Loading...As you know, Platinum members on the blog are allowed to compose blog posts for one another, and I choose one every month or so to publish on the blog at large. Here is a particularly interesting one by blog member Doug Wadeson, based on a careful and interesting reading of the Gospels. It’s dealing with an incredibly timely issue and provides a rather unexpected answer. It involves Jesus and family values.
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People often think of Jesus as teaching traditional family values, but in fact he seems to be rather dismissive of the natural nuclear family. To be fair, maybe his family was to blame. In Mark 3:20, 21 we are told that some of his family [kinsmen] sought to take custody of him because they thought he had lost his mind. Not very supportive. Then when his mother and brothers arrived and called for him, Jesus responded:
“Who are My mother and My brothers?” Looking about at those who were sitting around Him, He said, “Behold My mother and My brothers! For whoever does the will of God, he is My brother and sister and mother.” Mark 3:33-35 NASB
Apparently Jesus viewed his disciples as his true spiritual family instead of his natural family. But Jesus did not leave it there. In Matthew Jesus gets more direct about family:
“Do not think that I came to bring peace on the earth; I did not come to bring peace, but a sword. For I came to set a man against his father, and a daughter against her mother, and a daughter-in-law against her mother-in-law; and a man’s enemies will be the members of his household. He who loves father or mother more than Me is not worthy of Me; and he who loves son or daughter more than Me is not worthy of Me.” Matthew 10:34-37
Jesus draws a line in the sand: love me more than your family, or you are not worthy of me, even if it causes division in your family. Luke has similar material in Luke 12:51-53 (suggesting it may be from the Q source[1]), but goes on to make it even more pointed:
“If anyone comes to Me, and does not HATE his own father and mother and wife and children and brothers and sisters, yes, and even his own life, he cannot be My disciple.” Luke 14:26
“Hate” is a strong word to use about your family, but that is the word Jesus uses here, according to Luke.
The apostle Paul’s attitude seems similar to that of Jesus. In 1 Corinthians 7 he did not encourage his disciples to marry and have families, although he concedes it is better to marry than to “burn” with lust. And he supplies the likely reason why both he and Jesus were not overly concerned with the family unit:
“But this I say, brothers, the time has been shortened, so that from now on those who have wives should be as though they had none…”(1 Corinthians 7:29).[2]
Both Jesus and Paul thought that the end of the age was at hand; you need to be concerned with the kingdom of God, not the things of this world that are soon to pass away. And Jesus did not think marriage was going to be part of the kingdom of God: ““For in the resurrection they neither marry nor are given in marriage, but are like angels in heaven.” (Matthew 22:30)
From this perspective the dismissal of the traditional family unit in favor of a spiritual family makes sense. Of course, as the early generations of Christians passed away without the return of Jesus, that view was massaged into a more family-friendly one, as expressed in the later pseudepigraphic letters written in Paul’s name. For example, here the “new” Paul has changed his mind; instead of family being a distraction from the work of God it is a positive boon:
He must be one who manages his own household well, keeping his children under control with all dignity (but if a man does not know how to manage his own household, how will he take care of the church of God?). 1 Timothy 3:4, 5
It is interesting to note that in Paul’s early authentic letters he never gives any advice about children[3], but in the later pseudepigraphic letters you see such advice, as in Ephesians 6:1-4; Colossians 3:20, 21; 1 Timothy 3:4, 12, 5:14; and Titus 1:6, 2:4. I suppose we should give the early church credit for being willing to adapt to an evolving situation.
Did Jesus intend to divide families, or was he simply stating the reality that following him was likely to cause problems in families? I will discuss this in the second part of the post.
[1] Matthew appears to alter the words to quote Micah 7:6; the parallel passage in Luke 12 does not follow that Micah passage as closely. This is consistent with Matthew’s MO of taking Old Testament passages out of context in support of Jesus: the passage in Micah is talking about the strife that occurs in ungodly families, not that caused by seeking to follow God.
[2] Sorry, husbands, read the entire chapter: Paul was NOT giving license to licentiousness with this statement!
[3] Even in the Old Testament there are more laws about livestock than children.
I find 1 Corinthians 7, is referring to the life they are living now, were in Matt 22, Jesus is responding to the Pharisees about who’s wife is she, if she wedded all seven brothers, when it comes to the after life. Two completely different settings.
So I wish to put forth something few have considered. First I have to take you to the episode of the Man Born Blind in John 9; 1-34. Pay close attention to the reaction of the parents to their son who can now see and how they back away from his defense, for rear of their own condemnation.
When it came to identifying his own family, knowing the dark thoughts of the Pharisees in those times, I feel he was very prudent to keep his family out of harms way, with the declaration on the subject of who his brothers and sisters and mothers and fathers were as noted in Matt 12; 46-50, Luke 8; 19-21, or even when they are mentioned by name as in Mark 6; 1-6. In my view, in his crafty way, he was purposely distancing himself for their sake.
I welcome your response on this observation.
Thanks for the interesting suggestion. I think of Jesus’ dismissal of family as being entirely consistent with his apocalyptic message, but your idea is worth considering. Another possibility: there were rumors about his family and his parentage and Jesus wanted to distance himself from his family for those reasons. Our limited knowledge of Jesus’ family life makes for many possibilities.
In the church culture I grew up in.. Jesus always outranked family. JOY = Jesus, Others, You. So even 2000 years later there is evidence that people have been “given divine permission” to move family behind Jesus… or their Christian responsibilities… Ask any PK or MK. My dad was neither a pastor or a missionary, but someone who built and renovated church buildings for a living… The church always came first. He confessed to me once that he didn’t think God would provide for him if the project wasn’t church related. God wouldn’t help him build his own house .. So he left most of that undone and even as he was dying… the church got his focus even after retirement. Mom had to hire contractors after dad died to finish the house. Looks like he had a lot of support from scripture to back up his behaviour. It just didn’t seem that loving at the time.
Thanks for sharing your experience. The more I study the Bible in the context of life the more I find a dark side to seemingly good teachings. Your experience is one reason I like the parable of the sheep and the goats in Matthew 25: the way to please God is by serving others, not by neglecting them for “holy” endeavors.
The belief in the imminent eschaton has to be seen in coordination with a clear unease over sex. Paul boasted of his commitment to celibacy, and the NT generally prefers virgins. While the early church did have to concede the need for sex once it became clear the world wasn’t ending and new Christians would be needed, they never quite escaped – even to this day – the exaltation of celibacy and virginity. So I don’t give as much credit as you do to the later parts of the NT.
Do we have any idea why they were so uptight about it. Seems they even got nervous about totally kosher fun between a married couple. Was this kind of a trend in Judaism at the time?
With one significant exception, Jews do not believe in long-term celibacy. The exception is the Qumran community, and possibly Essenes in general. They limited sex to married couples and strictly for the purpose of procreation. If a couple continued to have sex after the woman knew she was pregnant, or after menopause, they were expelled from the community. Josephus thought the elders of the Essenes practiced total celibacy, but there is some question about that.
Today, a few ultra-Orthodox groups, mainly the Ger or Gur Hasidim in Israel, limit marital sex to once a month, with a minimum amount of clothing removed. This has, for some reason, limited their opportunities to marry other ultra- Orthodox, and their rabbis have – slightly – loosened the rules.
Not sure what you mean by “give as much credit…” Clearly the later writings of the NT voiced the views of some Christians of that era, and were acceptable enough to later generations to be incorporated into the NT while other writings were rejected. Some of the early Christian apocrypha were more pro-celibacy than the NT. The church continues to have a strange relationship with sex – some groups barring clergy from marriage while advocating for more children to the point of banning birth control. The old view of Onanism, named for an obscure Biblical character, is another case in point; in fact, that gives me an idea for another Platinum post…
I was referring to this sentence: ” I suppose we should give the early church credit for being willing to adapt to an evolving situation.” As I see it, they adapted because they had to.
The Catholic church’s approach to sex is definitely pathological. Many Protestants aren’t much better.
I think a PP on onanism would be a great idea. Be sure to check out Jewish views.
A part of me thinks that Mark just has it out for Jesus’ family and disciples. He always portrays his disciples as fools, makes no mention of Jesus early life (you know when he lived with his family..), claims Jesus’ family thought him mad, and that Jesus spoke disparagingly about his mother&brothers.
However we know from better sources, Paul and Josephus, that Jesus’ brother (&perhaps his other brothers) took over Jesus’ movement almost immediately after his death (something we’d never image if Mark was our only source!). We also know from Paul that Jesus brothers, Peter, &other apostles had wives (&presumably children) 1 Corinthians 9:5. So clearly Jesus wasn’t telling his disciples to avoid marriage or abandon their families because even at the time Paul was writing, these men still had wives who “accompanied” them.
Since we have Paul as a much earlier&more reliable witness to the disciples and the early Church, I see Mark’s negative portrayals of Jesus’ family&disciples at odds with what the reality actually was on ground. Possibly Mark just had it out against the Christianity that was stemming from the Jerusalem movement who had as their forebears Jesus’ own family and disciples.
That’s an interesting observation. Mark clearly portrays the disciples as being clueless. Certainly possible he’s taking a poke at the Jerusalem crew: those guys never did understand what Jesus was really about!
In a series of two video presentations, “The First Generations of Christians in History” and “The Second Generations of Christians in History”, Dr. Steve Mason (historian of Judea in the Greco-Roman period, best known for his studies of Josephus and early Christian writings) argues that the reason why Mark misportrays the family and disciples of Jesus as being clueless is because Mark, heavily influenced by the thoughts and writings of Paul, is trying to discredit the opposition to Paul’s gospel from Jesus’s brother, James the Just, and disciples who understand Jesus only in a Jewish context and insist that all followers of Jesus, whether they be Jewish or Gentile, must observe Mosaic Law.
“The First Generations of Christians in History”
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=w-kWyeMMOWo
“The Second Generations of Christians in History”
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UcVeLboHU9U
If a child comes home and tells his / her parents that they want to be an itinerant apocalyptic preacher, wandering around, penniless, associating with all people, including lower class, undesirable riff raff, ruffling the feathers of the powerful and dying prematurely, I can well imagine that person would make a few “enemies in the household.”
The life that Jesus led is not for the faint of heart, which is precisely why there are so few that follow his lead. IMO, the true heirs of the “Jesus way” are people like MLK, Gandhi, Mother Teresa etc. I would also add someone like Dorothy Stang, and maybe Julian Assange.
Thanks for reading and commenting!
So, does anyone have a rough idea of the Jewish population Jesus teachings played out against? In terms of the proportions in the factions/ sects (pharisee vs Sadducee vs Essene)? Was there a non allied group of … not very observant perhaps? Point being, apparently the Sadducees didn’t buy any afterlife – but, were probably an elitist minority. The Essenes were apocalyptic but seem like a small dislocated minority also. The Pharisee’s were apocalyptic but I never have had a good feel for the breadth of their influence. While the pharisees were not likely to accept a Galilean nobody as messiah, they were primed to buy into his apocalyptic message. I guess I’m asking what was the average joe on the street like hearing this seemingly extreme anti family message?
See Bart’s post of Sept. 19, 2017. Pharisees estimated at 6,000, Essenes 4,000 and Sadducees even fewer, with a worldwide population of Jews at about 4 million. So that’s a pretty small minority for each group. I suspect it was a lot like today: most people (in America) claim to be “Christian” while a smaller portion are regular church goers, and fewer still are involved in church support activities, and fewer again that regularly study the Bible on their own, and fewer that are actively engaged in evangelism. No doubt the extreme demands of Jesus (like risking the loss of family) put off many people, but within a generation or two those demands were watered down and that may have helped the church grow. For example, Paul said that marriage was a distraction from complete devotion to the Lord (1 Cor. 7:32-34) but by the time the deutero-Pauline Pastoral Epistles were written they were saying that church leaders should be married (1 Timothy 3:1-5). But also consider how some people today join cults with extreme ideas: what puts off some people may actually attract others! And think how many otherwise uninvolved Christians get excited when someone starts talking about Biblical prophecy and the end times. (I know people who have never read through the Bible but have read the complete Left Behind series.) I suspect Jesus’ message that the end of the age was at hand and things were about to take a radical turn for the better (for the faithful) would have been attractive to many people, but those who followed through were likely a relatively small number.
“Did Jesus intend to divide families, or was he simply stating the reality that following him was likely to cause problems in families?” I still don’t understand what “following” Jesus necessarily meant. Unemployment and living off charity, which would obviously cause family rifts? Rejection of Jewish authorities? What precisely did Jesus require of his followers?
That’s a question for which different groups have come up with different answers. For example, when Jesus said, “none of you can be My disciple who does not give up all his own possessions” (Luke 14:33) did He mean just those who were going to follow him in his nomadic preaching ministry? Or anyone who followed his teachings about the coming kingdom of God? Did he mean to literally give away all your possessions, or is that hyperbole meaning just don’t be materialistic and be more generous to others? Different people have different takes on what it means to follow Jesus. Some think it is about implementing his teachings in your life. Others think it is all about what you believe about Jesus. It is an interesting exercise to come up with your own understanding of what it means to be a follower of Jesus.
The following of Jesus had a lot to do with his wide open observation to the dark leadership coming from their own religeous rulers. He was beckoning them to leave their trust in them behind and follow him, for his teachings were all about the truth and in the Heavenly Father, thus his offering to pray directly to God, via The Lord’s Prayer. I think you’ll find the passage in Luke 9; 57-62 coined (Sacrifice to follow Jesus), coincides with much of Mark’s writings. Secondly, those who cling hard to their wealth, are not apt to being brotherly to those who are in need of support. Third, the atmosphere in these strained times, left a lot of innocent ones with NO hope of forgiveness now, nor in the afterlife. They were left feeling like they were walking a living death. Even John’s Baptism was offering them forgiveness and a new light of hope.
Three excellent points to ponder, but I find it sad that the institution that arose from Jesus’ preaching (the church/organized religion) has muted his message on all three points, often stepping between the believer and God and creating a new hierarchy, encouraging materialism as long as the church gets its cut, and too often offering condemnation instead of forgiveness and help. But that’s just my warped perspective!
I agree. As much as it pains me to say it, religious institutions behave like most institutions – once they reach a certain size or tipping point, they become very focused on self preservation and self advancement, and become complacent and lazy, offering up (in the contemporary sense) a half baked, warped theology that seems obsessed with family values, homosexuality and abortion. There were no schools, orphanages, women’s refuges etc. before Christianity. There’s no doubt they started with a bang and were doing great things. But IMO, they lost that mission aspect far too quickly. Fixation with the right beliefs has been their biggest downfall IMO.
Thank you for a fascinating post. Having grown up in an Anglican/Catholic tradition which promotes family life, the passages you quote are often avoided in church services or, when they are ‘reluctantly’ read out, have to be explained away in excruciatingly complicated terms. Needless to say, few priests are prepared to view them in the apocalyptic context they we blog members tend to do. Furthermore, the Catholics dislike the Mark passage where Mary appears to have ‘forgotten’ her earlier visitation (albeit in Luke) by the Archangel Gabriel in which he tells her who her son actually is. Yes, a fascinating and thought provoking post.
Thanks for your feedback. I like to say that theology has two purposes: to explain things the Bible doesn’t say, and to explain away what it does say.
Your observation should not go unnoticed. Jesus’ goal was to spread an awareness to the insensitive rulings by their own leaders. They had such a grip on the plain folks, it was heart wrenching. Jesus had no intentions on building up a church dominance, just an awakening, to be able to SEE the truth, above an beyond what they’ve been sucked into believing. Their rulers were playing judge and jury, by their own definition, which was seriously lacking any compassion on their part. They were judging by visible signs that marked them as unsuitable for Heaven. Jesus was trying to break that control pattern, thus why he taught them to pray to God directly. However, as the church grew through the centuries, that gripping control of standing between the believers and God, gradually wiggled back in, much like it was in Christ’s time. And your observation of the church becoming a rich hierarchy, again as it was back then, I have to agree, is true. I believe Roman influence back in the third and forth centuries, had a hand in that.
I can see how cult leaders would easily twist these passages!
“Don’t we have the right to take a believing wife along with us, as do the other apostles and the Lord’s brothers and Cephas ? (1 Cor 9.5)
Was Jesus himself an exception in taking “a believing wife” ?
I don’t think so, the exception was Paul.
Paul had practical reason for his thoughts about marriage as he clearly stated in 1 Cor 7.34 :
“An unmarried woman is concerned about the Lord’s affairs: Her aim is to be devoted to the Lord in both BODY and spirit. But a married woman is concerned about the affairs of this world–how she can please her husband.”
“to be devoted to the Lord in BODY” means not only to stay virgin but to work for the cult ( and so for Paul, in the end all boils down to this)
Paul realizes he went too long and then corrects himself “I am saying this for your own good, not to restrict you”
Jesus’ “in the flesh” brothers not only had wifes (even when marriage was not included in the Kingdom of God ,something only Jesus and Paul knew! ) , they were part of the early “church”, a church led by James, one of Jesus “in the flesh” brothers.
The Historical Jesus had no problem at all with his own family , all the contrary, his jew religious revolutionary movement was based upon tight family links , James took control of the movement just as another James and his brother Simon followed the steps of his father , the rebel Judas of Gamala as stated by Josephus , they all were rebels like the Maccabees, another famous band of revolutionary jew brothers.
But cults (modern and ancient ones) DO have problems with families. Member cults are encouraged to leave their families to join the cult.
The Gospel Jesus reflects this , so we have Mark 3:33-35 , Matthew 10:34-3 and Luke 14:26, this is not Jesus but the gospel writers telling the cult members to cut all links with their families and using Jesus as a model.