"Say as much as you can about this symbol" (Hint; It's called "the other side"):
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"The Other Side" ? Sounds like a horror movie.
It is...we'll get to that!
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AS WE GET INTO MATTHEW 8-10, the section that leads up to, and includes, the 2nd teaching block..
three topics stand out:
1)THE OTHER SIDE
One of the first things we notice is an inclusio of "The other side"
(8:18 and 8:28)....What's up with Jesus going there?
Ray Vander Laan: here's the slideshow of the first "field trip" we'll take today:
>>"When Storms Come (Sea of Galilee)"
From that slideshow, pay special attention to a)why bodies of water had negative "historical world" symbolism and b)"The Orthodox Triangle" vs. "the other side": the Decapolis,
More: here is a significant VanDer Laan article on the Sea of Galilee which touches on its symbolism.
Here also are notes on water:
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For our 2nd field trip, we venture all the way to the dreaded "other side" of the lake..
via this video:
>>"Piercing The Darkness (Decapolis on the Other Side of the Lake)"
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- Note the cross-cultural implications of Jesus' two feedings of the multitude:
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see:
(diagram below by John Stevenson, see 2nd link above)
- The one who's not afraid of evil
- The One who takes us to the "other side"...cross/culturally.
HEADS UP: One question on the midterm will say "Say as much as you can about
'THE OTHER SIDE.'" (lots of help in the links above)
QUESTION: If this section of the gospel places so much emphasis on cross-culural minsitry/mission..
then why..strangely..in the climax of the section, does Jesus tell his disciples NOT to go to Gentiles, but only Jewish. Think about it, one response is here.
Here's a cheap home movie clip of mine , showing scenes from both sides of the Sea of Galilee, including Decapolis, which we studied today ...also including the infamous Sea of Galilee McDONALD'S...(note: the clip concludes at some war bunkers in the Golan Heights, and the synagogue Jesus taught in in Capernaum):
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2)TEACHING/PREACHING/HEALING/
to go more in depth into Matt 8-10, we noted yet another literary structural outline:
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?
A>The one who teaches, preaches and heals.
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?
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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 firm 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.
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For some helpful commentary on the "literary world" 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
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3. Titles
3. Titles
We haven't looked much at the "titles" of Jesus yet. See Hauer and Young pages 251ff.
And we note that some of these titles really kick in in this chapters 8-10 section: Son of Man and Son of God particularly. It would seem obvions 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:
Check out this chart ,and note re: each title:
- where in the gospel
- how often
- and on whose lips
- where they cluster
- inclusios etc.
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| 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)
To get more info on the titles, and a sense of how they are used in other biblical books, see this.
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2 Shifts:
>>>Jesus "reluctance" to heal the Cannaanite/Syrophenician/Greek (Read "Gentile") becomes a huge shift. Did he come "Only for...Israel?"
See:
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Jesus' strange comment to the Cannanite woman
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Why does he call her that?
Matthew 15 Commentary - A Canaanite Woman's Faith
Ironically, the Gentile shows Jewish "Chutzpah".
>>>>Capon also sees the Feeding of 500 as a huge shift in the gospel, both as a literary division:
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...and in Jesus' thinking...
In the feeding of the 5,000, Jesus' reluctance about signs becomes manifest (p. 14)...it is pivotal (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
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So how do you see the connection between Jesus' two shifts
(toward nonIsraelites and left-handed power)?
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(Note: we haven';t covered all these in class yet, but we will soon. For now, here are then answers/definitions)
1 __C__
2___h_
3___b_
4__e__
5__i__
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3___b_
4__e__
5__i__
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a)Subversion of Empire: The story of Jesus offers a counter-story to the dominant story/worldview of his day
b)Chiasm: Greek word for let er 'X.' A literary device that follows an 'X' or ABBA pattern or reversal; mirror image. Example: "the first shall be last, the last shall be first"
c)The Three Worlds: Literary (created by the text), Historical (behind the text). Contemporary (in front of the text)
d)Bounded set: defined by the boundary, and who is in/out
e) Intertextuality (Hyperlinking): cross-referencing, secripture quoting or referencing another scripture. Example: Jesus quotes Isaiah 56: "My house will be a house of prayer for all nations."
f) Parallelism or reprise: a word, phrase, or idea is intentionally repeated throughout a text. Example: the five teaching blocks of Matthew.
g) Centered Set: Though it has a boundary, it is defined by direction of persons relative to the center (towards/ away)
h) Inclusio: a literary device in which a word, phrase, or idea is included at the beginning and end of a text (and sometimes in the middle). Example: the "with you"s of Matthew 1:23 , 18:20 and 28:20
i) Intercalation (Sandwiching); a literary technique in which one story/narrative is inserted into the middle of another story/narrative. Example. The temple tantrum is inserted in the middle of the fig tree episode in Mark 11.
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Mix and match Symbols on Final Part 2……………
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5__a___
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6___f__
a) Prophecy: foretelling or forthtelling;
often having multiple applications and fulfillments, to different "contemporary worlds" and across time.
often having multiple applications and fulfillments, to different "contemporary worlds" and across time.
b) hemistiche/ellipsis: when the last section of a well-known phrase is omitted for emphasis: Matthew says "My house shall be a house of prayer......," intentionally leaving out the "...for all nations" clause.
c)Fuzzy set: a set where the boundaries are fuzzy: “when does a hill become a mountain?” or “when did Peter become a disciple?”
d)double paste This represents hitting the "CONTROL V" button, "pasting" two scriptures together, or "splicing" two scriptures into one new one. Classic example is Jesus in the temple tantrum.
ISAIAH 56:6-8 + JEREMIAH 7:11=MARK 11:16
e) Kingdom: in Jesus, in large part, the “age to come” has come. The Future has visited the present.
f)Social networking/6 degrees of separation: people/themes are more related/interconnected than it would seem
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