I am always excited to find new things in the Bible, which is a regular occurrence still, by the way, after 45 years of reading the Bible. I should add that many of new insights I find in my own reading (if not all of them), have been found before by others before me. I am always a bit surprised, but also amazed, that nothing is new under the sun.
The insight I want to share today is not one that I discovered on my own, but I have some thoughts to add as I meditate on it. This is the story of two nets in two boats piloted by Peter three years apart. We began with Peter’s introduction to Jesus in Luke:
“[1] One day as Jesus was standing by the Lake of Gennesaret, the people were crowding around him and listening to the word of God. [2] He saw at the water’s edge two boats, left there by the fishermen, who were washing their net. [3]He got into one of the boats, the one belonging to Simon, and asked him to put out a little from shore. Then he sat down and taught the people from the boat. [4] When he had finished speaking, he said to Simon, ‘Put out into deep water, and let down the nets for a catch.’ [5] Simon answered, ‘Master, we’ve worked hard all night and haven’t caught anything. But because you say so, I will let down the nets.’ [6] When they had done so, they caught such a large number of fish that their nets began to break. [7] So they signaled their partners in the other boat to come and help them, and they came and filled both boats so full that they began to sink. [8] When Simon Peter saw this, he fell at Jesus’ knees and said, ‘Go away from me, Lord; I am a sinful man!’ [9] For he and all his companions were astonished at the catch of fish they had taken, [10] and so were James and John, the sons of Zebedee, Simon’s partners Then Jesus said to Simon, ‘Don’t be afraid; from now on you will fish for people.” [11]So they pulled their boats up on shore, left everything and followed him.”
Luke 5:1-2, 4-9 NIV
This, of course, is the story of Jesus calling Peter, James, and John to follow him and become fishers of men. The bolded language, “their nets began to break,” is the key to the insight.
The emphasis we often see in this story is the willingness of Peter to do as Jesus says and of these men to leave everything and follow Jesus, and that is a good emphasis indeed. This is best way to respond to God in the flesh (or in the spirit) when we come to realize His presence in our lives. Nothing we pursue in this is more important than giving ourselves, our careers, and our time to God!
Jesus called them to follow him and become fishers of men. He called them from their own pursuits and living for themselves to pursuing God living for God – to do His will and to accomplish God’s purposes, rather than their own careers and purposes.
The emphasis I see today, however, is something that might be noticed only in retrospect. The point is not readily noticeable at first, and that is part of the point of the lesson of Peter’s nets.
I have discussed in two blog posts the odd qualification in the key statement of the Parable of the Sheep and the Goats: [W]hatever you did for one of the least of these brothers and sisters of mine, you did for me.” (Matthew 25:40)(NIV) Who are Christians to love? is the topic of the first blog article I wrote, addressing the question whether the “brothers and sisters of mine” limits the people we are to care for.
Elsewhere, Jesus tells his disciples that the world will know they are his followers by the love they have for one another (John 13:35), and John says, “[W]hoever does not love their brother and sister, whom they have seen, cannot love God, whom they have not seen.” (1 John 4:20) When Jesus learns from someone in a crowd that his mother and brothers are looking for him, Jesus says, “[W]hoever does the will of my Father in heaven is my brother and sister and mother.” (Matthew 12:50)
These qualifiers on who the followers of Jesus should love have prompted some scholars to conclude that we are only called to love fellow believers. They conclude that only the care we show to fellow believers who are hungry, thirsty, naked, a stranger, or a prisoner is showing care for Jesus in the Parable of the Sheep and the Goats.
This, however, is a minority view. Most of the early church fathers and theologians do not hold that view because of the many Bible passages that instruct us to love our neighbors and even our enemies. The Parable of the Good Samaritan makes this point rather clearly, as I show in the blog article linked in the opening paragraph.
In my second article, I tackled the question, Why, then, does Jesus repeatedly prioritize Christians loving one another? It seems that Jesus does prioritize our love for fellow believers. Paul also prioritizes Christian love for fellow believers when he says, “[A]s we have opportunity, let us do good to everyone, and especially to those who are of the household of faith.” (Galatians 6:10)
In short summary of the previous article, we should recognize that Jesus emphasized loving each other as he was preparing his disciples for the imminent reality of his death. In that context, he was encouraging them to stick together and to love each other.
In other contexts, Jesus told his disciples to love their neighbors and their enemies. Thus, Christian love is not exclusive to loving Christians, yet Jesus does seem to prioritize love for fellow followers of Christ.
Perhaps, he was also letting them know that they need to love each other, first, before then can love their neighbors (and then their enemies). If we cannot even love those who love us and think like us, how can we love our neighbors, and how in the world can we love our enemies?
I encourage you to read the previous two blog articles if you want a more compete analysis on the subject. In this blog article, I want to explore a different way of reading “whatever you did for one of the least of these brothers and sisters of mine, you did for me.” (Matthew 25:40)
Jesus shocked his followers one day with the Parable of the Sheep and the Goats in which Jesus likened the love and care we show to people in need – the hungry, the thirsty, the stranger, the people lacking clothes, the sick, and the prisoner – to showing love and care for him. Jesus said, “[W]hatever you did for one of the least of these brothers and sisters of mine, you did for me.” (Matthew 25:40)(NIV)
Until recently, I had glossed over the qualifier to this statement: Whatever you did for one of the least of these brothers and sisters of mine, you did for me. When someone pointed out to me that the statement is qualified, it nagged at me.
What did Jesus mean when he said “these brothers and sisters of mine”? Did he mean only his biological family? Did he mean his followers? Or did he mean something else?
In another passage while Jesus was talking to a crowd, someone told him his mother and brothers were outside wanting to speak with him. He responded by pointing to his disciples, saying, “Here are my mother and my brothers. For whoever does the will of my Father in heaven is my brother and sister and mother.” (Matthew 12:49-50)
Does this mean that we only apply the Parable of the Sheep and the Goats to followers of Christ who are hungry, thirsty, in need of clothing, strangers, sick, and imprisoned? Does it mean that we have no divine obligation to love and care for other people (even in our own family)?
Along the same line, I previously noticed that Jesus qualified his prediction that the world would know his followers by their love. He said, “By this everyone will know that you are my disciples, if you love one another.” (John 13:35) That qualifier has nagged me for sometime, and for the same reasons as the qualifier in Matthew 25 was now nagging me. I knew I needed to dig into this and develop a better understanding of what Jesus is saying in these passages.
After meditating on these things and considering other Bible passages, I worked out my analysis in Who Are Christians to Love? Matthew 25 and John 13. I determined that we need to understand the bigger picture, and we need to understand context.
Many passages exist throughout Scripture from the Old Testament through the New Testament that convey God’s intention that we love all people. The Bible is rich with passages clearly and emphatically stating that we should love all people, just as God loves all people.
The second greatest commandment – to love your neighbor as you love yourself – is not qualified. The Parable of the Good Samaritan makes clear that our neighbors include people regardless of their ethnic, national, and religious identity – even people we are strongly tempted to despise.
Jesus eliminated all guesswork when he told us that loving our neighbors extends even to our enemies. The example Jesus gives is that God causes sun to shine on the good and the evil and rain to fall for the benefit of the righteous and the unrighteous. (Matthew 5:44-45) God doesn’t withhold good things like sun and rain from the evil and the unrighteous, and neither should we. We are to be like Him in showing basic love and care for all people.
Jesus added that even pagans love those who love them. We would be no different than a pagan if all we did was to love those who love us back. (Matthew 5:43-48) Rather, we are to “be perfect as God is perfect” and love all people like God loves people, the good and the evil, the righteous and the unrighteous.
When Jesus healed the sick, drove out demons, gave sight to the blind, and showed compassion to people, he did not distinguish between Jews and Gentiles or believers and unbelievers. Of the ten lepers that he healed, only one of them came back to thank him and give glory to God (Luke 17:11-19), but He healed them all anyway.
When Jesus announced his ministry in his hometown synagogue he recalled two stories that triggered the people to want to kill him. These stories demonstrate how God loves not just the Jews (and how the Jews had a hard time accepting that reality). These are the words that provoked his hometown people to want to kill him:
“I assure you that there were many widows in Israel in Elijah’s time, when the sky was shut for three and a half years and there was a severe famine throughout the land. Yet Elijah was not sent to any of them, but to a widow in Zarephath in the region of Sidon. And there were many in Israel with leprosy in the time of Elisha the prophet, yet not one of them was cleansed—only Naaman the Syrian.”
Luke 4:25-27
The Sidonians were Phoenicians, descendants of the Canaanites who constantly battled the Jews, and Sidon was the hometown of Jezebel, the foreign queen who led King Ahab and the nation of Israel astray. Naaman was a Syrian General who had attacked the Israelites. He was a foreigner, an outsider, from Samaria, which was despised by the Jews Jesus spoke to. Jesus was conveying to his people that he came not just for them; he came even for their enemies.
Just as the people in that synagogue, we struggle to love people we despise. We struggle to love people who have wronged us and don’t believe as we do. We struggle to love people who do not believe as we do. Frankly, we difficult actually loving people in the family of God, too.
The difficulty we have in loving people, even fellow believers, does not excuse us from taking the commandments Jesus gave us to heart. The greatest commandment – to love God – is ultimately inextricably intertwined with the second greatest commandment – to love our neighbors as ourselves. John makes this clear:
“For whoever does not love their brother and sister, whom they have seen, cannot love God, whom they have not seen. And he has given us this command: Anyone who loves God must also love their brother and sister.”
1 John 4:20-21
There is that qualifier again – brother and sister. But, we know from other passages of Scripture that the divine obligation to love extends beyond our spiritual family to our neighbors and to our enemies also. Why, then, do those pesky qualifiers keep appearing? I have some thoughts that I will share.
When Jesus said we should care for the “least of these, my brothers” and to “love one another”, was he limiting the scope of our love to fellow believers?
In the Parable of the Sheep and the Goats in Matthew 25, Jesus says, “Truly, I say to you, as you did it to one of the least of these my brothers, you did it to me.” (Matthew 25:40) Most people gloss over the qualifier to the least of these… my brothers. Bible scholars, however, have wrestled with the fact that the clear instruction for us to have compassion and care for the hungry, the thirsty, the stranger, and the prisoner – the least of these – is qualified by Jesus by adding “my brothers.”
Some modern scholarship argues for a limited interpretation. These scholars contend that “the least of these, my brothers” refers specifically to the disciples of Jesus and fellow believers, especially those who are suffering persecution or deprivation as a result of their faith. They argue that we can not apply this Parable to the people in the world at large because the category of “the least of these” is qualified by “my brothers.”
In similar fashion, Jesus tells his followers, “By this everyone will know that you are my disciples, if you love one another.” (John 13:35) Jesus does not say that the world will know his disciples by the love they have for people in the world at large; rather, they will be known by the love they have for “one another.”
These two statements of Jesus raise some questions for us. Are Christians only commanded and expected to care for and love each other? Is the Bible silent on whether we should love and care for people who are not followers of Christ? Does it matter whether we love and care for people in the world?
The point of the Parable of the Sheep and the Goats is that the love and care we show for “the least of these my brothers” is tantamount to showing love and care for Jesus. In other words, one’s treatment of “the least of these”, who Jesus calls his brothers, reflects our hearts and our relationship with God, Himself.
This is not inconsistent with the one, primary characteristic that Jesus says should mark his followers – that they love each other. (John 13:35) Love within the Christian community is the hallmark of being a follower of Jesus, and that love and mutual care that Christians have for each other serves as a testimony to the world that we follow Jesus (if, indeed, we are faithful to his commandment).
We might glean from the Parable of Sheep and the Goats that the emphasis on “my brothers” means that Christians only show love for Jesus when they love and care for brothers and sisters in Christ. We might understand from reading John 13:35 that we should focus only on loving each other, as that is the way the world will know us.
Do these passages mean that Christians are only to care for and love each other. Does this special emphasis on loving our brothers and commandment to love each other extend outside the Church? Or does it apply only within the community of believers?
“[I]f anyone says to you, ‘Look, here is the Christ!’ or ‘There He is!’ do not believe it. For false messiahs and false prophets will appear and perform great signs and wonders to deceive, if possible, even the elect.”
Matthew 24:23-24
This is a significant warning from Jesus about future times – our times. It’s easy to call out false messiahs and false prophets, and many have done that, but we should be cautious and careful in our understanding of what a false messiah or false prophet and, more importantly, how to spot one.
The Greek word translated a “false” in this passage is ψευδή (pseudés) meaning “false, untrue”, and “(by extension) erroneous, deceitful, wicked.” The word comes from the root verb ψεύδομα (pseudomai) meaning “to utter a lie or attempt to deceive by falsehood.”
The Greek word Χριστός (Christos), of course, means Christ – the Christ – as in Jesus Christ, but, it could mean more than that. Christos derives from the verb chrio (χρίω), which literally means “to smear or rub with oil.” It also means “to anoint” (especially for a divine purpose” and “(by implication) to consecrate to an office or religious service.”
Jesus used chrio when he said, “The Spirit of the Lord is upon me, because he has anointed me to proclaim good news to the poor.” (Luke 4:18) In more modern terminology, we might say that Jesus was appointed to proclaim good news to the poor. The “anointing” (the pouring of oil on a person) was symbolic of a person’s appointment to a position. In religious circles, we might use the word, “calling,” today.
The idea of anointing a person appointed by God for a particular office was practiced in the Old Testament as well. Samuel “took a flask of olive oil and poured it on Saul’s head”, and he said, “Has not the LORD anointed you ruler over his inheritance?” (1 Samuel 10:1)
Christos has a counterpart in the Hebrew word, מָשַׁח (mashach), meaning “to rub with oil, i.e. to anoint,” and “(by implication) to consecrate.” Hebrew kings, priests, and prophets were anointed in this manner as a way of recognizing their position (appointment). Thus, מָשִׁיחַ (Messiah), literally “Anointed One,” emerged from this practice.
The Greek word, Christos, is the equivalent of the Hebrew word, Messiah, of course. We tend to think only of Jesus Christ, “the” Messiah, when we use those terms, but anointing men for their offices was common practice in the Old Testament and New Testament times by Hebrews and by Greeks. Anyone who was anointed (appointed) for an office was an “anointed one.”
A false Messiah is one who falsely claims or acts as if he is anointed (appointed) for a particular role. The Hebrew word for Prophet (προφήτης (prophétés)) means speaking forth by the inspiration of God, so a false prophet would be one who falsely speaks as if by the inspiration of God.
Jesus uses the terms, false messiahs and false prophets (plural), to signify that many people would come claiming (or claimed) to be messiahs or prophets. He says, they will deceive many people and even the elect, if possible. Elsewhere, Jesus says they “will come to you in sheep’s clothing” and warns us to “Watch out!” (Matt. 7:15)
Is it possible for God’s children to be deceived? I would like to think not, but then why does Jesus warn us to “Watch out!”? Why does Jesus say false messiahs and false prophets might even deceive “the very elect”?
I don’t know if God’s children – the sheep who hear His voice – can ultimately be deceived by false messiahs and false prophets, but that doesn’t mean we could not be deceived at some point or for a time. It’s safe to say, I think, that Jesus would not have warned us at all if it wasn’t at all possible to be deceived to some extent.
At a minimum, Matthew 24:24 highlights the extreme danger and the potential for even believers to be swayed or confused by the powerful deceptions of false messiahs and false prophets. Peter warns us soberly that “there will be false teachers among you” (1 Peter 2:1), so we need to beware. But, how?
So far, we can say from the descriptor of false messiahs and false prophets that they are deceivers; they are not truly anointed for the purposes they or others claim; and they do not truly speak under inspiration from God. They deceive and lie, and that is what makes them dangerous. But, again, how will we know?
When God became man and came to His own people, they didn’t even recognize Him or receive Him. (John 1: 9-11) If God came in the flesh to people with whom God had a covenant for many hundreds of years, and they didn’t recognize Him, we should have the humility to admit that we might not recognize God always when He is active in our world, and for the same reason we might be fooled by false messiahs and false prophets.
What, then, are the clues that a messiah (one who seems to be anointed for a purpose, calling, position) or a prophet (one who purports or who is purported to speak by the inspiration of God) is false? Fortunately, the Bible gives us more information to go on.
Navigating by Faith 