BibleProject - Jesus and the Gentiles – Family of God E6

Episode Date: January 4, 2021

Who did Jesus come for? Throughout the Gospel accounts, Jesus is laser-focused on Israel. Yet his ministry and even his family tree include many non-Israelite people. In this week’s episode, join Tim and Jon for a look at the family of God in the life of Jesus.View full show notes from this episode →Timestamps Part one (0:00–11:00)Part two (11:00–24:30)Part three (24:30–32:15)Part four (32:15–40:15)Part five (40:15–48:00)Part six (48:00–end)Mentioned ResourcesRichard Bauckham, Gospel Women: Studies in the Named Women in the Gospels, 44Craig S. Keener, The Gospel of Matthew: A Socio-Rhetorical Commentary, 158–159N. T. Wright, Jesus and the Victory of God, 278Show Music “Shot in the Back of the Head” by Moby“Artificial Music” by A Breath of Fresh Air“Scream Pilots” by Moby“Too North” by Lost Love“Feather” by Waywell“Defender Instrumental” by TentsShow produced by Dan Gummel. Show notes by Lindsey Ponder.

Hey, this is Cooper at Bible Project. I produce the podcast in Classroom. We've been exploring a theme called the City, and it's a pretty big theme. So we decided to do two separate Q and R episodes about it. We're currently taking questions for the second Q and R and we'd love to hear from you. Just record your question by July 21st

and send it to us at infoatbiboproject.com. Let us know your name and where you're from, try to keep your question to about 20 seconds and please transcribe your question when you email it. That's a huge help to our team. We're excited to hear from you. Here's the episode. As the gospel authors are portraying the story of Jesus

and its meaning, there's these two plots of the Hebrew Bible that have been running throughout the whole thing. There's God's purpose for all two plots of the Hebrew Bible that have been running throughout the whole thing. There's God's purpose for all the families of the earth, but then to bless them and restore them, He chose one particular family. But then that family itself becomes as fractured and violent and split apart as everybody else. And so, solving the fractured family of Abraham problem is the way of addressing the fractured human family problem. So the gospel authors are gonna tell the story of Jesus

with their eye on both of those. Now Jesus, for the most part, is laser focused on the family of Israel, his own people, his extended family, like Matthew 15, where a woman comes to Jesus and asks him to heal her demon possessedpossessed daughter, but she's not in Israelite, she's a canonite. Then Jesus answered and said,

Listen, I sent to the law sheep of the house of Israel, she's not my responsibility. But then there's this story where Jesus seems to completely deconstruct what it means to even have a family. Jesus' mother and brothers come to visit him and Jesus just dismisses them and says, you wanna know who my brothers and sisters are? It's whoever does the will of my father in heaven. Right from the beginning of the Jesus movement, there was a redefinition of what the family is. And Jesus had a very expansive, non-traditional view

of the family. In the story of Jesus ends, with Jesus having defeated death and proven that he is the true Israelite, whom God will use to bless all the nations, he goes to his disciples and he says, It's all authority has been given to me and the skies, not the land. Go therefore and make disciples of, not just the law sheep, but the house of Israel, but all nations. And I'm with you, Emmanuel, even to the end of the age.

Matthew clearly foregrounds the shift to the mission to the nations. I'm John Collins, this is a Bible project podcast. Today we're gonna continue our series on the family of God, and we're gonna look at Jesus. How he came for Israel to be the true Israelite, to bring blessing to all the nations. Thanks for joining us.

Here we go. ... Let's continue talking about this theme of family of God. We are into the story of Jesus. Yes, we got there. We've arrived. It always feels like a major accomplishment when we get to this point in any theme.

Yeah. Video conversations, because sometimes it takes us a while. Yeah. Yeah. Yep, and so you've been laying out for me this argument of sorts that the ideal that the Bible presents is that all humanity really is one family. And that doesn't mean we're all going to be the same. In fact, we're going to be very different.

And when we try to make everyone the same, when we went this Babylon project, it was not good. It was a sort of assimilation. It's kind of bored like mortality. Bored unity. Yeah. And then it kind of, and then someone in power can then say, hey, everything, everything's about me. And that can get corrupted.

Yeah. So there's a sense of like, how do we find unity while maintaining our differences, but respecting each other. Yeah, that's right. So in a figure like Nebuchadnezzar of Babylon, you can get focused in on one person, or in Genesis 11, it's focused in on one culture in their language. So there's both the individual or a corporate manifestation of this Borg-like assimilation unity that benefits some at the expense of others. Yeah, so there's the image of God-Pom,

which reflects on the difference of male and female as being different, yet one image of God. And then that concept gets expanded out to family members and siblings. Again, who are all different? Yeah, who are actually one family in the way the narrative develops. And then it's the sad, fracturing of that ideal unity

through all the sibling rivalries that we traced in our last couple conversations. Yeah. Yeah. So I felt like last time we were talking about this, I felt this discomfort between, okay, that's cool and beautiful, but that doesn't seem like the mentality

that the Israelite kings had, and that Israel as a whole had. Have you reflected on that much more? Oh, this perspective? Yeah. Oh, sure, but that's true of the whole Hebrew Bible. Okay. The Hebrew Bible doesn't represent what most ancient Israelites thought. In the final form. Yeah, it collects materials from all these periods of

Israelite history, but the theologian, the messaging of the final shape of the Hebrew Bible represents what a minority within Israel thought about the meaning of their history. So you're right, most of the kings were more, they wanted to be more like Canaanite kings than they wanted to be. So you're right, most of the Israelite kings wanted to be way more like the Canaanites than God's covenant people, for sure. But that's the whole argument of the books of Samuel and kings, was that the kingship and monarchy was just a huge dead end. That was why God destroyed it because it was a dead end from the moment that it started. Yeah, cool. So if you've taken seriously the image of God poem and then the table of nations. Yes, that's right. And you take seriously, trace all these ideas, and then you see God ask, tell Abraham, you're going to bless all the nations. Yes, that's right. And you take seriously trace all these ideas and then you see God ask tell Abraham

You're gonna bless all the nations. Yes. Yeah, he chooses one family to be his vehicle to restore blessing to all the other families Right, which we just saw spiral out of control So the astute reader should be saying let's all act like one human family again Even though we're not all the same nation or same tribe. That should be this kind of undercurrent of thought as the reader of the Bible now. Yeah, correct. Yeah. And so there's a whole set of things

that we didn't have time to go through, but the highlight moments in the Abraham story when he's not deceiving foreign kings and causing plagues to be reigned down on their kingdoms is like when he has a dispute with a foreign king named Abidmalek about some property, and they work out an arrangement and then make a covenant. And so the covenant stops a conflict from happening. Just like in the flood story, would God make a covenant that he won't enter into

catastrophic cosmic conflict with humanity. And so what you watch then is that covenants become these peacemaking tools. And so one of the ways that Abraham will bring a blessing upon the nations is by modeling good covenants that help people make compromises and learn how to be brothers and sisters even though they're different kingdoms. That's the kind of thing. So it's a design pattern about these covenants that bring peace, that model God's covenant of peace, and the flood. So that's one of the ways that it goes forward, but there's as many divisions and fractures in Abraham's family and beyond,

as there are those little moments of unity. They become little flashes of unity, they usually quickly go away. Yeah. Just like in my life. Yeah. Yeah. So it's all generating this tension of the ideal for humanity and the families of the Earth. It's kind of like the expanding universe theory in physics, where it's just like, man, this thing is just seems so spread out now.

Humanity seems so divided just within the narrative world of the Bible, and remember, they're all siblings, because they all come from dark, the table of nations. And so you're just like, how are they all going to be brought together? And again, this is why in the last episode, we focused on the prophetic hope, especially prominent in Isaiah. So about the re-unification of the family, the cessation of war and conflict, Yahweh gets in there. We draws them all to a place

and then teaches them how to sort out on the list. All the nation stream up. Yes. There's this vision of all the different nations coming to Jerusalem as this epicenter and saying, okay, God the universe is Yahwehweh and we can all live as brothers and sisters. Yeah, that's a cool vision. If you think Yahweh is good. Yeah, that's right.

Yeah, that's right. That's the hope. That's right. And so man, we could spend a whole series just on how the book of Isaiah develops that motif. Because that's in chapter 2 where we read. We also read from chapter 6 to here, but there's a whole elaborate motif working its way through all the parts of Isaiah about that exalted, holy high place, the new Eden, where the nation stream up to. In chapter 11, it's a seed from the line of David, a king, who's up on that high hill, and all the nations are looking to him to bring them peace.

And then you discover throughout the book that that seed of David is carrying on his shoulders the calling of all of Israel that the whole nation never brought about. And then it's the famous suffering servant poems where he's the servant is high and exalted and lifted up just like the temple in that opening poem. And what he does on that high place is give his life and suffer for the sins and the violence and the death of the many. And then we get to chapter 60 of Isaiah and all the nations are coming in to listen to that servant who's anointed to bring good news.

So it's really cool how the book of Isaiah develops this, but it's a major motif, the reunification of the family in the exalted Messianic King in whom heaven and earth meet together. And that's just in the Hebrew Bible. Like, we're not even to the New Testament yet. That vision is there in Isaiah. Yeah, it's really remarkable. Cool, let's jump into the Gospels then. Yeah.

Continue this theme I'm going to go to the next room. I'm going to go to the next room. I'm going to go to the next room. I'm going to go to the next room. I'm going to go to the next room. I'm going to go to the next room. I'm going to go to the next room. I'm going to go to the next room. I'm going to go to the next room. I'm going to go to the next room.

I'm going to go to the next room. I'm going to go to the next room. I'm going to go to the next room. I'm going to go to the next room. So the dynamic at work in the Gospels then is that as the Gospels authors are portraying the story of Jesus and its meaning, there's these two plots of the Hebrew Bible that have been running throughout the whole thing. There's God's purpose for all the families of the earth, but then to bless them and restore them, he chose one particular family. This is election, and we talked about this. That's right,, family of Abraham. But then that family itself becomes

as fractured and violent and split apart as everybody else. So now there's, but there's a problem. The solution is a new problem. That's right. Yep, solution has another layer of problems. And so solving the fractured family of Abraham problem is the way of addressing the fractured human family problem. So the Gospel authors are gonna tell the story of Jesus

with their eye on both of those. And sometimes they overlap in the same stories, which we'll see some examples of. Actually, the opening page of the New Testament, I think, hints in this direction. The genealogy in Matthew 1. The genealogy in Matthew, chapter 1. If we read it, we could put someone to sleep.

He told us, we could advertise this episode just like a good one to listen to, what a one to sleep. So we won't read the genealogy aloud. I commend it to the podcast listener. Turn your Bible on and check it out. What you will notice is that it's a three step genealogy

that goes from Abraham to Jesus in three steps. It's really schematic because there's 14 generations in each one. It goes from Abraham to David, and then from David to the exile. It's an exile to Jesus. And then from exile, yeah, to Jesus. It's a patriarchal genealogy, except at four points. There are matriarchs mentioned in the lineage.

Those four women are Tamar from the Book of Genesis, chapter 38, Ray Hab from the Book of Joshua, chapter 2, Ruth from the Book of Ruth, and then the wife of Euryah, the Hittite, that is Bashiba, second Samuel 11. So the presence of these four women in the genealogy has interested readers since the Gospel was written. What are the significance of their presence here? Is it atypical to add women to a genealogy in the first place?

Well, more is just out of the three times 14 generations covered, so there were three times 14 chances to mention other matriarchs, but these four are mentioned. So what's up with that? So certainly it's Matthew's doing something here. He has tracked with a design pattern in the Hebrew Bible that is related to this family of God theme. Remember in our last conversation and maybe one for that, we traced with how all of Abraham's kids, he becomes the father of many nations through Ishmael, and then Isaac becomes the father of two nations

through Israel, Jacob. He saw in Jacob. And then Issa. But then we noticed how those sons of Ishmael, sons of Issa, or the sons of Lot, Abraham's nephew, actually reenter the Israel story by marrying into it. So there's this idea of election in the Hebrew Bible is not, I don't know, binary. There are righteous people who are not from the chosen line and there are people from

the chosen line who are really terrible. And so what we have here is the presence of four non-Israelite women. What all four of these women have in common? Best Shiba was not in Israelite. Ah, well, she is the one potential. She's married to Eiraya the Hittite, and she's said to be the daughter of El Iam, which is could be interpreted as a Hebrew name, which means that maybe she was in the family of Israel, but she's married to a Gentile. A Gentile.

She's married to a Hittite. Okay. What all four of these women have in common? Why would Matthew see all of these women as connected in some way? Well, Judah's wife, she's a Canaanite, Tamar, Tamar's a Canaanite. Judah, so this is one of the 12 of Joseph's,

and Juda takes a wife who's a can tonight. Well, actually, yes, he does marry a can tonight woman, and then he finds can tonight wives for his sons, and one of those wives is Tamar. So Rayhab is a can tonight, and she's a prostitute in the city of Jericho. Ruth is Moabite, a descendant of Lot. So both Tamar and Rahab are descendants of Ham from Noah.

Ruth is a descendant of Moab, who's the descendant of Lot, Abraham's nephew. And then Bathsheba is married to Eureia, the Hittite, and the Hittites are, again, descendants of him. So that's interesting. They're all from one of these parallel unchosen lines. Yeah, and the genealogy could have hidden that side-step debt. Yeah, yeah. It's highlighting it. It's highlighting these four women who come from the unchosen parallel lines in the Hebrew Bible, but yet all of them find themselves as matriarchs of the Messianic line. They've been included in an instrument of God's

purpose in bringing about the birth of the Messiah. The surely one part of a strategy here that these four unchosen women from unchosen lineages in God's purpose are woven in to bringing about the chosen one. If you look at each of these four women's stories, there's all kinds of design pattern hyperlinks between them. So more than one of them is involved in some shady potential sexual liaison at night. Tamar seduces her father-in-law. She acts like she's a prostitute.

Oh yeah, that story. And so a father-in-law sleeping with his daughter-in-law. Rahab is a prostitute, and the men go into her house at night. And then Ruth has that odd situation with Boaz at the Threshing floor at night where she pulls up his robe and exposes him. And he says, make sure nobody sees you when you leave. That's kind of thing. But all of them end up making bold claims upon the line of Judah or David or on the people of Israel.

It's actually Tamar's boldness and deception of Judah that ends up proving her faithfulness to the lineage. She actually saves the Messianic line by disguising herself and deceiving and having sex with her father-in-law. Yeah. And actually, that's how the Line of Moab came into existence with lots of daughters after Sodom and Gomorrah gets toasted. His daughters get their dad drunk and get pregnant by him in a cave to preserve the seed, to preserve the line. That's really interesting. What most of these women are involved in is the men in these stories are obtuse or foolish or to straight up wicked. And so these women resort to clever plans to continue the line of the seed.

And in so doing, they actually save the line of the Messiah. Samar does. In the, yes. Yep. Rahab. How do we have? Well, Rahab saves the two spies who go to Jericho when Joshua sends them.

Yeah. And then we're just told, how does she end up in the line? Yeah, it's interesting. Yeah, she eventually gets mentioned and then marries into the lineage of the line of Judah. Same with Ruth by marrying Boaz and then Bashiba, who's actually, you know, who's taken by David.

And there's other hyperlinks between all these stories in really cool ways. But there are interesting examples of how through unconventional means, through surprising people, God has been at work to reunify the nations to bring through the Messianic seed. Here, I'll just read Richard Bacchum. He has a little essay on this.

In a book called, ooh, this is great. In a book called Gospel Women, studies in the named women in the gospels. There's actually many women disciples named in the four gospels, and Bacchum is done in exhaustive research on all of them. It's fascinating book. So he says here about Matthew's genealogy.

He says, Jesus' identification in Matthew 1 as the son of David is capable of many meanings. But the presence of these Gentile women highlights the inclusiveness of the Messiah's role, to be a blessing to the nations, as well as to save his own people for their sins, from their sins. Is the Davidic Messiah's role, to be that of a new Joshua, who will again lead obedient Israel to drive out the Canaanites? Or do these Canaanite women in Jesus' ancestry

require a more positive relationship to the Gentiles? All this is at stake later in Matthew's Gospel in the encounter Jesus has with that Canaanite woman in Matthew chapter 15. She may as well have stepped out of this genealogy in order to press her own new claims on the line of David just like Tamar, Rahab, Ruth, and Bathsheba each did in their own way. In other words, this category of the Canaanite woman gets revisited in the story of a Canaanite woman who gets very

pushy with Jesus and he commends her for it as it turns out. Is this the woman at the well story? No, what story is this? She has a sick child and she won't let Jesus... She says the thing about the dogs. Sheker off. Jesus does. We'll get there. So the point is, even out here in the genealogy, you have this little introduction of a melody of the role

of the nations in bringing about the Messiah, which means that Matthew wants us to keep that theme hummin in the background, because in the next chapter, in the birth story of Jesus in Matthew 1, this is famous, this is like Christmas story of Matthew 1, when the angel appears to Joseph and says, don't be afraid to take Mary as your wife wife the child conceived her in hers from the Holy Spirit She will bear a son and you shall call his name Yeshua, which means Yahweh delivers or she always saves so you shall call his name Yahweh saves for he will save His people from their sins if you're not paying attention,

you'll just kind of universalize this. He will save humanity from their sins. But there's a specific about his people. Yeah, it doesn't, it says his people, namely the people of Israel. So right, from the birth stories, Matthew wants us to see that Jesus is on a mission to deliver his family.

Because to save all people, he needs to first save his people. Correct. Yeah. This passage is only confusing if you haven't tracked with the logic of the subplots. That God chose Israel to be a blessing to the nation. That's right. If Israel's off the rails, then God needs to save Israel to then be a blessing to the nations. That's right. If Israel's off the rails, then God needs to save Israel to then be a blessing to the nations. That's right.

So that primes the pump for the reader to say, oh, this is going to be a story about the Jewish Messiah on a mission to his own people to restore them so that they, as a group, can become the instrument of God's blessing to the rest of the families of the land. That will be the story. And that makes sense because the genealogies told me that God has already woven into the arrival of the Messiah, all of these different Canaanite women. So these Canaanite women are all very unconventional in how they were used by God to accomplish the survival of the seed. And so that does raise a question of, that's a precedent. Well, maybe this descendant then of all these Canaanite women will save his people from their sins in some surprising or counterintuitive way. So what we're going to do real quick is just session the Gospel of Matthew for this theme.

Okay. And what we'll see is Matthew has just kept the melody going of the mission to the nations as a whole is what this is all about. And so as you pay attention to when non-Israelites appear in the story, it's super interesting. But up till now, if you're reading a stuile, this story is about Jesus coming to save his people.

That's right. We do know that's a subplot to the bigger plot, which is union of all heaven and earth and all of humanity being God's image. Yeah. As the family of humanity. But right now, this is about an Israelite man who's coming to save Israelite. So let's think about the significance of another famous Christmas story, the Magi. The Magi, yeah, the wise men.

Yeah, the wise men of Oriental. There's a... Totally. Yes, you know my boys, that's how they sing that Christmas song. These three kings from Oriental. As though the place is... It's called Oriental. Ori song. These three kings from Orientar, as though the place is... It's called Orientar. Orientar, yeah.

That's, yeah, my son August has me now. That's funny. Where's Orientar? Where's Orientar? So, man, this story is remarkable for the hyperlinks and the design patterns going on. We don't have time to track it down. But it's quite remarkable.

The sorcerers, I mean the word magi. Magic. Yes, it doesn't mean like, you know, hat tricks. They're astrologers and sorcerers. Yeah, and astrologers is not even... No, it's like that's like... We're not talking about like finding out what your days gonna go like.

No, no, no, this is, Yeah, these were like consultants to the King. Should I go to war or not? Yeah. Well, let me read the stars and I'll tell you what King. Okay. So, and this is prohibited in the Torah for Israelites to do this kind of thing. But here come these pagan sorcerers from the East

who have seen a star. What's cool is that they come from the East and then the treasures, you treasures, the famous treasures. There's nowhere in the story that says there were how many there were. How many magi are, yeah? Correct. But there's three treasures.

But there's three treasures which has become the three magi. The three. The wise men. Yeah, the three wise men. So what's interesting is that the gifts of gold, Freckin's sense, and mer, that list comes right from the list in Isaiah 60 of what?

Yeah, we saw the golden friggin' sense there. Oh, yeah, that's right. And then later in the chapter, it says, they're going to offer up offerings on my altar, which can include animals, food, or incense offerings. And so this is a little, I think it's a memory that Matthew's preserving Joseph and Mary had this remarkable experience, but Matthew's told it in such a way as to activate all of these hyperlinks to the book of Isaiah and a bunch of other places and so on.

So the wealth of the nations is being brought to the new temple. Remember in Isaiah, the nations come streaming in and then they're going to bring all their gifts to contribute to the new temple, which is the new cosmos, the new heaven and earth place. And Matthew retells it so that the nations are bringing their gifts to the little baby Jesus. Because he is put forward as the place where heaven and earth are one. That's cool. Totally cool So just let's a little tidbit and you keep on reading, you know, so Here's another little piece of this in Matthew chapter 4 Jesus

gets baptized and then he goes into the wilderness in Matthew chapter 3 and 4 and then after he's tested You know for whether he's going to be faithful to his And then after he's tested, you know, for whether he's going to be faithful to his commission as the suffering king. And after he comes out of the desert, we're given this summary, the end of Matthew chapter 4. And it's actually a summary that's going to pave the way for all of chapters 5 through 10. Matthew's given us a map right here of the next few chapters of the book. I'll let you read this paragraph here. And just notice what he highlights about the people who are coming to Jesus. Okay, Matthew 4 verse 23, Jesus was going throughout all-gallily teaching in their synagogues and proclaiming the gospel of the kingdom

and healing every kind of disease and every kind of sickness among the people. The news about him spread throughout all Syria and they brought to him all who were ill the suffering with various diseases and pains, hemoniacs, epileptics, paralytics, and healed them. Large crowds followed him from Galilee and the decapolis. Decapolis, yep. Yeah. Large crowds followed him from Galilee and the decapolis and Jerusalem and Judea and from beyond the Jordan. And the next sentence in Matthew is, Jesus saw all these people. He went up onto a mountain. His disciples came, he opened his mouth and began to say, and it's the sermon on the mountain.

So this is a, this is an international crowd. This is an international crowd. Or you would say it's a multi-nation, well you'd say it's a multi-snit crowd from within the larger region. Yeah. So north to Syria, which is still the region that's called Syria today, but then also up in Galilee and the decapolis, decapolis is a network of towns. Yeah, toilets, a network up in the Galilee region, and Jerusalem in Judea, and the other side of the Jordan, which was the Moab, where the Ijumians were, and all of these other tribes, so on, but non-Israeli. So he's explicitly saying that he's attracting to himself. Yeah, a multi-ethnic international crowd From within the region and that's the crew. He does the sermon on not to

Yeah, that's the narrative setting is that Jesus is gaining lots of attention Yeah, and so he's going to see the crowds and his disciples came to him and he opened his mouth and began to teach them Which is his I think is his disciples. But the whole point is that it's Jesus, it's got his crew, but the backdrop is both Israel and the nations. Yeah. Are these onlookers, so to speak. Yeah.

Yeah, that's the scene. Okay. So Matthew, this is from commentator Craig Keener. He said, good insight on why Matthew's giving us a little geography lesson here. Like what? Why is this important to get this information? So Craig Keener puts it this way.

He says, Matthew wants his readers to know how widely the word about Jesus spread. And he's also interested in the geographical distribution of that popularity. By Syria, Matthew probably means not the entire official province, but the region to the north, northeast of Palestine. Although many Jews did live in the decapolis, these Jews' hearing of Jesus in a predominantly Gentile region allows Matthew to point his readers to a geographically expansive Gentile

mission. In other words, there's three points in the Gospel of Matthew, where there's this kind of like commissioning and the beginning of the kingdom of God spreading. It's right here. It happens at the end of chapter nine, where Jesus sends out his disciples, and we'll look at that in a minute. And then the next step is at the end of the gospel

in the great commission where Jesus says, go out to all the nations. And so, Keener is saying, Matthew has actually worded this in a way to say that even though Jesus's mission is to the family of Abraham, you know, you couldn't contain it. Even from Jesus beginning. There you go.

The nations were wanting to get in on the Jesus thing. 1 %, 1 %, 1 %, 1 %, 1 %, 1 %, 1 %, 1 %, 1 %, 1 %, 1 %, 1 %, 1 %, 1 %, 1 %, 1 %, 1 %, 1 %, 1 %, 1 %, 1 %, 1 %, 1 %, 1 %, 1 %, 1 %, 1 %, 1 %, 1 %, 1 %, 1 %, 1 %, 1 %, 1 %, 1 %, 1 %, 1 %, 1 %, 1 %, 1 %, 1 %, 1 %, 1 %, 1 %, 1 %, 1 %, 1 %, 1 %, 1 %, 1 %, 1 %, 1%, 1 %, 1 %, 1 %, 1 %, 1 %, 1 %, 1%, 1 %, 1 %, 1 %, 1 %, 1 %, 1 %, 1%, 1 %, 1 %, 1 %, 1 %, 1 %, 1%, 1%, 1%, 1%, 1%, 1%, 1%, 1%, 1%, 1%, 1%, 1%, 1%, 1%, 1%, 1%, 1%, 1%, 1%, 1%, 1%, 1%, 1%, 1%, 1%, 1%, 1%, 1%, 1%, 1%, 1%, 1%, 1%, 1%, 1%, 1%, 1%, 1%, 1%, 1%, 1%, 1%, 1%, 1%, 1%, 1%, 1%, 1%, 1%, 1%, 1%, 1%, 1%, 1%, 1%, 1%, 1%, 1%, 1%, 1%, 1%, 1%, 1%, 1%, 1%, 1%, 1%, 1%, 1%, 1%, 1%, 1%, 1%, 1%, 1%, 1%, 1%, 1%, 1%, 1%, 1%, 1%, 1%, 1%, 1%, 1%, 1%, 1%, 1%, 1%, 1%, 1%, 1%, 1%, 1%, 1%, 1%, 1%, 1%, 1%, 1%, 1%, 1%, 1%, 1%, 1%, 1%, 1%, 1%, 1%, 1%, 1%, 1%, 1%, 1%, 1%, 1%, When Jesus starts talking in the sermon on the mount, he prenses the famous blessings to be attitudes. Oh, you know, I don't know when this episode will release, but we're beginning work on a whole video series on the Sermon on the Mount. Yes. Super excited. Yeah, it's exciting. This will come a way before that. Yeah, I suppose so. But yeah, that'll begin. It's going to be so cool. It's going to be a so exciting part series. Yeah, I think, yeah, the this meant still pretty wet as to how many videos it'll be. But you and I are going to crawl through this.

It's going to be great. I'm so excited. So near the beginning, he has this moment where he looks at his disciples and he calls them something in Matthew 5 verse 14. He says, you all are the light of the world. A city set on a hill can't be hidden. Nor does anyone light a lamp and put under a basket. They put it on a lamp stand and it gives light to everyone in the house.

So let your light shine before people in such a way that they may see your good works. Glorify your father who hasn't happened. A light shining in the darkness. A city set up on a high hill. These are both images taken from the book of Isaiah. shining in the darkness, a city set up on a high hill. These are both images taken from the book of Isaiah. And we looked at one of them, the exalted Zion, for the nations.

And actually, in the poem in Isaiah 60, we read an episode or two ago, it began with a rise, shine your light has come. But now Jesus, up on a high hill and his community of disciples, are the light and the city. Is that interesting? Well, yes, although expected, I suppose, if Jesus is coming to save the Israelites and the mission of Israel is to be the city on the hill. Correct. The city, the nation, the people whom God uses

to bless all the other nations. The other nations can stream up and they are gonna reflect God's wisdom and goodness. Then it makes perfect sense for Jesus to get up in front of Israelites and say, hey, this is our calling. This is what we're supposed to be. Totally, yes.

Yeah, exactly, exactly. It actually makes perfect sense. Yeah. This is the kind of thing you would expect in this. This is what you to be. Totally. Yeah, exactly. Yeah, it actually makes perfect sense. Yeah. This is the kind of thing you would expect in itself. This is what you would expect. Totally. Yeah, that's right. So, yeah, totally.

I just find, you know, the Sermon on the Mount, these are such common images. Totally. That often, if you don't get the hyperlinked Isaiah, it just sounds like a pretty word picture. Yeah. This is a fully loaded metaphor connected to the family of God theme. So what's interesting is that after Jesus gives a sermon on the mount, he starts to go out and Matthew has put together 10 stories of different people from that list of sick people coming to Jesus. There's 10 stories about Jesus.

Where either heal somebody or does some sign or wonder. One of them is a Roman soldier, who is, of course, definitely not an Israelite. And what's interesting is that Matthew notes how he tells a story, pays focuses on the fact that Jesus is surprised by this soldier. By his faith, yeah. This is a military leader of the occupying force. Yeah. The occupying nation that makes life in your ancestral land miserable. Yeah. So I just paint that picture for a moment. Right. You know what's interesting is there is a bunch of frustration about the police right now real time. And they are, they are citizens of

the same country. So imagine having law enforcement around that are from a different country now telling you what to do. Yeah, that's right. Yeah, that's right. And there are many people around the world who are in the situation. Experiencing that exactly. Yeah, their land is under occupation of a different ethnicity or national group. Yeah, imagine, yes, this is a law enforcement of a foreign occupying nation that makes life for your people on your land miserable. So this is persona non grata as they say, right? So he comes marching up to Jesus and he begins to beg of Jesus.

Ooh, we have a video where I think Rose did the storyboards for the scene. I feel I love this how. This is in the Gospel of the Kingdom. And he comes up to Jesus and just falls on his knees. That's right. That's such a power. And he's like, she drew him in this like super,

he looks like a Marine. Yeah, totally. Jesus says I'll come, which is remarkable. Like I'll come enter an honest Israelite's house. There might be non-coasture food in there. They don't follow any of the purity laws. And the guy says, no, you don't need to. You're like me, a commander.

So just say the word. And when Jesus saw this, he was stunned. And he said, I haven't met anyone in Israel with such great trust. I tell you, many are going to come from the East and from the West, and we'll recline at the table with Abraham. Hmm. Interesting.

Yeah, but it does. Interesting. The broad table from the East and the West. Yes. Yeah, with does. Interesting. The broad table from the east and the west. Yes. Yeah. With Abraham, Isaac and Jacob in the kingdom of the heavens. So the family of Abraham and the table of Abraham will become open to many. But he goes on, the children of the kingdom, they're going to be cast into outer darkness where there's weeping and gnashing of teeth. Well, he's already beginning to encounter here his resistance from the leaders of his own people.

It's a con, becomes a contrast. Yeah. So here you are representing someone from a different nation who can come and partake of the feast with Abraham's family. But many of Abraham's own children are forfeiting it. Yep, that's right. And you've got to keep going on this theme.

And this becomes the tragic inversion is that Jesus is actually rejected by his own family, but finds even a more friendly reception among the nonchosen, and we're back to that theme opened with the four cane and I women. So these unconventional non-chosen lines, God works a surprising plan with Messianic seed. Such an interesting way to tell the story. It is such an interesting way to tell a story because it's

almost like at the same time saying, Hey, here's the divine plan choosing this family. It's both like at the same time saying, hey, here's the Divine Plan choosing this family. It's both giving you the Divine Plan while also subtly showing you how the plan needs a backup plan. And that there's going to be this massive reversal of sorts. Yeah. In many ways, this theme was already work in the Hebrew Bible. We haven't even talked about the Book of Jonah.

But in many ways, this is what the Book of Jonah is about. In the form of that God's mission is to the nations, in that story, a series. But it's God's own covenant people who become the biggest obstacle in God's mission to the nations. Yeah. And there's a similar thing coming out here, where it will be Jesus' own family

that becomes the sibling rivals who want to destroy God's plan. I'm going to do a little bit of the same thing. I'm going to do a little bit of the same thing. I'm going to do a little bit of the same thing. So in Matthew chapter 10, we're just kind of taking tour through Matthew here. Jesus now sends out those disciples that he's trained through the Sermon on the Mount and we're told in Matthew 10 he gives them authority to do everything he's been doing and so he sends them out and in Matthew 10 verse 5 he says Jesus sent out the twelve instructing them don't go on the way of the nations or on the way of the Gentiles.

Don't enter any city of the Samaritans, which is like their half siblings up in the north. Rather go to the lost sheep of the house of Israel. And as you go, announce saying the kingdom of heaven has come near, which is exactly what he's been doing for the last six chapters. So it's very clear kingdom of heaven has come near, which is exactly what he's been doing for the last six chapters. So, it's very clear, Jesus had a laser focus, but the nations kept showing up to get in on the party, and now he gives the 12 of a laser focus on the family of Israel, to restore the family of Israel.

I guess that's not very exciting, not at this point, you kind of were expecting it. But, yeah, although it is interesting that those kind of details were puzzling, for sure. Sure. Kind of like, why Jesus just to the Israelites right now, you know the end game. Yes, that's right.

Why not just start the end game? And then I think you said we're going to get to the story of the Canaanite woman. That one in particular is just kind of like, whoa, just feels really strange. Jesus has such an almost myopic perspective when it comes to his mission right there and then to just Israel. Yeah, totally. Yeah, that's right.

Yeah. So one more stop before we go there. It's this fascinating exchange that Jesus has with some of his followers in Matthew 12, when his mother and brothers show up outside of a house where he's teaching, and they want to talk to him. And Matthew is actually leaving out a comment that Mark had where his family thought

that Jesus had lost his mind. In Mark's version of this story. They think that he's crazy. Yeah. They think he's deluded. Yeah. That? Computes.

Exactly. He's acting, unnormal. Yeah. So in Matthew's version, he just wants to focus in on the family dynamics. And someone says, Jesus, you know, your mother, your brothers, they're outside. They want to talk to you. And in a normal exchange, you know, your mother, your brothers, they're outside. They want to talk to you. And so in a normal exchange, you know, a normal person would say,

Oh, cool. Can you guys wait a minute? I'm just going to. I got some stuff I'm working on. But yeah, Jesus takes this as a moment to like become the riddler, you know, how he does this thing. And so he responds to the guy talking to him. You'd be so weird to doubt if you were the guy who asked them that question. Jesus said to the guy who told him, who is my mother? Who are my brothers? And then stretching out his hands to the disciples in the room, he said, look, my brothers and my mother. You know, anyone who does the will of my father who is in heaven, and let's just pause here, that's the number one title Jesus used in the sermon on the Mount.

Father? For the father in heaven. Father in heaven. So when he means by what does it mean to do the will of my father in heaven, it means to live by the teachings that I just gave you a few chapters ago. So whoever follows the sermon on the Mount, that one is my brother, my sister, and my mother. Yeah. I mean, so he's got this big view of the family of humanity in mind, which is, yes, I can, yes, that, I mean, he would agree, Jesus would agree, yes, this is my family.

But his point is, my picture of family is much bigger. Yes. And. Yeah, he's untethering the idea of the family of God from the physical lineage of Israel. Adherence and participation in the family of God is way beyond physical lineage. NT Wright has a great way of putting this in a quote that I've attached here. He said, in a peasant society, this is from Jesus and the victory I've got. In a peasant society where family relations provided one's basic identity, it was shocking

in the extreme. In first century, this thing that Jesus just said. In the first century Jewish culture, for which the sense of familial and racial loyalty was a basic symbol of the prevailing worldview, this saying cannot but have been devastating. Jesus was proposing to treat his followers as a surrogate family. This had a substantial positive result. Jesus intended his followers to inherit all the closeness and mutual obligations that belonged with family membership in a close-knit family-based society.

But this was not just extraordinarily challenging at a personal level. It was deeply subversive at a social, cultural, religious, political level. I still feel the sting of what Jesus says today in modern autonomous individual mobile America, you know, where family belonging is important but not nearly to the degree it wasn't a culture like this. Yeah, to the degree that we still feel this obligation to take care of our our families, you know, as our parents age or as, as our kids are growing up or having grandkids, this kind of loyalty to our family. Yeah.

In this society, you've got to like 10x that or something. Yeah, totally. Just to the degree that society would have found that as, how important family was. And there is very good argument that we need to take family more seriously in the Western world than we do now. Like we've gone way too far. Yeah.

But then you get something like this and you're just, it puts a break on that and it's like, don't take that too far. Yes. And start worshiping family because there's something bigger going on. I really feel that tension as well. Yeah, because if you left, like if you said, hey, I'm going to go leave in my family and I'm going to go do Jesus' work, I'd be like, Tim, that's blousy.

Totally. You should do that. That's right. And there's how many generations of wounded children are there, whose parents neglected the health of their own children for the sake of whatever Christian ministry, or people there were, absentee, moms, and dads. But it's a balance. I'm not being dramatic about that at all. I'm just saying right from the beginning of the Jesus movement, there was a redefinition of what the family is.

And Jesus had a very expansive, non-traditional view of the family. And you just have to sit with that. There's no simple or easy resolution there. 1 個 個 個 個 個 個 個 個 個 個 個 個 個 個 個 個 個 個 個 個 個 個 個 個 個 個 個 個 個 個 個 個 個 個 個 個 個 個 個 個 個 個 個 個 個 個 個 個 個 個 個 個 個 個 個 個 個 個 個 個 個 個 個 個 個 個 個 個 個 個 個 個 個 個 個 個 個 個 個 個 個 個 個 個 個 個 個 個 個 個 個 個 個 個 個 個 個 個 個 個 個 個 個 個 個 個 個 個 個 個 個 個 個 個 個 個 個 個 個 個 個 個 個 個 個 個 個 個 個 個 個 個 個 個 個 個 個 個 個 個 個 個 個 個 個 個 個 個 個 個 個 個 個 個 個 個 個 個 個 個 個 個 個 個 個 個 個 個 個 個 個 個 個 個 個 個 個 個 個 個 個 個 個 個 個 個 個 個 個 個 個 個 個 個 個 個 個 個 個 個 個 個 個 個 個 個 個 個 個 個 個 個 個 個 個 個 個 個 個 個 個 There's another story a few chapters later where Jesus is trying to get away from all the people flocking to him. And so he goes up into a non-Israelite region in what Matthew calls Tire and Seedon, modern day, Lebanon, basically. And he goes into a non-Israelite city. He meets non-Israelites. So what Matthew makes very clear is he doesn't meet

a woman of tire and siden. It's a canonite woman, which is the specific land of hill country down south where Jerusalem, nor the Judah and the northern tribes of Israel, he calls her a canonite woman. And so he's clearly activating those memories from the genealogy. Rahab, the Canaanite, Tamar, the Canaanite. So Canaanite

woman comes up to him and she began to cry out saying, have mercy on me, O Lord, son of David. My daughter is harshly being demonized. And Jesus just gives her the cold shoulder. Yeah. He doesn't respond. Now, that act itself is capable of multiple interpretations, isn't it? So, in Mark's version of the story, he calls her the Sairo Phoenician woman, the woman of Syria and Phoenicia, which is the region where she lives. Matthew calls her the Canaanite woman.

Perhaps that's what she was from. Yeah, but I think that may be. Specifically to call out that theme. To call out that she's a Canaanite, a descendant of the people that Joshua, Jesus' namesake, expelled from the land. And Jesus is a descendant of a bunch of Canaanite women. So it all comes into this moment of how is Jesus going to relate to? How is this new Joshua going to relate to the Canaanites?

That's the question here. So it heightens the tension in this scene. So it could be that Jesus is brushing her off with his silence. It could be that he's testing her. Matthew's told the story in a way that Jesus' motives remain really understated. Right. You have to... He doesn't say why. He just says that he didn't answer her. Yes, totally. So what's interesting is he didn't answer her. His disciples come to him saying, listen, this lady shouting at us, just send her away.

Then Jesus answered and said, listen, I sent to the law sheep of the house of Israel. Remember this way he said. She's not my responsibility. Yeah. The story is almost impossible to account if you don't get the dual layers of the plot line But even if you get the dual layers it's kind of like all right Jesus I get it. Yeah, but can you at least talk to her?

He told her know this No, I'm with you. No, I'm with you. Yeah, so However, Jesus has also did that thing for the centurion. Yeah. So why? We're making the hard festival now. Totally. Yeah. So people have interpreted Jesus' statement and his silence in different ways.

Some people think he's brushing her off. Some people think that he is intentionally, kind of like God with Moses in the golden calf when God says, leave me alone. But then that's what Moses doesn't do. And that ends up accomplishing the will of God, which is for the reconciliation with his people. There's some similar dynamic here,

where Jesus' silence actually compels her to keep moving towards Jesus even more aggressively. A lot like Tamar did with Judah, and a lot like Ruth did with Boaz and... Yeah, I actually I remember reading Philippiansi talk about this this is decades ago and he I just remember him saying He said Jesus had his tongue firmly planted in his cheek when he said this that was his interpretation Oh, interesting. That was like tongue cheek. Yes, and that just really stuck with me Yeah, yeah, and that's it sounds like what you're saying a little bit possibly, which is like,

do you want to engage? I'm going to make this interesting. Yeah. Yeah. One way or another, Jesus turns this into a test of her tenacity. Hmm. Again, it's uncomfortable for us. Yeah.

And it still is for me. Now, Jesus wasn't like this with most hurting people who came to him, but he discerned something here that he makes this woman step out on more of a limb than he does with a lot of other people. So she doesn't settle for the I was sent to the Law Sheep of Israel. She comes back again and lays down in front of him and says, Lord, help me. He answered and said, he speaks in her riddle. It's not good.

Listen, if there's children sitting at the dinner table, he speaks in a riddle. It's not good. Listen, if there's children sitting at the dinner table, you don't take the food for your kids and give it to the dogs. No, once again, people have, dogs have both negative and positive images in Jewish culture. There were very few people. It wasn't like a house domestic animal the way we think of it. So dogs usually have a negative connotation, but Jesus uses a form of the Greek word for like little dog, tiny dog, a puppy.

So it's a contrast between little kids and little puppy. And clearly he means a domestic house pet because you don't Let scavengers into your dining room. So it's a question of priority Yeah, and so what Jesus does what the woman does is pick up his riddle and then turn it back on him and she's like But you don't starve your little puppy You know, yeah, if the kids don't finish your food, you give it to the puppy. And Jesus says, how great is your face, a woman. You know what you asked for? It will be done. All of a sudden Jesus doesn't play hard to get anymore. It's like the game is up. And all of a sudden

he's just super open with her. Yeah. What amazing. He says to her, what do you say to the sentrian? Yeah, it's just you won the riddle. Yeah, so fascinating. I'm so I know There's more that I need to ponder here in this story But this story is even more scandalous. It's it's a hard story Because Jesus is a luth for reasons that Matthew leaves concealed. Yeah, interpret them He interpreted the boys. Yeah, but then he like actually dismisses her But then at the end, he does give her what she needs. But the story's less scandalous

when you understand this dual storyline that Jesus does have this laser focus on Israel. And so that takes a little bit of the bite out of it, but not completely. There's still so much here to wrestle through for sure. Totally. I'm not trying to iron away all of the tensions. But there is something with the moment

that she presses in and won't let go of Jesus. There's the moment that he just yields completely. And he doesn't, he's not playing hard to get anymore. There's something in that shit. It just completely flips. Correct. It wasn't like, okay, you got me. Well, I'll give you a little bit.

Yeah, totally. Yeah, I mean, he heals, uh, her daughter from a distance. That's a remarkable thing that he does. Anyhow, this is very similar to some of these puzzling odd stories in the Hebrew Bible that I think are there almost as narrative parables that there's multiple layers to it. And I need to think about the layers in this one more. But all the same, the point is that this follows this pattern of the life and healing power of the kingdom

is leaking out to the nations, even though Jesus is on the laser focused in his room. So here's what we're gonna do. We're gonna skip over the Passover week and the Passion in our conversation right now. What the Passion represents is Jesus' mission to Israel. He goes to the capital city of David,

to the temple, he confronts the leaders of Israel, and while the Roman governor, a non-Israelite, is an important figure. In Jesus' view, he's kind of a bit player. His confrontation is with the high priest and the powers. Actually, I just realized there's an important story. When Jesus is lifted up high and exalted on his execution throne, the first person to recognize who Jesus is truly truly a Roman centurion, who says truly this was the Son of God. So right through, it's these Gentiles who recognize Jesus, it's his own family who ends up

resisting and persecuting, killing him, and yet even this doesn't thwart God's plan. This is just like the Joseph story. This is what the Joseph story is all about in the book of Genesis. And so notice the shift, look at the, let's just look at the last paragraph of gospel of Matthew. This is the great commission. The risen Jesus comes up to his disciples and says, all authority has been given to me and the skies and on the land. Go therefore and make disciples of not just the law sheep of the house of Israel, but

all nations, baptizing them, teaching them to observe the sermon on the mount. And I'm with you, Emmanuel, even to the end of the age. Matthew clearly foregrounds the shift to the mission to the nations here. So you can see right from the first paragraph to the last paragraph. And that shift is because he's done the thing for Israel. That's right. He's shown, I am Israel's king, I am the faithful Israelite, and I've done the thing that Israel has needed to do. And now that that's solved, let's get back to the plan, which was Israel being a blessing to the nation.

That's right. So now you as an extension of me, my disciples, go out and spread this. Yeah, yeah, that's totally right. So what's interesting is that the four gospels, even though they were written years after the events. In other words, the oral memories of all these things that Jesus said and did were being told and memorized and recited for decades. And then we're put into writing these compositions we call the Gospels. So the written form of the Gospels is taking place now decades into the mission that Jesus is commissioning right now. Isn't that interesting to think about? And so Matthew's crafted this account with the knowledge and experience of that expanding mission to the nations. And so he ceded the theme showing like this wasn't just in about faith Jesus did at the last minute.

It was actually woven into his genealogy, the mission to the nations. Well, what's interesting is he didn't even have to do that because if you've been reading the Hebrew Bible, that's true. You know that that's the plan. Correct. I think it's easy to get that plan lost in the shuffle because it's not this like in your face kind of theme.

But the fact that not only is Jesus coming back to that plan, you've already seen, it was seeded throughout the whole gospel is what you're saying. Yeah. Yeah, totally. So that's the Jesus on earth, so to speak, the Jesus that people hung out with in 1st century Palestine. Part two of this, the mission to the nations is going to be led by Jesus and the Spirit. And that's the story that we call the Book of Acts, which is where the family of God begins to expand and create multi-ethnic and racial tensions.

The tensions that come along when people of different families try to live and work together. Just try and imagine people not getting long because they belong to different tribes and families. And if you can imagine that scenario, welcome to the exciting part of the story that is the Book of Acts. Thanks for listening to this episode of the Bible Project podcast. Next week we're going to continue in this series on the Family of God. The moment that the Family of Abraham crosses the Israelite non is relived, divided.

And it's a story about a Roman centurion. It becomes the representative story here. This story is so cool. We're collecting questions for our upcoming question response episode on this series. So we'd love to hear from you. You can record yourself asking your question, try to keep it to around 20 or 30 seconds, and then send that audio to info at bibleproject.com. Please tell us your name, where you're from,

and then also in your email, transcribe your question for us, that would be amazing. Today's show is produced by Dan Gummel. The theme music is by Bantense, and our show notes were put together by Lindsay Ponder. Bible projects exist so that we can experience the Bible as one unified story that leads to Jesus. We've got this podcast, we've got videos,

we've got seminary level classes, and all sorts of other resources. You can find it all at Bibleproject.com and it's all free because of the gender support of people like you. Thank you so much for being a part of this with us. Hi, this is Elsie. And I'm Erin.

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