DDWJS – Don’t Do What Jesus Said

Ahhh, the gospels. Aren’t they great. Filled with all sorts of things that Jesus said. And yet I feel that the Church today has missed and misinterpreted the words of Jesus.

I think there is great misunderstanding around what a parable is. It is often touted as a devise to help people understand, to make things clear for them. Even the infamous movie “Last Tempation of Christ” has Jesus claiming to speak in parables to help the simple farm folk understand what he is teaching. But parables are not about that. In fact, they are just the opposite. They are meant to hide things. That is why he was always having to explain them to his disciples.

Matthew 13:13-15
This is why I speak to them in parables:
"Though seeing, they do not see;
though hearing, they do not hear or understand. In them is fulfilled the prophecy of Isaiah:
" 'You will be ever hearing but never understanding;
you will be ever seeing but never perceiving.
For this people's heart has become calloused;
they hardly hear with their ears,
and they have closed their eyes.
Otherwise they might see with their eyes,
hear with their ears,
understand with their hearts
and turn, and I would heal them.

A parable was almost like a riddle. And a riddle back in the ancient day was used to make the one who spoke the riddle seem wise and the one who can’t figure it out seem foolish. Jesus spoke parables to make the “know it all” Pharisees seem foolish while at the same time the Pharisees were drilling Jesus with questions to make him seem foolish. Jesus won pretty much all the time.

So next time you read a parable, don’t be so quick to understand it. There not meant to be understood quickly.

Another tactic of Jesus was to challenge a position by taking a seemingly extreme opposite position on something. The title of this article kind of uses the same tactic.

Matthew 18:8
If your hand or your foot causes you to sin, cut it off and throw it away. It is better for you to enter life maimed or crippled than to have two hands or two feet and be thrown into eternal fire.

Most people understand that Jesus was not saying that we should cut off our hands but they still don’t go far enough. They regulate it to something like the following practical application:

If your tempted to drink too much (or you can insert any of your personal weaknesses here) then stay away from the bar (or insert the item, place, or thing that seems to make you sin when you get around it).

But that was not Jesus’ point at all. His point was that neither the hand nor the foot cause you to sin and although it may seriously hinder your ability to sin, it does not change your heart. And avoiding the bar does not fix the spiritual conditions that make you want to drink too much. You are simply playing a game of containment if you avoid the bar but it does not provide a permanent solution.

Matthew 5:20
For I tell you that unless your righteousness surpasses that of the Pharisees and the teachers of the law, you will certainly not enter the kingdom of heaven..

Same thing here. It’s not that the Pharisees needed to not be hypocrites in addition to all the things the did. Jesus meant that the Pharisees would not be righteous (and neither would you) no matter what good things they did, because their very nature was unrighteous. They were sinners to the core and if they just would’ve admitted it, then all would have been well.

So the gospels are great but cryptic and it would be a mistake to over simplify them.