Mithrae wrote:If you believed that God is unable or unwilling to provide for those who obey Jesus' commands then, yes, it would certainly seem absurd wouldn't it.
I fear you may be missing the point here. The picture you are painting of what Jesus expects is one that Jesus himself didn’t embody. It makes Jesus out to be a big fat hypocrite.
But who said anything about abandoning responsibilities as a husband and father? Paul said that Peter and the other apostles took their wives along with them, and the gospels likewise mention a group of women who followed Jesus around. If you're talking about Luke 14:26 then parents, spouses and children may well object to a believer wanting to obey Jesus - perhaps vehemently, emotionally, claiming that it's irresponsible, abandonment, even hateful behaviour - and in that tough choice between Jesus and family, Jesus said that one would have to harden one's heart to even those most beloved people. But as far as I'm aware he never said to leave them behind if they were willing to come. According to Matthew he did suggest that being single would make things easier for his followers (19:10-12); which is difficult to explain under the assumptions of conventional Christianity, but makes perfect sense if he meant what he said in all those other passages about giving up possessions and working only for God.
Ah, I think we may be making some progress now. Here you seem to be arguing along similar lines to what I’ve been arguing. That is, a contextual tempering of universal commands. A tempering with
reasonableness. You are arguing, here in regards to Peter, that the early Christians were
reasonable in their compliance with Jesus’ commands; that they understood there was a context. Peter didn’t leave his wife even though Jesus said “whoever does not forsake all can’t be my disciple� and “if anyone does not hate his wife he cannot be my disciple.� One would ask one’s wife to join along, perhaps as Peter might have done. And if one’s wife was unable or refused to join? Well, one would have no choice but to leave one’s wife behind and return for her later. If one left without intending to return one would be effectively divorcing one’s wife making her an adulterous by Jesus’ own standard (Matthew 5:32). Context. Reasonableness.
As near as I can tell, the purpose or main reasons for these commands are:
> Living by faith, trusting in God's provision rather than our own efforts
> Free time to spread the good news of the kingdom of God, rather than working for money
> Freedom from worldly attachments (treasure on earth), and consequently resilience in the face of persecution
> Relief from anxiety and stress over finding work, pursuing a career, or any material or financial losses
> Expressing true love, by helping the poor materially with more than just spare change
All well and good. But notice every point you make here, perhaps with the exception of “free time to spread the good news,� are all fundamentally issues of the heart. They aren’t addressed simply by removing material things from one’s life as though one is free to serve God only if one doesn’t own a house or have a job etc. If one’s heart is not towards serving God it makes no difference whether one is wealthy or poor. Removing the temptation or distraction from one’s sight doesn’t at all deal with the underlying temptation. It’s a heart issue, not a material issue. It always has been and always will be. Jesus knew this.
With that said, there's arguably two different models presented more or less clearly in the NT; the example and teachings of John the Baptist, Jesus and the twelve, and the example of the early Jerusalem church.
Mark 6:7 He called the twelve and began to send them out two by two, and gave them authority over the unclean spirits. 8 He ordered them to take nothing for their journey except a staff; no bread, no bag, no money in their belts; 9 but to wear sandals and not to put on two tunics. 10 He said to them, “Wherever you enter a house, stay there until you leave the place. 11 If any place will not welcome you and they refuse to hear you, as you leave, shake off the dust that is on your feet as a testimony against them.� 12 So they went out and proclaimed that all should repent. 13 They cast out many demons, and anointed with oil many who were sick and cured them.
That's a pretty clear description of the kind of ministry which Jesus and the twelve engaged in; the clearest (and only complete) description which the gospels saw fit to give us. The authors certainly knew that people would want to know what kind of example Jesus and the twelve had set... and there it is. Of course we might infer from that passage that normally they did take bags, spare clothing, some food, and their communal money bag mentioned by John; but they certainly traveled all around the region, staying with those who would welcome them whether rich or poor, sinners or self-righteous alike. Sometimes they ate the gleanings of the fields left there for the poor (Mark 2:23), Jesus himself said he was homeless (Matthew 8:20), and this picture of his ministry is consistent with the spartan lifestyle of John the Baptist - if anything, Jesus lived in relative luxury compared to his predecessor!
You’ve argued this as
the model of “the kind of ministry which Jesus and the twelve engaged in.� But was this the model or was it a unique short episode which deviated from the norm? As you say we can infer that the normal practice was something other than the instructions given otherwise there’s no need to give the specific instructions so late in the Gospel when so much evangelism has already taken place and it’s taken place mainly as a group up to this point. The problem for this “model� theory is that after the instructions given above where the disciples are sent out two by two with very little (and after Mark deviates into the fate of John the Baptist, 6:14-29) Mark then picks up again in verse 30 where the disciples have reconvened for a debriefing with Jesus. From that point on we see Jesus with his disciples once again continuing the ministry as a group. So, rather than being the model of how a follower is to live this short time of
Spartan-like ministry seems to be a special exception to the general model of travelling as a very well resourced group with, dare I say it, possessions and money.
Why Jesus sent out his disciples for a short time that way is another debate entirely.
The model from Acts seems somewhat different, though it's also more ambiguous: We could suppose that for the most part the earliest Christians lived similar (albeit less itinerant) lifestyles and Luke simply wasn't very clear on all the details. Or we could suppose that even after Pentecost the apostles were not yet perfect human beings, and it took a spate of severe persecution to rouse them from the relative comfort of sedentary living they'd settled into. Or as yet a third option we could note that Luke was not an apostle, nor known for a close association with any of the twelve, and is known to have fudged the details on some occasions (eg. Luke 21:20-24), and thus question the veracity of his description of early church events some 50-70 years before he wrote. If there is any real discrepancy between the gospel model and the Acts model, the former is both clearer, better confirmed and more authoritative.
But since this might genuinely reflect the apostles' interpretation and application of Jesus' teaching, it's certainly worthy of consideration:
Acts 2:41 So those who welcomed his message were baptized, and that day about three thousand persons were added. 42 They devoted themselves to the apostles’ teaching and fellowship, to the breaking of bread and the prayers. 43 Awe came upon everyone, because many wonders and signs were being done by the apostles. 44 All who believed were together and had all things in common; 45 they would sell their possessions and goods and distribute the proceeds to all, as any had need. 46 Day by day, as they spent much time together in the temple, they broke bread from house to house and ate their food with glad and generous hearts, 47 praising God and having the goodwill of all the people. And day by day the Lord added to their number those who were being saved.
Acts 4:32 Now the whole group of those who believed were of one heart and soul, and no one claimed private ownership of any possessions, but everything they owned was held in common. 33 With great power the apostles gave their testimony to the resurrection of the Lord Jesus, and great grace was upon them all. 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.
Note that there's no mention of working for money there; if anything, meeting daily in the temple could imply the opposite. Small, low-maintenance local farms to feed themselves? Maybe; the passages are quite ambiguous as to how they handled real estate. Meeting "from house to house" does imply that the community kept hold of some of their properties, while "as many as owned lands or houses sold them" suggests the opposite! One possible resolution is that in the earliest months of chapter 2 they kept their houses, but as they found their footing by chapter 4 they were selling them all. Another possible resolution is that there were enough nascent disciples joining or interested, who hadn't yet sold their houses. Or one of the verses is simply imprecise or misleading. Whatever the case may be, what is clear is that they certainly did forsake private ownership of their properties and possessions, holding all things in common.
Living frugally in community would satisfy/provide some benefit from the five points listed above. Heck, if modern believers kept working for money (despite no evidence the Jerusalem church did so) they could easily give 80 or 90% of communal income to charities, simply by selling some junk to make room for bunk beds, comfortably house 8-12 people in a three bedroom house and practicing freeganism. If giving to the poor were the main focus of it all, that'd probably be even more effective than the gospel model (albeit significantly losing out on the first two points). And if Christians followed the Acts model generally - even if they did keep working for money - and treated the gospel model as a learning, sharing and faith-building exercise which believers should do a few times in their life rather than constantly, it would convey a genuine intention and desire to follow Jesus' teaching as well as possible. The ambiguities and uncertainties in the NT as a whole (if not the gospels themselves) potentially leave a quite a bit of latitude there, perhaps even intentionally so. But it seems that overwhelmingly, Christians don't even try to follow the Acts model, let alone the example and teachings of Jesus himself.
This is all well and good but there’s also no mention of
not working for money which is what we would expect if every member of the community just stopped working for money cold turkey. Meeting daily in the temple doesn’t imply they were now all unemployed. It just means they were meeting daily. If they had small local farms to feed themselves, as you suggest, they weren’t relying on God to feed them now were they? What we see here is members of the community selling possessions to meet the needs of others in the community. It’s all God’s anyway.
Further, you are arguing for
community ownership here. This is an entirely different argument you are making now. So in this model, although the early Christians would have forsaken “private ownership,� they did not outright forsake “ownership� by selling all their possessions and giving everything to the poor. And that’s what you’ve been arguing for all this time is a forsaking of ownership altogether; a leaving of everything and utter dependence on God to directly meet daily needs. In the communal model ownership (or control), however, merely changes hands from the individual to the community. Or more precisely, in the case of the texts you’ve cited here, ownership/control changed to the hands of the apostles and they distributed the resources as each had need. This is merely group self sufficiency as opposed to individual self sufficiency. This of course raises the question should Christians live communally? But it doesn’t go to support the argument that Christians should sell everything and stop working. The text itself doesn’t support that either. It clearly says they would sell possessions and distribute the proceeds
as any had need.
Further we have a practical application of this idea of selling one's possessions.
“Sell your possessions and give alms; provide yourselves with purses in heaven.� - (Luke 12:33)
So what does this mean? Are Christians to sell
all we have and give it to the poor? Or
some of what we have? Well, if a Christians sells all he has and gives to the poor and quits his job he is, well, effectively now the poor and in need of the money he just gave away.
So it would seem a reasonable application of this command is that we are to sell
some of what we have lest we end up in an absurd cycle of trading money back and forth between one another as one becomes rich and the other poor. And this intuitional argument that we should sell
some, not all, of our possessions to help the poor is supported by a case example later in Luke:
� Zaccheus stopped and said to the Lord, “Behold, Lord, half of my possessions I will give to the poor, and if I have defrauded anyone of anything, I will give back four times as much.� And Jesus said to him, “Today salvation has come to this house, because he, too, is a son of Abraham. For the Son of Man has come to seek and to save that which was lost.�� – Luke 19:8-10
In this case example, Zacchaeus gives away
half his possessions, not all. A reasonable tempering which is affirmed by Jesus.