CHAPTER 14 - Kingdom Discipleship
CHAPTER 14
Kingdom Discipleship
“Whoever wants to belong to my movement must deny themselves, accepting their shameful execution and following me [to death].”
MARK 8:34
Putting Jesus in his Palestinian Jewish context will help us to recognize that the later Gospels do in fact preserve much of the voice of the “historical Jesus.” I sought to provide an early Jewish setting for most of Jesus’ words in Matthew in my commentary on that work; here I merely survey some important examples from that and other research.
Because there are too many available examples for a single chapter, I am treating some themes relating to the kingdom and the radical demands of discipleship in this chapter, while deferring Jesus’ ethical teaching and legal controversies for the next two chapters. The distinction is artificial: ethics belong to Jesus’ demands for discipleship, and the priority of preparing the kingdom undoubtedly exercises at least some effect on the other categories.