain as they walked through the fields one sabbath and then (according to Lk 6:1) eating the grain when they had rubbed the ears in their hands to separate the kernel from the husk. Harmless enough actions, it might be supposed today (unless the owner of the crop complained that he was being robbed), but plucking the ears was technically regarded by the interpreters of the law as a form of reaping, and rubbing them to extract the kernel as a form of grinding, and reaping and grinding were two kinds of work that were forbidden on the sabbath. Probably, in addition to the expressed criticism of the disciples, there was an implied criticism of Jesus for allowing them to break the law in this way.

Jesus first invoked a precedent: in an emergency David had been permitted by the priest in charge of the sanctuary at Nob (perhaps on Mount Scopus; near Jerusalem) to have some of the holy bread (the “shewbread” or “bread of the [divine] presence”) for himself and his followers to eat, although it was laid down in the law that none but priests should eat it (1 Sam 21:1–6). The point of Jesus’ argument here seems to be that human need takes priority over ceremonial law; it is relevant to recall that in traditional interpretation (though not in the Old Testament text) the incident from the life of David took place on a sabbath (the day when, according to Lev 24:8–9, the old bread was to be removed, to be eaten by “Aaron and his sons … in a holy place,” and replaced by new bread, “set in order before the Lord”).

But Jesus went on to invoke an earlier and higher precedent. The sabbath was instituted by God; what was God’s purpose in instituting it? If that can be discovered, then the sabbath law is best kept when God’s purpose in giving it is best fulfilled. In Genesis 2:2–3, God is said to have “rested” on the seventh day when he had finished the creative work of the six preceding days, so he “blessed the seventh day and hallowed it.” The Hebrew verb translated “rest” is sûaµb_at_, which is given here as the explanation of the word “sabbath” (Hebrew sûaµb_at_). Neither Jesus nor his critics thought that God needed to rest on the seventh day because he was tired after a hard week’s work. He “ceased” or “desisted” from his work. Why, then, did he “bless”

the sabbath day and “hallow” it? Not for his own sake, but for the sake of his creatures, who, he knew, would certainly need to rest after a hard week’s work. This is implied in the Genesis narrative itself. The fourth commandment, in the form which it is given in Exodus 20:8–11, bids the Israelites sanctify the seventh day by refraining from work, because God sanctified it by ceasing from his work after the six days of creation. But in the form which this commandment is given in Deuteronomy 5:12–15, it is made explicitly clear that the sabbath was given for the sake of those who need to

rest after hard work: “that your manservant and your maidservant may rest as well as you” (RSV [RSV Revised Standard Version] ).

The sabbath day was instituted, then, to meet a human need, and the day is best sanctified when human need is met on it. Expositors regularly quote as a parallel the words of Rabbi Simeon ben Menasya preserved in a rabbinical commentary on Exodus 31:14: “The sabbath is delivered to you; you are not delivered to the sabbath.”3 [3

Mekhilta (rabbinical commentary) on Exodus 31:14. ]

But the real problem of Jesus’ saying is the significance of the “so” or “so that”

introducing the next words: “the Son of Man is Lord even of the Sabbath.” How does it follow from the fact that the sabbath was made for man that the Son of Man is Lord of the sabbath? In one way, this would not have been so much of a problem for those who first heard Jesus speak the words. Since “man” was regularly expressed in Aramaic by the idiom “son of man,” the literal translation of the saying would have been “The sabbath was made for the son of man, not the son of man for the sabbath; so the son of man is lord even of the sabbath.” The question that would rise in the hearers’ minds was: “In what sense is the son of man lord of the sabbath? Does he mean that humanity in general is lord of the sabbath?” This question confronts us too, but we have a further question to think about: why did Mark use the simple noun

“man” (human being, or the human race) in the first two clauses, but the locution “the son of man” in the third? He must have intended the subject of the third clause to mean something more than man in general. If so, what was that something more? Jesus probably meant that he who is Lord of the sabbath, he who has the sovereign authority to interpret the sabbath law in accordance with the divine purpose in instituting it, is the representative man, and that is the role which he now discharges. Since the sabbath was made for man, he whom God has ordained to be man’s representative before him is authorized to dispose of the sabbath at his own discretion.

See also comment on exodus 20:8–11.

3:28–29 An Unpardonable Sin?

The person who has committed the unpardonable sin figures powerfully in literature.

There is, for example, Bunyan’s man in the iron cage. There is the Welsh preacher Peter Williams, breaking the silence of night in George Borrow’s Lavengro with his anguished cry: “Pechod Ysprydd Glan! O pechod Ysprydd Glan!” (“The sin against the Holy Spirit! Oh, the sin against the Holy Spirit!”)—which he was persuaded he had committed. Or there is Mr. Paget, in Edmund Gosse’s Father and Son, who had thrown up his cure of souls because he became convinced that he had committed the Sin against the Holy Ghost. … Mr. Paget was fond of talking, in private and in public, of his dreadful spiritual condition, and he would drop his voice while he spoke of having committed the Unpardonable Sin, with a sort of shuddering exultation, such as people sometimes feel in the possession of a very unusual disease. … Everybody longed to know what the exact nature had been of that sin against the Holy Ghost which had deprived Mr. Paget of every glimmer of hope for time or for eternity. It was whispered that even my Father himself was not precisely acquainted with the character of it.4 [4 E. Gosse, Father and Son (London: W. Heineman, 1928), pp. 265–67.]

Of course not, because the “sin” existed only in Mr. Paget’s imagination.

In real life there are few more distressing conditions calling for treatment by physicians of the soul than that of people who believe they have committed this sin. When they are offered the gospel assurance of forgiveness for every sin, when they are reminded that “the blood of Jesus … purifies us from all sin” (1 Jn 1:7), they have a ready answer: there is one sin that is an exception to this rule, and they have committed that sin; for it, in distinction from all other kinds of sin, there is no forgiveness. Did not our Lord himself say so? And they tend to become impatient when it is pointed out to them (quite truly) that the very fact of their concern over having committed it proves that they have not committed it.

What then did Jesus mean when he spoke in this way? His saying has been preserved in two forms. Luke records it as one of a series of sayings dealing with the Son of Man or the Holy Spirit (Lk 12:10), but Mark gives it a narrative context. (The Markan and Lukan forms are combined in Mt 12:31–32.)

According to Mark, scribes or experts in the Jewish law came from Jerusalem to Galilee to assess the work which, as they heard, Jesus was doing there, and especially his ministry of exorcism—expelling demons from the lives of those who suffered under their domination. (This language indicates a real and sad condition, even if it would commonly be described in different terms today.) The scribes came to a strange conclusion: “He is possessed by Beelzebul, and by the prince of demons he casts out the demons” (Mk 3:22 RSV [RSV Revised Standard Version] ). (Beelzebul had once been the name of a Canaanite divinity, “the lord of the high place,” but by this time it was used by Jews to denote the ruler of the Abyss, the abode of demons.) When Jesus knew of this, he exposed the absurdity of supposing that Satan’s power could be overthrown by Satan’s aid. Then he went on to charge those who had voiced this absurd conclusion with blaspheming against the Holy Spirit. Why? Because they deliberately ascribed the Holy Spirit’s activity to demonic agency.

For every kind of sin, then, for every form of blasphemy or slander, it is implied that forgiveness is available—presumably when the sin is repented of. But what if one were to repent of blasphemy against the Holy Spirit? Is there no forgiveness for the person who repents of this sin?

The answer seems to be that the nature of this sin is such that one does not repent of it, because those who commit it and persist in it do not know that they are sinning. Mark tells his readers why Jesus charged those scribes with blaspheming against the Holy Spirit: it was because “they were saying, ‘He has an evil spirit’” (Mk 3:30). Jesus was proclaiming the kingly rule of God, and his bringing relief to soul-sick, demon-possessed mortals was a token that the kingly rule of God was present and active in his ministry. “But if I drive out demons by the finger of God,” he said, “then the kingdom of God has come to you” (Lk 11:20; in Mt 12:28, where these words also appear,

“finger of God” is replaced by “Spirit of God”). If some people looked at the relief which he was bringing to the bodies and minds of men and women and maintained that he was doing so with the help of their great spiritual oppressor, the prince of the demons, then their eyes were so tightly closed to the light that for them light had become darkness and good had become evil. The light is there for those who will accept it, but if some refuse the light, where else can they hope to receive illumination?

Was Paul sinning against the Holy Spirit in the days when he persecuted Christians and

even (according to Acts 26:11 RSV [RSV Revised Standard Version] ) “tried to make them blaspheme”? Evidently not, because (as it is put in 1 Tim 1:13 RSV [RSV

Revised Standard Version] ) he “acted ignorantly in unbelief” and therefore received mercy. But if, when he had seen the light on the Damascus road and heard the call of the risen Lord, he had closed his eyes and ears and persevered on his persecuting course, that would have been the “eternal sin.” But he would not have recognized it as a sin, and so would not have thought of seeking forgiveness for it; he would have gone on thinking that he was doing the work of God, and his conscience would have remained as unperturbed as ever.

Luke, as has been said, gives his form of the saying a different context. He does record the charge that Jesus cast out demons with Beelzebul’s aid, but does so in the preceding chapter (Lk 11:14–26) and says nothing there about the sin against the Spirit. His report on Jesus’ words about this sin comes in Luke 12:10, immediately after the statement “I tell you, whoever acknowledges me before men, the Son of Man will also acknowledge him before the angels of God. But he who disowns me before men will be disowned before the angels of God” (Lk 12:8–9). (The second half of this statement is paralleled in Mk 8:38, where it is located in the aftermath to Peter’s confession near Caesarea Philippi.) Then, after the words about the sin against the Spirit, Luke quotes the injunction “When you are brought before synagogues, rulers and authorities, do not worry about how you will defend yourselves or what you will say, for the Holy Spirit will teach you at that time what you should say” (Lk 12:11–

12). This injunction has a parallel in Mark in his version of the Olivet discourse (Mk 13:11); the parallel is taken over in Luke’s version of the discourse, where, however, it is not the Spirit but Jesus who will give his disciples “words and wisdom” to reply to their inquisitors (Lk 21:15). Matthew has a parallel in his account of the sending out of the twelve apostles: “At that time you will be given what to say, for it will not be you speaking, but the Spirit of your Father speaking through you” (Mt 10:19–20).

Luke, then, places the saying about blaspheming the Holy Spirit between a saying about the Spirit’s heavenly role as counsel for the defense of those who confess the Son of Man (that is, Jesus) and a saying about the Spirit’s enabling confessors of Jesus before an earthly tribunal to say the right word at the right time. In this context a different emphasis is given to the matter of blasphemy against the Spirit from that given to it by Mark. It is suggested by Luke that the blaspheming of the Spirit involves a refusal of his powerful help when it is available to save the disciples of Jesus from denying him and so committing apostasy. If so, blasphemy against the Spirit in this context is tantamount to apostasy, the deliberate and decisive repudiation of Jesus as Lord. This is not the only New Testament passage which warns against the irremediable evil of apostasy: another well-known example is Hebrews 6:4–6, where it is said to be impossible to renew apostates to repentance, since they have repudiated the only way of salvation.

But Luke couples with the warning against the unpardonable sin of blasphemy against the Spirit the affirmation of Jesus that there is forgiveness for everyone who speaks a word against the Son of Man. On this there are two things to be said.

First, in Jesus’ language (Aramaic), the phrase “the son of man” normally meant “the man”; only the context could indicate when he intended the phrase to have the special sense which is conveyed by the fuller translation “the Son of Man.” Moreover, in the phrase “the man” the definite article could, on occasion, have generic force, referring not to a particular human being but to man in general (in English this generic force is

best conveyed by using the noun without any article, as in “Man is born unto trouble, as the sparks fly upward”). So Jesus may have meant, “To speak against (a) man is pardonable, but to speak against the Spirit is not.”

Second, if that is what Jesus meant, he included himself as a man, if not indeed as the representative man. Luke understands him to refer to himself in particular; otherwise he would have said “everyone who speaks a word against man” and not (as he does)

“every one who speaks a word against the Son of Man.” Why would it be so much more serious to slander the Holy Spirit than to slander the Son of Man? Perhaps because the identity of the Son of Man was veiled in his humility; people might easily fail to recognize him for who he was. There was nothing in the designation “the Son of Man” in itself to express a claim to authority. The Son of Man, at present operating in lowliness and liable to be rejected and ill-treated, might indeed be despised. But if those who had begun to follow him were afraid that, under stress, they might deny him, they were assured that the Spirit’s aid was available. If, however, they resisted the Spirit and rejected his aid, then indeed their case would be desperate.

Peter, through fear, denied the Son of Man, but he found forgiveness and restoration; his lips had momentarily turned traitor but his heart did not apostatize. His repentance left him wide open to the Spirit’s healing grace, and when he was restored, he was able to strengthen others (Lk 22:31–32). Why then, it might be asked, did he not strengthen Ananias and Sapphira when they came to him with part of the proceeds of the sale of their property, pretending that it was the whole amount? Presumably because, as he said, they had consented to the satanic suggestion that they should “[lie] to the Holy Spirit” and had “agree[d] to test the Spirit of the Lord” (Acts 5:3, 9). Thus, in Peter’s reckoning, they had sinned beyond the point of no return. How Jesus would have regarded their offense is another question.

In Mark’s context, then, the sin against the Holy Spirit involves deliberately shutting one’s eyes to the light and consequently calling good evil; in Luke (that is, ultimately, in the sayings collection commonly labeled Q) it is irretrievable apostasy. Probably these are not really two conditions but one—not unlike the condition which Plato described as having the lie in the soul.5 [5 Plato Republic 2.382a-b.]

See also comment on hebrews 6:4–6; 10:26; 1 john 5:16–17.

4:11–12 Why in Parables?

In Mark’s record this saying comes between the parable of the sower (or parable of the four soils, as some prefer to call it) and the explanation of that parable. The parable, the explanation and the saying quoted above are all ascribed to Jesus himself. But if the saying means what it seems to mean, then Jesus tells his disciples that the purpose of his use of parables is that his hearers in general (those who are not his followers) may hear him but not understand him; and it is difficult to believe that this was so.

Matthew alters the sense by using the conjunction because instead of so that: “This is why I speak to them in parables, because seeing they do not see, and hearing they do not hear, nor do they understand” (Mt 13:13 RSV [RSV Revised Standard Version] ).

That is to say, because the general public was slow to grasp the sense of Jesus’

teaching, he embodied it in parables to make it more immediately intelligible. The hardness of the saying is thus mitigated; it is readily accepted that

Truth embodied in a tale

Shall enter in at lowly doors.6 [6 Tennyson, In Memoriam, xxvi.]

Luke 8:10 follows Mark’s construction, with some abbreviation.

But what is the point of Mark’s construction? One suggestion is that the saying was entirely Mark’s creation. The parable, it is said, was told by Jesus; the explanation received its shape in the primitive church, but the hard saying is Mark’s own contribution; it expresses his view (or the view of the school of thought to which he belonged) about the purpose of Jesus’ parables. But is it out of the question that the saying represents something spoken by Jesus himself?

It is plain that the saying is an adaptation of an Old Testament text, Isaiah 6:9–10.

When Isaiah received his call to the prophetic ministry, in the well-known vision that he saw in the temple “in the year that King Uzziah died,” the voice of God said to him: Go, and tell this people: “Be ever hearing, but never understanding; be ever seeing, but never perceiving.” Make the heart of this people calloused; make their ears dull and close their eyes. Otherwise they might see with their eyes, hear with their ears, understand with their hearts, and turn and be healed.

Should this commission be pressed to mean that Isaiah was ordered to go and tell the people to pay no heed to what they heard him say? Was it his prescribed duty to prevent them from hearing and understanding his message, and thus make it simple for them to repent and so escape the destruction that would otherwise overtake them? No indeed; if that impression is given, it is simply due to the Hebrew tendency to express a consequence as though it were a purpose. Isaiah volunteers to be God’s messenger to his people, and God takes him at his word, but says to him in effect, “Go and deliver my message, but don’t expect them to pay any attention to it. The effect of your preaching will be their persistent refusal to accept what you say, to the point where they will have rendered themselves incapable of accepting it.” In the event, this is exactly what Isaiah was to experience for the next forty years. Isaiah’s experience was reproduced in Jesus’ ministry. For all the enthusiasm that greeted his ministry in its earlier phase, he had later on to lament the unbelief with which he met in the very places where most of his mighty works had been done. He might well have applied the words of Isaiah 6:9–10 to the effect (not, of course, to the purpose) of his own ministry. Certainly this text became one of the commonest Old Testament

“testimonies” in the early church on the subject of Jewish resistance to the gospel.

Apart from the allusion to it in the context of the parable of the sower in all three Synoptic Gospels, it is quoted in John 12:40 at the end of Jesus’ Jerusalem ministry and in Acts 28:26–27 at Paul’s meeting with the Jewish leaders in Rome, while there is an echo of it in Romans 11:8. Its pervasiveness in this sense could well be due to Jesus’ application of it to his own experience. “As in its original setting in the Book of Isaiah, so here, it is most naturally taken as an arresting, hyperbolical, oriental way of saying, ‘Alas! many will be obdurate.’”7 [7 C. F. D. Moule, The Birth of the New Testament, 3rd ed. (San Francisco: Harper & Row, 1981), p. 117.]

At the end of the Isaiah quotation the verb used is “be healed.” It is so in the Hebrew text and it is so in the Greek version (the Septuagint). But in the corresponding

position in Mark 4:12 the verb is “be forgiven.” This might be set down as a free paraphrase on the Evangelist’s part, were it not that the Aramaic Targum on the Prophets has “be forgiven.” The date of the written Targum on the Prophets is considerably later than the date of Mark, but behind the written Targum lies an oral tradition: the Aramaic paraphrase of the Hebrew lesson was originally given in the synagogue by word of mouth. Perhaps, then, “be forgiven” is due not to Mark but to Jesus: speaking in Aramaic, he alluded to the Aramaic wording of the Isaiah passage.

Recognizing this, T. W. Manson went on to make a further suggestion.8 [8 T. W. Manson, The Teaching of Jesus, 2nd ed. (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1935), pp. 75–80.] If Jesus had the Aramaic version of the text in mind, then it is relevant to consider that in Aramaic one and the same form does duty for “so that” and “who,” while the expression for “lest” may also mean “perhaps.” The meaning of Jesus’ saying would then be: “For those outside everything is in parables, (for those, namely) who see indeed but do not perceive, who hear indeed but do not understand; perhaps they may turn again and be forgiven.”

This certainly removes most of the hardness from the saying, making it mean that Jesus imparted the “mystery” of the kingdom of God to the disciples but spoke in parables to those outside their circle in hope that they would grasp sufficient of his teaching to repent and receive forgiveness. But if this is what the saying meant, Mark (or his source of information) has misunderstood it and made it hard.

If we remember that in the idiom of Jesus and his contemporaries a result might be expressed as though it were a purpose, the saying remains hard, but not intolerably hard. It is helpful also to realize that in Hebrew and Aramaic the word for “parable”

might also mean “riddle.”

Jesus proclaimed the kingdom of God and made plain the far-reaching implications of its arrival. This was a “mystery” in the sense that it had not been disclosed in this form before: Jesus revealed it in his ministry. Among his hearers there were some whose minds were open to his teaching; they grasped its meaning and appreciated the point of his parables. There were others whose minds were closed. Even if at first they thought that he was the teacher and leader for whom they had been waiting, they soon changed their minds. His parables, luminous to those who had eyes to see and ears to hear, were but riddles to them. They could not take his message in, and so they could not profit by it. The more he spoke and acted among them the less responsive they became. And they were in the majority. Only a few, relatively speaking, embraced the good news of the kingdom, but for their sake it was worthwhile making it known.

If the saying is understood in this sense, its relevance to the context, immediately after the parable of the sower, should be clear. The sower scattered the good seed broadcast, but only a quarter of it yielded a crop, because of the poor soil on which the rest of it fell—the hard-beaten path, the thorn-infested ground, the shallow skin of earth on top of the rock. But the harvest that sprang up from the good and fertile ground meant that the labor of sowing was by no means in vain—quite the contrary.

The gain derived from those “who hear the word and accept it” more than outweighs the loss incurred through those who turn away.

See also comment on exodus 9:12; isaiah 63:17.

4:31 How Small Is a Mustard Seed?

See comment on matthew 13:32.

5:1–20 Two Demoniacs or One?

See comment on matthew 8:28–34.

5:11–13 Why No Concern for the Pigs?

See comment on matthew 8:31–32.

5:34 How Much Faith Do We Need?

In the story of the woman with the flow of blood we find this verse (also found in Mt 9:22 and Lk 8:48) that indicates that her healing was due to her faith. A similar phrase appears in the healing stories in Mark 10:52, Luke 17:19 and Luke 18:42, and the forgiveness story in Luke 7:50. Does this mean that the answer to our prayers is determined by the amount of our faith?

Certainly faith is present somewhere in most of the healing stories in the Gospels. In the cases cited above, the faith is the faith of the person being healed, but such stories form only about one-third of the healing stories in the Gospels. In Mark 2:5 it is the faith of those bringing the person to Jesus which is cited. In Mark 6:6 (and Mt 13:58) it is the general climate of unbelief, that is, the lack of faith, in Nazareth that made Jesus unable to do anything more than heal a few sick people. In Mark 9:23–24 Jesus counters unbelief and stimulates faith in the father of a demonized boy. Yet in many cases of healing the only faith which appears to be present is that which Jesus has; for example, in the raising of the man in Nain (Lk 7:11–16) one searches in vain for faith in anyone but Jesus, as is also the case in John 11. How do we put all of this data together?

First, while Jesus can talk about “great faith” (in the case of the centurion whose servant was healed) or “little faith” (in the case of the disciples in Mark), normally it is not the amount of faith but whether or not it is present that counts. In Mark 11:23–24

we read,

I tell you the truth, if anyone says to this mountain, “Go, throw yourself into the sea,”

and does not doubt in his heart but believes that what he says will happen, it will be done for him. Therefore I tell you, whatever you ask for in prayer, believe that you have received it, and it will be yours.

Yet the parallel in Luke 17:6 reads,

If you have faith as small as a mustard seed, you can say to this mulberry tree, “Be uprooted and planted in the sea,” and it will obey you. (compare Mt 17:20) In other words, the key element in prayer is not the amount of faith, but whether faith

is present at all.

The Scripture applies this to several different situations. First, there is faith which leads to salvation. Remember that in the New Testament the Greek term for faith ( pistis) or believing ( pisteuoµ) normally means trust in or commitment to some person. The woman in Luke 7:50 may have had all sorts of weird ideas about Jesus; she is not commended for her excellent theology. Yet whatever her ideas about Jesus she had something in her heart which pushed her to express trust in or commitment to Jesus.

That faith, however rudimentary from a theological standpoint, brought about her

“salvation” from her disease (the term translated “healed” is the same one often translated “saved”). Now the woman was not seeking deliverance from sin, yet the same principle holds throughout the New Testament, for it is not how much we understand about Jesus that saves us, but the mere fact that we trust in him. For example, we do not know what the Philippian jailer in Acts 16 knew about Jesus; surely it was very little. Most likely he had only just that night heard about him at all.

Yet his willingness to trust in Jesus was enough to save him. Saving faith is commitment to Jesus and is not dependent on our understanding how he will save us or even that he will save us. Indeed, some people might be willing to obey Jesus as God’s king (that is, confess “Jesus is Lord” as Paul says in Rom 10:9–10) and yet think that in the end Jesus would still send them to hell. Even in such a case their faith in Jesus (their commitment to him, their trust in him) saves them even though they are ignorant of the fact that God would never send someone to hell who repents and turns to him.9 [9 This author has actually known some such troubled souls, who recognized Jesus as their Lord and committed themselves to serve him the rest of their lives and yet believed that they had done something that could not be forgiven. They lived with unnecessary pain, but this misbelief did not mean that God had not fully accepted them. Of course they were far happier when someone helped them get rid of their bad theology.] This is where Matthew 5:13 fits in, for we either have “flavor” (saltiness or faith) or do not. Minimal faith leads to salvation, while its lack leads to a far sadder result. Likewise in Mark 9:42–49 the issue is not one of the amount of faith, but that of leaving the faith altogether (which is the sense of the Greek word translated “causes to sin” in the NIV [NIV New International Version] ). It would be better to be maimed for life rather than to leave faith; a miserable death would be better than turning another person from faith. Again, the issue is whether people trust in or are committed to Jesus, not which theological ideas they have about him. Is Jesus or is he not one’s Lord and King, however imperfectly that is understood? Thus salvation is said to be a product of faith, and in the case of salvation the mustard seed of trust (or faith) appears to reside in the individual.

When it comes to praying for healing, the locus of faith is more widespread. We noticed in the Gospels that only in about one-third of the cases is faith found in the person who is sick. After all, illness often sucks faith and other forms of willing out of a person. Thus the gifts of healing in 1 Corinthians 12:9 are normally given through someone other than the person who is ill. In James 5:14–15 there may be little or no faith in the sick person, for we do not know whether he or she calls the elders of the church out of a spark of faith, or only because the church said to do it, covering all the bases before they die. Whatever the case of the sick person, the only faith actually said to be present is in the elders, for it is they who pray and their “prayer offered in faith”

which makes the sick person well. The fact is that people who do not believe that God wants to heal a sick person normally do not see those they pray for healed; conversely, those with even a mustard-seed-sized belief in their hearts often do.10 [10 Ken Blue in Authority to Heal (Downers Grove, Ill.: InterVarsity Press, 1987) points out that those who pray successfully for healing in whatever tradition have three characteristics in common: (1) the conviction that God is willing to heal (faith), (2) compassion for the sick person (also a characteristic of Jesus) and (3) the willingness to risk (faith must be put into action; the prayer of faith must be prayed).]

This perspective fits with Mark 11:23–24 and Luke 17:6. In those cases the context is that of a miracle, which is also a gift of God. Again, not the amount of faith but the presence of faith is the quality which leads to prayer being answered. Does something in our hearts say that God will do this, or is there no expectation in us? It is this spark of faith which is the mark of the person who prays and sees miracles happen.

Finally, we should note in all of these cases that faith is also a gift of God. We saw that about the gift of faith in 1 Corinthians 12:9, but Jesus says the same about saving faith (for example, Jn 6:64–65). And whether one talks in Pauline terms about gifts of healing or whether with James one talks in terms of a prayer of faith (which surely comes because the elders have heard the heart of God), the source is God. So even faith is not a work of ours; it is a gift of God. Our only action is to respond appropriately to the faith in our heart.

Therefore we should not get worried about whether we have enough faith or not.

What Christian are called to do is to look into the face of the Father and pray what they do have faith for. If they lack faith, they should honestly say, “Help my unbelief!”

Trying to work up “faith” within us will not result in faith at all, but in emotional persuasion or mere positive thinking. Spending time in the presence of God (as Jesus did) will result in a spark of faith, perhaps so small we do not even notice it, which trusts God and receives the request that God in giving that faith has already put into our heart.

See also comment on mark 11:23; james 5:14–15.

5:39 Not Dead but Sleeping?

The statement that Jairus’s twelve-year-old daughter was “not dead, but sleeping”

appears in all three Synoptic narratives (see Mt 9:24; Lk 8:52 RSV [RSV Revised Standard Version] ). But what did Jesus mean when he said this? The girl’s death had certainly been reported. As Jesus was on the way to the house where she lived, in response to her father’s anguished plea to him to come and lay his healing hands on her, a messenger came to say that she had died; therefore, “why trouble the Teacher any further?” (RSV [RSV Revised Standard Version] ). But Jesus encouraged her father: “Do not fear; only believe” (RSV [RSV Revised Standard Version] ), and went on with him to the house. It was then that he rebuked the crowd for the noise they were making. Did he mean that she was not dead (as had been reported) but only sleeping in the literal sense of the word? The crowd took him to mean that, but it was perfectly evident to them that she was dead: “they laughed at him,” say all three Evangelists; “knowing that she was dead,” Luke adds (and the fact that he says

“knowing” rather than “supposing” suggests that he believed that she had died). Or did Jesus mean that her state of death, though real, was not to be permanent—that it would prove to be nothing more than a temporary sleep? Did he, in other words, use the word sleep figuratively, as he did when he reported the death of Lazarus to his disciples by saying, “Our friend Lazarus has fallen asleep, but I go to awake him out of sleep” (Jn 11:11 RSV [RSV Revised Standard Version] )? It is beside the point to say that two different Greek words for “sleep” are used—one in the story of Jairus’s daughter and the other in the Lazarus narrative. Both of them can be used figuratively for death in appropriate contexts.

Which way, then, should our Lord’s words be taken? We cannot be sure, in the

absence of the confirmation which a medical certificate would supply. To the modern reader his words are ambiguous. To the child he used the kind of language which might be used by anyone waking a child up from sleep: Talitha cumi is the Aramaic for “Little girl, get up!” But the mere waking of a child from sleep is not the kind of action which would call for special commemoration: the fact that the Evangelists record the incident, coupled with the way in which they record it, implies their belief that she was really (if only temporarily) dead.

5:43 Why the Secret?

See comment on mark 1:34, 44.

6:8 Were the Twelve to Take a Staff?

When we read Mark 6:8–9, Jesus’ instructions seem clear enough: the only item that the Twelve are to take with them on their missionary journey is a staff. Yet then we read Matthew 10:9–10 and Luke 9:3, which prohibit the taking of a staff.

The first piece of information that we notice is that although Matthew seems to know Mark quite well in other places, here only his mention of copper is in common with Mark (the word for “money” in Mark means “copper,” while the word in Luke means

“silver”). The rest of Matthew’s version has more in common with Luke. Since Matthew has many other passages in common with Luke which Mark does not have at all (commonly called Q passages from the German word for “source,” Quelle), the lack of common vocabulary with Mark looks like here Matthew is drawing on his common source with Luke more than on Mark. We also notice that Matthew says “no sandals,”

although Mark tells them to wear sandals. Thus we conclude that in this case Matthew and Luke follow a common source rather than Mark.

The second thing that we notice is that despite the differences there is general agreement among the accounts. The Twelve are not to take money, bread, a bag (in which to carry their provisions and into which to put anything they were given) or a second tunic (this was the inner garment, so it indicates a change of clothing). Thus all of the accounts agree that either the trip was so urgent or their dependence on God was to be so radical that the disciples were not to take the normal necessities for a journey with them. Luke’s absolute “Take nothing for the journey” is certainly how the Twelve felt. They were setting out on a trip totally unprepared, without even food or money to buy food. They were also setting out quite differently from the wandering Cynic and Stoic philosophers of Greece, who traveled simply but were permitted to carry food with them and to take up collections in their begging bag. By way of contrast, if Jesus’ followers had been given anything beyond what they could eat or put on there on the spot, they could not have carried it with them, for they had no bag to carry it in.

The third thing we notice is that these instructions were taken seriously by Christian missionaries throughout the New Testament period. The one place we find anyone shaking off the dust of their feet against a city is not in the Gospels but in Acts 13:51, where Paul and Barnabas do it outside Pisidian Antioch. Nor is there any indication in either Acts or his letters of Paul’s carrying supplies of any type with him, although this is an argument from silence. We do note that when he comes to Corinth and needs to

work he does not set up his own stall but joins in another man’s workshop (Acts 18:3).

The point is that these passages were put in the Gospels because they were relevant to missionaries throughout the New Testament period. The concern was not simply to record commands given to the Twelve that were irrelevant for later missions.

What, then, can we say about these three passages? It is possible that a corruption has crept into the text and that Mark originally read “no staff” (which was used for self-defense as well as an aid to walking), but that is unlikely. There is no solid manuscript evidence for that, nor would that explain the problem of the sandals as well. The sandals are mentioned twice in the Mark passage (once in Mk 6:9 and then later in shaking the dust off the sandals), while Matthew is consistent in saying no sandals and then telling them to shake the dust off their feet rather than off their sandals.

One solution is to suggest that it is possible that there were two such commands by Jesus and Mark has one and Matthew another. However, Luke, who agrees with Matthew, clearly identifies his account as the sending of the Twelve, not the Seventy, and there is no evidence that Jesus sent the Twelve out on more than one major trip of this type. This solution would be inventing trips simply to save us problems. It may have happened that way, but it is unlikely given the shortness of Jesus’ ministry.

What seems more likely is that there were two traditions transmitting these instructions of Jesus. Both traditions have the same essence, that the disciples were to travel light, without the normal supplies needed for a journey, resulting in their total dependence on God, but they differed in their exact wording. Perhaps this was a difference in the understanding of Jesus’ Aramaic (since the Gospels were written in Greek), or perhaps this was the result of an adaptation of the traditions to local missionary circumstances (in some areas one might need sandals or the assistance of a staff, while in others it might be more feasible to go without sandals and a staff). Whatever the reason for the differences in the traditions, Mark followed one (perhaps one he received directly from Peter) and Matthew and Luke followed the other (we have no idea who the source of their common tradition was).

These differences remind us that in the Gospels we have the meaning of Jesus, his voice, so to speak, transmitted to us, but not his exact words. None of the Gospels were written in the Aramaic he spoke and none of the Synoptic Gospels, with the possible exception of Mark, were written by eyewitnesses. Thus we are not surprised when the meaning and thrust of the words of Jesus is the same, but the exact wording is different. Only if one has a very legal mind is there a significant difference. Surely early missionaries reading Matthew’s version would not feel guilty if while walking up a steep hill they picked up a stout stick to assist them on their way. They were traveling simply, not prepared for the normal problems of travel, and they just accepted assistance which was lying there to be taken, probably with thanksgiving to God. Jesus normally speaks in the hyperbole of a wisdom teacher, not the legal precision of a Pharisee.

These passages are also another reminder to us that we do not have all of the answers.

There are issues which may have a perfectly good explanation if we could gather Mark and Matthew and Luke together, but for which we will not have an answer short of such a gathering.

Finally, these passages call us not to lose the forest for the trees. Jesus called his missionaries to travel simply, without the normal provisions for a journey. They had to

depend on God for their support. What does that mean for us who call ourselves disciples of Jesus in our security-conscious age? When we would not think of setting off on any mission, ordered by God or not, without ten times the normal provision that Jesus prohibited (credit card as well as money; a suitcase of clothes, not just a change), the issue of whether or not sandals or a staff were or were not permitted to the Twelve fades into insignificance.

6:23–27 Inviolable Vow?

See comment on judges 11:30–39.

7:27 The Children First?

This was Jesus’ response to the plea of a Gentile woman that he cure her demon-possessed daughter. The woman was a Syrophoenician according to Mark, a Canaanite according to Matthew, who also records the incident (Mt 15:21–28). The incident took place during a brief visit paid by Jesus to the territory of Tyre and Sidon, north of Galilee.

The saying was a hard one in the first instance to the woman, yet not so hard that it put her off: if Jesus’ healing ministry was for Jewish children and not for Gentile dogs, yet she reminded him that the dogs commonly get what the children leave over, and that was what she was asking him to give her and her daughter. To the modern reader it is hard because it seems so inconsistent with the character of Jesus. Its hardness is put in blunt terms by one writer: “Long familiarity with this story, together with the traditional picture of the gentleness of Jesus, tends to obscure the shocking intolerance of the saying.”11 [11 S. G. F. Brandon, Jesus and the Zealots (Manchester: Manchester University Press, 1967), p. 172.]

Jesus’ Palestinian ministry was directed to the Jewish people; Matthew, in his account of the present incident, represents him as saying to the woman, “I was sent only to the lost sheep of the house of Israel” (Mt 15:24 RSV [RSV Revised Standard Version] ).

There are suggestions here and there in the record of the ministry that, as a sequel to it, blessing would be available for Gentiles too, but very few instances of direct blessing to Gentiles appear within the context of the ministry itself.

Why did the woman not take offense at such an unpromising response? One obvious reason was that she was determined to get what she wanted for her daughter. In addition, what if there was a twinkle in his eye as he spoke, as much as to say, “You know what we Jews are supposed to think of you Gentiles; do you think it is right for you to come and ask for a share in the healing which I have come to impart to Jews?”

The written record can preserve the spoken words; it cannot convey the tone of voice in which they were said. Maybe the tone of voice encouraged the woman to persevere.

Again, what are we to say of the term “dogs”? That is a term of abuse, if ever there was one. The pariah dog was not an estimable animal in Near Eastern culture then, any more than he is today. But it is not the pariah dogs that are intended here, like those at the door of the rich man in the parable, whose attentions added to Lazarus’s afflictions. It is the dogs beneath the table. That in itself might suggest that they are household pets, the children’s playmates; and this is confirmed by the fact that the word for “dogs” used by both Jesus and the woman is a diminutive. Since the woman

is said by Mark to have been a Greek (that is, one who spoke Greek), the Greek diminutive used by Mark may have been the word actually used in the conversation.

The woman was quick-witted enough to deduce from Jesus’ words the kind of reply that would win the granting of her request: “Sir, even the little dogs under the table eat the children’s leftovers!” The word faith is not mentioned in Mark’s account of the incident (as it is mentioned in Mt 15:28), but the woman’s reply expresses just the kind of faith that Jesus so greatly appreciated and that never failed to receive what it asked from him. Her daughter was healed immediately, and healed, as in the other instance of Gentile faith in the Synoptic Gospels (that of the Capernaum centurion and his sick servant), not by direct contact but at a distance.

See also comment on matthew 10:5–6.

8:12 No Sign?

See comment on luke 11:29–30.

8:30 Why the Secret?

See comment on mark 1:34, 44.

8:33 Get Behind Me, Satan!

Why did Jesus address Peter with such severity?

When, in the neighborhood of Caesarea Philippi, Peter confessed Jesus to be the Messiah, Jesus laid a strict charge on him and his fellow disciples not to mention it to a soul. Why? Probably because the title “Messiah” (the anointed king) was bound up in the minds of most people, and to some extent even yet in the disciples’ minds, with ideas of political rule and military conquest, which were very far from Jesus’ own understanding of his mission in the world. If the people of Galilee learned that his disciples considered him to be the Messiah, their own convictions about him, which he had done his best to dispel at the time of the feeding of the multitude, would be reinforced, and this might have disastrous results.

As for the disciples, they had to learn that, far from victory over the Romans and a royal throne awaiting him, Jesus faced suffering and violent death. If they believed that he was the Messiah, they must know what kind of Messiah he was; if they were still minded to follow him, they must realize clearly what kind of leader they were following, and what lay at the end of the road he was pursuing. The revelation shocked them; this was not what they expected. Their common sense of shock was voiced (as usual) by Peter, who in his concern took Jesus by the arm in a friendly gesture and began to expostulate with him: “Mercy on you, Master! Don’t speak like that. This is never going to happen to you!” It was to this expostulation that Jesus made his severe reply.

The words of his reply recall those with which he repelled the tempter in the wilderness, and indeed they have much the same sense here as they had there. It should be understood that “Satan” is not primarily a proper name. It is a Hebrew common

noun meaning “adversary.” When it appears in the Old Testament preceded by the definite article, it means “the adversary.” In the story of Job, for example, where Satan (better, “the satan”) is said to have presented himself at a session of the heavenly court (Job 1:6), the expression means “the adversary” or, as we might say, “counsel for the prosecution.” This is the regular function of this unpleasant character in the Old Testament. Every court must have a prosecutor, but this prosecutor enjoys his work so much that, when there are not sufficient candidates for prosecution, he goes out of his way to tempt people to go wrong so that he may have the pleasure of prosecuting them (see 1 Chron 21:1). His role as tempter is thus secondary to his role as prosecutor. The Greek word corresponding to Satan is diabolos, meaning “accuser”

(it is the word from which our “devil” is derived). In Revelation 12:10, where the devil is thrown down from heaven (not at the beginning of time, as in Milton’s Paradise Lost, but in consequence of the redemptive work of Christ), the holy ones in heaven rejoice because, they say, “the accuser of our brothers, who accuses them before our God day and night, has been hurled down.”

In his character as tempter Satan encountered Jesus in the wilderness. Jesus had just been baptized by John the Baptist and had received the assurance from God that he was his Son, his beloved One in whom he found pleasure. The language addressed to him by the voice of God (Mk 1:11) bears a fairly close resemblance to the words of Isaiah 42:1 in which God introduces the one whom he calls his servant: “Behold my servant, whom I uphold; my chosen, in whom my soul delights.” If Jesus learned from the heavenly voice that he was to fulfill his life mission in terms of the portrayal of the Servant of the Lord in Isaiah 42:1 and other passages of the same book (especially Is 52:13–53:12 [RSV [RSV Revised Standard Version] ], which similarly begins with

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