New Thoughts (08/16/11-08/17/11)
On this occasion, I find the Weymouth translation suits my tastes most fully. “After He had left the house, the Scribes and Pharisees commenced a vehement attempt to entangle Him and make Him give off-hand answers on numerous points, lying in wait to catch some unguarded expression from His lips.” There is this theme of sorts to what Luke writes, in his choice of words. So many of them are at least capable of being understood in terms of hunting that it would seem only reasonable to find that Luke intends us to hear the hunt in what he is saying.
The NET, in this instance, chooses to downplay that imagery as being somewhat secondary to the meaning of the various terms. But, the accumulation of them strongly suggests to me that Luke is looking at that secondary aspect, bringing out the hunter’s instinct in these Pharisees. In particular, he is emphasizing the methods of a trapper that they are employing. Everything is subterfuge and entanglement. It would be difficult not to think back to the words of Psalm 91:3 in light of these word choices. “Surely He shall deliver you from the snare of the fowler and from the perilous pestilence” (NKJV). We might also look farther along in that Psalm, as we come to what seems more directly Messianic in portent. “He shall give His angels charge over you, To keep you in all your ways. In their hands they shall bear you up, Lest you dash your foot against a stone” (Ps 91:11-12). Recall that Satan, that foul fowler of men, brought these very words against Jesus as temptation there at the outset of His ministry. That example ought to serve well enough to show us whose children these Pharisees are.
They operate by deceits, laying traps. Traps cannot function if they are clearly visible and comprehensible to the intended victim. They are generally matters of concealment. Thus, the Pharisees on this occasion try to hide their intentions in the forms of theological debate. They seek to maintain the air of this being no more than a heated disagreement between the erudite. Perhaps they maintain hope of demonstrating that Jesus lacks in this erudition, but I suspect that by the time this dinner was over, they’d all but given up on that part of things. Now, it’s just the hope of catching Him out in some regrettable statement.
The idea that Luke sets forth is that they are pelting Him with questions in rapid fire fashion. They are attempting to force Him into extemporaneous response. In this, there is some resemblance to be seen between their treatment of Jesus and our political process in selecting candidates. We set them in debates. Ostensibly, the idea of a debate is to force these candidates to think on their feet. Of course, they are granted preparation time in advance of the event, and most often informed as to at least the general content of the questions to come. They are not expected to come at this wholly unprepared. Jesus has not even been granted that much. We might see it more like a press briefing, where the reporter may come with pretty much any question, whether related to the topic of the briefing or to some wholly tangential issue. And, the politician is expected to answer intelligently. And every recording device is carefully screened thereafter looking for any exploitable weakness in that answer. That’s the game.
That’s the game we allow to dominate our political process, and it’s very much the game these Pharisees are playing with Jesus. It’s all about pressuring the man into an unforced error. Watching these men thus baying after Jesus, it’s easy for us to see how wrong this behavior is. I have to wonder, though, whether we have cause to see it as any more correct when it’s done to any man, whether politician or otherwise. “Oh, but we’re just trying to get at the truth.” Thus, will the antagonists defend their efforts. In this day and age, with the everyman access to media that we enjoy and abuse, it becomes pretty clear that there is quite often no such intention. It’s not an attempt to arrive at truth. It’s an attempt to catch an embarrassing moment. It needn’t be incriminating. We can easily manufacture the appearance of incrimination. It just needs to be embarrassing. Let’s catch them with an odd look on the face for just that one brief moment. We can publish that image and mark the person for life.
Listen, there have doubtless always been those in the press who were particularly adept at this form of journalism. It’s certainly rampant now, and more plainly visible, but I don’t really suppose it’s anything new. Honestly, we could go back to some of the classics of literature, say a Dante’s Inferno, or Cervantes’ Don Quixote. One finds that they are assaulting many a real person’s character in what they are writing. These men and women may not be familiar to us, but be assured they were well known to the original readers. Were the caricatures accurate? I surely cannot say. No doubt they were near enough as made the point that much more recognizable. No doubt there were also exaggerations made, perceptions played as facts, and perhaps even established as facts by the power of the written word.
My question is whether we, as children of God, can allow ourselves to participate in such games. I know (not personally, mind you) many who are covering the news on the web these days who set themselves out to be good Christian men and women. And yet they are promoting these same tactics. I do not say that they are out there practicing them personally, but they are promulgating the results, and as such they surely become abettors of the practice.
I can and must accuse myself in this as well, in the way I treat on certain aspects of modern Christianity in the course of these studies. I must needs become more careful in my approach to certain of these topics. I do not believe that I have been inclined to name those whom I may find cause to consider as false teachers or at least misled, but even so, do I paint such pictures as leave the intended mark clear to the reader? And, is that fair? Am I doing exactly as these Pharisees, just looking for a reason to lay charges?
I believe I had commented on this in either the preceding study or the one prior to that, that this can be my tendency in listening to a preacher. I may find myself carefully raking through the words of his message, looking for that one misstep by which I can, should I so choose, discount the whole of his message. Would I hold myself to that standard of accuracy? I should have to discount my own efforts if I did, I am sure. I can dress the practice up as being a matter of listening carefully, of giving due diligence. The reality is it’s just skepticism, a querulous spirit. The reality behind that is that it’s nothing but pride in all its ugliness. I’m right and they’re wrong. They’ve made a mistake that I can spot. The clear significance of that is that I am superior to them. I would never! Yet, if I but consider the development of some of these recent studies, or even the fact that in the course of a matter of years I have had to completely reverse myself as to whether Luke and Matthew are covering one event or two, I must confess my own failure and error. Indeed, even over the last month or two I have found my opinion on that vacillating a number of times, often in the course of considering the same passage. And I have the audacity to think myself somehow better than those who have been called to not only teach the Word week in and week out, but also to pastor and counsel a body of believers? For shame!
Well, now. I’ve looked inward, and I’ve looked forward from the Advent. Let me also look backwards, and I discover that this practice is about as old as mankind. I’ll take as my one example the message Isaiah is given to impart. On this occasion, he is pronouncing upon the fallen condition of the city identified as Ariel, a city “where David once camped” (Isa 29:1). One gets the sense that this is another name for Jerusalem, but I’m not putting sufficient effort in at this point to make that call with certainty. A great judgment is pronounced on that city, at any rate. It is not without hope, for in the midst, we hear of that day when the deaf shall hear, the blind see, and the afflicted be made glad (Isa 29:18). But, for the ruthless, it shall not be so. And, what, pray tell, demarks for us the ruthless? It is here that I reach the verse I have in mind. They are those, “Who cause a person to be indicted by a word, And ensnare him who adjudicates at the gate, And defraud the one in the right with meaningless arguments” (Isa 29:21 – NASB).
Can you see how this perfectly depicts what is happening in Luke’s account, what is happening on that later date that Matthew reports? What are these men doing, but seeking to provoke that word from Jesus by which to indict Him? What are they doing, as we watch them bring Him before the Sanhedrin later, other than to defraud Him Who is not only in the right, but is the right, with their meaningless arguments. It’s what they’ve been doing all along. They were doing it at this dinner. They were doing it when they brought the cripple to Him on the Sabbath, knowing He would surely heal the man, and thinking that they could find in this a cause to accuse Him of breaking the Law of Moses. It’s their game start to finish. Lay traps. Stress Him until He makes some error. Catch Him in an unguarded moment. Find something, anything, however we must wrest it from its context and setting, by which we can destroy this Man’s reputation.
And here we are up against it. For, here we are face to face with the eighth commandment, that commandment which was preached on just yesterday. “Thou shalt not steal” (Ex 20:15). What are all these games of entrapment, but an attempt to steal a man’s reputation? We need not even come to the issue of false witness yet. One can maneuver these sorts of things in such a way as to speak truly even when the thrust of our speech is untrue. Yes, he actually said thus and so, but by carefully editing, overemphasizing this aspect and omitting that aspect, we give a wholly untrue representation of the meaning. And this, we must recognize, is wholly unlawful, wholly unchristian. We cannot justify acting in such manner.
There is another side to this matter of questioning that deserves our consideration. I do not speak, in this case, of the hounding sort of questioning that these men were exercising, but questioning in general. God does not require us to be unquestioning. To put it differently, to have questions about Him or for Him is not evidence of a lack of faith. One can be wholly committed to Christ, determinedly seeking to be obedient to the tenets of Scripture, and still have questions.
For my part, I have known times when my questions were of a sort that I am not entirely sure are suitable. We can easily get into ‘why me?’ sorts of questions, or ‘how could You?’ This is not really the sort of thing I have in mind when I think of God being open to our questions. I don’t honesty think He is necessarily offended or put off by even such questions as those. He is certainly not afraid of such questions. Why should He be? It’s just the clay whining on the wheel. I would prefer that I not find myself inclined to such whining, myself, but there are times when things just get dark, even in the life of faith.
No, I’m more thinking of those sorts of questions that come from recognizing our own limited understanding. Even those whiny sorts of questions can, if we are able to stop and think on them a bit, be turned around and presented in a more positive form, as seeking the wisdom one lacks. That is, after all, what a question is for, is it not? It’s not questioning His right to be God. It’s not questioning His reason for having said or done what He has said or done. It’s recognizing that He is all knowing and we are knowing very little indeed. It’s accepting that He has told us that the one who lacks wisdom should ask, and know that God willingly imparts of His wisdom them who do so.
God is not thrown by our questions, even those that come as expressions of pain or sorrow. He knows our weakness. He has experienced the trials of this life. He knows what we’re going through. He also knows why, and He also knows where it’s all leading. He, to be clear, knows how it’s all going to work for our good, and that’s the bit we quite often fail to see ourselves. It’s the part that we long to understand, because we’re pretty sure that would make the whole process easier to deal with. If we knew it was all going to be good, if we saw the final denouement from here so that we had that clear goal before us in the midst of the sweat and toil of this preparation, then we could slog on without being so cast down by circumstance, or so we suppose.
The fact of the matter is we do know. Or, we know sufficient to be clear that whatever the trials and pressures of this life, what awaits, that pearl of greatest worth which is our eternal citizenship in heaven, will most assuredly be worth it all. We know sufficient to be certain that whatever wrongs we have suffered here will assuredly be made right there. We know God is Just. We know He loves us. We know He is in control. These three things ought to suffice to satisfy those, “if I only knew where this all led” sorts of questions.
There are other questions, though. Questions arise in the consideration of this Word He has given us. It’s not all simple and easy to grasp. There are things that men have been wrestling with pretty much as long as there has been a Scripture to wrestle with. There are major points of doctrine that men of good will and good understanding disagree on, and reasonably so. What are the answers? God is not afraid of being asked. He is perfectly within His rights to retain to Himself such knowledge as He does not see fit to impart, and that is a fact we must accept and be comfortable with. There remain those things too wonderful for us, and there, the wise believer retreats across the threshold and lets them be.
But, there is no harm in asking. I have been pleasantly surprised, over the years, to find questions I thought would go unanswered being answered at some later date. I may have all but forgotten that I had asked. It might be weeks or even months later. There may be answers that have come years after the fact, when I truly have forgotten that I was even asking. But, often, the answer comes, and there’s a sort of, “Oh, yeah. I did ask You about that, didn’t I?” It may well be that because the answer has come at this later point, it now sheds light on some other point, some other question or consideration, where it would not have done so, had the answer come immediately. God knows. He knows what to answer. He knows when to answer. And He most assuredly knows how to answer. Fear not, then, to ask.
This brings me to my final point on this brief passage, albeit by a rather roundabout way. As I have been looking at these twin occasions – the dinner that Luke has been relating to us and the confrontation there in the courts of the Temple during that final week in Jerusalem, there has been something of a tension for me as to whether these two recorded the same confrontation but one or both had the setting wrong. Or, were these truly two separate occasions, and the course of the interactions between Jesus and His opponents just happened to follow a very congruent course? As an adherent to the inerrancy of Scripture, I am rather forced to accept the second position. But, I needn’t do so blindly. Indeed, I oughtn’t to do so blindly. Rather, understanding that Scripture is inerrant, I do well to seek to understand how this apparent problem truly resolves.
For my part, the resolve I come to is solidified by the behavior of these men subsequent to the dinner confrontation. The reaction we see from them in these two verses is but a confirmation of the course they’ve already been on, and it all but assures that they will continue that course. Frankly, the events at this dinner all but assure the later events in the temple courts. Indeed, I would maintain that they were specifically designed and intended to do so.
What I am saying is that Jesus is wholly and absolutely intentional in the provocation He has ignited by His pronouncements. As a true prophet and the Prophet it cannot be otherwise than that He would confront what these men have become, and do so fearlessly, unflinchingly, and without paying heed to the niceties of social interaction. Sin must be confronted, and only more so when it involves those with moral charge over God’s people. The prophet of God does not play favorites; cannot do so. He does not water down the message out of respect for the dignity of his hearers. He delivers the Truth unvarnished, and most typically, in hopes of inciting repentance on the part of those to whom he is charged to speak.
In this case, the Prophet speaks with the clear realization that there shall be no repentance. Like Moses who foreshadowed Him, He is sent to speak to those who will not listen and well does He know it. He is hardly the first prophet to labor under such conditions. Indeed, it seems that the majority of the prophets we have record of labored with similar understanding. You will speak but they will not listen. Yes, there will be that remnant, that small portion who hear and obey, but those grandees to whom you speak most directly? No. They are too full of themselves. They have long since rejected Me in favor of their own prestige and power. Yet, they must fill up the measure of their sins, and they must have no least excuse of ignorance to offer in defense.
Jesus, then, is absolutely in control of events at this dinner. He is not setting Himself up. He has not stepped in it. He is very purposefully crafting the exact response He gets from these men. When I turned to paraphrasing this passage, the image that came to mind was that of angry bees. Jesus has, as it were, stirred up the hornet nest, but He has not done so accidentally. He has not done so foolishly. He has done so because He is determined that these hornets be known to all, and that they be shown to have the full nature of hornets.
This being the case, there is a very clear cause and effect relationship between what we hear from this dinner and what we observe happening on this third day in Jerusalem. Bear in mind that pretty much every action Jesus has taken during the final week thus far has been equally designed to goad and stir up these opponents of His. The triumphal entry of the first day, atop being a prophetic fulfillment and a prophetic statement, was also a declaration of war against these false icons of religion. The cleansing of the temple on the second day was the first skirmish in this final battle. The retributive attack that has unfolded on day three, wherein we have these woes repeated, and the same false teachings cast down, are yet another skirmish, and again the defenders have lost. They will, as they suppose, have their final victory soon, but in truth it has turned out to be their final defeat.
All of this, as I say, is already present and assured as Jesus leaves dinner. The animosity that has been exposed by His provocations has also solidified in these men. Like Pharaoh, their hearts have been hardened the more by what God is exposing about them. The revealing of their errors and mistakes only leaves them that much more determined. Look at the response! Do they acknowledge? Do they seek to change? No! They seek to damage the messenger, and they seek to do so in a way that will leave their reputation, such as it is, intact. They would prefer dignity to purity, and in the end, they shall find they have neither.
Here, once again, is warning for us all. Much as I would prefer to, I cannot leave this as the stuff of dusty history. It is, after all, the stuff of human nature and therefore of my nature. I know too well how easily I can take on the airs and characteristics of the Pharisee. I know, at least in part, just how capable I am of being insistent on my own way when God is insisting on change. I know it and I am very much afraid. I am assured, it is true, of my Savior’s determination to see this work that is me completed. Yet, I am also very much aware that even God’s patience eventually comes to an end. As assured as I am that I shall one day be like Him, and that by His work, yet I am very much concerned that I not find myself, like these men, so wholly convinced of my final estate that I have given no thought to my present progress.
I dare not fall into cheap grace. I dare not become so enamored of presuming upon the mercies of God that He is left no choice by but to give me up to my own devices. There can be no crueler fate for man than to hear God say, “Fine. Have it your way.”
No, Lord! Never that! But, rather Thy will be done. Thy will be done in me, Holy God of all, and Thy will be done through me. I know that in spite of the many times I have prayed thus, still it is in me to rebel and go my own way, to refuse (were it possible) Your will. Yet, I would not have it so. By Your own Word, You proclaim to me that You are at work in me, both to will and to work for Your good pleasure. Let it be so! Let this flesh come once for all into submission. Let this will be bowed before You for all time. Lord, hear my prayer. Amen.
