Category Archives: Culture

December 5, 2013

Why the World Hates Jesus of Nazareth (6 of 7)

By David D. Flowers

“If the world hates you, keep in mind that it hated me first.”  Jesus, Jn. 15:18

In the previous installment, I showed how Jesus challenged worldly wisdom on several levels. His entire life and ministry was an affront to the wisdom of the age. The person of Jesus is a major obstacle to the worldly mind.

At the heart of this challenge is Jesus’ own claim to be more than a man from Nazareth. His greatest offense was in aligning himself with God—both in his Kingdom mission and divine identity (Matt 21:33-46; Jn 3:16; 14;9b).

There was (and is) nothing palatable about Jesus Christ of Nazareth to those who love the world and have made their home in it. There is simply too much to stumble over when Jesus is not accepted on his own terms.

If you’re just joining this blog series, I said in the introduction that I’m using seven provocative statements as a way of summarizing the radical life and teachings of Jesus. This is why the world system hates Jesus of Nazareth.

And why the world hates those who follow him.

Before we wrap up this series with a final statement and overview of what has been covered, we must consider yet another controversial and often misunderstood aspect of the gospel of Christ. This concerns Jesus’ attitude toward sin, and a world that refuses to repent of it for the Kingdom.

6. Jesus Was Loving and Intolerant

Jesus lived in a Roman world that prided itself in the so-called “tolerance” of others. You could see this tolerance most clearly displayed in the Pantheon—a sanctuary of religious tolerance—that housed all of the gods of empire.

Rome boasted that it was the land of the free. There was freedom to celebrate religious and cultural diversity. As long as people played the system, followed the rules, and habitually pledged their allegiance to Caesar, they could live a relatively peaceful life—reaping benefits of empire.

While tolerance never made it to any written list of cardinal virtues, it was expected of every good citizen. Be tolerant in so much as the Roman way is protected and preserved. Rome defined tolerance and guarded it by force.

But the limits of this tolerance would become visible if and when someone threatened the Pax Romana (peace of Rome)—the Roman way of life. They would surely suffer Roman ridicule and violence, even a Roman cross.

Whether it be in ancient or modern times, a rejection or intolerance of societal norms is seen as ignorance and bigotry. The world’s tolerance ultimately requires that the only standard be no standard at all.

“Tolerance is the virtue of the man without convictions.” G.K. Chesterton

It is good to be informed about differing opinions and respectful of another person’s point of view, but the tolerance of the world goes further by denying a fundamental basis for truth. It scoffs at objective truth claims.

It’s an old question. “What is truth?” Pilate asked Jesus (Jn 18:38). A few chapters earlier, Jesus said this to his disciple Thomas:

“I am the way and the truth and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me.” John 14:6 NIV

In the original Greek, the words of Jesus are emphatic on himself being the way, the truth, and the life. It should read like this: “I MYSELF am the way, the truth, and the life” (εγω ειμι η οδος και η αληθεια και η ζωη).

This exclusive claim is anything but tolerant, according to the way the world defines tolerance. It is this very claim of Jesus that the early Christians upheld when they said they belonged to “The Way” of Christ (Acts 9:2).

It is no wonder that Christianity could not be tolerated by Rome. Seen through the eyes of a Roman, Jesus and his followers were intolerant, hateful bigots, and a subversive threat to a “civilized” society.

Jesus made an exclusive claim to be the only way to God. It’s the sort of thing you would expect from a guy that believes he is God in the flesh.

Therefore, it’s no surprise that Jesus uses his authority to speak on the destructive nature of sin as human disfunction which misses the mark of God’s holy design. Sin distorts the image of God within the individual and breaks community with God and others. It’s a misuse of human energies.

“In a world that has lost a sense of sin, one sin remains: Thou shalt not make people feel guilty (except, of course, about making people feel guilty). In other words, the only sin today is to call something a sin.”  Christopher West

Jesus, the sinless savior, loved sinners (Matt 9:13; Rom 5:8). He saw the world before him being held captive by sin and the devil (Mk 10:45). Because of this he loved the most wretched of sinners and treated them as victims. He didn’t come to condemn the world, but to save it (Jn 3:16-17).

“Who needs a doctor: the healthy or the sick? I’m here inviting outsiders, not insiders—an invitation to a changed life, changed inside and out.” Luke 5:31-32 MSG

Out of this love Jesus was motivated to confront sin at work in people. Jesus heals the sick and says things like, “Stop sinning or something worse may happen to you” (Jn 5:14b NIV). This willingness to call out sin was not like that of the self-righteous, law-loving Pharisees. Jesus means to redeem.

Recall the story of the woman caught in adultery (Jn 8:1-11).

The religious leaders bring the frightened woman to Jesus. They want to know if he will follow the letter of the Law and stone her to death. Jesus writes something cryptic in the sand, causing all of those ready to execute her to drop their stones and leave. He says, “Let any one of you who is without sin be the first to throw a stone at her” (v.7). BOOM!

Pay careful attention to what Jesus says next.

“Then Jesus stood up again and said to the woman, “Where are your accusers? Didn’t even one of them condemn you?” “No, Lord,” she said. And Jesus said, “Neither do I. Go and sin no more.” Jn 8:10-11 NLT

Jesus rebukes those who are self-rightous, and he reveals that his followers are to get down in the dirt with people. You open the sinner’s heart with God’s merciful love, so that repentance may give way to new life.

Jesus is showing the way to repentance for all who desire the Kingdom.

Jesus was no legalistic Pharisee. But he also wasn’t a libertine either.

According to Jesus, freedom isn’t about doing whatever you want, or even living in a society that does what it pleases. Instead, Jesus lived and taught that the gospel of the Kingdom is that salvation is received by grace, actualized through faith, and worked out in obedience to his commands.

True freedom is found in the cruciformed-looking Kingdom of Christ. It’s the new world God is shaping. And he’s doing it one disciple at a time.

If you’re going to follow Jesus, you need to know that the world doesn’t tolerate those who are intolerant of the Zeitgeist (spirit of the age), whose real leader is Satan himself (Jn 12:31; 16:10-12; 2 Cor 4:4; Eph 2:2; 6:12).

Jesus-followers should speak the truth and act in love for the sake of reconciliation and redemption. Like Jesus, we are willfully intolerant of the world system, because some things are just stupid and sinful.

D.D. Flowers, 2013.

Read the final post:  7. Jesus Revealed the New Way to be Human.

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November 21, 2013

Why the World Hates Jesus of Nazareth (5 of 7)

By David D. Flowers

“If the world hates you, keep in mind that it hated me first.”  Jesus, Jn. 15:18

In the previous installment, I made the case that Jesus rejected materialism.

Jesus defended the poor and preached a word of warning to the rich. In his words and actions, Jesus rejected the idol of consumerism. Contrary to the economy of empire, King Jesus seeks to establish a Kingdom on the earth that is about giving and sharing, not taking and accumulating.

In God’s economy, the poor are blessed (Lk 6:20). This aspect of Jesus and his ministry especially threatens those in powerful positions of affluence and privilege. The gospel of Jesus undermines their way of life, and denounces their way of carving up the world for their own personal pleasure.

As I said in the introduction to this blog series, I’m using seven provocative statements as a way of summarizing the radical life and teachings of Jesus as recorded in the NT. It is my deepest desire that the Christian and skeptic alike will come to embrace the true beauty of Christ’s Kingdom, while being ever-mindful of the real cost of discipleship. We must count the cost.

For this is why the world hates Jesus and his good news. And why those who belong to the world system will hate those who choose to follow him.

5. Jesus Challenged Worldly Wisdom

The apostle John writes in his Gospel that Jesus is the logos (Word) of God.

“In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. He was with God in the beginning. Through him all things were made; without him nothing was made that has been made. In him was life, and that life was the light of all mankind. The light shines in the darkness, and the darkness has not overcome it.”  John 1:1-5 NIV

John has in mind two big ideas by referring to Jesus as the logos of God.

In Jewish perspective, Jesus is the Word of God (spoken & written) in human form. No doubt an idea that was (and is) unthinkable to Jews. From a Hellenistic Greek perspective, Jesus is the Wisdom of God—the perfect mind behind the universe. He is transcendent above the material world.

Jesus is also the Wisdom of Proverbs personified (Prov 1:20-33). He is Wisdom in the flesh! The apostle Paul testifies that in Jesus is hidden all the treasures of wisdom and knowledge (Col 2:2-3). He is the divine mind.

“Wisdom, God’s blueprint for humans, at last herself becomes human.” N.T. Wright, The Challenge of Jesus, pg. 120

The Gospel of John would have us know, from the very beginning, that Jesus of Nazareth was and is the Creator of all that is seen and unseen. He came from God, and is God in human form—the invisible made visible.

“Anyone who has seen me has seen the Father [God].”  Jesus, Jn 14:9b

This is just the evidence you would think all religious people and skeptics would need to repent and believe in the One that God sent in order to make himself known. However, John tells us that Jesus “came into the very world he created, but the world didn’t recognize him” (Jn 1:10 NLT).

Why did the world not recognize him? Because God’s wisdom is foolishness to those who refuse to repent of worldly wisdom (1 Cor 1:18).

“Where is the wise person? Where is the teacher of the law? Where is the philosopher of this age? Has not God made foolish the wisdom of the world? For since in the wisdom of God the world through its wisdom did not know him, God was pleased through the foolishness of what was preached to save those who believe.” Paul, 1 Cor 1:20-21 NIV

The life and ministry of Jesus can certainly be viewed as foolishness.

  • Jesus was born of a virgin (Lk 1:26-38),
  • Lived in obscurity for most of his life (Lk 2-3),
  • He was single with no interest in marriage (Matt 19:29),
  • Took up the role of rabbi with no formal education (Jn 1:49; 7:15),
  • Rejected by his family and friends (Mk 3:20; Lk 4:14-30),
  • He was a wandering homeless man for three years (Lk 9:58),
  • Performed miracles and casted out evil spirits (Mk 5:9; Jn 2),
  • Forgave sins with the authority of God (Mk 2:5-7),
  • Proclaimed that he and God were one and the same (Jn 10:30),
  • Emphatically claimed to be the only way to God (Jn 14:6),
  • He raised Lazarus from the dead (Jn 11),
  • Crucified as a condemned criminal (Lk 23:33; Jn 18:30),
  • Followers said he was resurrected in a radical new body (Lk 24),
  • Believed he would return to consummate the Kingdom (Matt 24).

“Blessed is anyone who does not stumble on account of me.” Jesus, Matt 11:6

First and foremost, Jesus challenges worldly wisdom with his self-proclaimed divine identity, and heaven-born mission. Jesus’ self-awareness is most clearly expressed in The Parable of the Tenants (Matthew 21:33-46).

It can’t be denied that Jesus sees himself as the son of the vineyard owner. The son (Jesus) is sent to the tenants (religious leaders) of the vineyard (Israel), after the tenants had already killed others (prophets) the vineyard owner (God) had sent to collect the harvest. The son will also be killed (crucifixion). Jesus then tells his audience that the Kingdom of God will be taken from the religious and given to others that will receive it (v.43).

Jesus not only claimed to be the only begotten (i.e. one of a kind) Son of God that comes to take away the sins of the world (Jn 3:16), he proved that his wisdom was from another place. This wisdom incited hatred.

The leaders of Israel believed Jesus and his followers were dangerous. They made repeated attempts to trap Jesus with their wisdom, but he always confounded them with his wisdom from above (Matt 22:20-22; Jn 8:6).

“Stop deceiving yourselves. If you think you are wise by this world’s standards, you need to become a fool to be truly wise. For the wisdom of this world is foolishness to God.”  Paul, 1 Cor 3:18-19 NLT

It wasn’t just his “new teaching” that intimidated the religious leaders (Mk 1:27), it was something more—something they couldn’t quite put their finger on. He seemed to have someone helping him. It appeared to be the power of God, but still they stumbled over their own wisdom and rejected him.

Even the folks back in Nazareth were mystified at his great wisdom and miracle-working. Nevertheless, they hated him for his claims to be the eternal, omniscient Son of God (Matt 13:54; Lk 4:28-30).

And that’s the thing about Jesus, isn’t it? He does not allow anyone to separate his “wise” teachings from his self-identifying claim to be the Lord of the universe. C.S. Lewis said it best in Mere Christianity, pgs 40-41:

“I am trying here to prevent anyone saying the really foolish thing that people often say about Him: I’m ready to accept Jesus as a great moral teacher, but I don’t accept his claim to be God. That is the one thing we must not say. A man who was merely a man and said the sort of things Jesus said would not be a great moral teacher. He would either be a lunatic — on the level with the man who says he is a poached egg — or else he would be the Devil of Hell. You must make your choice. Either this man was, and is, the Son of God, or else a madman or something worse. You can shut him up for a fool, you can spit at him and kill him as a demon or you can fall at his feet and call him Lord and God, but let us not come with any patronizing nonsense about his being a great human teacher. He has not left that open to us. He did not intend to.” 

Worldly wisdom scoffs at the idea that Jesus is the Messiah—the savior of the world. Those who embrace the wisdom of the world have constructed a system that doesn’t allow for the Creator of the cosmos to make himself known in the life, death, and resurrection of Jesus of Nazareth.

The world today sees faith in Christ as a threat to human progress. The wisdom of God, as expressed in Jesus, and now through his followers, can’t simply be left alone. Jesus challenges the “wisdom of the wise”—religious pluralism, scientific naturalism, and political imperialism.

And he calls for a Kingdom revolution of the heart and mind.

Therefore, God’s wisdom may have it that many of his peaceful followers walk a road of suffering, even death (Lk. 11:49; Rev. 5:10-11).

If they crucified the Son of God for challenging conventional wisdom and cultural expectations, what will they to do those who follow him?

D.D. Flowers, 2013.

Read the next post:  6. Jesus Was Loving and Intolerant.

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November 12, 2013

Why the World Hates Jesus of Nazareth (4 of 7)

By David D. Flowers

“If the world hates you, keep in mind that it hated me first.”  Jesus, Jn. 15:18

In the previous installment, I made the case that Jesus was not religious.

It is clear from the Gospels that Jesus did not seek to get his life from a system of religious beliefs and behaviors. On the contrary, he rebuked religious authorities and was hated by the religious world system.

Instead, Jesus got his LIFE from a relationship with the Father.

When we attempt to get our life from anything or anyone other than the person of Christ, whom the Scriptures testify as the source of all LIFE (Jn 5:38-40), we create for ourselves a religion. We must repent of it.

As I said in the introduction to this blog series, I’m using seven provocative statements as a way of summarizing the radical life and teachings of Jesus as recorded in the NT. This is why the world hates Jesus and his good news.

And why they will hate those who choose to follow him.

Now we must seriously consider another reason for the world system’s hatred of Jesus. And it has to do with Jesus’ rejection of wealth and his woeful language to those who hoard it for their own pleasure.

4. Jesus Rejected Materialism

Second only to the religious leaders and hypocrites, Jesus’ strongest rebuke was reserved for those who are rich in this world. It’s a bit frightening.

In keeping with Yahweh’s heart expressed through the Prophets, Jesus carried on the OT tradition of defending the poor and pronouncing woes upon the rich (Prov 14:31; Isa 41:17; Jer 22:6; Ezek 16:49; Lk 4:18).

Listen to the words of Jesus from Luke 6:20-26 (NIV):

“Blessed are you who are poor,
    for yours is the kingdom of God.
Blessed are you who hunger now,
    for you will be satisfied.
Blessed are you who weep now,
    for you will laugh.
Blessed are you when people hate you,
    when they exclude you and insult you
    and reject your name as evil,
        because of the Son of Man.”

“But woe to you who are rich,
    for you have already received your comfort.
Woe to you who are well fed now,
    for you will go hungry.
Woe to you who laugh now,
    for you will mourn and weep.
Woe to you when everyone speaks well of you,
    for that is how their ancestors treated the false prophets.”

It appears that the heart of Jesus’ rebuke against the rich is due to the fact that these people have oriented their entire lives around their wealth and status. They don’t own stuff, it owns them. Meanwhile, the poor suffer.

For these folks, money has become an idol—an idol that demands the reforming of all priorities around the accumulation and hoarding of wealth. Money drives them. They are slaves to their god, Mammon!

“You can’t serve both God and money.” Jesus, Matt 6:24 NLT

Consider how a large bank account kept the rich young ruler from following Jesus (Lk 18:18-25). Jesus asked him to sell everything he had and give it to the poor, but the man wasn’t willing or able to do it.

“How hard it is for the rich to enter the kingdom of God! Indeed, it is easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle than for someone who is rich to enter the kingdom of God.”

When Jesus said it’s hard for the rich to “enter the kingdom” of God, he didn’t mean what many evangelicals mistakenly assume, i.e. that it’s hard for rich people to “go to heaven” when they die. Far from it.

Jesus was never concerned about a post-mortem, disembodied, interim state called “heaven” between this life and the next. What he meant was that those who are are consumed with wealth, fooled by this world system of greed and covetousness, can’t see the beauty of the upside-down Kingdom of God on the earth, and therefore they most certainly will not inherit the resurrected world to come. They reject God’s economy now and forever.

As Jesus told the church at Laodicea, “You say, ‘I am rich; I have acquired wealth and do not need a thing.’ But you do not realize that you are wretched, pitiful, poor, blind and naked” (Rev 3:17 NIV).

Therefore, those who are rich in this world are incapable of understanding God’s economy and becoming oriented to the way of a lowly, itinerant Messiah who demands them share their wealth with those in need.

Think about the sort of Kingdom economics that Christ revealed:

  • The first shall be last, the last shall be first (Matt 19:29-30),
  • Leave everything behind for greater reward (Mk 10:29-31),
  • Hire at different times, pay the same wages (Matt 20:1-16),
  • Willing to leave ninety-nine for one (Matt 18:12-14),
  • Sell/leave everything necessary for the Kingdom (Matt 13:44-46),
  • Give out of your poverty, not just abundance (Mk 12:41-44),
  • Cancel the debt owed to you (Matt 6:12; 18:21-35),
  • Don’t hoard, use abundance for the Kingdom (Matt 25:14-30),
  • Seek the Kingdom and needs will be met (Lk 12:31).

Jesus rejected materialism for the sake of the Kingdom. He left his family and livelihood to travel the countryside preaching he was the manger-born Messiah promised by the Prophets. He lived and taught things that your financial planner most certainly wouldn’t approve of, even in a good year.

He turned over the tables of moneychangers and drove out those who profit from religion. Jesus didn’t take money from the bank, he walked in and knocked it to the floor—showing its cosmic insignificance to God.

Jesus called Roman tax collectors to repent, no doubt a treasonous act. He told his followers to pay taxes without grumbling against Caesar, seen as nothing more than blasphemous capitulation to the system.

Jesus said to “store up for yourselves riches in heaven” where nothing can steal or destroy it (Matt 6:19-20). In heaven, God’s space, it’s safe. Jesus’ invitation is to invest in a Kingdom that will last.

When your treasure is with God, you don’t have to worry about economic recessions, falling stocks, and government shutdowns.

You live for the Kingdom until you die. Don’t worry about stuff, because you can’t take it with you. With the Kingdom plan, you don’t have to worry about retirement (Lk. 6:24; 12:13-21). It’s taken care of already.

“Yes, a person is a fool to store up earthly wealth but not have a rich relationship with God.” Jesus, Lk 12:21 NLT

While Jesus isn’t suggesting that we all live destitute, he clearly warns about the great dangers of living to accumulate wealth, and the power it has to shift the mind to things that are passing away (Matt. 6:24; 13:22).

As the proverb says, “Give me neither poverty nor riches, but give me only my daily bread. Otherwise, I may disown you and say, ‘Who is the Lord?’” Prov 30:8-9 NIV

Jesus told a sobering parable of a rich man who went to hell, and a poor man named Lazarus who joined the Father in heaven at his death (Lk. 16:19-31). It’s the only parable where the righteous person is named, and the “rich man” is left nameless. How troubling for the rich in this world.

He means to say with this parable that the time to repent is now, before it’s too late. The world system, and those who currently benefit from it, are on the way out. Make your choice: God or money?

“This is what Jesus had in mind: folks coming together, forming close-knit communities and meeting each other’s needs– no kings, no major welfare systems, no presidents necessary. His is a theology and practice for the people of God, not a set of suggestions for empire.” Shane Claiborne, Jesus for President

Let’s face it. It’s greed and power that drives the quest for empire—an empire that is prophesied to fall (Rev 18). It’s that same lust for wealth that seeks to take root in our own hearts. The good news of Jesus declares the old way of competition, accumulation, and domination to be finished.

The love of money is the root of all that is evil in the world (1 Tim 6:10). The clarion call of Christ is to spit out the maddening wine of empire, and instead drink from the fresh springs of God’s economy.

Just know that those who hold the coffers won’t go silently. They hated Jesus and his message, so they will hate those who decide to follow him.

D.D. Flowers, 2013.

Read the next post:  5. Jesus Challenged Worldly Wisdom.

9 Comments   |  tags: , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , | posted in Christianity, Christology, Church, Culture, Ethics, Faith & Politics, Historical Jesus

October 24, 2013

Why the World Hates Jesus of Nazareth (3 of 7)

By David D. Flowers

“If the world hates you, keep in mind that it hated me first.”  Jesus, Jn. 15:18

In the previous installment, I discussed two reasons the world system hates Jesus. Jesus Proclaimed the Kingdom of God and Jesus Was Not Patriotic.

When you’re a part of the world system that glorifies one worldly kingdom over another, you oppose the transnational Kingdom of God.

Likewise, when you respond to the good news by following Jesus in radical discipleship, you oppose nationalism and the politics of Caesar. You become an enemy of the state. Sooner or later you’ll find yourself hated like Jesus.

As I said in the introduction, I’m using seven provocative statements to summarize the radical life and teachings of Jesus as recorded in the NT.

If you’re a skeptic, I hope that you will seriously consider the historical Jesus of the Gospels. If you count yourself among the church, I pray that you will rethink what you thought you already knew about Jesus of Nazareth.

Now, let’s look at another controversial, and oft-neglected, aspect of Jesus’ teaching and example. This specifically involves the religious leaders and the hatred Jesus incited among them for rejecting their religion.

3. Jesus Was Not Religious

The word “religion” derives from the Latin religio, which referred to a binding obligation. In first century Palestine, the word was not used the way we use it today. In the time of Jesus, if someone said something was “religio to me”, it meant that they had a special obligation to it.

This obligation could be anything from a commitment to cults of the gods, to something more “secular” like oaths to family, government, military, etc.

Whatever the oath involved, this special obligation was about life and identity. Therefore, it meant that this “religion” involved a set of rules, regulations, and rituals that provided cultural meaning and purpose.

The danger of religion, in ancient or modern times, is that LIFE is said to be found in a system of behavior and beliefs.

This requires that a person root their identity in the ideas and boundaries set by the religious community. You don’t want to buck the religious system.

For this very reason, second temple Judaism could not contain Jesus. The religious leaders, and guardians of their sacred religion, demanded strict adherence to their own system of correct behavior and beliefs.

Consider some of the ways that Jesus rejected their religion:

  • He healed on the Sabbath, violating their religious code (Matt 12:9).
  • He ate with enemies and sinners (Matt 9:11; Mk 2:16).
  • He touched “unclean” people, they touched him (Lk 5:12, 8:43).
  • He turned over the tables of the Temple (Mk 11:15; Jn 2:15).
  • He challenged religious traditions (Mk 7:3-5).
  • He challenged traditional interpretations (Matt 5:38-48).
  • He despised religious prayers (Matt 6:5-8; Lk 18:11).
  • He rebuked religious authority (Matt 23:13; Lk 12:1).

While Jesus was certainly a good Jew, a true Israelite (Jn 1:47), it can’t be denied that he opposed religion’s threat against the Kingdom of God. And for this act of sedition, the religious leaders wanted him dead (Mk 12:12).

Since religious people get their life from the rightness of their behaviors and beliefs, anyone who challenges them, is a threat to their life. Their response is to stop the threat, violently if necessary. We call them fundamentalists.

Jesus said that religion is merely a self-righteous platform by which a person can judge others who aren’t like them. It’s bad for the soul. It creates obstacles for people, even repelling them from coming into the Kingdom.

Not only did Jesus oppose this club mentality, invariably found within religion, he rebuked the religious leaders, saying that they themselves didn’t live up to their own standards of behavior and belief.

“The teachers of religious law and the Pharisees are the official interpreters of the law of Moses. So practice and obey whatever they tell you, but don’t follow their example. For they don’t practice what they teach. They crush people with unbearable religious demands and never lift a finger to ease the burden.” Jesus, Matt 23:1-4 NLT

Religious people crush others with their religious demands, and they are a burden as they stand at a distance condemning people that don’t share their beliefs and practices. All the while they’re dirty on the inside.

“What sorrow awaits you teachers of religious law and you Pharisees. Hypocrites! For you are like whitewashed tombs—beautiful on the outside but filled on the inside with dead people’s bones and all sorts of impurity. Outwardly you look like righteous people, but inwardly your hearts are filled with hypocrisy and lawlessness.” Jesus, Matt 23:27-28 NLT

The words of Jesus recorded in Matthew 23 has to be the strongest rebuke by Jesus in all of the Gospels. In fact, nothing quite compares to Jesus’ rebuke of religious hypocrites. It’s no wonder they hated him.

“Snakes! Sons of vipers! How will you escape the judgment of hell?” Jesus, Matt 23:33

Jesus taught that if you want to escape the doom of religious people doing religious things, then you must repent of religion. Stop trying to find LIFE in your system of “right” beliefs and behaviors, even in the Bible. And instead root yourself in the One of who is LIFE:  Jesus Christ of Nazareth.

“You study the Scriptures diligently because you think that in them you have eternal life. These are the very Scriptures that testify about me, yet you refuse to come to me to have life.” Jesus, Jn 5:38-40 NIV

Many evangelicals are convinced that they are getting their LIFE from Jesus, but instead they continue to drink water from a well that has been condemned by Christ. They drink insipid water. And the symptoms of this religious disease is pride, arrogance, intolerance, and a judgmental spirit.

“The Kingdom’s revolt against religion, including the Christian religion, is on a totally different level. It is a revolt against all attempts to get Life from particular beliefs—including true ones. For where God truly reigns over an individual or a community, their only source of Life is God, not the rightness of their beliefs.” Greg Boyd, The Myth of a Christian Religion, pg 60.

It is quite clear from the Gospels that “religion” is part of the world system. When Jesus said the world hated him first, religion is a part of that world.

Those who repent of religion will stand out like Jesus, and be known for their love, justice, mercy, and forgiveness (Matt 23:23; Jn 13:34-35).

Like Jesus who led the way, his followers may be dubbed a liberal, sin-loving, blasphemer by those who are invested in the religious system, but they will be called the greatest in the kingdom of God.

D.D. Flowers, 2013.

Read the next post:  4. Jesus Rejected Materialism.

20 Comments   |  tags: , , , , , , , , | posted in Christianity, Church, Culture, Historical Jesus, Religion & Spirituality