A Fresh Perspective

Well, here we go again. Another group of shocking sayings from Jesus. I should have took off this Sunday and let Dr. Bailey preach this text. Now, it should be obvious that when Jesus talks about hating father and mother, wife and children, brothers and sisters, and even life itself, he doesn’t really mean what we mean when we employ the word “hate” in reference to an emotional or psychological state of being. But we, too, use the word in different ways. When I hear some “not so” good news, like when a marriage breaks up, or a job opportunity falls through, or I hear about someone being sick, I will say, “O, I hate that” meaning, “I wish it wasn’t so.” Scholars tell us that in the ancient Semitic context “hate” was frequently used figuratively the way Jesus uses it here, to speak of a decisive, radical kind of renouncement or subordination or detachment. Jesus is talking about a kind of commitment here that take precedence over all other commitments – even family. This is not the...

A few years ago three Canadian neuroscientists at the University of Toronto and Wilfrid Laurier University who published their research in the Journal of Experimental Psychology discovered that as people make more money and feel more powerful physical changes in the brain occur that make one less empathetic towards the people around them. They found that a special brain area, known as the mirror system, is filled with cells that activate when you carry out an action, like opening the door or walking across the room, or when you watch someone else do that action. It’s part of how we get inside other people’s heads. And because what we do is linked with how we feel or what we want, the mirror system is what helps us empathize with another person’s motivations and struggles. What they discovered is that those who feel more powerful and more well-off show far less activity in the brain region that helps us feel empathy. In other words, as one climbs the social ladder, as one grows i...

Then Jesus, crying with a loud voice said, “Father, into your hands I commend my spirit” (Luke 23:46). These words of Jesus in Luke’s Gospel are equivalent to Jesus’s words in John’s Gospel, “It is finished.” The Gospels of Mark and Matthew include only one saying of Jesus from the cross: His cry of abandonment, “My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?” The other six sayings of Jesus are found in Luke and John. In Mark and Matthew the emphasis is on Jesus as a participant in our suffering. Jesus shares our pain and loss. Jesus knows what it is like to feel forsaken, even by God. Jesus, for the most part, is a passive victim. In Luke and John, Jesus is still a victim, but he is not passive. There is no sense of Jesus feeling forsaken in Luke or John. In Luke’s portrait, Jesus dies as a courageous and faithful martyr. We need both portraits. We need to know that God suffers with us, that God identifies with our experiences of forsakenness and feelings of abandonment. But we also n...

In Luke’s Gospel, Jesus is approached by someone in the crowd who says, “Teacher, tell my brother to divide the family inheritance with me.” Jesus responds, “Friend, who set me to be a judge or arbitrator over you?” Then Jesus says, “Take care! Be on your guard against all kinds of greed; for one’s life does not consist in the abundance of possessions” (Luke 12:12–15). Jesus refuses to get involved in a family dispute, but then sets the whole affair in a larger context. The point is made that discipleship to Jesus involves a shedding of stuff, a letting go of things. Jesus tells “a certain ruler”: “Sell everything you have and give to the poor, and you will have treasure in heaven. Then come, follow me.” With this particular individual, Jesus makes the relinquishment of his possessions the condition of his discipleship. Did Jesus sense an idolatrous attachment to money, power, and position? (See Luke 18:18–25). When Zacchaeus, the wealthy tax collector, experiences the healing fr...

Joel Osteen has been deemed by many as America ’s Pastor. He is the pastor of the largest church in America and his books have sold in the millions. I recently scanned Joel Osteen’s book, Your Best Life Now in search of any serious reflection or teaching on the life, teaching, and death of Jesus and Jesus’ call to discipleship presented in the Gospels. It’s not there.   That’s not to say that Osteen doesn’t have some good things to say. He talks about developing a healthy self-image, cultivating a positive outlook, and claiming one’s worth and value as a child of God—all very good things. But his emphasis on personal success seems to fly in the face of the gospel of Jesus in the Gospels. He writes, “If you will keep the right attitude, God will take all your disappointments, broken dreams, the hurts and pains, and He’ll add up all the trouble and sorrow that’s been inflicted upon you, and He will pay you back with twice as much peace, joy, happiness, and success . . . If ...