July 10, 2020  

You Would Hate Half The Disciples

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In my Christian adulthood, few passages have been as convicting to me as this one. A simple list of those that Jesus associated most with during his time on earth. It reminds me that given our natural human line of thinking, we would probably hate half the people on this list. Working class fishermen were grouped together with intellectuals. Simon The Zealot, a political extremist who wanted to rebel against Rome, was called to travel alongside Matthew, a government tax collector. MAGA hats and BLM protestors hanging together. Simon Peter, the headstrong and impulsive disciple, would have been the bane of all of you with opposite Enneagram numbers. I won't pretend to know what numbers those would be. Even his mission subjected earthly expectations. People wanted a political rebellion, he said "Give Caesar what is Caesars, but give God what is God's". Religious leaders wanted him to condemn rule breakers, instead he dined with them regularly. But oh! The fact that we modern "cool" Christians hate to admit: Jesus ate with Pharisees too. There are few things more humbling than knowing that we are incapable of trying to politicize Jesus because he at all times skirted our political expectations. Not saying you can't be a politically minded person, of course. Please do. But, you know, give God what is God's, don't give it to Caesar. At the very core of Jesus's ministry was one that subverted people's expectations of what was important. In many different ways, people wanted Jesus to change the world in the way they thought was convenient. He said "No, I've got more important things in mind. I'm going to change your hearts and fix your relationships, starting with the relationship with God" Following Jesus isn't convenient. It calls us to die to our earthly way of thinking. And that's when we notice the most jarring name on the list of disciples: Judas, who was to become a traitor. Convenient thinking tells us we have to love ourselves before we can love others. Jesus loved a man who was going to betray him for the salvation of sinners who had run away from him. I can't pretend to understand that level of humility. Be humble

A post shared by Joseph "Jackhammer" Craven (@thejosephcraven) on

About The Joseph Craven

I'm tall, but not so tall that people point and stare.

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