A Fresh Perspective

On his journey to Jerusalem with his disciples Jesus makes three announcements of how he will be rejected, suffer, and be killed by the powers that be. And all three times the disciples do not hear what Jesus is quite plainly telling them. Last week’s Gospel text dealt with the first announcement. Today's text deals with the second announcement. And once again, as with the first announcement, the disciples are preoccupied with position and power and personal greatness. When Jesus speaks of his suffering and death, Mark says of the disciples, “But they did not understand what he was saying and were afraid to ask.” The reason they didn’t understand is because they were not ready to hear. On the way to Capernaum in route to Jerusalem where Jesus would meet his fate, the disciples argued with one another regarding who was the greatest among them. They were preoccupied with thoughts of greatness. So Jesus sits down, calls the twelve to gather round, and he says, “Whoever wants to b...

The antithesis Paul develops between the wisdom of God and the wisdom of the world in his correspondence with the Corinthians was most likely prompted by the spiritual arrogance of some in the Corinthian church who were claiming to have special wisdom and knowledge of God, and therefore were deserving special honors and status. When Paul talks about the wisdom of the world he is not talking about Greek philosophical wisdom; rather, he has particularly in view the wisdom that crucified Jesus. The wisdom of the world is the wisdom of the domination system that attempts to shape society according to its own self-interest. Marcus Borg and John Dominic Crossan in The First Paul call the wisdom of the world “the normalcy of the world, the way life most commonly is, the way things are.” The wisdom of the world is expressed anytime individuals, governments, organizations, institutions, communities, and societies act in their own self-interest. It is the wisdom of “might makes right” ...