Radical Discipleship - Confronting the causes of sin
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Radical Discipleship - confronting the causes of sin
Radical Discipleship - confronting the causes of sin
Introduction:
- Sometimes the norm adopted by others seems radical.
- Sometimes the norm accepted others seems radical.
Sometimes the norm adopted by others seems radical.
Russia & Ukraine - early days - driving on the left-hand side, the right-hand side, the sidewalk or the good side of the road.
When the expected norm ceases to be the norm, the refocused norm is usually deemed radical.
Is most of the discipleship today, the New Testament norm or is the New Testament norm now deemed radical?
While each of us must decide for ourselves how the New Testament norm for discipleship compares with what we accept and expect today, the stark harsh words used by Christ serve to underscore what He demands of disciples and in light of that, the seriousness of sin and causing others to stumble.
Jesus reminded His disciples of the need of a radical view of:
Sin -
Jesus reminded His disciples that they needed to have a radical view of sin. The sin that He speaks of here is not the sin of unbelievers but rather the sin of of believers in how they treat fellow believers resulting in fellow believers are caused to sin/stumble because of other believers.
There can be no doubt that this a further explanation and answer to how the disciples would have treated those who did mighty works in Jesus name and followed Jesus, but did not follow the disciples. We are not privy to motives. They might have been totally sincere but they were wrong from Christ’s perspective.
PLEASE UNDERSTAND THAT THIS IS NOT ABOUT MAINTAINING THE INTEGRITY OF THE GOSPEL AND THE WORD OF GOD. IT IS ABOUT PREVENTING MINOR ISSUES FROM BECOMING MAJOR.
EXAMPLE:
- BAPTISM - 3 TIMES FORWARD
- IMMEDIATELY AFTER PROFESSED CONVERSION OR AFTER SOME DISCIPLESHIP/CONFESSION
WHICH TRANSLATION AND THE THEOLOGICAL TRANSLATION OF THE TRANSLATORS
How believers treat/impact impact other believers/those who come to Him by faith, has alway been important to God.
I will bless those who bless you, and him who dishonors you I will curse, and in you all the families of the earth shall be blessed.”
he allowed no one to oppress them;
he rebuked kings on their account,
Ps 105:
For thus said the Lord of hosts, after his glory sent me to the nations who plundered you, for he who touches you touches the apple of his eye:
Zech
In the passage before us, Jesus again underscored this. The way that we treat other believers, is an indication of the way that we treat Christ, the body of Christ and the Word.
“Whoever receives one such child in my name receives me, and whoever receives me, receives not me but him who sent me.”
Mk
Sin - to cause to fall - to stumble
Sin - word - skandilizo - translated sin means to cause to stumble.
In Matthew’s account, Jesus used this word to describe Peter.
But he turned and said to Peter, “Get behind me, Satan! You are a hindrance to me. For you are not setting your mind on the things of God, but on the things of man.”
In the judgment, how believers treat other believers will be a major factor.
Then the King will say to those on his right, ‘Come, you who are blessed by my Father, inherit the kingdom prepared for you from the foundation of the world. For I was hungry and you gave me food, I was thirsty and you gave me drink, I was a stranger and you welcomed me, I was naked and you clothed me, I was sick and you visited me, I was in prison and you came to me.’ Then the righteous will answer him, saying, ‘Lord, when did we see you hungry and feed you, or thirsty and give you drink? And when did we see you a stranger and welcome you, or naked and clothe you? And when did we see you sick or in prison and visit you?’ And the King will answer them, ‘Truly, I say to you, as you did it to one of the least of these my brothers, you did it to me.’
“Then he will say to those on his left, ‘Depart from me, you cursed, into the eternal fire prepared for the devil and his angels. For I was hungry and you gave me no food, I was thirsty and you gave me no drink, I was a stranger and you did not welcome me, naked and you did not clothe me, sick and in prison and you did not visit me.’ Then they also will answer, saying, ‘Lord, when did we see you hungry or thirsty or a stranger or naked or sick or in prison, and did not minister to you?’ Then he will answer them, saying, ‘Truly, I say to you, as you did not do it to one of the least of these, you did not do it to me.’ And these will go away into eternal punishment, but the righteous into eternal life.”
Matt 25:
The Apostle Paul used the same word with regard to anxiety of the churches that caused him to fall.
Who is weak, and I am not weak? Who is made to fall, and I am not indignant?
2 Cor 12:2
Little ones who believe in me
Believers in Christ - true believers
Great millstone - large upper millstone
So serious is causing another believer to stumble that drastic action is required.
Large upper millstone turned/pulled by a donkey or men in a circular motion to grind grain.
Extremely heavy. Not able to be carried.
Casting a believer into a watery grave graphically communicates how serious Jesus saw this.
Such a horrifying dreadful death preferable to causing other believers to stumble
Such a horrifying dreadful death preferable to causing other believers to stumble
Exaggerated symbolism emphasizing that disciples should dread causing other believers to stumble/sin so much that if the choice was theirs, they would opt for horrible death.
The context would suggest that the believers who might be caused to stumble are not who are immature, blown about by all winds of doctrine.
Rather, these are caring on fruitful ministry in Jesus name and in His power. Their only downside is that they do not follow the disciples.
ILLUSTRATION: Robbie Symmon response to Matt V
Sacrifice
2. Purity - , ,
In vs 43, Jesus shifts from what causes others to stumble to what causes the individual - him or her to sin - skandalizo.
As we work our way through verses 43 -48, some of your translations will include verses 44 & 46, which in thee original Greek manuscripts are exactly the same as v 48 - where Jesus quoted . I would in no way discredit those translations. These variations come because of the 2 schools of thought that line up behind the later groups of early Greek manuscripts -
- Textus Receptus, the basis for the KJV.
- The other preferring the earlier MAJORITY TEXT - with many more manuscripts - in number and completeness.
- For those who are equally committed to the verbal, infallible, inspired Word of God, there is the question as what to do with small textual variations in a few passages, most of which have NO DOCTRINAL implications.
In this case none of the earlier manuscripts, which outnumber the TEXTUS RECEPTUS manuscripts, included verses 44 & 46. So the question was, “Did Jesus quote in what all would agree is , one time or three time? I will leave that to you to decide. THE FINAL DECISION IS FAR ABOVE MY SCHOLARSHIP QUALIFICATIONS AND PAY GRADE.
Whatever you decide, I would passionately remind you, all translators are fallible. Every translation has weaknesses. My preference will always be a word for word translation in the language that we speak today, avoiding as many idioms as possible.
Cut it off - figurative
Cut off hand, foot, tear out eye - metaphoric hyperbole that Jesus sometimes used for effect
Speck & beam/log
Why do you see the speck that is in your brother’s eye, but do not notice the log that is in your own eye? Or how can you say to your brother, ‘Let me take the speck out of your eye,’ when there is the log in your own eye? You hypocrite, first take the log out of your own eye, and then you will see clearly to take the speck out of your brother’s eye.
Camel & eye of a needle
Again I tell you, it is easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle than for a rich person to enter the kingdom of God.”
Scribes & Pharisee & whited sepulchers/tombs
“Woe to you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! For you are like whitewashed tombs, which outwardly appear beautiful, but within are full of dead people’s bones and all uncleanness.
Matt
With the exception of circumcision, masochism - deriving pleasure or satisfaction from one’s pain & body mutilation were taboo in Judaism - ; ;
Whereas Greek Platonism saw the body as something as a load stone that was inferior and pulled us down, the Gospels and the Epistles affirm that the body demonstrates spiritual - cup of water to drink and caring for those in need was seen as unto Christ.
While what Jesus said was not to taken literally, it is clear that I must take even extreme steps to remove in ourselves what cause me to stumble.
The Pillar New Testament Commentary: The Gospel according to Mark Discipleship: Counting the Cost (9:42–50)
The metaphors of eyes, hands, and feet are all-inclusive of what we view, what we do, where we go.
No amount of self mutilation can deal with the cause of sin - the heart
We cannot do this self surgery. Only God by His spirit can renew the heart.
The Word of God speaks of that again & again.
And the Lord your God will circumcise your heart and the heart of your offspring, so that you will love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul, that you may live.
Create in me a clean heart, O God,
and renew a right spirit within me.
And I will give you a new heart, and a new spirit I will put within you. And I will remove the heart of stone from your flesh and give you a heart of flesh.
so that he may establish your hearts blameless in holiness before our God and Father, at the coming of our Lord Jesus with all his saints.
Ezek 36:26
Jeremiah spoke of the need of a new heart.
The heart is deceitful above all things,
and desperately sick;
who can understand it?
No salvation apart from a heart that seeks after righteousness and continues to seek after it.
“Blessed are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness, for they shall be satisfied.
But put on the Lord Jesus Christ, and make no provision for the flesh, to gratify its desires.
Hell - Gehenna - Greek word referencing the Valley of Hinnom garbage near Jerusalem
Gehenna - used 12 times in NT - all but one - - by Jesus - all ref to place eternal fire and punishment.
South of Jerusalem
Then the boundary goes up by the Valley of the Son of Hinnom at the southern shoulder of the Jebusite (that is, Jerusalem). And the boundary goes up to the top of the mountain that lies over against the Valley of Hinnom, on the west, at the northern end of the Valley of Rephaim.
Place where apostate Jews sacrificed infants to pagan god Molech - false god of the Ammonites
Then Solomon built a high place for Chemosh the abomination of Moab, and for Molech the abomination of the Ammonites, on the mountain east of Jerusalem.
Even some kings sacrificed there - Ahaz & Manasseh
and he made offerings in the Valley of the Son of Hinnom and burned his sons as an offering, according to the abominations of the nations whom the Lord drove out before the people of Israel.
2 Ch
And he burned his sons as an offering in the Valley of the Son of Hinnom, and used fortune-telling and omens and sorcery, and dealt with mediums and with necromancers. He did much evil in the sight of the Lord, provoking him to anger.
Eternal hell - never the place of the dead in general
Unquenchable - asbestos - fire
Kingdom of God -
Mark 9–16: The MacArthur New Testament Commentary Radical Purity (9:43, 45, 47–48)
These words compose the strongest call to discipleship our Lord ever gave. He challenges everyone to either deal radically with sin, or be cast into the eternal garbage pit of hell, “the outer darkness” (Matt. 8:12), “the furnace of fire” (Matt. 13:42), where “there will be weeping and gnashing of teeth” (Matt. 22:13).
Dealing ruthlessly with what causes me to stumble should be take as seriously as heaven and hell.
3. Sacrifice -
At first glance these verses seem obscure and cryptic. The OT helps and explains that when salt and fire are spoke of together it is the context of OT sacrifices .
Salt, a preservative, was added to sacrifices as a symbol of God’s enduring covenant. That was notably the case qith the grain offering.
Lev
You shall season all your grain offerings with salt. You shall not let the salt of the covenant with your God be missing from your grain offering; with all your offerings you shall offer salt.
And whatever is needed—bulls, rams, or sheep for burnt offerings to the God of heaven, wheat, salt, wine, or oil, as the priests at Jerusalem require—let that be given to them day by day without fail,
When you have finished purifying it, you shall offer a bull from the herd without blemish and a ram from the flock without blemish. You shall present them before the Lord, and the priests shall sprinkle salt on them and offer them up as a burnt offering to the Lord.
Ezek
Everyone will be salted with fire
Salt is good
The Pillar New Testament Commentary: The Gospel according to Mark Discipleship: Counting the Cost (9:42–50)
In the present context fire and salt appear to be symbols of the trials and costs of discipleship. Discipleship to Jesus lays a total claim on one’s life; in the language of sacrifice, it must be totally consuming or it is worthless. Rather than consuming believers in frustration and failure, however, trials make their walk holy and acceptable to God. The disciple who takes up the cross of Jesus and follows on the way to Jerusalem (8:34), who nurtures the faith of another believer (v. 42), who willingly forsakes things precious but injurious to the life of faith is himself a holy sacrifice, a “living sacrifice” according to Paul (Rom 12:1).
The Pillar New Testament Commentary: The Gospel according to Mark Discipleship: Counting the Cost (9:42–50)
This helps explain the puzzling phrase “salted with fire” (v. 49). Testing by fire is not simply a painful necessity of discipleship, but an offering itself pleasing to God, a seasoning or salting with fire. If fires of trials and adversity beset the faithful (1 Pet 1:7; 4:12), they do so as a consequence of their following the Son of Man who must suffer. In costly discipleship to the Son of Man believers become salt and light to the world (Matt 5:13–16). The willingness of disciples to bear shame and hardship for Christ is a reflection of Christ’s redemptive sufferings and a harbinger of hope to the world.
so that the tested genuineness of your faith—more precious than gold that perishes though it is tested by fire—may be found to result in praise and glory and honor at the revelation of Jesus Christ.
Have salt in yourselves
Sacrifice yourselves.
Be at peace with one another
Sacrifice yourselves for others
Disciples who see as normal what others might label as radical, understand in word and deed that:
1. Causing other believers to sin/stumble is life and death/heaven and hell serious.
What do we do so as not to cause others to sin/stumble?
Read, reread to 15:7 prayerfully asking God what you can do to care for one another and maintain unity. Most f us would realize that this portion deals with stronger and weaker brother and sister and what we feel at ease to meat. Paul’s emphasis was that we need to place a higher priority on each other than do’s and don’t’s.
As best we can aim for the middle of the road in how we communicate and handle each other and issues.
By the middle of the road I do not mean lukewarm. We need to have convictions. We also need to acknowledge how to have and express convictions without being divisive and injurious.
Balance grace & truth - Jesus and the woman at the well
EXTEND THE SAME GRACE TO EACH OTHER AS WE THANK GOD FOR EXTENDING TO US.
Develop a family climate that allows to discuss if something might cause us to sin/stumble.
For that to work, it must be a 2 way street.
2. Whatever might cause me to sin warrants radical/drastic spiritual surgery to remove or at the very least keep the cause in check.
Make sure your time in the Word and prayer is consistent and intimate.
Ask the Lord to show you areas in your life that cause you to stumble.
Read, reread and pray over
Ask the Lord to show you the sin in your life and the triggers.
Ask God to forgive you and remove the triggers.
If actions that you put in place do not stick, seek out and engage a trusted confidential accountability spiritual coach with whom you will work.
Christ has called me to be a well-balanced savoury preservative in the body of Christ and my God given sphere of ministry.
3. Christ has called me to be a well-balanced, savoury, healing preservative in the body of Christ and my God given sphere of ministry.
Ask yourself, “Am I a healer and consensus builder or do I fracture and put people on edge?”
Read and study the life of Barnabas and model most of his “son of encouragement” character traits - ; ; ; .
Balm of Gilead
Then they sat down to eat. And looking up they saw a caravan of Ishmaelites coming from Gilead, with their camels bearing gum, balm, and myrrh, on their way to carry it down to Egypt.
Is there no balm in Gilead?
Is there no physician there?
Why then has the health of the daughter of my people
not been restored?
Go up to Gilead, and take balm,
O virgin daughter of Egypt!
In vain you have used many medicines;
there is no healing for you.