Matthew 9:14-17
14 Then John’s disciples came and asked him, “How is it that we and the Pharisees fast often, but your disciples do not fast?”
15 Jesus answered, “How can the guests of the bridegroom mourn while he is with them? The time will come when the bridegroom will be taken from them; then they will fast.
16 “No one sews a patch of unshrunk cloth on an old garment, for the patch will pull away from the garment, making the tear worse. 17 Neither do people pour new wine into old wineskins. If they do, the skins will burst; the wine will run out and the wineskins will be ruined. No, they pour new wine into new wineskins, and both are preserved.”
http://www.voiceofonecrying.com/parables_of_jesus__part_2.htm says:
ReplyDeleteIt is further clear that both had compared themselves to Jesus’ disciples and had come to the inescapable conclusion that Jesus’ disciples were just not measuring up to the high standards of their religion. They had recognized the fact that Jesus and His disciples didn’t do the things they did to put their self-righteousness on public display. What we have to notice in this is that the disciples of John had apparently come under the influence of the Pharisee’s religious rules in the absence of John’s leadership. They had quickly forgotten the substance of John’s message of repentance and his rejection of religious self-righteousness.
Here, the disciples of John join the Pharisees in what amounts to a frivolous attempt to discredit Jesus. The implication is "we keep the rules and are therefore righteous, so why don’t You and Your disciples keep the rules?" Now I can understand the Pharisees saying this, but I’m disappointed the disciples of John allowed themselves to get caught up in it. This is a great illustration of what can happen to people who start out in a sincere quest to know God, but then get derailed by the pressures to join the religious crowd. Even John the Baptist, after Herod had put him in prison, began to have doubts about Jesus when reports of Jesus’ activities failed to meet his expectations.
And now would be an appropriate time to mention what Jesus means in Matthew 5:17 when He says, "Don’t think that I’ve come to do away with the Law or the Prophets, I’m not here to do away with them but to perform perfect obedience to them". The key words in this statement are kataluo, translated "destroy" in many translations, "do away with", above; and pleroo, usually translated "fulfill", but in this context means "to perform". If you follow the text in Matthew 5 Jesus continues His sermon pointing out in detail how the Pharisees had perverted the Law with their own rules that, in effect, had nullified the spiritual principles God had established. When you read the rest of this chapter, you find Jesus making the statement "You’ve heard it said…. but I say" six different times. What He’s really saying is "The Pharisees say…. but God says". Brought forward to our time, what He's saying is "religion teaches.... but the truth is".
What’s the point? Jesus makes it clear that He was here to demonstrate perfect obedience to God (something He had to do to qualify Himself as our sin-bearer when He went to the cross on our behalf), but was not bound in any way to the man-made, religious requirements the Pharisees had devised. And since they had their own ideas of what righteousness looked like, they couldn’t recognize true righteousness in Jesus. In the same way the religious crowd today wouldn’t recognize Jesus if He walked into one of their meetings. They would expect Him to be a man-pleaser with all the outward signs of religious self-righteousness, approving of everything they were doing and accepting everyone who was participating. I’m sure Jesus would be a huge disappointment to them.
http://www.voiceofonecrying.com/parables_of_jesus__part_2.htm continued:
ReplyDeleteAnd while I'm here, let me say that we should not be any more bound to religious requirements than Jesus was. He came to show us the way, so let's follow His example. And I guarantee you institutional, traditional Christianity does not represent God today any more than the Pharisee's Judaism did in Jesus' day. And those who fail to make the distinction are blind.
He compares His time with His disciples to a wedding feast. He’s the bridegroom and they are the guests. By doing this He puts the spotlight directly on the One they are trying to discredit, the One Who is breaking their precious rules. Then, with the parables that follow He tells them that in His presence, things had changed; their old rules didn’t apply, and in His Gospel of the Kingdom, there was something new.
This is the parable of the new cloth found in Matthew 9:16. This parable illustrates the incompatibility of the old with the new. And when Jesus uses the illustration of the unfinished cloth being used as a patch for an old garment, He’s implying that something new, yet unfinished, is not compatible with something old, which has been damaged or torn. The new, unfinished cloth is His message of the Kingdom; the old, torn garment is the present condition of Judaism. The New Covenant is not yet fully revealed, so it is not completely understood. The Old Covenant (the Law and the Prophets) has been damaged, torn and rendered useless by the religious whims of men, determined to follow their flesh, rejecting God’s righteousness and devising means to produce their own self-righteousness.
They could never repair the old, damaged garment by simply adding the new, unfinished cloth to it, the result would be something even more damaged than the original. So, were the disciples of John trying to repair the old torn garment (Judaism) by adding a patch of unfinished cloth, (John’s message of repentance and Jesus’ Good News of the kingdom) to the Pharisees self-righteous rituals? I believe they may have been.
At this point I need to backtrack and explain a couple of points. In the illustrative language of the parable Jesus describes His message of the Kingdom as unfinished. Why? We have to consider several things to answer this question. First, Jesus’ tells us that He was "sent only to the lost sheep of the house of Israel" (Matthew 10:5, 6, 15:22-28, 21:42, 43, John 1:11, 10:16). It would not be until after Jesus’ death and resurrection that an invitation to join in the promises of the Kingdom would be extended to the Gentiles.
The second has to do with the revelation of truth. In John 14:26 Jesus tells His disciples that after He was gone the Holy Spirit would come to "teach you all things and cause you to remember what I have told you already." Then later, in John 16:12, 13 He tells them "I have many things to tell you, but you’re not mature enough to bear them. However, when the Spirit of Truth has come, He will guide you into all the truth. He will not speak His own message, but only what He hears from the Father and will do it in the Father’s timing."
http://www.voiceofonecrying.com/parables_of_jesus__part_2.htm continued:
ReplyDeleteJesus here acknowledges that His Good News concerning the Kingdom was not a complete revelation; there was more to come. The rest of it wouldn’t be revealed until after He was gone. Then, as they were able to understand it, it would be unfolded bit by bit to the Apostles through the ministry of the Holy Spirit. Paul explains this principle in I Corinthians 2:12, 13 when he tells us how he came to understand the message he was to preach to the Gentiles. He said it was "what the Holy Ghost taught, adding one spiritual principle upon another". It took Paul approximately 17 years to come to a point where he was confident of this message (read Galatians 1:11-2:2 and notice 1:18 and 2:1).
I point this out simply to remind you that up to the time Jesus came into the world, God had always had an authorized representative structure through which He could relate to His people, whether it was the family priest, the Old Testament priesthood or the prophet, even though, for the most part, that representative structure had come to rely on man-made religion instead of the leadership of the Holy Spirit. Of course, this is a situation that persists to this day. And please, don’t write to me accusing me of saying God’s revelation can only come to the select, "anointed" few. I didn’t say that. Revelation comes to any who seek it (James 1:5). The trouble is many are too lazy or distracted to seek it and not willing to invest the time and effort required, so, mercifully, God stands ready to speak to them through a representative if they're smart enough to listen.
Now, to put this all together, the reality was that Jesus’ message was incomplete (it didn’t include the Gentiles or a revelation of the true church and how it was to function); He promised it would be completed after He was gone by revelation to the Apostles through the ministry of the Holy Spirit; and though God had always had an authorized representative structure, until the Apostles received the revelation for it, there was no representative structure that could relate to the Gentiles. The Old Testament priesthood would have nothing to do with them. And it wouldn’t have helped them anyway, because as Jesus illustrates in this parable (remember, we’re actually talking about the parable of the new, unfinished cloth), the old and the new was incompatible.
(there's more to read. There's a lot of points that I couldn't cover here)
My 2 cents:
ReplyDeleteThis passage is about how you will break God's New Testament intention for us by applying Old Testament rules to it. But, more generally, it is about our desire to reduce the goodness that God has for us down to religious ritual.
In this case, John's disciples are doing this for fasting. But I believe that we can apply this principle to all (what we call) spiritual disciplines.
I believe that it is possible to practice all spiritual disciplines (like the Pharisees did) and be further from God than someone who never practices them. Our focus needs to be loving God and loving His work. All spiritual disciplines needs to flow out of that.
We should never have the attitude that "I should pray/read/fast". We should have the attitude, "I need to focus on God whom I love. What would be a good way to do that right now?"
Yes, of course a person who loves God will be "doing" spiritual disciplines a lot. But the reason they are doing them must not be to fulfill a "duty", like the pharisees. Doing spiritual disciplines for the wrong reasons is worse than not doing them at all. Doing spiritual disciplines because we want to learn about, spend time with or get closer to the One we love is vital to our relationship to the One we love.
And that is the reason I never liked the words "spiritual disciplines". I propose that we rename it "spiritual responses". Otherwise, all we accomplish is to become better Pharisees.
(Please respond to this. I think what I'm putting forward is pretty controversial, and I need feedback on this to solidify this concept (or reject it)).
Much of what you say I agree with but we are also very close to a nasty edge. We have to be careful with our language or we sound like we are promoting the cultural idea - "If it doesn’t feel good, don't do it".
DeleteI don’t think obedience always feels good. Sometimes I truly don’t want to do the right thing whether that’s helping my neighbor, showing grace to my spouse, or doing a spiritual discipline. Its typically a sign of my own self-centeredness but as a sinful being I don’t see that ever completely disappearing in this life.
And to say that doing spiritual discipline for the wrong reason is worse than not doing them at all seems to go too far. Perhaps but are my reasons ever completely pure? How much impurity does it take to spoil the whole batch?
I agree that spiritual disciplines in themselves never make us righteous and we are not given salvation because of them. But they mold and make us and prepare us for better work and more utility in God’s kingdom.
Regarding the Pharisees, Jesus doesn’t condemn them for obeying the law. In Mt 23:23 Jesus says the law is important and they should follow it. Its that they didn’t follow the most important matters of the law and perverted much of what they did follow which brought Jesus’ condemnation. Jesus says they have made the law about themselves (Mt 23) and that brings Jesus’ extremely harsh rebuke. But saying that we should do or not do a spiritual discipline based on our own feelings seems to be another way of making it about ourselves and not about God.
Again, I am not saying this is what you are promoting but the language can easily be misinterpreted.
I think what I was trying to say is that we need to pay attention to where our hearts are at when we notice that our actions aren't there. And, we need to pay attention just as closely when are actions are there.
DeleteNotice that none of the spiritual disciplines are part of the fruit of the Spirit. Yet, sometimes I think Christians elevate them to that status.
Spiritual disciplines are nothing more than a tool. Tools can be used to glorify God or glorify ourselves (a perversion). Buddhists follow their version of spiritual disciplines. But listen to their motivation - it's self-centered. We Christians fall into the same trap when it comes to spiritual disciplines - and pervert them.
Our motivations will never be perfect. We commit perversions every day. But nothing is so dangerous as perversions that we justify as glorifying God. It is the worst thing about "religion". When we sink deep enough, we go across land and sea to make one convert - and then make him into twice the son of hell that we are.
Yet, we fall into this trap all the time. Von has a good counter-point about waiting until our motivations are perfect before we engage with God. We need to humbly come before Jesus and engage with Him no matter what we feel. But we do need to come before Him humbly and not fool ourselves.