Been thinking through the whole "fit for the kingdom" thing since this – so just about got the time now to write them up. I'm not sure whether it's good practice to be thinking theology on my day off but I've had a lazy morning in bed and don't really have much else to do so I thought I'd fit it in around the TV and lunch.
I was looking at Luke 9:57-62, especially verse 62.
As they were walking along the road, a man said to him, "I will follow you wherever you go." Jesus replied, "Foxes have holes and birds of the air have nests, but the Son of Man has no place to lay his head." He said to another man, "Follow me." But the man replied, "Lord, first let me go and bury my father." Jesus said to him, "Let the dead bury their own dead, but you go and proclaim the kingdom of God." Still another said, "I will follow you, Lord; but first let me go back and say good-bye to my family." Jesus replied, "No one who puts his hand to the plow and looks back is fit for service in the kingdom of God."
Luke places an emphasis in his writings on the community that Jesus came to build – his gospel is part one of the story completed in Acts. Right at the start of Luke 9, Jesus sends out the first twelve disciples – where they make this transition from disciples to apostles: they move from being followers or students to ambassadors. They become teachers in their own right, with the authority to give their own teaching based on what Jesus has taught them – to bind and loose. Then right after this passage in Luke 10, Jesus appoints and sends out another 72 disciples – that's a big mission team.
So into the actual passage itself. As they are journeying along, one of Jesus' followers - Matthew calls him a "teacher of the law" or a scribe, probably making him one of the Pharisees. He's probably a man used to extravagant living, a man who brings judgement on the other Jews – seeing himself as a champion for their righteousness.
He's possibly expecting Jesus to come riding into Jerusalem on a war horse to retake His father's kingdom.
So Jesus' reply is to challenge him – to rid any possible preconceptions of what was to come. If this man was looking for a place in the court of the new king of Israel, a kushy job as an adviser to the King, then he's mistaken – he's missed the point.
And so once it's been made obvious the hardship which following Jesus will entail, the other disciples who are asked surprisingly manage to find all kinds of excuses to avoid following Jesus. Maybe they were planning to excuse themselves and then go AWOL, or maybe they just wanted to sort things out with their families before they head off with Jesus – that seems pretty reasonable to me.
Jesus replied, "No one who puts his hand to the plow and looks back is fit for service in the kingdom of God."
The King James says "is fit for the kingdom…" but I think that the NIV gets the point much better.
To really understand Jesus' response I think we need to get two meanings – what does it mean to be "fit for" something; and what does Jesus mean when he talks about the "kingdom"?
Often we take the "kingdom of God" to mean heaven – I guess because of the strange way that Matthew refers to the "kingdom of heaven", although scholars can be pretty certain that the two phrases meant the same thing in the Greek.
The first century Jews lived under the rule of the biggest world superpower at the time – the Romans. Throughout their history, they'd been exiled, occupied, invaded – not since Solomon had they had control of their own nation, so for Jesus to refer to the "kingdom" had huge amounts of meaning to them. They were hungry for a kingdom of their own, to be rid of the Romans, but Jesus makes it clear that if they think that's why he's here then they're wrong.
Jesus is talking about a new kingdom, beyond earthly kingdoms.
He's talking about a way of living.
Brian McLaren suggests that maybe for us in the 21st century the phrase "the revolution of God" would be more fitting than the kingdom. Today, we take for granted our religious, political and social freedom – maybe that's why the church the world always thrives under persecution. Our realisation of the kingdom becomes much clearer.
The kingdom is now – it's near. It isn't some magical realm that we will one day be zapped up into.
So what does it mean to be "fit for the kingdom"?
The greek word translated "fit" is the word
euthetos. It's literal meaning is "well placed". We have this modern saying "You're fit for nothing" and so the word "fit" tends to mean to us to be about absolutes. It's like in football – a player is either "fit to play", in which case he's well enough to play in a match, or he isn't.
But Jesus is talking about something different. He wants us to be "well placed" for service in the kingdom. To be useful.
He uses the metaphor of the plow to illustrate this. If you are ploughing a field, but you are looking behind at the furrow you've already ploughing then your furrow will be wonky if you are too busy looking behind you. I guess a modern-day metaphor would be driving a car (although you can understand why this is a sore one for me ;-).
When I started learning, I used to be easily distracted by the dials on the dashboard, or by watching the car behind me in the rear view mirror – and so the car would begin to swerve, prompting much anxiousness from either my mother or my driving instructor. I had to learn to focus on the road ahead, right on the middle of the road so that the line I was driving was straight.
We need to learn to look ahead if we are to follow Jesus – not to become distracted by what's behind us, or by other inconsequential things that are going on. If we are following Jesus, our eyes can't wonder onto the surrounding scenery or what's behind us – they need to be fixed on his back as we follow him.
Otherwise, if we are distracted, then we will not be useful for the kingdom – we will not be well placed to serve unless our eyes are on what God is doing.
Phew… went on a while… hopefully that all makes sense. Be thinking about the practical ways you can keep your eyes fixed on Jesus' back as you follow him.
lots of the time its that evangelicals feel it necessary to help their brothers and sisters to not wander from the faith. but they aren't always amazing at expressing that in the most loving terms, even when actually, it is driven out of deeply loving motives (see James 4:19-20). evangelicals stand up for sound doctrine (as Paul instructs Timothy to do in 2 Tim 4:1-4 etc) and as Paul himself does with Peter over doctrinal matters(Galatians 2:11-14). why does Paul do that: its for the good of the church. the motivation of evangelicals is just the same. interestingly, in the church times the other week, a survey had been carried out on why people left church. one of them was the liberalisation of the church. liberal churches die. (rev 2:1-7)
on judgementalism, i think the majority of the examples of jesus not loving the sinner are centred on those who haven't yet come to faith. evangelicals tend to assume (quite rightly) that delegates to the lambeth conference are all christians, and so want to live out lives of worship in response to God's salvation. and so to rebuke, train and correct using the bible (see 2 Tim 3:16) is probably the most loving thing we could possibly do. it can seem judgemental, but nothing compared to Jesus high moral standards. (e.g. Matt 5-8).
you might be thinking here 'we're under grace not under the law.' and you should be. you're right on. but the law shows us our sin, leads us to repentance. God using his word, the bible, to convict us is a work of the Holy Spirit (see John 15:4-15) and helps us in becoming more Christlike.
but rebuking has to be done in a way that acknowledges that we're all, including rebuker and rebukee total sinful messes. often we're not very good at making that clear.
given the situation in the moment loving rebuke is very necessary. the trouble is that sinful humans don't really like that. thats why there's division.
and schism and 'boycott' is not the way foward. we do need to keep coming, in great humility, acknowledging the planks in our eyes to hear what God has already said in the Bible. and we need to keep helping others who call themselves christians to do that.
All good points. You've got me thinking about rebuking from a leadership point of view now - when is it right to rebuke? How to do it in love rather than out of some sense of doctrinal honour or something?
In response to Jesus' comments about judging only being for non-believers, I'd say that Matthew 7:1-7 seems to apply fairly generally to everyone and everything. The use of brothers would apply to fellow Jews I suppose and so would be fairly relevant to our brothers within the church - I was tempted to write our "brothers in Christ".
Of course there is Matt 18:15-17, but I would want to draw attention to two little words in there: "If a brother sins against you..." - when we interpret its meaning.
Also, the bit in Matt 7 about planks and specks seems to be fairly relevant.
I also really like what Jude has to say about the angel Michael not bringing a "slanderous accusation" to the devil, but rather saying "the Lord rebuke you".
I don't know - all I do know is that God loves the church, and that disunity and squabbling and taking sides doesn't help anyone.
Finally the word translated "rebuke" in 2 Tim 4, epitimao, has its origin in the Greek "timao" which is usually translated "honour" - what a thought: to rebuke in a way that brings you honour, or brings honour to the other person.
I guess in hindsight my post actually was pretty judgemental in itself (oh the irony). So I'm sorry about that. Just really got me angry when I read that - probably not a "righteous anger" either.
Thanks so much for the comment, its about time I had to answer to someone... ;-)
sorry. typo. taking a fairly broad sweep of the gospels, jesus shows love and compassion to sinful people throughout his ministry. (alabaster jars etc) but has very little time for religious hypocrasy. hope that clarifies what i was getting at.
get you getting your greek NT out! in context: at 2 Tim 4:2: "...reprove, rebuke and exhort, with complete patience and teaching." (ESV). alot easier to do one half than the other.
schism is a disaster. if luther could persuaded the catholics to internally reform that would have been splendid. as necessary as it was, it set a horrible precedent. generally, we should stay in till we get kicked out. it takes guts.
Paul on his rebuking of the Corinthian churches: 2 Cor 7:8-9. He's gutted he's got to do it. Perhaps thats how we should feel? When we feel like that maybe its right?
Although I think the bible does rebuking far far better than we can. (2 Tim 3:16, Hebrews 4:12). As long as leaders, we stay biblical, maybe we shouldn't have to do too much of our own rebuking as its God himself doing the rebuking through his word. and it lets someone without a plank in their eye do the rebuking.