Did Jesus say you must forsake all?

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Did Jesus say you must forsake all?

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Post by Mithrae »

There are numerous passages in the gospels which seem to clearly show that Jesus expected his followers to forsake everything to follow him, even to the point of taking no money or spare clothes with them as they preached. It could be argued that his instructions to the twelve and to the seventy-two were particularly extreme lessons in living by faith, rather than universal commands: In fact there were even some followers of Jesus such as Mary and Martha of Bethany who seemingly continued living in their own home, though perhaps this too was an extreme case rather than universal model. But even that example - a household which was apparently open for thirteen men to use and stay in whenever they passed through the town - does not seem to bear much resemblance to how Christianity is commonly perceived and practiced today.
  • Mark 8:34 And He summoned the crowd with His disciples, and said to them, “If anyone wishes to come after Me, he must deny himself, and take up his cross and follow Me. 35 For whoever wishes to save his life will lose it, but whoever loses his life for My sake and the gospel’s will save it. 36 For what does it profit a man to gain the whole world, and forfeit his soul? 37 For what will a man give in exchange for his soul? 38 For whoever is ashamed of Me and My words in this adulterous and sinful generation, the Son of Man will also be ashamed of him when He comes in the glory of His Father with the holy angels. 9:1 And Jesus was saying to them, “Truly I say to you, there are some of those who are standing here who will not taste death until they see the kingdom of God after it has come with power.â€�


    Luke 14:25 Now large crowds were going along with Him; and He turned and said to them, 26 “If anyone comes to Me, and does not hate his own father and mother and wife and children and brothers and sisters, yes, and even his own life, he cannot be My disciple. 27 Whoever does not carry his own cross and come after Me cannot be My disciple. 28 For which one of you, when he wants to build a tower, does not first sit down and calculate the cost to see if he has enough to complete it? 29 Otherwise, when he has laid a foundation and is not able to finish, all who observe it begin to ridicule him, 30 saying, ‘This man began to build and was not able to finish.’ 31 Or what king, when he sets out to meet another king in battle, will not first sit down and consider whether he is strong enough with ten thousand men to encounter the one coming against him with twenty thousand? 32 Or else, while the other is still far away, he sends a delegation and asks for terms of peace. 33 So then, none of you can be My disciple who does not give up all his own possessions.
    34 “Therefore, salt is good; but if even salt has become tasteless, with what will it be seasoned? 35 It is useless either for the soil or for the manure pile; it is thrown out. He who has ears to hear, let him hear.�


    Matthew 6:19 “Do not store up for yourselves treasures on earth, where moth and rust destroy, and where thieves break in and steal. 20 But store up for yourselves treasures in heaven, where neither moth nor rust destroys, and where thieves do not break in or steal; 21 for where your treasure is, there your heart will be also.
    22 “The eye is the lamp of the body; so then if your eye is clear, your whole body will be full of light. 23 But if your eye is bad, your whole body will be full of darkness. If then the light that is in you is darkness, how great is the darkness!
    24 “No one can serve two masters; for either he will hate the one and love the other, or he will be devoted to one and despise the other. You cannot serve God and wealth.

    25 “For this reason I say to you, do not be worried about your life, as to what you will eat or what you will drink; nor for your body, as to what you will put on. Is not life more than food, and the body more than clothing? 26 Look at the birds of the air, that they do not sow, nor reap nor gather into barns, and yet your heavenly Father feeds them. Are you not worth much more than they?
These are just a few of the passages in which Jesus' teaching to forsake all seem to be clearly expressed. In fact the passage in Matthew seems to pretty clearly say that if you're working for money, you cannot be working for God at the same time! It's an extreme and radical teaching, but it does seem to be clearly and unambiguously taught in numerous different ways throughout the gospels - even some passages in John.

My earlier attempt to portray a more human side of Mithrae's life and perplexities ran afoul of the debate topic rules and was rightly moved to random rambling, so I'll keep this nice and simple:
Did Jesus really teach that to be his follower, you must forsake all your possessions?

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Re: My own experience and what I learned from it.

Post #31

Post by Mithrae »

bjs wrote:
Mithrae wrote: You do realize that the problem Jesus had with the Pharisees in these particular passages is that they were ignoring the plain meaning of the teachings found in the Tanakh, right?
It’s a bit of a side note, but I really disagree with this assessment. Jesus’ main problem with the Pharisees was that they kept the letter of the law, the “plain meaning of the teachings found in the Tanakh,� but they lacked love for God and compassion for people. They would “give God a tenth of your mint, rue and all other kinds of garden herbs, but you neglect justice and the love of God.� (Luke 11:42)
Thanks for the thoughtful reply :)

Love and justice plainly are taught in the Tanakh:
> "you shall love your neighbor as yourself" (Lev. 19:18)
> "He executes justice for the orphan and the widow, and shows His love for the alien by giving him food and clothing. So show your love for the alien, for you were aliens in the land of Egypt." (Deut. 10:18-19)
> "You shall not pervert the justice due an alien or an orphan, nor take a widow’s garment in pledge." (Deut. 24:17)
> "Bring your worthless offerings no longer, Incense is an abomination to Me. . . . Learn to do good; Seek justice, Reprove the ruthless, Defend the orphan, Plead for the widow." (Isaiah 1:13-17)
> "I delight in loyalty rather than sacrifice, And in the knowledge of God rather than burnt offerings" (Hosea 6:6)

In his criticism of this aspect of pharisaic behaviour Jesus was echoing a major theme of most of the prophets: So their fault (particularly in those two examples JW highlighted) was indeed failure to follow the plain meaning of the teachings in the Tanakh... but in particular, while pretending that they were righteously keeping it.

As I noted, Jesus himself more or less rejected a number of earlier Scriptural teachings, such as regulations on divorce, ritual cleanliness and - amazingly - arguably two of the ten commandments by working on the Sabbath (gathering grain, which Moses would have punished with death; Mark 2:23ff, Numb. 15:32) and not honouring his father and mother (Matt. 23:9, Mark 3:31-35, Luke 14:26). So it's not as if he held the view that those earlier traditions were perfect and infallible; his biggest gripe with the 'Pharisees' was their hypocrisy in pretending that they actually were following all those teachings.

By implication, it would seem that a person making a carefully-considered, honest and conscientious decision to reject Jesus' teaching of forsaking all would ultimately be more similar to Jesus in their core attitudes than someone who just pretends that they are following what Jesus taught and that he didn't "really" teach it at all.
bjs wrote: Okay, to the general question: I do not think that Jesus commanded his disciples to give away everything they owned. His first believers did not act that way.

In Acts 4 we are told that among the believers “From time to time those who owned lands or houses sold them, brought the money from the sales and put it at the apostles’ feet, and it was distributed to anyone as he had need.�

That is a great material sacrifice, but notice that in order to sell land and give away the money, they first had to own land. So when these people, who were called “believers,� first converted they did not give away everything they owned. The continued to own things, though they put the needs of others before ownership of material things.
That very passage pretty clearly states (Acts 4:32) that "All the believers were one in heart and mind. No-one claimed that any of his possessions was his own, but they shared everything they had." Trying to use it as a proof text to show that they retained private ownership of their stuff seems to be rather selective reading! Earlier in Acts (2:44-54) we read that "All the believers were together and had everything in common. Selling their possessions and goods, they gave to anyone as he had need."

Now whether or not that model of frugal living and communal ownership was following what Jesus actually taught, strictly speaking, is open to dispute, but if Christians actually followed that model from Acts - the example and teaching of the apostles, if not quite the example and teaching of Jesus himself - it might be reasonable to then argue that the more extreme gospel example is not a universal thing: Perhaps an exercise in extreme faith that most folk should do perhaps a few times in their lives, but not a constant absolute.

But the fact is that Christians overwhelmingly don't even meet the much easier goalpost of that Acts example! It seems rather ironic, almost perverse, to highlight that as if it were some kind of defense or would-be refutation of Jesus' teachings.
bjs wrote: Luke 14:33 does not include the word “possessions.� Jesus called us to give up “everything.� In context, this seems to refer to something more than material possession.
NASB
33 So then, none of you can be My disciple who does not give up all his own possessions.
NIV
33 In the same way, those of you who do not give up everything you have cannot be my disciples.
NKJV
33 So likewise, whoever of you does not forsake all that he has cannot be My disciple.

Hyparchonta means "possessions, goods, wealth, property" (Strongs) and of 14 occurrences in the NT was translated by the KJV as 'goods' seven times, 'things which (one) possesses' twice more and simply 'that (one) has' four times. Once again this response seems to be a quite a stretch, to say the least.
bjs wrote: Ultimately, I think that giving away everything we own would be much easier. A Pharisee of Jesus’ day could have done that. We could sell everything we own, give all the money away, and still care nothing for God or other people. That is an external thing.

Jesus is ALWAYS after the heart. He wants people who love God and put compassion for people above material wealth. We could be very wealthy and still put people before money and love God with all that we are. We could own nothing and still lack love for other people while exalting ourselves for our great show of “humility.� (“Look at how good I am! I gave everything away! Focus on me!�)

If I gave everything away and starved to death, that would be selfish. If I gave everything away and relied on taking charity from others, that would be selfish. If I kept some possession and treated them as things belonging to God for which I am only a steward, then I think I get a little bit closer to what God wants of me.
Does God need our money and our earning potential to shelter, feed and clothe ourselves and others? If so, then arguably what you're saying has merit. Quite dubiously so of course, because "I can accomplish more good by earning money and living securely" quickly becomes (in the overwhelming majority of cases) "Well I have to at least be comfortable, God wouldn't expect me to be uncomfortable, and if I strive to earn a lot more just think of how much good I can do with it!" Promising to give to others tomorrow is all well and good, but often tomorrow never comes.

But if God doesn't need our money and our earning potential to shelter, feed and clothe people in the first place, then there doesn't seem to be even that dubious merit in the argument. Remember how seemingly little concern Jesus evidenced for the poor when he was anointed with expensive perfume? By all appearances, he didn't tell his disciples to forsake all so much for the benefit of the poor, but for their own benefit:
No one can serve two masters; for either he will hate the one and love the other, or he will be devoted to one and despise the other. You cannot work for God if you're working for money! For this reason I say to you, do not be worried about your life, as to what you will eat or what you will drink...
bjs wrote: The more I am focused on me, the less I am focused on God.

Big, showy actions that are supposed to show others how much I care (notice that the focus is on me) are things of romantic comedies. Selflessness, faith, compassion, and genuine humility are things of God.
How are we focused on God if we're spending forty hours a week working for money and most of the rest of the time either worrying about grocery lists and mortgages and bills or relaxing from all that stress?

Of course you're right that following [this part of] Jesus' teachings can be perverted into something hollow and ultimately pointless. But Jesus also taught things like don't do your acts of charity to be seen by others, don't pray to be seen by others either for that matter (which the church seems to not only ignore but deliberately flaunt), and to actively serve others rather than merely throwing money at them. How many people do you really, honestly imagine there are who go to the lengths of forsaking all their worldly possessions in obedience to Jesus' teachings whilst overlooking or ignoring these others? A quarter of those who forsake all? Maybe even a third?

By contrast, even among the most genuine and sincere Christians there is surely an overwhelming majority who, having decided not to forsake all, end up spending virtually all of their wealth on their own luxuries and throwing maybe a tenth or a fifth of it into church coffers, so they can get a nicer sound system or bigger building for their Sunday mornings. There's no faith or trust in God's provision in that, precious little selflessness or compassion, and often precisely the opposite of humility in having a nice car, home and 'Sunday best' clothing.

No doubt one can be a 'good' person under either general approach, but which of them offers the more insidious and widespread snares, do you think? Honestly? Jesus rated worldly possessions and cares right up there with persecution and with Satan himself as reasons why the gospel fails to bear fruit (Mark 4).



The thing is, what money is is a medium of exchange; a way of keeping score. Odds are you could ask virtually any billionaire and that's what they'll tell you, that it's "not about the money," that's just a way of measuring success amongst their peers. But it's also true for virtually all of us, most of the time, that if we're keeping score we're going to want to do better. It's a part of human nature, it seems.

For my part, many core elements of gospel ethics remained with me even after I stopped being a Christian. I worked at McDonalds throughout all of my twenties, never even wanting to progress to a management position, and for most of that time I was content and often genuinely happy (if somewhat cynical). Then I left and got a higher-paying and more responsible job, and quite rapidly - within a matter of months, I would say - I found myself wanting to earn even more money, and eventually even dissatisfied with what I was getting.

It seems to me that Jesus' kingdom of God, at least in part, is about working to meet genuine needs in a spirit of love; not working for money to make a profit for the landowner or (in our day) multinational corporation. If the love of money is the root of all evil, what does it say when we're devoting so much of our lives and psychological efforts to getting it - so much more than we do towards helping our fellow human beings?

Judging by his teaching and actions, Jesus was far more concerned about the subversive power of money than, say, alcohol. No doubt a person can use either of them without becoming overwhelmed by their negatives, and indeed Jesus did use money; but he very clearly said that his followers should not work for money, because if they were working for money they would not be working for God.

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Re: Did Jesus say you must forsake all?

Post #32

Post by TripleZ »

Mithrae wrote: There are numerous passages in the gospels which seem to clearly show that Jesus expected his followers to forsake everything to follow him, even to the point of taking no money or spare clothes with them as they preached. It could be argued that his instructions to the twelve and to the seventy-two were particularly extreme lessons in living by faith, rather than universal commands: In fact there were even some followers of Jesus such as Mary and Martha of Bethany who seemingly continued living in their own home, though perhaps this too was an extreme case rather than universal model. But even that example - a household which was apparently open for thirteen men to use and stay in whenever they passed through the town - does not seem to bear much resemblance to how Christianity is commonly perceived and practiced today.
  • Mark 8:34 And He summoned the crowd with His disciples, and said to them, “If anyone wishes to come after Me, he must deny himself, and take up his cross and follow Me. 35 For whoever wishes to save his life will lose it, but whoever loses his life for My sake and the gospel’s will save it. 36 For what does it profit a man to gain the whole world, and forfeit his soul? 37 For what will a man give in exchange for his soul? 38 For whoever is ashamed of Me and My words in this adulterous and sinful generation, the Son of Man will also be ashamed of him when He comes in the glory of His Father with the holy angels. 9:1 And Jesus was saying to them, “Truly I say to you, there are some of those who are standing here who will not taste death until they see the kingdom of God after it has come with power.â€�


    Luke 14:25 Now large crowds were going along with Him; and He turned and said to them, 26 “If anyone comes to Me, and does not hate his own father and mother and wife and children and brothers and sisters, yes, and even his own life, he cannot be My disciple. 27 Whoever does not carry his own cross and come after Me cannot be My disciple. 28 For which one of you, when he wants to build a tower, does not first sit down and calculate the cost to see if he has enough to complete it? 29 Otherwise, when he has laid a foundation and is not able to finish, all who observe it begin to ridicule him, 30 saying, ‘This man began to build and was not able to finish.’ 31 Or what king, when he sets out to meet another king in battle, will not first sit down and consider whether he is strong enough with ten thousand men to encounter the one coming against him with twenty thousand? 32 Or else, while the other is still far away, he sends a delegation and asks for terms of peace. 33 So then, none of you can be My disciple who does not give up all his own possessions.
    34 “Therefore, salt is good; but if even salt has become tasteless, with what will it be seasoned? 35 It is useless either for the soil or for the manure pile; it is thrown out. He who has ears to hear, let him hear.�


    Matthew 6:19 “Do not store up for yourselves treasures on earth, where moth and rust destroy, and where thieves break in and steal. 20 But store up for yourselves treasures in heaven, where neither moth nor rust destroys, and where thieves do not break in or steal; 21 for where your treasure is, there your heart will be also.
    22 “The eye is the lamp of the body; so then if your eye is clear, your whole body will be full of light. 23 But if your eye is bad, your whole body will be full of darkness. If then the light that is in you is darkness, how great is the darkness!
    24 “No one can serve two masters; for either he will hate the one and love the other, or he will be devoted to one and despise the other. You cannot serve God and wealth.

    25 “For this reason I say to you, do not be worried about your life, as to what you will eat or what you will drink; nor for your body, as to what you will put on. Is not life more than food, and the body more than clothing? 26 Look at the birds of the air, that they do not sow, nor reap nor gather into barns, and yet your heavenly Father feeds them. Are you not worth much more than they?
These are just a few of the passages in which Jesus' teaching to forsake all seem to be clearly expressed. In fact the passage in Matthew seems to pretty clearly say that if you're working for money, you cannot be working for God at the same time! It's an extreme and radical teaching, but it does seem to be clearly and unambiguously taught in numerous different ways throughout the gospels - even some passages in John.

My earlier attempt to portray a more human side of Mithrae's life and perplexities ran afoul of the debate topic rules and was rightly moved to random rambling, so I'll keep this nice and simple:
Did Jesus really teach that to be his follower, you must forsake all your possessions?
you have quoted Yeshua speaking to Israel, not to the Messianic Communities...

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Re: Did Jesus say you must forsake all?

Post #33

Post by TripleZ »

JehovahsWitness wrote:
Mithrae wrote:These are just a few of the passages in which Jesus' teaching to forsake all seem to be clearly expressed.
If Christians were to literally give away everything they possed they would have to walk about naked, since clothes and and food are possessions. Jesus taught by example and didn't just say but showed his disciples what he meant, yet Jesus possessed clothes and wore them (he evidently even possessed a coat of good quality). Even if Christians were to live entirely from the charity of others, when someone gives you something (food or clothing) it passes from their possession to your own.

Further Jesus told his disciples that if someone asking for our outer garment (or coat) they should give their inner garment too. He made no mention of giving away their sandles scalf and donkey. Evidently Peter owned a house even after becoming a disciple, the bible speaks of female disciples of Jesus supporting his ministry from their own resources, the donkey Jesus rode into Jerusalem was probably owned by a disciple. Jesus confinded his mother, Mary into the care of his friend John who took her to HIS home and the women that anointed Jesus body evidently had enough money to buy spices and kept those spices in their own possession long enough to use them for what they wanted rather than to buy them and immediately give them away. There is therefore ample evidence Jesus himself and his disciples kept at least some of their possessions and did not literally give everything they owned away.
Since the disciples and Jesus didn't walk around naked, they did not give away everything they possed; reasonable people capable of critical thinking conclude that Jesus was not saying that all his disciples had to give away literally everything they owned.
Mar 8:33 But, turning around and looking at his talmidim, he rebuked Kefa. "Get behind me, Satan!" he said, "For your thinking is from a human perspective, not from God's perspective!"
Mar 8:34 Then Yeshua called the crowd and his talmidim to him and told them, "If anyone wants to come after me, let him say 'No' to himself, take up his execution-stake, and keep following me.
Mar 8:35 For whoever wants to save his own life will destroy it, but whoever destroys his life for my sake and for the sake of the Good News will save it.
Mar 8:36 Indeed, what will it benefit a person if he gains the whole world but forfeits his life?

try to be relevant to Gods word...

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Re: Did Jesus say you must forsake all?

Post #34

Post by JehovahsWitness »

[Replying to post 33 by TripleZ]

Please read

Mar 8:33 But, turning around and looking at his talmidim, he rebuked Kefa. "Get behind me, Satan!" he said, "For your thinking is from a human perspective, not from God's perspective!"
Mar 8:34 Then Yeshua called the crowd and his talmidim to him and told them, "If anyone wants to come after me, let him say 'No' to himself, take up his execution-stake, and keep following me.
Mar 8:35 For whoever wants to save his own life will destroy it, but whoever destroys his life for my sake and for the sake of the Good News will save it.
Mar 8:36 Indeed, what will it benefit a person if he gains the whole world but forfeits his life?


What more do I have to say to you, my work here is done
INDEX: More bible based ANSWERS
http://debatingchristianity.com/forum/v ... 81#p826681


"For if we live, we live to Jehovah, and if we die, we die to Jehovah. So both if we live and if we die, we belong to Jehovah" -
Romans 14:8

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Post #35

Post by Mithrae »

This video seems quite relevant. It's about one of the most disturbing stories in the NT, so one can always suppose that Luke got it wrong I guess.

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Re: My own experience and what I learned from it.

Post #36

Post by bjs »

Mithrae wrote:
bjs wrote: Okay, to the general question: I do not think that Jesus commanded his disciples to give away everything they owned. His first believers did not act that way.

In Acts 4 we are told that among the believers “From time to time those who owned lands or houses sold them, brought the money from the sales and put it at the apostles’ feet, and it was distributed to anyone as he had need.�

That is a great material sacrifice, but notice that in order to sell land and give away the money, they first had to own land. So when these people, who were called “believers,� first converted they did not give away everything they owned. The continued to own things, though they put the needs of others before ownership of material things.
That very passage pretty clearly states (Acts 4:32) that "All the believers were one in heart and mind. No-one claimed that any of his possessions was his own, but they shared everything they had." Trying to use it as a proof text to show that they retained private ownership of their stuff seems to be rather selective reading! Earlier in Acts (2:44-54) we read that "All the believers were together and had everything in common. Selling their possessions and goods, they gave to anyone as he had need."

Now whether or not that model of frugal living and communal ownership was following what Jesus actually taught, strictly speaking, is open to dispute, but if Christians actually followed that model from Acts - the example and teaching of the apostles, if not quite the example and teaching of Jesus himself - it might be reasonable to then argue that the more extreme gospel example is not a universal thing: Perhaps an exercise in extreme faith that most folk should do perhaps a few times in their lives, but not a constant absolute.

But the fact is that Christians overwhelmingly don't even meet the much easier goalpost of that Acts example! It seems rather ironic, almost perverse, to highlight that as if it were some kind of defense or would-be refutation of Jesus' teachings.
To my mind, this is the area where we have the strongest degree of disagreement. The other points are at least in part issues of rhetoric where I think that we could meet in the middle and both be reasonable satisfied.

However, I do not think that this passage describes communal living or selling all that they own. Rather, as you highlighted, they had an attitude that “No one claimed that any of his possessions was his own.� This did not mean that they literally sold all that they had and gave it away.

The reason I say this is because of the description in Acts 2:45, which says, “Selling their possessions and goods, they gave to anyone as he had need.� This is described as an ongoing process. It is not that they sold all of their possessions when they came to Christ, but they continued selling their possessions to give to those in need. To continue selling their possessions they must have retained ownership of some of their possessions, at least for a while, so that they would have things to sell.

This is made more explicit in Acts 4:34, which says, “There were no needy persons among them. For from time to time those who owned lands or houses sold them, brought the money from the sales, and put it at the apostles’ feet…�

For people who owned lands or houses to sell them “from time to time,� they must have retained ownership of some of their lands and houses when they became a part of this group. Luke’s account requires that they did not sell everything that they owned when joined the believers, though it is possible (but not necessarily true) that some of the believers eventually did sell all that they owned.

The only detailed story we have of this is the story of Ananias and Sapphira selling land and giving part of the money to the Apostles, recorded in chapter five of Acts. They claimed they had given all of the money, but in fact held some of it back. Both fell dead before Peter after telling this lie, but Peter did not chastise them for failing to give all of their money to those in need. He chastised them for deceit. They claimed to give all the money, but did not. They were interested in being seen as more giving than they were. They were hypocrites, claiming to love God and their neighbor when really they just wanted other people to think that they loved God and their neighbor.

Peter went so far as to say, “Didn’t [the land] belong to you before it was sold? And after it was sold, wasn’t the money at your disposal?� The Apostle Peter clearly stated that the money from the sale belonged to Ananias and Sapphira, and that they were not required to give all of it away to be followers of Christ.


Edit: As a final note, anyone seriously considering selling all that they own to follow Christ should look into the life of monks and nuns. Many monks and nuns take a vow of poverty, promising to never own anything. They give all that they formerly owned to the poor and the church. The church allows them to stay in a monetary (or abbey) free of charge, but they recognize that the accommodations do not belong to them. The church gives them cloths to wear and food to eat, but they accept these as gifts which they have no rightful claim to. They work, but they accept no pay for their work. They accepts gifts of room and board, but those gifts are not viewed as payment for work which is owed to them in any way. These men and women have figured out how to give away everything they own and do it right. They are not a burden on anyone. They contribute to the needs of others and the betterment of the world while rejecting the materialism that is ever-present in our society.
Last edited by bjs on Tue Aug 14, 2018 10:33 pm, edited 1 time in total.
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Post #37

Post by Elijah John »

[Replying to post 35 by Mithrae]

So, are we to believe that the narrator in the video has given up all he owns in order to follow Jesus?

If not, wouldn't that be hypocritical to preach to others that they must do so in order to be "true believers"?

Or is the narrator suggesting that Jeus made some unrealistic, and irrelevant demands*.

He seems to make several points. That believing in Jesus involves obedience to Jesus. Fair enough. But how literally?

The narrator seems to be condemning not just the advocates of the "prosperity Gospel", but also the average Christian.

And he also stated that the apostles did not preach a "softer" gospel compared to Jesus.

They seem to have preached the same hard Gospel that Jesus did, only with harsher consequences for "holding out on" God.

----

*another possibility that the narrator didn't consider is a scholarly one. That Jesus preached an "interim ethic" because he, and his apostles for that matter, believed that the "end was nigh". That would account for many of Jesus more radical statements, present passage included.

After all, what need for possessions etc, if Jesus and his contemporaries were on the verge of God's apocalyptic intervention? And the Kingdom of God was at hand?

And irrelevant because Jesus more radical demands seem to have little to do with adhering to the Ten Commandments, or embracing and abiding by the Golden Rule, which Jesus himself characterized as "the Law and the Prophets".
My theological positions:

-God created us in His image, not the other way around.
-The Bible is redeemed by it's good parts.
-Pure monotheism, simple repentance.
-YHVH is LORD
-The real Jesus is not God, the real YHVH is not a monster.
-Eternal life is a gift from the Living God.
-Keep the Commandments, keep your salvation.
-I have accepted YHVH as my Heavenly Father, LORD and Savior.

I am inspired by Jesus to worship none but YHVH, and to serve only Him.

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Post #38

Post by Mithrae »

Elijah John wrote: [Replying to post 35 by Mithrae]

So, are we to believe that the narrator in the video has given up all he owns in order to follow Jesus?

If not, wouldn't that be hypocritical to preach to others that they must do so in order to be "true believers"?
Would the bible passages be safe to ignore if the narrator were a hypocrite? Or would it prove that Christendom in general has gone astray if he were not?
Elijah John wrote: He seems to make several points. That believing in Jesus involves obedience to Jesus. Fair enough. But how literally?

The narrator seems to be condemning not just the advocates of the "prosperity Gospel", but also the average Christian.

And he also stated that the apostles did not preach a "softer" gospel compared to Jesus.

They seem to have preached the same hard Gospel that Jesus did, only with harsher consequences for "holding out on" God.
Sounds like a fair assessment. For my part, obviously passages about God killing people or condemning people to eternal torment are quite hard to swallow. But I think the channel is pretty much spot on with regards to the forsake all teaching of Jesus, and to my mind it's not so much the fact that Christians generally don't follow those teachings but that they pretend Jesus didn't 'really' teach it at all which is troubling.
Elijah John wrote: *another possibility that the narrator didn't consider is a scholarly one. That Jesus preached an "interim ethic" because he, and his apostles for that matter, believed that the "end was nigh". That would account for many of Jesus more radical statements, present passage included.
I think I responded to that view in post #5:
This idea of a now-defunct interim ethic doesn't make sense to me: If this teaching to forsake all and not worry about one's future upkeep was not practical, it would be impractical even for a few weeks or months, never mind decades or a whole lifetime. But if somehow it did work for decade after decade - the gospels were written some thirty to sixty years after Jesus' death - there's no very obvious reason it would suddenly stop working some time after that.

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Re: My own experience and what I learned from it.

Post #39

Post by Mithrae »

bjs wrote:
Mithrae wrote: That very passage pretty clearly states (Acts 4:32) that "All the believers were one in heart and mind. No-one claimed that any of his possessions was his own, but they shared everything they had." Trying to use it as a proof text to show that they retained private ownership of their stuff seems to be rather selective reading! Earlier in Acts (2:44-54) we read that "All the believers were together and had everything in common. Selling their possessions and goods, they gave to anyone as he had need."

Now whether or not that model of frugal living and communal ownership was following what Jesus actually taught, strictly speaking, is open to dispute, but if Christians actually followed that model from Acts - the example and teaching of the apostles, if not quite the example and teaching of Jesus himself - it might be reasonable to then argue that the more extreme gospel example is not a universal thing: Perhaps an exercise in extreme faith that most folk should do perhaps a few times in their lives, but not a constant absolute.

But the fact is that Christians overwhelmingly don't even meet the much easier goalpost of that Acts example! It seems rather ironic, almost perverse, to highlight that as if it were some kind of defense or would-be refutation of Jesus' teachings.
To my mind, this is the area where we have the strongest degree of disagreement. The other points are at least in part issues of rhetoric where I think that we could meet in the middle and both be reasonable satisfied.

However, I do not think that this passage describes communal living or selling all that they own. Rather, as you highlighted, they had an attitude that “No one claimed that any of his possessions was his own.� This did not mean that they literally sold all that they had and gave it away.
And yet very, very few Christians even teach or practice that half-measure! "No-one claimed that any of his possessions was his own, but they shared everything they had." In my childhood through to age twenty I attended a dozen different churches from half as many denominations in three different cities, and I can pretty confidently confirm that it just is not done; not even close. So again I come back to the point that - while this interpretation of the apostles' teaching obviously does not and cannot refute or invalidate the teachings of Jesus to begin with - it seems almost perverse to hold up the example of a halfway measure which Christians still don't teach or practice as if it were some kind of talisman to vindicate the church. If anything, it's all the more damning!
bjs wrote: The reason I say this is because of the description in Acts 2:45, which says, “Selling their possessions and goods, they gave to anyone as he had need.� This is described as an ongoing process. It is not that they sold all of their possessions when they came to Christ, but they continued selling their possessions to give to those in need. To continue selling their possessions they must have retained ownership of some of their possessions, at least for a while, so that they would have things to sell.

This is made more explicit in Acts 4:34, which says, “There were no needy persons among them. For from time to time those who owned lands or houses sold them, brought the money from the sales, and put it at the apostles’ feet…�

For people who owned lands or houses to sell them “from time to time,�
You seem to be using a misleading translation there. When depending heavily on a particular word or phrase I often find it helpful to consult several good translations instead of relying on just one. I used to think that the NIV was a decent one, but the more recent editions are truly shocking and lately I've even been noticing some pretty glaring mistranslations in my 1978 edition too (this must be about the third time in as many months). Instead:
  • NRSV
    34 There was not a needy person among them, for as many as owned lands or houses sold them and brought the proceeds of what was sold. 35 They laid it at the apostles’ feet, and it was distributed to each as any had need.

    NKJV
    34 Nor was there anyone among them who lacked; for all who were possessors of lands or houses sold them, and brought the proceeds of the things that were sold, 35 and laid them at the apostles’ feet; and they distributed to each as anyone had need.

    NASB
    34 For there was not a needy person among them, for all who were owners of land or houses would sell them and bring the proceeds of the sales 35 and lay them at the apostles’ feet, and they would be distributed to each as any had need.
It seems that there's no chronos (time) in the Greek text, but there is a hosos (as many as/whatsoever).

In any case you've snipped out verse 35 (or in fact just the second half of the verse). Are there people in need who could benefit from the sale of all those houses and fancy church buildings? Even just other Christians? Of course there are, all around the world. The need is desperate, but Christians and non-Christians alike simply don't care enough; we love our luxuries more than our neighbours.
bjs wrote: The only detailed story we have of this is the story of Ananias and Sapphira selling land and giving part of the money to the Apostles, recorded in chapter five of Acts. They claimed they had given all of the money, but in fact held some of it back. Both fell dead before Peter after telling this lie, but Peter did not chastise them for failing to give all of their money to those in need. He chastised them for deceit. They claimed to give all the money, but did not.
Peter questioned Sapphira about it, but Ananias did not explicitly claim to give all the money - that's reading stuff into the text which simply isn't there. On the contrary, Peter declares that he had lied without even asking him whether it was all the money, without even giving him a chance to explain. It was simply taken for granted that if you've sold land to give the money to the community, you're giving it all.

This reminds me of that "render unto Caesar" passage that gets half-quoted a lot. Going on to say "and give to God what belongs to God," Jesus' obvious meaning was that everything we have belongs to God; far from preaching an unpopular devotion to Rome, his challenge was even more unpopular devotion to heaven. Yet somehow mainstream churches try to turn both of these passages around to mean that it is good and proper to give God only the leftovers.

There certainly is a choice there, as Peter said to Ananias before he died. And from this passage it seems that it really is better for someone to keep what they have than to merely pretend that they're following Jesus' teachings. But this passage (like the others in Acts) really leaves precious little wriggle room for imagining that the apostles were only teaching a watered-down version to their new converts. On the contrary, they could choose to keep their money or choose to render unto God, but trying to have it both ways was a deadly serious mistake. It's amazing how flippantly the modern churches treat it, in light of that story!

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Post #40

Post by William »

[Replying to post 38 by Mithrae]
This idea of a now-defunct interim ethic doesn't make sense to me: If this teaching to forsake all and not worry about one's future upkeep was not practical, it would be impractical even for a few weeks or months, never mind decades or a whole lifetime. But if somehow it did work for decade after decade - the gospels were written some thirty to sixty years after Jesus' death - there's no very obvious reason it would suddenly stop working some time after that.
For me this is interesting to think on as perhaps in those day it was more easier to do and it was accomplished through community sharing and going without things that really weren't needed and the forsaking aspect had to do with radically changing the way one thought about survival as was normally practiced in societies...family businesses and interests etc - all those things which contributed to separatism within community, rather than unity on broader terms than family and culture and religion and politics etc...

Since then much has happened to shore up those loop holes where people could achieve community and society without government which is essentially what Rome did against this new thing becoming more and more popular. Rome tried to demonize it, then kill it outright and finally infiltrate it and turn it into something which Rome could manipulate and use to it's advantage.

Sounds like 'conspiracy' if it weren't for the facts.

But anyway, I know from personal experience that jumping outside the system (which is basically the idea of the 'forsake' stuff) does work, and does lead one to some amazing insights etc, but the idea was never for GOD to provide manna from heaven or some safe haven where the 'man' couldn't touch you. The idea was, that given enough people willing to share whatever they had without cost and for the sake of something better which could be achieved through that, the 'man' would lose all power and influence over the majority and the world would move in a completely different trajectory than it did.

At the same time I also know that people who jump out of the system in their ones and twos don't really change the world by doing so, and eventually one comes back in - forever changed of course - but accepting of the fact that while potentially the world could do things better, it most likely won't.

Certainly no one can experience this type of thing without having to forsake the 'normal' way people do things and expect everyone to follow suit. In that, such come to the realization that what Jesus was talking about requires human beings themselves build the 'kingdom of GOD' over the face of the Earth and live as citizens of that system of parity.

I am myself unconvinced that promises attributed to Jesus coming back to do the job for 'the worthy' are genuine anyway. I can see how the doctrine is attractive, but wonder why Jesus would bother doing something FOR us which we are more than capable of building for ourselves, if we wanted it...and in that, stopped letting the 'man' pull the wool over our sheepish eyes by forsaking those systems for a better system.

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