left-handed power after feeding 5000

Robert Farrar Capon  (In 

"Kingdom, grace, judgment: paradox, outrage, and vindication in the parables")

also sees the Feeding of 500 as a huge shift in the gospel, both as a literary division:

______________

...and in Jesus' thinking...

 away from "right handed" power to "left handed"

 FIRST, A TEST FOR LEFT-HANDEDNESS:

GET TOGETHER WITH A GROUP OF FRIENDS AND HAVE A GO AT THE FOLLOWING EXERCISES. REMEMBER THAT EACH TASK MUST BE CARRIED OUT INSTANTLY AND WITHOUT THINKING ABOUT IT.

1. Imagine the centre of your back is itching. Which hand do you scratch it with?
2. Interlock your fingers. Which thumb is uppermost?
3. Imagine you are applauding. Start clapping your hands. Which hand is uppermost?
4. Wink at and imaginary friend straight in front of you. Which eye does the winking?
5. Put your hands behind your back, one holding the other. Which hand is doing the holding?
6. Someone in front of you is shouting but you cannot hear the words. Cup your ear to hear better. Which ear do you cup?
7. Count to three on your fingers, using the forefinger of the other hand. Which forefinger do you use?
8. Tilt your head to one shoulder. Which shoulder does it touch?
9. Fixate a small distant object with your eyes and point directly at it with your forefinger. Now close one eye. Now change eyes. Which eye was open when the fingertip remained in line with the small object? (when the other eye, the non-dominant one, is open and the dominant eye is closed, the finger will appear to move to one side of the object.)
10. Fold your arms. Which forearm is uppermost?

                     (LINK)

CAPON...ON JESUS LEFT-HANDEDNESS..WHAT DOES HE MEAN?

IN THE FEEDING OF THE 5,000, JESUS' RELUCTANCE ABOUT SIGNS BECOMES MANIFEST (P. 14)...IT IS PIVOTAL (OAGE 21, 22)

 AFTER 5000 ARE FED, THE CROWDS ATTEMPT TO GET JESUS/TEMPT JESUS TO OPERATE IN RIGHT-HANDED POWER (28)...THIS IS A MAJOR SHIFT IN HIS THINKING TOWARD MOVING ONLY IN LEFT-HANDED POWER (55)

NOTE: JOHN'S GOSPEL DOES NOT MENTION JESUS' THREE TESTATIONS...THUS THIS WHOLE "RIGHT-HANDED" TESTATION IS HIS TTP VERSION OF THEM

“BUT JESUS WILL SAVE THE WORLD BY DYING FOR IT – UNDERGOING GHASTLY, UNIMAGINABLE SUFFERING. HE WILL NOT BE A CHARISMATIC, CONVINCING POLITICAL LEADER. HE WILL NOT BE AN INCOMPARABLE WARRIOR. HE WILL NOT RULE BY WINNING, BUT WILL WIN BY LOSING. HE WILL BE, TO THE CONTRARY, THE EERIE EXAMPLE OF WHAT ISAIAH HAD SEEN IN THE SUFFERING SERVANT CENTURIES BEFORE (ISAIAH 53:2-3)” (H. KING OEHMIG, SYNTHESIS 4/6/03). 

 

"UNFORTUNATELY (RIGHT-HAND POWER) HAS A WHOPPING LIMITATION. IF YOU TAKE THE VIEW THAT ONE OF THE CHIEF OBJECTS IN LIFE IS TO REMAIN IN LOVING RELATIONSHIPS WITH OTHER PEOPLE, STRAIGHT-LINE POWER BECOMES USELESS. OH, ADMITTEDLY, YOU CAN SNATCH YOUR BABY BOY AWAY FROM THE EDGE OF A CLIFF AND NOT HAVE A BROKEN RELATIONSHIP ON YOUR HANDS. BUT JUST TRY INTERFERING WITH HIS PLANS FOR THE SEASON WHEN HE IS TWENTY, AND SEE WHAT HAPPENS, ESPECIALLY IF HIS CHOSEN PLANS PLAY HAVOC WITH YOUR OWN. SUPPOSE HE MAKES UNAUTHORIZED USE OF YOUR CAR, AND YOU USE A LITTLE STRAIGHT-LINE VERBAL POWER TO SCARE HIM OUT OF DOING IT AGAIN. WELL AND GOOD. BUT SUPPOSE FURTHER THAT HE DOES IT AGAIN ANYWAY—AND AGAIN AND AGAIN AND AGAIN. WHAT DO YOU DO NEXT IF YOU ARE COMMITTED TO STRAIGHT-LINE POWER? YOU RAISE YOUR VOICE A LITTLE MORE NASTILY EACH TIME TILL YOU CAN’T SHOUT ANY LOUDER. AND THEN YOU BEAT HIM (IF YOU ARE STRONGER THAN HE IS) UNTIL YOU CAN’T BEAT ANY HARDER. THEN YOU CHAIN HIM TO A RADIATOR TILL… BUT YOU SEE THE POINT. AT SOME VERY EARLY CRUX IN THAT DIFFICULT, PERSONAL RELATIONSHIP, THE WHOLE THING WILL BE DESTROYED UNLESS YOU—WHO ON ANY REASONABLE VIEW, SHOULD BE ALLOWED TO USE STRAIGHT-LINE POWER—SIMPLY REFUSE TO USE IT; UNLESS, IN OTHER WORDS, YOU DECIDE THAT INSTEAD OF DISHING OUT JUSTIFIABLE PAIN AND PUNISHMENT, YOU ARE WILLING, QUITE FOOLISHLY, TO TAKE A BEATING YOURSELF.” (CAPON, PAGE 18-19)  

“EVERY ONE OF US WOULD RATHER CHOSE THE RIGHT-HANDED LOGICALITIES OF THEOLOGY OVER THE LEFT-HANDED MYSTERY OF FAITH. ANY DAY OF THE WEEK—AND TWICE ON SUNDAYS, OFTEN ENOUGH—WE WILL LABOR WITH MIGHT AND MAIN TO TAKE THE ONLY THING THAT CAN SAVE ANYONE AND REDUCE IT TO A SET OF THEOLOGICAL CLUB RULES DESIGNED TO EXCLUDE ALMOST EVERY ONE.” 

 THE MESSIAH WAS NOT GOING TO SAVE THE WORLD BY MIRACULOUS, BAND-AID INTERVENTIONS: A STORM CALMED HERE, A CROWD FED THERE, A MOTHER-IN-LAW CURED BACK DOWN THE ROAD. RATHER IT WAS GOING TO BE SAVED BY MEANS OF A DEEPER, DARKER, LEFT-HANDED MYSTERY, AT THE CENTER OF WHICH LAY HIS OWN DEATH.

"THE MESSIAH WAS NOT GOING TO SAVE THE WORLD BY MIRACULOUS, BAND-AID INTERVENTIONS"-CAPON

THERE ARE TWO KINDS OF POWER IN THE WORLD. ROBERT CAPON CALL THEM RIGHT AND LEFT HANDED POWER. CAPON CAREFULLY SHOWS IN HIS BOOK, THE PARABLES OF THE KINGDOM, THAT JESUS TALKED IN PARABLES SO THAT OUR RIGHT BRAINS COULD GRASP WHAT OUR LEFT-BRAINS CAN NEVER. HE SAYS THAT THE GOSPEL IS A GOSPEL OF LEFT-HANDED POWER, THE POWER OF WEAKNESS, SUBMITTING, AND OBEDIENCE. HE SAYS THAT GOD USED  RIGHT-HANDED POWER IN THE OLDEN DAYS, WHEN WE WERE STILL YOUNG IN OUR DEVELOPMENT,  BUT THAT SINCE THE INCARNATION, GOD PRETTY MUCH STICKS TO THE NON-INTERVENTIVE APPROACH. ACCORDING TO CAPON THE WHOLE THING TURNED AT THE FEEDING OF THE MULTITUDE. JESUS HAD BEEN DOING MIRACULOUS SIGNS OUT OF COMPASSION, BUT THEN HE REALIZED THAT HE WAS IN DANGER OF BEING MISUNDERSTOOD AS A PROVIDER OF RIGHT-HANDED POWER. WHEN PETER SUGGESTS THAT HE UNDERSTANDS WHO JESUS IS, MEANING THAT HE WANTS HIM TO BE THE PROVIDER AND PROTECTOR EXTRAORDINAIRE, JESUS SAYS, "GET OUT OF MY FACE, YOU SATAN."  IT IS WHEN WE THINK WE UNDERSTAND WHAT GOD IS UP TO, ESPECIALLY WHEN THIS KNOWLEDGE IS LINKED TO RIGHT-HANDED POWER THAT WE ARE IN THE MOST DANGER.  LINK

READ THE WHOLE SECTION OF CAPON  HERE.

 JESUS' SHIFT TOWARD  LEFT-HANDED POWER..

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J

 

first last

week 6 

What did you learn about Kingdom Culture from Matthew 5?

How would you decide what verse 48 means about being perfect?

1)When you see a therefore..

2)Drop down box: what does the same sentence say in Luke 6:36? -

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a provocative threefold question 

Which would you choose:

• 1)Drink wine mixed with rubber, alum, and garden crocuses?
• '2) Eat Persian onions and yell out'Kum, Kum, Kum !'?
• 3) Carry around the ashes of an ostrich egg in a cloth?

You can read more about the intriguing reasons WHY at this link..


..but you'll remember an amazing "historical world" lesson:


These were the main options/remedies that would be given in that culture the bleeding woman we meet in Matthew  9..


And if you look at how the story is obviously INTERCALATED in three gospel accounts with another story (the young girl, daughter of Jairus, a synagogue ruler..


you'll be able to do some quick comparing/contrasting the two stories,
and note that we are to get the "Literary world" message that 


Jesus is indiscriminate and inclusive in who he heals:


Older (a woman suffering for 12 years  and younger  ( a 12 year old girl),


poorer  and richer...

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looked in detail in this week's BIG TICKET assignment  6.2

--

--Inclusio:  a literary world technique.

Something is repeated at beginning and end of a text or book to give you a clue as to main theme.

 a literary device in which a word, phrase, or idea is included at the beginning and ened of a  text (and sometimes in the middle).  Example: the "with you"s of Matthew 1:23 , 18:20 and 28:20

Len Sweet is on to something, suggesting a Bible-wide inclusio. How wide and big can these things get? Wouldn't this cue us and clue us in to the heart message of the whole Book?
Check it out!

Ever notice Matthew starts with "His name will be called Emmanuel, which means 'God with us.'
And ends...very last sentence...with "I will be with you."?

No accident.
And neither is the midpoint and message of the gospel: "I will be with you" (18:20).
In Jesus, God is with us.
Jesus is the With-Us God.

Inclusio with chiasm.

You knew God was with us in Christ.. But now you see it as you look at Matthew structurally..

n internal inclusio:

Twice, Matthew makes almost identical statements, which might lead us to draw an inclusio around them:

And he went throughout all Galilee,
teaching            in their synagogues and
preaching         the gospel of the kingdom and
healing             every disease and every affliction among the people. 
(Matt. 4:23)


AND

And Jesus went through all the towns and villages,
teaching            in their synagogues,
preaching          the good news of the                                         kingdom and
healing              every disease and sickness.  
(Matt 9:35)

Maybe Jesus only did three things in this section.
 Q Who is Jesus in Matthew?  
               The one who does three things



Since this threefold ministry is so intentionally signaled, might it not mean that in other places in Matthew
that when one or two of the three is mentioned, the third is implied, hidden somewhere, or conspicuous by its absence?

How about 11:1?:

"After Jesus had finished instructing his twelve disciples, he went on from there to
teach and

preach

in the towns of Galilee "

Where is the healing?
-
How about  15: 29-30:
Jesus left there and went along the Sea of Galilee. Then he
went up on a mountainside and sat down (implies teaching ).
Great crowds came to him (so now you expect to see him teaching, but he is healing instead...or is healing a form of teaching here?)
bringing the lame, the blind, the crippled, the mute and many others, and laid them at his feet; and he healed them.
--

For some helpful commentary on the "literary world" (Hauer and Young) implications of Jesus' three activities...

teaching
preaching    
healing 

.....click to read these sections of David Bauer's commentary.
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One writer comments:

• These three activities were his chief occupations in public ministry. Think of what Jesus did:
• He was teaching in their synagogues. What was a synagogue service like? We have some insight in two New Testament passages: Luke 4:16-21, where Jesus began to teach about his own ministry. We also have Acts 13:15ff, where Paul used the invitation to speak as an opportunity to preach the gospel based upon the history of Israel. In the service, a reading from the Law and the Prophets, which followed prayers, would be followed by a distinguished Rabbi, either resident or visiting, being invited to teach concerning a point of the Law or the Prophets. He would read a text and explain and apply it. This is what Jesus evidently did. And the traditions of the synagogue required that the teacher be attractive in his appearance and presentation, as well as intelligent and godly. Interestingly enough, such a teacher did not have to be ordained. And his message was to be tactful and not too personal. That Jesus taught often in the synagogues of the land, tells us that he was a welcome teacher and respected. No wonder he was referred to as "Rabbi."
• The text tells us that he also was actively preaching the Gospel/good news of the Kingdom. You are of course aware that the word, gospel, means good news. And the substance of the gospel is given in verse 22, to wit that the Kingdom of Heaven was near. It is referred to elsewhere as the gospel of peace (Rom 10:15), the gospel of Jesus Christ (2 Cor 9:13), and its message was simply that the Kingdom of Heaven had come. To the Jews this would be good news, as it would mean that the Lord was announcing the reign of Messiah (Isa 9:6,7) and peace between Himself and Israel (Isa 52:7). God had come to rule and thus to show his love and concern for his people. And that is the essence of the gospel.
• We want to be careful not to distinguish too closely between teaching and preaching, though, because he did both at the same time, cf. the next three chapters. Teaching would emphasize a systematic presentation of the truth. Preaching or proclamation would emphasize declaration of the truth, as opposed to giving a systematic presentation of it. In his teaching he gave the details of what the Kingdom of Heaven is like.
• Finally, and this is what usually catches our attention most in this passage, he healed the sick. The text says, he healed (literally) all chronic diseases and all occasional sicknesses among the people. The word, all, would place him in different category from other healers that were also going about the land. Perhaps the word would best be translated as the NIV does, every, because not all in the nation were healed. These other healers did not heal every case. They had their successes and their failures, but Jesus healed every disease he came into contact with, with no failures. The question needs to be asked, though, why? ..
• Notice how these three ministries are tied together. What ties them together is the Kingdom of Heaven. The public teaching of Jesus focused upon the grace of God in coming to rule over his people and show his love and concern for them as their King. The healings were a tangible, easy to understand demonstration of the truth and power of the Kingdom. Jesus did not simply heal for the sake of making people feel better or improve their quality of life. Rather, those who were healed had an obligation to worship and serve the Lord, even to repent-cf. John 5:1-14. That is why, when Jesus preached he proclaimed the message that he did, Repent, for the Kingdom of Heaven is near. This is an important point, one that is missed by some in the healing movement in Pentecostal Church circles. We are mistaken if we separate healing from the gospel's message and focus on it or any other miraculous part of the gospel instead of on the Kingdom of God.  -Link

NOW: WHAT INCLUSIO DID WE FIND IN THE SERMON ON THE MOUNT?
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Dave Wainscott, B.S. (:  VIDEO:  WE COVERED 1:22-9:05

Bonus: If you like Dave's charts, there are more of his, with more detail and craziness: Click here and here,  you know you want to (:

Parable

 The usual number of times KINGDOM shows up on the TV assignment: ZERO.

Final count for our class:

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We read about Jesus and the leper (not leopard, lol( in Matthew 8, then we watched this re-enactment of it.  What did we notice about it?

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This   photo is of the 17-mile walking road from Jerusalem to Jericho we read about In Jesus' parable of the "   Good Samaritan"  .   Not quite Highway 99, or the 17-mile Drive in California! Think how far people walked back then.  Read the parable, and picture robbers along this road, and the Good Samaritan helping a robbed and beaten man here.  That's the power of knowing the historical world.  Even more important: stay tuned to learn what a "Samaritan" was.  It will blow open the parable for you.

I hope to take some of you to see this road in Israel next year.  Who's game? Text me .

Thanks to Mennonite pastor  Mike Furches,  a grad of FPU's sister school, Tabor College in Kansas (did you know we has a sister college?) and his wonderful "Faith and Film" seminar, for the tip on  this heavily-edited excerpt of South Park's "Do The Handicapped Go to Hell?" episode below.

The rest of the episode may be terribly offensive to some, I am not endorsing it all...but this section is funny and  prophetic, and is  the section Mike shows at church seminars, which is a  wonderful conversation starter on a number of important questions, including the two questions of class.  Yes, it might be as offensive as a loud fart, but lots to think about.
When I show it in class, I draw a bounded set on the board, and ask "What are the assumptions made by any of the characters about how one gets into the bounded set of heaven (or salvation, or Kingdom).
Text me a short review of the video, mentioning a part that got your attention, and one answer to the bounded set question
here it is:

 

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Think of words that come to mind when I say "parable"  . 

Did "a startling and offensive story" come to mind?  Probably not.

Ask people what a parable is and  some say something like "a nice story with a moral, " or "an earthly story with a heavenly meaning".  But  Bible parables; especially  Jesus' parables, are far more intriguing , mysterious  and radical than that-- much more subversive and  shocking than that.  One scholar compares them to "loud farts in the salon of spirituality."  Your Upside Down Kingdom  makes clear they are "biting sizzling and shocking" ; and intended to confront people with "their attitude being the opposite of God's."

By now you have heard that Pastor Eugene Peterson calls metaphor..and thus parables, "a loud fart in the salon of spirituality."  So always look for the part of the parable that would have that same effect:
It surely will offend someone somewhere.

Right now, think of something you could do that would offend/trip someone up in a similar way.
It can be anything in any area of your life: home, school, work, in public.  Just think of something you could do in a certain setting that would be received like a loud fart in a salon, library,  church, etc.. You can make it funny if you like, but remember your story, you may get a chance to use it in an assignment coming up very soon.

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a quick Prodigal Son experiment: we did this in breakout rooms..

The other  most famous parable, besides the one often called the "Good Samaritan" (the one you have been studying)  is the one often called "The Prodigal Son."  Quickly read this parable, either from Luke 15: 11-32  in your class Bible, or just click here to read it online.  Read it once,  just trying to get the basic story, plot twists, etc.  For this assignment, you are not worried about figuring out deep meanings, just getting the story, flow  and important parts. 

Then close your Bible, and retell the story to your partner., summarizing and paraphrasing the basic story, plot twists, etc. Simply tell the story in your own words.

Then, once you are done...and not before (don't ruin the fun and important lesson),  click to read  this  short article, and come back and

Questions for Moodle:

First of all, don't feel dumb if you didn't mention the famine,  Most  FPU students miss it..and when I do this in the classroom, I actually have the word "famine" on the screen or on the whiteboard while they are doing the retelling, and they still miss it, even if they see the word.. And in the reading above, you see most American seminary students miss it..

Question 1: Did you mention the famine in your retelling?  When you think back to your reading of the story, did you even notice it?

Question 2: What did you think about this experience, and the importance of Three Worlds and what we might miss in the Bible simply due to our culture and context? How might we overcome these cultural blinders?

--

Watch these two videos on the parable traditionally called "The Prodigal Son":

Kenneth Bailey:

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2 Read this, by Jay Guinn:

Faith Lessons by Ray Vander Laan: On the Prodigal Son and Thinking the Eastern Way, Part a

Posted on February 3, 2010 by Jay Guin

The Western mode of thought comes from the ancient Greeks. We think abstractly. We like to take what we learn apart, see how it’s made, and extract the underlying principles.

RVL’s students in high school have to dissect a frog in their biology classes. When they cut a frog apart and look inside, they learn many truths about the frog. They learn how his heart works, how his lungs work, and so on. They never learn who his girlfriend is. You can only learn who the frog’s mate is by observing him in the wild. You can’t take him out of the pond and learn how he lives.

The Western approach to a frog is to dissect it. The Eastern approach is to learn the frog’s story. Both approaches gain truths. But you can’t truly understand much of what’s written in the Bible unless you study it in its native environment before you take it apart. After all, many of the scriptures were written by Easterners for Easterners.

Consider the Parable of the Prodigal Son.

(Luke 15:17-22)  “When he came to his senses, he said, ‘How many of my father’s hired men have food to spare, and here I am starving to death! 18 I will set out and go back to my father and say to him: Father, I have sinned against heaven and against you. 19 I am no longer worthy to be called your son; make me like one of your hired men.’ 20 So he got up and went to his father.

“But while he was still a long way off, his father saw him and was filled with compassion for him; he ran to his son, threw his arms around him and kissed him.

21 “The son said to him, ‘Father, I have sinned against heaven and against you. I am no longer worthy to be called your son.’

22 “But the father said to his servants, ‘Quick! Bring the best robe and put it on him. Put a ring on his finger and sandals on his feet.”

Notice that the father ran to the son. In Palestine, fathers do not run. It’s considered extraordinarily undignified. And they certainly don’t run toward a sinful son. Rather, honor requires that the son come to the father. For the father to run toward the son, before the son has apologized, would have been shameful. And yet this father was willing to suffer humiliation just to reach his son a few minutes sooner.

The father embraced the son before he expressed his repentance. Indeed, the son only intended to ask for a job so he could eat. He had no intention of asking for forgiveness, only a little mercy.

We typically ignore both the cultural environment of the story and its textual environment. The story is preceded with —

(Luke 15:1-2)  Now the tax collectors and “sinners” were all gathering around to hear him. 2 But the Pharisees and the teachers of the law muttered, “This man welcomes sinners and eats with them.”

What did the father do in the story? He ate with the prodigal son — a son who’d been shamed and humbled. The father suffered humiliation to do so. And who is the father?

The father is God. And who was suffering shame for eating with humble sinners? Jesus. Jesus was doing exactly what the father does in the story — hurrying to meet sinners coming toward him, before they even realize how much grace is available — and eating with them, in that culture, a sign of acceptance and even protection.

Jesus was claiming to be God — and to be a God who acted in this wondrous way, a way of behavior utterly foreign to those who criticized him. Indeed, his critics were being caricatured as the older brother —

(Luke 15:29)  But he answered his father, ‘Look! All these years I’ve been slaving for you and never disobeyed your orders. Yet you never gave me even a young goat so I could celebrate with my friends.”

This is a rebuke. This older son never learned to be like his father and reacted to his brother’s return selfishly and lovelessly. And yet God is gracious even to the older brother —

(Luke 15:31-32)  “‘My son,’ the father said, ‘you are always with me, and everything I have is yours. 32 But we had to celebrate and be glad, because this brother of yours was dead and is alive again; he was lost and is found.'”

Imagine being in the crowd and hearing Jesus treat both the “sinners” and Pharisees with such compassion, while putting himself in God’s place. It would have been obvious that the Pharisees were God’s children, but children who were severe disappointments who had totally misunderstood their father’s heart. And the God that Jesus portrays would be far more attractive than the God presented by the Pharisees.

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Faith Lessons by Ray Vander Laan: On the Prodigal Son and Thinking the Eastern Way, Part b

Posted on February 5, 2010 by Jay Guin

Now, there’s a much more subtle point that Jesus makes, that the teachers of the law would likely have picked up. In the Psalms, nearly every metaphor used for God is about his power, his strength, and his holiness. But three metaphors are used of God’s gentleness —

(Psa 23:1-3)  A psalm of David. The LORD is my shepherd, I shall not be in want. 2 He makes me lie down in green pastures, he leads me beside quiet waters, 3 he restores my soul. He guides me in paths of righteousness for his name’s sake.

(Psa 131)  A song of ascents. Of David. My heart is not proud, O LORD, my eyes are not haughty; I do not concern myself with great matters or things too wonderful for me. 2 But I have stilled and quieted my soul; like a weaned child with its mother, like a weaned child is my soul within me. 3 O Israel, put your hope in the LORD both now and forevermore.

(Psa 103:13-14)  As a father has compassion on his children, so the LORD has compassion on those who fear him; 14 for he knows how we are formed, he remembers that we are dust.

David compares God to a shepherd, a mother, and to a father to show his gentleness and compassion. In Luke 15, Jesus tells three parables about eating with sinners —

(Luke 15:4)  “Suppose one of you has a hundred sheep and loses one of them. Does he not leave the ninety-nine in the open country and go after the lo”st sheep until he finds it?”

(Luke 15:8)  “Or suppose a woman has ten silver coins and loses one. Does she not light a lamp, sweep the house and search carefully until she finds it?”

(Luke 15:11)  Jesus continued: “There was a man who had two sons.”

God is compassionate toward his people — even the sinners — as a shepherd cares about each of his sheep, as a mother guards a coin, and as a father loves an irresponsible son.

In the Old Testament, God speaks harshly of the people’s leaders, calling them bad shepherds.

(Ezek 34:8-9)  As surely as I live, declares the Sovereign LORD, because my flock lacks a shepherd and so has been plundered and has become food for all the wild animals, and because my shepherds did not search for my flock but cared for themselves rather than for my flock, 9 therefore, O shepherds, hear the word of the LORD:

By comparing himself to a good shepherd, Jesus implicitly compares his critics to the wicked shepherds in Ezekiel who did not search for God’s flock — leading to the destruction of Jerusalem by Nebuchadnezzar. The parable surely stung.

Barclay notes that married women in the First Century wore ten coins on a chain, rather as women today wear a wedding ring. The coins were so important to a woman that they couldn’t be taken from her, even to pay a debt. The loss of a coin was not only a financial disaster, it would be deeply embarrassing that she failed to protect this symbol of her marriage. Imagine her husband coming home and asking how she could have lost the coin had she not taken the necklace off — and why take it off?!

Jesus taught at several levels at once. If we abstract the parables, reducing them to: “God loves people” or “God wants all to be saved,” we lose much of the message. The message is rich and complex, and bears repeated study and reflection at multiple levels. We musthagah the lesson — not reduce it to abstractions.

RVL says that the Jewish approach to the parable would be to ponder it for months, asking daily, “Did I live the parable today? Which character in the story was I?” It’s much more than a life-application moral at the end. It’s to enter the story to try to see myself through God’s eyes as Jesus reveals God to us. Hagah the story.

Church of Christ application

I grew up in the Churches of Christ. I attended David Lipscomb College. And when I finished college, my view of Jesus was that he came to earth to teach some simple moral lessons and to die on the cross so we could be saved via the Five-Step Plan of Salvation. Our job is to pursue God by getting the steps exactly right and then living a moral life, centered on regular church attendance involving 5 acts of worship. These parables were conventionally interpreted to mean that our churches should have “lost sheep” ministries to recover members who’ve become irregular in their attendance.

Jesus tells us that, rather than sitting back and waiting for us to repent and come to him, God pursues us, even to the point of suffering humiliation. God searches furiously and desperately for sinners, like a wife searching for her lost coin in a dark room before her husband gets home and asks how she could have been so careless! God goes into the desert alone, searching for a sheep for fear that the sheep might die — even though the shepherd, wandering the wilderness alone at night, puts himself in danger of hyenas and lions. He risks his own life for the sheep who can’t survive without him.

God does not, as a condition to saving us, give us challenges and tests to see whether we truly love him. God leaves the comfort of heaven to seek those who need him — even though they are impenitent sinners who no more deserve his forgiveness than the prodigal son. God is willing to be humiliated by eating with sinners — in a culture where eating with someone implies acceptance. God is willing to risk the embarrassment of running toward an impenitent son, embrace him, and wrap him in new clothes, because he can’t bear being separated.

Jesus is God. Jesus tells us and then shows us who God is. And yet we play the role of the elder son, resentful that the Father may actually forgive those less obedient than we. We feel unappreciated when God lavishes his love on sinners, and wonder where our kid goat is? Haven’t we been loyal? Haven’t we followed the rules? Why would the Father embrace those who don’t try as hard as we do?

As a result, we re-interpret God to be a God just barely gracious enough to approve us, and certainly not gracious enough to approve others. Our God is a God who waits on people to come to him in perfect obedience to all five steps. Our God keeps his pride … his dignity. Our God would never eat with sinners.

And yet … and yet God came to earth, took the form of a man, and suffered shame and humiliation, showing us his true character. And the lesson is that we should be like God.

The character in the story we should play is someone who used to be like the older brother but is now like God. And like God, we should be looking for prodigal sons, on the road but not yet all the way home, rushing toward them to embrace them, showing them a grace far beyond anything they imagine they deserve. And if we suffer embarrassment because of it, that’s good. It just makes us that much more like Jesus link

Titles in Matthew

You'll remember how radically Kraybill reads Jesus being on titles...at least for human leaders.

Kraybill, The Upside Down Kingdom:

• "In one stroke, Jesus erases titles (Matt. 23:8-10). Tagging each other with titles has no place in the upside-down kingdom where everyone stands on equal ground" (226).
• "Titles are foreign to the body of Christ. Terms like Doctor and Reverend perpetuate status differences unbefitting the spirit of Christ."  Titles pay tribute to position, degree and status rather than to personhood.  Members of flat kingdoms call each other, as the sign of highest personal respect, by our first names" (239, emphasis mine)
• "We call each other by our first name, for we have one Master and one Lord, Jesus Christ" (256).
  

  
  

BUT consider  the "titles" of  Jesus, which clue us in to the "Who is Jesus?" question. Check out this chart and note re: each title 

• where in the gospel  (and why?)
• how often?
• and on whose lips
• where  (what section of gospel) each title clusters
• inclusios etc.

click chart(and then click again once on a new page) to enlarge

-Son of God                         (7x..or 8, if you count 3:17)

-Son of the Living God         (once, hmm)

-Son of Man                         (29x.....and all by one person!)

-Son of David                      (9x)

>>Click to read the context of each time each title occurs:

• Son of God
• Son of the Living God
• Son of Man
• Son of David
• Son of Abraham
• Son of Adam

To get more info on the titles, and a sense of how they are used in other biblical books, see this.

Titles

 Some  titles really kick in in chapters 8-10 section: Son of Man and Son of God particularly.   It would seem obvious that these two titles are opposite in meaning: Jesus as human and God, respectively....but a study of the literary/historical world reveals that "Son of Man" was often used as a messianic connotations (and in a sense could mean "God"..see especially Daniel 7:

NT Wright 

Febbie Dickerson: African American Single Moms and the Canaanite Woman, author of Texts@Contexts chapter 4

Matthew 15

^{Matthew 19-20:''
ch,19
h27} Then Peter said in reply, “Look, we have left everything and followed you. What then will we have?” ²⁸ Jesus said to them, “Truly I tell you, at the renewal of all things, when the Son of Man is seated on the throne of his glory, you who have followed me will also sit on twelve thrones, judging the twelve tribes of Israel. ²⁹ And everyone who has left houses or brothers or sisters or father or mother or wife or^[e] children or fields for my name’s sake will receive a hundredfold^[f] and will inherit eternal life.

³⁰ But many who are first will be last, and the last will be first.

ch20 “For the kingdom of heaven is like a landowner who went out early in the morning to hire laborers for his vineyard. ² After agreeing with the laborers for a denarius for the day, he sent them into his vineyard. ³ When he went out about nine o’clock, he saw others standing idle in the marketplace, ⁴ and he said to them, ‘You also go into the vineyard, and I will pay you whatever is right.’ So they went. ⁵ When he went out again about noon and about three o’clock, he did the same. ⁶ And about five o’clock he went out and found others standing around, and he said to them, ‘Why are you standing here idle all day?’ ⁷ They said to him, ‘Because no one has hired us.’ He said to them, ‘You also go into the vineyard.’ ⁸ When evening came, the owner of the vineyard said to his manager, ‘Call the laborers and give them their pay, beginning with the last and then going to the first.’ ⁹ When those hired about five o’clock came, each of them received a denarius. ¹⁰ Now when the first came, they thought they would receive more; but each of them also received a denarius. ¹¹ And when they received it, they grumbled against the landowner, ¹² saying, ‘These last worked only one hour, and you have made them equal to us who have gone first  borne the burden of the day and the scorching heat.’ ¹³ But he replied to one of them, ‘Friend, I am doing you no wrong; did you not agree with me for a denarius? ¹⁴ Take what belongs to you and go; I choose to give to this last the same as I give to you first. ¹⁵ Am I not allowed to do what I choose with what belongs to me? Or are you envious because I am generous?’<sup>[a] 

16</sup> So the last will be first, and the first will be last.”^[b]