September 13, 2019 • 21 mins
- A huge thanks to Joseph McDade for his generous permission to use his music: https://josephmcdade.com/
- Discord Discussion Board: https://disboard.org/server/474580298630430751
- The Politics of Jesus: https://www.amazon.com/Politics-Jesus-John-Howard-Yoder/dp/0802807348/ref=sr_1_2?keywords=the+politics+of+Jesus&qid=1566062176&s=gateway&sr=8-2
- Derek’s summary of the “Politics of Jesus”: https://www.dckreider.com/blog-theological-musings/the-politics-of-jesus
- The Upside Down Kingdom: https://www.amazon.com/Upside-Down-Kingdom-Updated-Donald-Kraybill/dp/0836195132/ref=sr_1_3?keywords=The+Upside+Down+Kingdom&qid=1566062209&s=gateway&sr=8-3
- Phillip Mast
- Laverne Miller
- Jesse Killion
Mark as Played
Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Derek (00:05):
Welcome back to the Fourth Way podcast. We are
continuing our discussion onrebuttals to non violence, and
how our position deals withthat. This episode is going to
focus on one of the most commonobjections to Christian
nonviolence. The basic objectionis that Christ's life was lived
in a specific way in order tofulfill His messianic role, and
(00:29):
it doesn't really apply to ustoday. How Jesus acted and some
of the things he said werereally just for him because he
had to be our Messiah.
Now whether or not you actuallywould say this outright, I find
that it happens to be somethingthat most of us really believe.
We just don't really acknowledgeit. And this was actually one of
(00:52):
the things that had kept me fromChristian nonviolence, as well
as a lot of other teachings ofChrist, because it's this view
that he's a messianic figurethat allows me to take some of
the things he says as metaphoror as things that don't really
apply to me, particularlyMatthew 5 through 7, Sermon on
the Mount types of stuff. Youknow, those hard teachings
(01:13):
where, well, that's somethingthat the Messiah can say and do,
but that's not really what Hemeans for me in the real world
where that just wouldn't workout. So, in order to address
this, I am largely going to useJohn Howard Yoder's book as a
framework, his his famous book,The Politics of Jesus.
I will link a resource in thedescription, but I will also
(01:35):
link you a resource to mysummary of of Yoder's book, if
you find a synopsis of of iteasier than picking up a whole
book and reading it. But eitherway, even if you choose to read
my summary first, I highlyrecommend Yoder's full work.
Extremely quotable andinsightful, and just very
(01:56):
helpful at uncovering a lot ofthose presuppositions we talked
about in the first episode.Before I begin with Yoder's
rebuttal, I do want to readPhilippians 2, because I think
that's something that we referto pretty frequently throughout
the episodes, and it's gonna bevery important here, and I'll
refer back to it over and over.So let me just read Philippians
(02:16):
2, the the first portion.
So if there is any encouragementin Christ, any comfort from
love, any participation in thespirit, any affection and
sympathy, complete my joy bybeing of the same mind, having
the same love, being in fullaccord and of one mind. Do
nothing from selfish ambition orconceit, but in humility, count
(02:36):
others more significant thanyourselves. Let each of you look
not only to his own interests,but also to the interests of
others. Have his mind amongyours. This mind among
yourselves, which is yours inChrist Jesus, who though he was
in the form of God, did notcount equality with God a thing
to be grasped, but emptiedhimself by taking the form of a
servant.
(02:57):
Being born in the likeness ofmen and being found in human
form, He humbled Himself bybecoming obedient to the point
of death, even death on a cross.Therefore, God has highly
exalted Him and bestowed on Himthe name that is above every
name so that at the name ofJesus, every knee should bow, in
heaven and on earth and underthe earth, and every tongue
confess that Jesus Christ isLord, to the glory of God the
(03:19):
father. So Philippians 2 isgoing to be particularly
important because Paul isessentially telling believers
that you need to act aparticular way towards others,
and you need to have aparticular mindset that is
others focused. And, the reasonthat we should do this is
because our savior did the samething. And, the particular
(03:41):
things that that Philippiansshows us is that Jesus gave up
His sovereign control of thingsand submitted to the Father's
will, and, He he didn't hewasn't concerned with being
pragmatic, but he submitted evento a foolish death, even to a
suffering death.
He came to earth, he left heavenand came to earth for us, and he
(04:05):
did it, in the humblest ofcircumstances. And He was always
focused on God, and He wasfocused on others. And in this
regard, we are to be likeChrist, and we are to take our
encouragement to be othersfocused by the example of
Christ. And that's the backboneof the example that Christ, that
Paul gives here. Christ is ourexample for how to live.
(04:27):
So the main thing Yoder seems tohone in on is this idea of,
Christ not grasping at Hisdivinity or or equality with
God. And that's not to say thatChrist lost His divinity or was
not always God, but it's to saythat that Christ laid down His
right to choose to be sovereignand control everything. And
(04:51):
Yoder shows us this in thetemptation of Christ. And this
is where Yoder really beginshis, expounding in the book, The
Politics of Jesus. So Yedderstarts with Satan's temptation
in the desert, and Satan temptsJesus with three things.
Tempts Him to turn stones intobread, tempts Him to jump from
(05:13):
the temple, and he tempts him tobow to Satan so that Satan would
give him control of the nations.Now, in my mind, all of these
things had been sort ofarbitrary, except for maybe the
bread. Right? The bread is kindof like, well, Jesus is hungry.
But Yoder really goes to showthat turning all of the stones
in the desert, which that's whatSatan sat Satan kind of says.
(05:35):
He's he's talking about amultitude of stones being turned
to bread. He's not just saying,hey, make a loaf of bread for
yourself. It's this idea ofturning this barren wasteland
into into bread. And, Yoderpoints out that that this is the
economic temptation, Jesus. It'sthe temptation to control the
masses through feeding theirbellies.
(05:58):
And, when I first heard that, Iwas like, well, that's that's
kind of weird. But, what'sreally interesting is that you
see, the I think in John inparticular, you see one of the
very first things that happensafter the, the temptation in the
desert is eventually when Jesuscomes to some crowds and He
feeds them, all of a sudden,what do they wanna do? They want
(06:21):
to crown Him king. And what'sChrist's response? He escapes by
boat.
He runs from them so they theycan't crown him king, because he
had fed them. He had satiatedthem, and they said, yeah, we
want more of that. Give us whatyou just gave us. Keep doing
that. The second temptation fromSatan is to jump off of the the
(06:42):
temple and have some angels savehim, though to kind of show this
miraculous sign.
Now, Yoder goes in and and talksabout what this might
specifically mean, doing it at aparticular location and, in a
particular way. But, certainly,there is there is something
different about this temptation,because Jesus was willing to do
a lot of signs and miracles forpeople. So, you know, if He's
(07:06):
willing to heal and raise peoplefrom the dead and all that
stuff, what's jumping from fromthe top of the temple? Like,
that's what it's gonna take tohave people believe if you're
raising people from the dead.Why not just do that?
The Yoder talks about how thisis a a specific temptation and
an example of, it's not just amiracle that Christ would do,
like raising somebody from thedead, but it's a miracle
(07:29):
associated with a particularpower, a particular institution.
That institution would be thereligious institution. So
whereas the bread was a means tocontrol people and garner power
economically through people'sdesires, through their their
physical needs. The templetemptation was proclaiming Jesus
(07:59):
as king? Well, it's whenproclaiming Jesus as King?
Well, it's when He He comes intoJerusalem and they proclaim
Hosanna. And so, you've got thismultitude of people as He goes
into the temple, and He sets upshop in the temple and starts
teaching. And what'sparticularly interesting is that
Jesus kind of does the samething that He does with the with
(08:21):
the economic temptation. When,when people wanted to crown Him
as king, He ran away. He escapedby boat.
Well, what does Jesus do when Hesets up shop in the temple after
everybody is proclaimed himking? That's when he has the
discussion about the temple andhow wonderful and magnificent it
is, and Jesus says, yeah, it'sgonna get destroyed. Right? And
(08:43):
there's not gonna be one stoneleft on top of another. And so
He ticks some people off.
He's like, no. I'm not here toset up shop permanently. This
this institution, it's not thepower. That's not where power
lies. And so, with Satan, hedenies the temptation of bread,
turning the stones into bread.
He denies the temptation to jumpfrom the temple. And then we see
(09:05):
that played out literally wheretwice, through those those very
means, people want to crownJesus king and Jesus refuses.
3rd way, the third temptation,is for, Jesus to bow to Satan,
and Satan will give the nationsinto the control of Jesus. Now
(09:25):
this one is is clearly a anattempt to get Jesus to grasp at
power. And once again, Jesusrefuses.
And in the gospels, we see thisplay out as the last temptation
that Christ faces, and probablythe the most difficult
temptation. This is Garden ofGethsemane, sweating blood. He's
(09:48):
about to confront the Jewishpowers and and the Roman powers,
and so he goes before Pilate,and, and he just kind of refuses
to answer a lot, and he says, mykingdom's not of this world. I,
if if it were, my people wouldfight. And in Luke specifically,
it tells us that Jesus, youknow, could have called legions
(10:12):
of angels, but He refused.
And what did they do? But theyput a a plaque above His His
cross that said, King of theJews. So, as a recap, you've got
this economic temptation, andJesus makes lots of bread.
People wanna crown him king.It's Satan's first temptation
played out, and Jesus escapes byboat.
(10:32):
You We got the 2nd temptation tojump from the temple. Jesus
doesn't give in to Satan, butthen we see this play out as
Jesus, sets up shop in thetemple, as people are are,
proclaiming kingly things aboutHim, and He says, nope. Not
gonna happen that way. Temple'sgonna be destroyed. So that's
(10:52):
not the power.
And the final time is when Hecomes up against the political
powers, and Jesus says, mykingdom is not of this world.
That's not how power comes. Andhe lays down his life while they
mock him as king of the Jews. Sotime and time again, we see that
Jesus refused the powers ofauthoritative manipulation.
Jesus is the king, but his ruleis not like the world's rule.
(11:15):
And as Yoder explained that, itclicked so much for me the first
time. Because, you know, I hadalways wondered, when I read
Hebrews and I I read that Jesuswas tempted in all ways that we
were, I thought, well, that'sthat's really nice that the
author of Hebrews could saythat. Maybe he knew Jesus
personally and knew some thingsI didn't. Maybe he was his
(11:36):
accountability partner orsomething. And, but the the
scriptures never show Jesus'struggle with anything, really.
I mean, Jesus doesn't seem tostruggle with lust. He doesn't
seem to struggle with lying. Hedoes he just doesn't struggle
with anything. So how can yousay that he's tempted like we
are? But what Yoder does is heshows us that that the
(11:59):
temptation isn't these, thetemptation of Christ that we see
over and over and over and overagain.
It's not this one off temptationof something like, like, lust in
the moment, but it's thistemptation that we all face each
and every day, in almost everymoment of our day, which is, do
we grasp a power in our own way,or do we seek to use the means
(12:22):
of God, submit to His will inall things? And that's what we
see Jesus struggle with. It'sthis ultimate, core, human
struggle. We see that in thetemptations of Satan and then in
the subsequent temptationsplayed out, which we just
talked, in-depth about. We seeit when Peter tells Jesus that
(12:42):
He's not gonna suffer.
Jesus knows that's what God hasfor him to do. That is the means
of God. It is not to assertdominance and to take power
through angels. And Peter says,you're not gonna suffer. Jesus
says, get behind me, Satan.
Right? He he calls Peter Satanfor telling him he's not going
to suffer. That certainly seemsto indicate this was a pretty
(13:04):
big temptation for Jesus, to notchoose suffering and to choose
and to choose dominance andauthoritative power. There's a
time when a couple of Christ'sdisciples asked Him to call down
fire upon a city for rejectingHim, and He said, you don't know
what spirit you're of. Right?
You're of the spirit of thedevil. And in the Old Testament,
(13:27):
I mean, they were doing thatkind of stuff where they would
yep. There's one where, like,Elijah or Elisha, I forget who,
but, you know, they had somebears come in and, like, maul a
bunch of kids, because theycalled them bald. And so,
calling down fire from fromheaven upon the city who rejects
the true Messiah seems like apretty good thing to do. But
(13:47):
Jesus says, no, that's not howmy kingdom comes.
That's that's not what we do.That's of the devil. We see when
Peter wields the sword to try toprotect Jesus from having to
suffer, when he puts his moneywhere his mouth is, back when he
told Jesus he's not gonna lethim suffer. Jesus says, Peter,
put it away. We don't do thingswith the sword.
(14:08):
That's not how my kingdom comes.Jesus begs for the father to
take the cup of suffering fromhim, to prevent him from going
to the cross. He begs Him. He isin so much anguish that He
actually sweats drops of blood.You can't tell me that that's
not a temptation for Jesus, towalk away at that moment, or to
call those legions of angels.
Time and time and time again, wesee Jesus Christ struggle with
(14:34):
this idea of seeking control andseeking power and refusing to
submit to the means of God,which is suffering and cross.
Bullishness just doesn't makeany sense. Yet, Jesus submitted,
as Philippians 2 shows us. And,as Philippians 2 shows us, we're
to do the same. And, as Jesussays, we are supposed to take up
(14:55):
our crosses and bear them.
We are to expect suffering. Inthese ways, we are to be like
Christ. And so what what a lotof people get wrong is that they
they do correctly identifyChrist as the Messiah, but a lot
of people get wrong the aspectsof his life we are supposed to
imitate. And Yoder really harpson, like, the monastics. And he
(15:19):
says, look.
Now Jesus was itinerant. Hedidn't really have a home. Does
that mean that we are to mimichim in that way? No. I mean,
Jesus had a beard.
Are we supposed to have beards?No. We can take aspects of
Christ's life that are notintended to be prescriptive. We
can take these descriptionsabout the way Christ did things
(15:41):
and try to apply those. And, weget something like monasticism a
lot of times, where we weoverreach.
But, this idea of cross andsuffering, that's not an
overreaching. That's the waythat the Bible says that we are
conformed to the image ofChrist. And that's what
Philippians says is supposed tobe our model for putting others
first. Christ's beard might notbe prescriptive, but when he
(16:03):
talks about loving your enemies,Matthew, when that's his
teaching, not just the way thathe lived his life, but also the
thing that he taught, yeah,that's prescriptive. The
attitudes that Jesus had in hislife, and specifically his
attitudes towards other people,those are prescriptive.
He showed us what it was like tobe truly human. He's the second
(16:23):
Adam, who is the most humanexample that we have. He lived
the lives that we couldn't, andhe imputes that righteousness to
us, which means that that weshould live the same way. Ross
is something that each and everyChristian should expect to bear,
because it's not something thatis specifically messianic.
(16:44):
Something that is specificallyhuman in a fallen world.
Christ did not just all of asudden wake up one day and have
Rome execute him. It's not whathappened. They executed him
because of the way he had livedhis life for 3 years, 3 years in
his ministry, and who knows howlong before that. They executed
him because the way that helived was a threat. The way that
(17:07):
he broke down social barriers,The way that he, was trying to
get them to, to get the Jews tolove Romans and Samaritans.
That's just crazy. The way thathe, didn't feed the arrogance of
the religious institution. Theway that he didn't bow or really
cater to the the Roman politicalmachine. I mean, these are the
(17:29):
things that that got Christkilled. In our world, it's gonna
be the same thing.
When you don't align with thepolitical party that your your
community is telling you youhave to vote for, or else we're
all doomed. You're gonna getbacklash not from not from
enemies, not from atheists.You're gonna get crucified by
(17:51):
your own group. If you're awealthy individual, you start to
associate with people in adifferent social class. You're
gonna get crucified, not by thepoor people that you're trying
to help, necessarily, butprobably by the people in your
own group who are going to shunyou and not really want to be a
part of part of you.
They don't wanna be associatedwith you if you're gonna be
(18:12):
associated with riffraff. Yoderdoes a a great job of showing
that the cross is not just someobscure messianic thing that
just so happened to Jesus andand only happens to Jesus. But
the cross is something that'sprescribed and prescribed and
prophesied for believers, thatthis is going to happen to us,
this should happen to us.Because the way that we live our
(18:35):
lives should be like the way thesecond Adam, the true human,
lived his life. And we're nottalking about insurrection here.
We're not that's not what Jesusdid. He wasn't an
insurrectionist. We're also nottalking about quietism, where
you just kind of go off and doyour own thing. We're talking
about just this faithful livingin the world, but completely not
(18:55):
of the world. Doing things justjust so radically different and
in line with with the way Christlived his life, that it I mean,
it's going to turn heads andmake enemies.
So, in summary, the life Christlived, which led to the cross,
was a life lived in perfecthumanity, and in in perfect
(19:16):
harmony and faith in God. And,the end of the cross and
suffering is prescribed andprophesied for us. We are to be
conformed to the image ofChrist, which seems to imply
that we will undergo similarprocesses and results. We should
expect the same thing that ourour savior, the servant is not
greater than his master. As youas you really think through
(19:39):
through this particular issue,it's easy to think that Christ's
role was only Messianic, andthat his example doesn't apply
to us.
I would really encourage you toread Philippians 2. Give it a
good look. Look at Christ'slife. Look at his teachings.
Look at his commands.
Think about what he callsbelievers too. We're not just
talking about following hisexample, though I think
(20:01):
Philippians 2 and other passagesshould be sufficient to show you
that, now, his example is whatwe are to follow. But even
beyond that, we talked inepisode 2 about the biblical
case and the teachings of Christand the apostles, as well as,
the early church and what theywere doing in terms of living
out their lives. And I thinkit's it's very clear that in
(20:25):
this specific way, we are tolive like Christ because it's
the human way, it's not themessianic way in particular.
Hopefully, that makes sense andclears some things up for you.
If not, I strongly recommendtaking a look at Yoder's book,
The Politics of Jesus. And, I'llalso put another link down, to a
book that I think is goodcalled, The Upside Down Kingdom.
(20:49):
And it's maybe not quite asclear on this issue. It kind of
runs into some other otherideas, but I think you'll find
it helpful as well. Anyway,that's all for now.
So peace, because I'm apacifist, and I say it.
Welcome back to the Fourth Way podcast. We are
continuing our discussion onrebuttals to non violence, and
how our position deals withthat. This episode is going to
focus on one of the most commonobjections to Christian
nonviolence. The basic objectionis that Christ's life was lived
in a specific way in order tofulfill His messianic role, and
(00:29):
it doesn't really apply to ustoday. How Jesus acted and some
of the things he said werereally just for him because he
had to be our Messiah.
Now whether or not you actuallywould say this outright, I find
that it happens to be somethingthat most of us really believe.
We just don't really acknowledgeit. And this was actually one of
(00:52):
the things that had kept me fromChristian nonviolence, as well
as a lot of other teachings ofChrist, because it's this view
that he's a messianic figurethat allows me to take some of
the things he says as metaphoror as things that don't really
apply to me, particularlyMatthew 5 through 7, Sermon on
the Mount types of stuff. Youknow, those hard teachings
(01:13):
where, well, that's somethingthat the Messiah can say and do,
but that's not really what Hemeans for me in the real world
where that just wouldn't workout. So, in order to address
this, I am largely going to useJohn Howard Yoder's book as a
framework, his his famous book,The Politics of Jesus.
I will link a resource in thedescription, but I will also
(01:35):
link you a resource to mysummary of of Yoder's book, if
you find a synopsis of of iteasier than picking up a whole
book and reading it. But eitherway, even if you choose to read
my summary first, I highlyrecommend Yoder's full work.
Extremely quotable andinsightful, and just very
(01:56):
helpful at uncovering a lot ofthose presuppositions we talked
about in the first episode.Before I begin with Yoder's
rebuttal, I do want to readPhilippians 2, because I think
that's something that we referto pretty frequently throughout
the episodes, and it's gonna bevery important here, and I'll
refer back to it over and over.So let me just read Philippians
(02:16):
2, the the first portion.
So if there is any encouragementin Christ, any comfort from
love, any participation in thespirit, any affection and
sympathy, complete my joy bybeing of the same mind, having
the same love, being in fullaccord and of one mind. Do
nothing from selfish ambition orconceit, but in humility, count
(02:36):
others more significant thanyourselves. Let each of you look
not only to his own interests,but also to the interests of
others. Have his mind amongyours. This mind among
yourselves, which is yours inChrist Jesus, who though he was
in the form of God, did notcount equality with God a thing
to be grasped, but emptiedhimself by taking the form of a
servant.
(02:57):
Being born in the likeness ofmen and being found in human
form, He humbled Himself bybecoming obedient to the point
of death, even death on a cross.Therefore, God has highly
exalted Him and bestowed on Himthe name that is above every
name so that at the name ofJesus, every knee should bow, in
heaven and on earth and underthe earth, and every tongue
confess that Jesus Christ isLord, to the glory of God the
(03:19):
father. So Philippians 2 isgoing to be particularly
important because Paul isessentially telling believers
that you need to act aparticular way towards others,
and you need to have aparticular mindset that is
others focused. And, the reasonthat we should do this is
because our savior did the samething. And, the particular
(03:41):
things that that Philippiansshows us is that Jesus gave up
His sovereign control of thingsand submitted to the Father's
will, and, He he didn't hewasn't concerned with being
pragmatic, but he submitted evento a foolish death, even to a
suffering death.
He came to earth, he left heavenand came to earth for us, and he
(04:05):
did it, in the humblest ofcircumstances. And He was always
focused on God, and He wasfocused on others. And in this
regard, we are to be likeChrist, and we are to take our
encouragement to be othersfocused by the example of
Christ. And that's the backboneof the example that Christ, that
Paul gives here. Christ is ourexample for how to live.
(04:27):
So the main thing Yoder seems tohone in on is this idea of,
Christ not grasping at Hisdivinity or or equality with
God. And that's not to say thatChrist lost His divinity or was
not always God, but it's to saythat that Christ laid down His
right to choose to be sovereignand control everything. And
(04:51):
Yoder shows us this in thetemptation of Christ. And this
is where Yoder really beginshis, expounding in the book, The
Politics of Jesus. So Yedderstarts with Satan's temptation
in the desert, and Satan temptsJesus with three things.
Tempts Him to turn stones intobread, tempts Him to jump from
(05:13):
the temple, and he tempts him tobow to Satan so that Satan would
give him control of the nations.Now, in my mind, all of these
things had been sort ofarbitrary, except for maybe the
bread. Right? The bread is kindof like, well, Jesus is hungry.
But Yoder really goes to showthat turning all of the stones
in the desert, which that's whatSatan sat Satan kind of says.
(05:35):
He's he's talking about amultitude of stones being turned
to bread. He's not just saying,hey, make a loaf of bread for
yourself. It's this idea ofturning this barren wasteland
into into bread. And, Yoderpoints out that that this is the
economic temptation, Jesus. It'sthe temptation to control the
masses through feeding theirbellies.
(05:58):
And, when I first heard that, Iwas like, well, that's that's
kind of weird. But, what'sreally interesting is that you
see, the I think in John inparticular, you see one of the
very first things that happensafter the, the temptation in the
desert is eventually when Jesuscomes to some crowds and He
feeds them, all of a sudden,what do they wanna do? They want
(06:21):
to crown Him king. And what'sChrist's response? He escapes by
boat.
He runs from them so they theycan't crown him king, because he
had fed them. He had satiatedthem, and they said, yeah, we
want more of that. Give us whatyou just gave us. Keep doing
that. The second temptation fromSatan is to jump off of the the
(06:42):
temple and have some angels savehim, though to kind of show this
miraculous sign.
Now, Yoder goes in and and talksabout what this might
specifically mean, doing it at aparticular location and, in a
particular way. But, certainly,there is there is something
different about this temptation,because Jesus was willing to do
a lot of signs and miracles forpeople. So, you know, if He's
(07:06):
willing to heal and raise peoplefrom the dead and all that
stuff, what's jumping from fromthe top of the temple? Like,
that's what it's gonna take tohave people believe if you're
raising people from the dead.Why not just do that?
The Yoder talks about how thisis a a specific temptation and
an example of, it's not just amiracle that Christ would do,
like raising somebody from thedead, but it's a miracle
(07:29):
associated with a particularpower, a particular institution.
That institution would be thereligious institution. So
whereas the bread was a means tocontrol people and garner power
economically through people'sdesires, through their their
physical needs. The templetemptation was proclaiming Jesus
(07:59):
as king? Well, it's whenproclaiming Jesus as King?
Well, it's when He He comes intoJerusalem and they proclaim
Hosanna. And so, you've got thismultitude of people as He goes
into the temple, and He sets upshop in the temple and starts
teaching. And what'sparticularly interesting is that
Jesus kind of does the samething that He does with the with
(08:21):
the economic temptation. When,when people wanted to crown Him
as king, He ran away. He escapedby boat.
Well, what does Jesus do when Hesets up shop in the temple after
everybody is proclaimed himking? That's when he has the
discussion about the temple andhow wonderful and magnificent it
is, and Jesus says, yeah, it'sgonna get destroyed. Right? And
(08:43):
there's not gonna be one stoneleft on top of another. And so
He ticks some people off.
He's like, no. I'm not here toset up shop permanently. This
this institution, it's not thepower. That's not where power
lies. And so, with Satan, hedenies the temptation of bread,
turning the stones into bread.
He denies the temptation to jumpfrom the temple. And then we see
(09:05):
that played out literally wheretwice, through those those very
means, people want to crownJesus king and Jesus refuses.
3rd way, the third temptation,is for, Jesus to bow to Satan,
and Satan will give the nationsinto the control of Jesus. Now
(09:25):
this one is is clearly a anattempt to get Jesus to grasp at
power. And once again, Jesusrefuses.
And in the gospels, we see thisplay out as the last temptation
that Christ faces, and probablythe the most difficult
temptation. This is Garden ofGethsemane, sweating blood. He's
(09:48):
about to confront the Jewishpowers and and the Roman powers,
and so he goes before Pilate,and, and he just kind of refuses
to answer a lot, and he says, mykingdom's not of this world. I,
if if it were, my people wouldfight. And in Luke specifically,
it tells us that Jesus, youknow, could have called legions
(10:12):
of angels, but He refused.
And what did they do? But theyput a a plaque above His His
cross that said, King of theJews. So, as a recap, you've got
this economic temptation, andJesus makes lots of bread.
People wanna crown him king.It's Satan's first temptation
played out, and Jesus escapes byboat.
(10:32):
You We got the 2nd temptation tojump from the temple. Jesus
doesn't give in to Satan, butthen we see this play out as
Jesus, sets up shop in thetemple, as people are are,
proclaiming kingly things aboutHim, and He says, nope. Not
gonna happen that way. Temple'sgonna be destroyed. So that's
(10:52):
not the power.
And the final time is when Hecomes up against the political
powers, and Jesus says, mykingdom is not of this world.
That's not how power comes. Andhe lays down his life while they
mock him as king of the Jews. Sotime and time again, we see that
Jesus refused the powers ofauthoritative manipulation.
Jesus is the king, but his ruleis not like the world's rule.
(11:15):
And as Yoder explained that, itclicked so much for me the first
time. Because, you know, I hadalways wondered, when I read
Hebrews and I I read that Jesuswas tempted in all ways that we
were, I thought, well, that'sthat's really nice that the
author of Hebrews could saythat. Maybe he knew Jesus
personally and knew some thingsI didn't. Maybe he was his
(11:36):
accountability partner orsomething. And, but the the
scriptures never show Jesus'struggle with anything, really.
I mean, Jesus doesn't seem tostruggle with lust. He doesn't
seem to struggle with lying. Hedoes he just doesn't struggle
with anything. So how can yousay that he's tempted like we
are? But what Yoder does is heshows us that that the
(11:59):
temptation isn't these, thetemptation of Christ that we see
over and over and over and overagain.
It's not this one off temptationof something like, like, lust in
the moment, but it's thistemptation that we all face each
and every day, in almost everymoment of our day, which is, do
we grasp a power in our own way,or do we seek to use the means
(12:22):
of God, submit to His will inall things? And that's what we
see Jesus struggle with. It'sthis ultimate, core, human
struggle. We see that in thetemptations of Satan and then in
the subsequent temptationsplayed out, which we just
talked, in-depth about. We seeit when Peter tells Jesus that
(12:42):
He's not gonna suffer.
Jesus knows that's what God hasfor him to do. That is the means
of God. It is not to assertdominance and to take power
through angels. And Peter says,you're not gonna suffer. Jesus
says, get behind me, Satan.
Right? He he calls Peter Satanfor telling him he's not going
to suffer. That certainly seemsto indicate this was a pretty
(13:04):
big temptation for Jesus, to notchoose suffering and to choose
and to choose dominance andauthoritative power. There's a
time when a couple of Christ'sdisciples asked Him to call down
fire upon a city for rejectingHim, and He said, you don't know
what spirit you're of. Right?
You're of the spirit of thedevil. And in the Old Testament,
(13:27):
I mean, they were doing thatkind of stuff where they would
yep. There's one where, like,Elijah or Elisha, I forget who,
but, you know, they had somebears come in and, like, maul a
bunch of kids, because theycalled them bald. And so,
calling down fire from fromheaven upon the city who rejects
the true Messiah seems like apretty good thing to do. But
(13:47):
Jesus says, no, that's not howmy kingdom comes.
That's that's not what we do.That's of the devil. We see when
Peter wields the sword to try toprotect Jesus from having to
suffer, when he puts his moneywhere his mouth is, back when he
told Jesus he's not gonna lethim suffer. Jesus says, Peter,
put it away. We don't do thingswith the sword.
(14:08):
That's not how my kingdom comes.Jesus begs for the father to
take the cup of suffering fromhim, to prevent him from going
to the cross. He begs Him. He isin so much anguish that He
actually sweats drops of blood.You can't tell me that that's
not a temptation for Jesus, towalk away at that moment, or to
call those legions of angels.
Time and time and time again, wesee Jesus Christ struggle with
(14:34):
this idea of seeking control andseeking power and refusing to
submit to the means of God,which is suffering and cross.
Bullishness just doesn't makeany sense. Yet, Jesus submitted,
as Philippians 2 shows us. And,as Philippians 2 shows us, we're
to do the same. And, as Jesussays, we are supposed to take up
(14:55):
our crosses and bear them.
We are to expect suffering. Inthese ways, we are to be like
Christ. And so what what a lotof people get wrong is that they
they do correctly identifyChrist as the Messiah, but a lot
of people get wrong the aspectsof his life we are supposed to
imitate. And Yoder really harpson, like, the monastics. And he
(15:19):
says, look.
Now Jesus was itinerant. Hedidn't really have a home. Does
that mean that we are to mimichim in that way? No. I mean,
Jesus had a beard.
Are we supposed to have beards?No. We can take aspects of
Christ's life that are notintended to be prescriptive. We
can take these descriptionsabout the way Christ did things
(15:41):
and try to apply those. And, weget something like monasticism a
lot of times, where we weoverreach.
But, this idea of cross andsuffering, that's not an
overreaching. That's the waythat the Bible says that we are
conformed to the image ofChrist. And that's what
Philippians says is supposed tobe our model for putting others
first. Christ's beard might notbe prescriptive, but when he
(16:03):
talks about loving your enemies,Matthew, when that's his
teaching, not just the way thathe lived his life, but also the
thing that he taught, yeah,that's prescriptive. The
attitudes that Jesus had in hislife, and specifically his
attitudes towards other people,those are prescriptive.
He showed us what it was like tobe truly human. He's the second
(16:23):
Adam, who is the most humanexample that we have. He lived
the lives that we couldn't, andhe imputes that righteousness to
us, which means that that weshould live the same way. Ross
is something that each and everyChristian should expect to bear,
because it's not something thatis specifically messianic.
(16:44):
Something that is specificallyhuman in a fallen world.
Christ did not just all of asudden wake up one day and have
Rome execute him. It's not whathappened. They executed him
because of the way he had livedhis life for 3 years, 3 years in
his ministry, and who knows howlong before that. They executed
him because the way that helived was a threat. The way that
(17:07):
he broke down social barriers,The way that he, was trying to
get them to, to get the Jews tolove Romans and Samaritans.
That's just crazy. The way thathe, didn't feed the arrogance of
the religious institution. Theway that he didn't bow or really
cater to the the Roman politicalmachine. I mean, these are the
(17:29):
things that that got Christkilled. In our world, it's gonna
be the same thing.
When you don't align with thepolitical party that your your
community is telling you youhave to vote for, or else we're
all doomed. You're gonna getbacklash not from not from
enemies, not from atheists.You're gonna get crucified by
(17:51):
your own group. If you're awealthy individual, you start to
associate with people in adifferent social class. You're
gonna get crucified, not by thepoor people that you're trying
to help, necessarily, butprobably by the people in your
own group who are going to shunyou and not really want to be a
part of part of you.
They don't wanna be associatedwith you if you're gonna be
(18:12):
associated with riffraff. Yoderdoes a a great job of showing
that the cross is not just someobscure messianic thing that
just so happened to Jesus andand only happens to Jesus. But
the cross is something that'sprescribed and prescribed and
prophesied for believers, thatthis is going to happen to us,
this should happen to us.Because the way that we live our
(18:35):
lives should be like the way thesecond Adam, the true human,
lived his life. And we're nottalking about insurrection here.
We're not that's not what Jesusdid. He wasn't an
insurrectionist. We're also nottalking about quietism, where
you just kind of go off and doyour own thing. We're talking
about just this faithful livingin the world, but completely not
(18:55):
of the world. Doing things justjust so radically different and
in line with with the way Christlived his life, that it I mean,
it's going to turn heads andmake enemies.
So, in summary, the life Christlived, which led to the cross,
was a life lived in perfecthumanity, and in in perfect
(19:16):
harmony and faith in God. And,the end of the cross and
suffering is prescribed andprophesied for us. We are to be
conformed to the image ofChrist, which seems to imply
that we will undergo similarprocesses and results. We should
expect the same thing that ourour savior, the servant is not
greater than his master. As youas you really think through
(19:39):
through this particular issue,it's easy to think that Christ's
role was only Messianic, andthat his example doesn't apply
to us.
I would really encourage you toread Philippians 2. Give it a
good look. Look at Christ'slife. Look at his teachings.
Look at his commands.
Think about what he callsbelievers too. We're not just
talking about following hisexample, though I think
(20:01):
Philippians 2 and other passagesshould be sufficient to show you
that, now, his example is whatwe are to follow. But even
beyond that, we talked inepisode 2 about the biblical
case and the teachings of Christand the apostles, as well as,
the early church and what theywere doing in terms of living
out their lives. And I thinkit's it's very clear that in
(20:25):
this specific way, we are tolive like Christ because it's
the human way, it's not themessianic way in particular.
Hopefully, that makes sense andclears some things up for you.
If not, I strongly recommendtaking a look at Yoder's book,
The Politics of Jesus. And, I'llalso put another link down, to a
book that I think is goodcalled, The Upside Down Kingdom.
(20:49):
And it's maybe not quite asclear on this issue. It kind of
runs into some other otherideas, but I think you'll find
it helpful as well. Anyway,that's all for now.
So peace, because I'm apacifist, and I say it.
Popular Podcasts
Bookmarked by Reese's Book Club
Welcome to Bookmarked by Reese’s Book Club — the podcast where great stories, bold women, and irresistible conversations collide! Hosted by award-winning journalist Danielle Robay, each week new episodes balance thoughtful literary insight with the fervor of buzzy book trends, pop culture and more. Bookmarked brings together celebrities, tastemakers, influencers and authors from Reese's Book Club and beyond to share stories that transcend the page. Pull up a chair. You’re not just listening — you’re part of the conversation.
On Purpose with Jay Shetty
I’m Jay Shetty host of On Purpose the worlds #1 Mental Health podcast and I’m so grateful you found us. I started this podcast 5 years ago to invite you into conversations and workshops that are designed to help make you happier, healthier and more healed. I believe that when you (yes you) feel seen, heard and understood you’re able to deal with relationship struggles, work challenges and life’s ups and downs with more ease and grace. I interview experts, celebrities, thought leaders and athletes so that we can grow our mindset, build better habits and uncover a side of them we’ve never seen before. New episodes every Monday and Friday. Your support means the world to me and I don’t take it for granted — click the follow button and leave a review to help us spread the love with On Purpose. I can’t wait for you to listen to your first or 500th episode!
Dateline NBC
Current and classic episodes, featuring compelling true-crime mysteries, powerful documentaries and in-depth investigations. Follow now to get the latest episodes of Dateline NBC completely free, or subscribe to Dateline Premium for ad-free listening and exclusive bonus content: DatelinePremium.com