Mark 14:27-52 — From Table to Trial

July 16, 2012

Leaving the upper room of the Last Supper, Jesus leads his disciples across the Kidron Valley onto the Mount of Olives to a place called Gethsemane. Here Jesus will pray and then suffer betrayal and arrest. That is an answer to prayer none would relish.

Several trajectories are at play in this narrative that take the reader from the table to a trial. One thread is the total disintegration of Jesus’ discipled community. Despite their protestations, they all forsake him and scatter. At his trials, Jesus will stand alone. The narrative moves from vehement denials of the disciples (14:31) to “everyone deserted him and fled” (14:50). Another trend is the sense that the story is scripted. I don’t mean that the actors in the drama are puppets, but that the movement of the story is shaped by the Hebrew prophets. “The Scriptures,” Jesus says, “must be fulfilled” (14:49). A third thread is a sense of climatic drama. Jesus endures a night of prayer as he waits for the “hour” to arrive. When Judas arrives with the arrest party, the “hour” has also arrived. These threads are entangled as they weave a narrative that moves us from table to trial, from communal intimacy to abandonment.

Jesus recognizes what is coming. While Zechariah 14 looms large in the hearts of hopeful Jews as they stand on the Mt. Olivet (since that is where the triumphant Messiah is expected to reclaim Jerusalem for God), Jesus takes them to the Mount to pray in darkness and anguish. There is no triumphalism. Even though Jesus has just spoken of the kingdom of God once again at the table, the disciples follow him as he walks into a trap laid by the betrayer.

Rather than Zechariah 14, Jesus quotes Zechariah 13:7. The shepherd will die and the flock will scatter. While they do not believe the latter, no one denies the former. They protest their innocence and loyalty, especially Peter. But his subsequent denial highlights how they all abandoned Jesus in his “hour.”

Reaching Gethsemane (“oil presses”) Jesus left the majority of the disciples behind and took Peter, James and John deeper into the Olive trees. This is Jesus “intimacy group”—it is the three with whom he has shared previous private moments (e.g., the Transfiguration). Jesus shares with them his deepest emotions. He allows the three to look into his soul (“intimacy” is allowing others to “see into me”).

He reveals the depth of his angst. As the “hour” approaches, he becomes “deeply distressed and troubled.” His grief is unbearable. He sees no other option than to spend the evening in prayer. Sometimes praying is more important than sleeping. He asks his intimates to “keep watch” while he prays privately. He hopes they will pray with him, but, alas, they sleep…another abandonment.

Mark has a dual purpose here. On the one hand, the narrator stresses the anxiety of Jesus which is ultimately resolved by a determination to meet the “hour” at hand. On the other hand, the narrator stresses the disloyalty of the disciples. Jesus, determined to do the will of God, moves through the grief to a decision for God. The disciples, blinded by their own interests, sleep.

The very disciples who protested the loudest are the three whom Jesus finds sleeping. James and John, who said that they could drink the “cup” that Jesus drank (Mark 10:32-45), sleep and then scatter with the other disciples. Peter, who protested the loudest that he would die with Jesus, also sleeps and will shortly deny his Lord three times. The “cup of suffering” is something that the disciples refuse to drink while Jesus, after the struggle of prayer, takes the cup from God and drinks it. Mark parallels the three moments of prayer by Jesus with the three denials by Peter. Whereas Jesus pursued God in prayer to drink the cup, Peter (along with the other disciples) were afraid to drink it.

Jesus has given his disciples every indication that this is a serious night: betrayal, the striking of the shepherd, the abandonment by the disciples, the anguish of his soul, his sorrow to the point of death…. And yet the disciples sleep. Three times Jesus approaches them and three times they are asleep.

Spirit is willing but the flesh is weak. Jesus also had “weak” flesh but the determination of the his spirit meant that he pursued prayer rather than sleep. The spirit of the disciples, weakened by the flesh, faltered.

Even the disciples are dumbfounded by their behavior or befuddled by Jesus’ seriousness this evening. They don’t know what to say in response to Jesus. They have no words. They are not fully aware that Jesus’ “hour” approaches. But the “hour” does come when the “betrayer” comes.

Judas, again identified as “one of the Twelve,” appears with an armed “crowd” sent by the temple authorities. They may have expected some kind of violent encounter. One of the disciples responded with the “sword,” but Jesus immediately rejects any thought of resistance by dismissing the need for an armed party. Was he not in the temple courts where they could have arrested him?

The disciples desert Jesus and flee. Curiously, one of their number is singled out for explicit comment. It is a rather enigmatic reference. Identified simply as a “young man” who followed Jesus, he, too, flees, but he does so naked as some of the crowd attempt to seize him like they did Jesus. Why does Mark highlight this moment? Some think that the young man is Mark himself, though this is highly speculative. Perhaps he is merely a representative disciple–the guards try to arrest him, but he flees “naked.” This notation suggests the shame that comes over all the disciples.

But the significance of this moment is lost on the reader until we reach chapter sixteen when the “garment” (sindona; cf. Mark 15:46) and the “young man” (neaniskos) apparently make another appearance in the narrative. This episode, perhaps, is not simply a specific example of how the disciples fled, but is also a narrative clue for the future that awaits the disciples. A “young man” will appear again in Mark’s narrative but this time sitting in an empty tomb with an announcement that Jesus will meet his disciples in Galilee (16:5). This is the same hopeful expectation that Jesus announced earlier as the disciples come to the Mount of Olives (14:28).

This young man, perhaps a youthful John Mark, also (and more importantly) represents the disciples as a whole. They all run away “naked” because they left their “linen cloth” behind. But Jesus is wrapped in this “linen cloth” and the “young man” appears in the empty tomb. Though the disciples scattered, they will yet meet Jesus again in Galilee as Jesus promised (14:28) and the “young man” in the tomb promised (16:5). The “young man,” then, is a narrative marker of movement from despair to hope, from scattering to gathering.

As we move from the table to trial, Jesus is abandoned to his fate by the disciples. They failed to discern the significance of the night. They failed their friend. But the narrative never loses sight that a new day is about to dawn and the failures of the disciples are transformed into something much more glorious.

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Posted by John Mark Hicks

“Miraculous Movements”: Muslims Coming to Jesus

May 9, 2012

My longtime good friend, John King, is engaged in training people around the world in Discovery Bible Studies as part of the CityTeam Ministries’ Disciple Making Movement or the Church Planting Movement (specifically the work of David Watson). I love what he is doing with the support of his wife Debra.

John recommended that I read Miraculous Movements: How Hundreds of Thousands of Muslims are Falling in Love with Jesus (Thomas Nelson, 2012) by Jerry Trousdale. Since John began telling me about his work I had wanted to read something substantial that tells the larger story. I am happy to report that this book does just that.

Is it possible that 200,000 Muslims have become Christians in West Africa since 2007? Is it possible that 6000 new churches have been planted? Is it possible that 45 new people groups have been reached? This book tells that story which includes more than 350 different ministries cooperating in these efforts. It is not so much a history of that development as it is a story that narrates the church-planting or disciple-making method that facilitated such Spirit-generated fruit. That method involves saturating prayer, finding a “person of peace,” focusing on groups rather than individuals and utilizing the Discovery Bible Study method.

Surveying the reports and analyzing his own experience, Trousdale notes seven “paradigm shifts” in his own approach to ministry (chapter 12):

  1. Make Intercessory Prayer the Highest Priority (or, nothing is more important than prayer…period!).
  2. Make Disciples Who Make Disciples (or, invest time in discipling a few who will themselves disciple others).
  3. Invest Time in the Right Person (or, instead of mass marketing invest in a “person of peace” who will “bridge the gospel into that community”).
  4. Don’t Tell People What to Believe and Do (or, give space for the Spirit to work through the Word as people discover Christianity for themselves).
  5. Never Settle for Revealing Just One Dimension of Jesus’ Life (or, follow the model of Jesus’ own ministry who demonstrated compassion rather than merely disseminating information).
  6. Never Substitute Knowledge About God for an Obedience-Based Relationship with God (or, information is good but obedience is better).
  7. Understand that Jesus Does Impossible Things Through the Most Ordinary People (or, professional ministers are helpful but not necessary).

This is not an academic book, and that is a good thing. Rather, Trousdale utilizes extensive oral reports from former Muslims and on-the-ground ministers who have seen and experienced this tremendous harvest. The stories from former Muslims are compelling.

The book is filled with stories of answered prayer, courageous believers, Muslim conversions, dramatic transformations, and God’s faithfulness to his witnesses.  Through these stories, we learn about Muslim dissatisfaction with their sense of assurance, their lack of knowledge about Jesus, the social pressure that hinders their own search, and the violence that follows converts. People are often martyred in Africa for their witness to Jesus.

The witness present in this book is a sobering encouragement for believers who live in the comfort of the United States. It is also a report of what God is doing and in reading it we should all give thanks for God’s marvelous movement among Muslim people-groups in Africa.

Reading these stories encourages us to look more simply at Christianity. Western modernism has complicated Christianity and academia has often subverted it. The movement of Christianity in West Africa among Muslims is simple, powerful and courageous. Meeting in small churches (an average of 32 disciples per congregation), these disciples are changing the landscape of West Africa by the power of God’s working among them.

I must admit that my Western skepticism is high (some of the stories are way outside my comfortable box), but I also recognize Western skepticism is often antithetical to what God is actually doing. I too easily limit God for the sake of my own rational, emotional and self-righteous comfort. So, I’m listening and hoping to learn more. May God help my unbelief.

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Posted by John Mark Hicks

Tolbert Fanning–Advocate for Peace in 1861 (Part VII)

March 27, 2012

With Tennessee now a Confederate state and at war with the Union, Fanning published an article entitled “Taking up the Cross,” in the August issue of the Gospel Advocate 7.8 (1861), 244-245.

What did it mean to “take up the cross” in August 1861 for Tennesseans, Confederates or Unionists?

On the one hand, it meant abandoning all unnecessary provocations. Disciples seek peace and do not stir the pot of war. But, on the other hand, it meant affirming allegiance to the kingdom of God rather than to any “worldly power,” principality, or nation-state. Disciples, according to Fanning, could neither swear allegiance to the Confederacy nor to the Union though they would submit to whichever governed them. Ultimately Fanning did submit to both but he never swore allegiance to either.

The cross which Disciples bore in 1861 was to choose peace, nonviolence and disavow allegiance to any national state. Fanning called them to resist peer and public pressure for war. They must reject the siren call for war and follow their Christ to the cross. They must follow no banner or flag but the one belonging to King Jesus.

Taking up the cross is a willingness to die to self and follow Jesus to the cross rather than save one’s life by bowing to the pressure of the national state.  He writes:

Till Constantine, the simple avowal that Jesus as the Savior, placed all who ventured to make it, as enemies of the State, and consequently the taking of the cross, was not only treason, but christians renounced all confidence in earthly institutions, and looked for their reward in another state.

***Fanning’s Article***

In the early ages of the church, whoever ventured to make an open profession of faith in Christ, was certain to lose the respect of the world,–his property was subject to confiscation and his life was in perpetual danger. Hence, the taking up the cross, was performed after the maturest deliberation, and with all the startling dangers staring one fully in the face. The professor of the faith renounced “principalities,” abandoned all confidence in men as safe governors, took no interest in the world’s affairs, farther than to make proper efforts to secure the necessaries of life, but vowed allegiance to the King in Zion as superior to all other rulers. Christians walked with their lives in their hands for three centuries. Even the propraeter [sic] Pliny the younger, after having many of the Lord’s servants put to death, merely for professing the name of Jesus, wrote to Trajan the emperor stating “that as far as he had learned, they did nothing wicked or contrary to law, except that they rose with the morning sun and sang a hymn to Christ as to a god.” Till Constantine, the simple avowal that Jesus as the Savior, placed all who ventured to make it, as enemies of the State, and consequently the taking of the cross, was not only treason, but christians renounced all confidence in earthly institutions, and looked for their reward in another state. Still, Christianity was then healthful, pure, and invigorating and the children of God rejoiced that “they were counted worthy to suffer shame for the name of Jesus. It is scarcely possible at this great distance from these hale and joyful days of the people of the Most High, to fully realize the meaning of denying ourselves, taking up the cross of the Savior and following him through evil as well as good report.

When the civil authorities in three hundred and twenty five, took charge of the church, “the offence of the cross ceased,” the pure in heart and life, withdrew from the public gaze, went into the wilderness, still keeping their banner unfurled to the breeze.—but have been ever since regarded as the offscouring of all things. There is no cross in religions regulated, and acknowledged by “world powers,” and the honor of bearing the cross can be appreciated by no one, who considers not the authority of his King as the supreme government. We freely grant that, men through ignorance and stubbornness, may seek opposition, in order to glory in their persecutions; but genuine christians study to be “wise as serpents and harmless as doves—they unnecessarily offend neither Jew nor Greek, but labor at all times to glorify God in their bodies and spirits which are his.” There is a continual tendency to lay down the cross in order to be “like other people” and unless we keep our eye upon the mark for the prize of the high calling of God in Christ Jesus, and struggle hard against the outward pressure, on minds and affections will become so engrossed by the “cares of the world” as to induce us to lose all taste for matters spiritual.

In conclusion, we would be glad to know if there is any cross bearing by the denominations and professors that act merely in conformity with the popular influences of the age? What party in all the land has any cross to bear? Who, all the region about are now meekly bearing the cross of the crucified, yet exalted Savior?

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Posted by John Mark Hicks

Mark 10:17-31 – Can the “Rich” Become “Last”?

March 19, 2012

Mark’s travelogue describes the journey of Jesus from Galilee (9:33) to Perea (10:1) to Jericho (10:46) to Bethany (11:1) and finally to Jerusalem (11:11). But this movement is more than geographical. The theme that runs through this journey to death is servanthood (9:35; 10:44-45) and the call to assume the role of the “last” rather than the first (9:35; 10:31, 44). Jesus, through whom the power of the kingdom of God was revealed, will become like a powerless child. The King will become a servant; the first will become last.

The story of the “rich young ruler” (a composite description derived from Mark, Matthew and Luke) is so familiar that it is difficult to hear it afresh. Its power and punch is often lost in that familiarity.

TWe recover it if we hear the story in the context of Mark’s travelogue. More specifically, the narrative places this rich man-Jesus dialogue between themes of “becoming like a little child” and Jesus’ own suffering servanthood. For the sake of the kingdom of God, Jesus becomes a powerless servant. The first became last. He asks the same of the “rich young ruler.” And there’s the rub— him and for us.

It is apparent that the eager young man did not expect such a radical call to discipleship. He runs to Jesus, falls as a supplicant at his knees and shows him great respect as a prominent rabbi, calling him “good teacher.” His life, at least externally and in his own mind, was a model of obedience. He had kept the Torah from his youth. He hoped for some wisdom from Jesus about eternal life and anticipated that he would follow through on whatever Jesus demanded. But he did not expect to hear what he heard.

Jesus’ interaction with the rich man is not manipulative as if he only wants to prove a point with his disciples. Jesus “loved” him. His invitation to “follow” was neither perfunctory nor shallow. Jesus called him to a life of discipleship.

But something is amiss. Perhaps Jesus recognizes this from the start. When the rich man addressed him as “good,” Jesus reminded him that only God is “good.” This is not so much a rejection of a divine appellation or a rebuke of the phrase “good teacher” as it is a recognition that all goodness derives from God rather than from our own efforts. Goodness is a divine gift.

The pious rich man is little different from the rest of us. We often locate goodness in externals, in the commandments, or in our long-term devotion. We often deceive ourselves into thinking that we measure up to some degree even if we recognize that we may yet lack something (as even the rich man believed and consequently came to Jesus seeking whatever that was). We often become religious addicts feeding on our measurable performances and seeking the approval of others, particularly God’s.

Perhaps the rich man, like us, is seeking approval; perhaps he is seeking to measure up and wanted to make sure he had his bases covered. He, like we often are, is a pious seeker. But he is bitterly disappointed—perhaps shocked is a better translation—by Jesus’ demand.

Like most of us, he did not really know himself. He did not know his first love. He thought it was God but he learned that he really loved his wealth more. He could not embrace the call to radical discipleship. He could not become last after having been first for so long. He could not give away his wealth in order to become a servant to the poor. In the words of the previous text (10:15), he could not receive the kingdom from the position of powerlessness like a little child. He wanted to achieve the kingdom from the status of wealth and power. He could not let go (become like a child) in order to enter the kingdom of God, that is, to join the journey of a disciple which led to Jerusalem.

As in so many other circumstances in Mark, Jesus turns to his disciples and uses this heartbreaking situation as a teaching moment. Entering the kingdom of God is difficult; indeed, it is impossible (which is the point of the camel/needle hyperbole—and Jesus so describes it in 10:27). This is not only true of the rich (10:23) but of everyone (10:24).

People don’t move from first to last. The rich man illustrates this and he is not the only one. The disciples themselves find it difficult, if not impossible, to receive the kingdom as a little child, as one of the powerless.

The disciples are shocked. They have every expectation of entering the kingdom. Moreover, they expected to rule within the kingdom as some of the greatest in it. They expected to be first rather than last. Now they hear that even entering the kingdom is dubious since if the rich—those blessed by God—cannot enter then surely their prospects are limited. “Who can be saved?” they ask.

Entering the kingdom is impossible, Jesus responds, but nothing is impossible for God. From a human standpoint, becoming like a little child is difficult but God can empower this. God can save. God can give entrance to the kingdom. God can empower our servanthood.

Peter, as normal in Mark, cannot remain silent. He finds all this quite disturbing. He has turned his world upside down to follow Jesus and now Jesus tells him that entering the kingdom is impossible. We can hear the frustration in Peter’s words, “We have left everything to follow you.” We did what the rich man would not. We chose radical discipleship. And now we hear that entrance into the kingdom is impossible. One can almost hear the hidden question, “Where’s our profit? What’s in it for us?”

Discipleship does profit, but it is not the kind of profit envisioned by Peter or the rich man. Whatever we leave behind we gain. While we may leave mother or father or wife or children or siblings, we gain a hundredfold in the community of disciples. This is what Jesus did. He left his mother, brothers and sisters but gained a family of disciples, a community of kingdom people (Mark 6:34-35). Loss becomes gain in the kingdom of God both in the present and in eternal life.

However, this profit is no bed of roses. Radical discipleship will invite hostility (persecutions), suspicion, and mockers (Mark 13:9-13). It is a journey to a cross. It is to assume a last position, but the last will become first. The cross will become an empty tomb.

We are all the rich man in this story. We don’t know really know our first loves until tested and we are often shocked to learn that we are not as pious as we thought we were.

We are all Peter. We want to know what profit our discipleship yields. We want tangible results. We fear losing everything for nothing.

And Jesus loves us, calls us and encourages us. “Follow me,” he says. Will we? Dare we?

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Posted by John Mark Hicks

Mark 9:33-50 — Wanna Be Great? Don’t Scandalize My “Little Ones”

March 5, 2012

While many have treated this section of Mark as a series of isolated sayings that follow a passion prediction, the thread that runs through it carries a powerful punch if we hear it as one continuous exchange between Jesus and his disciples. This thread directly connects with the prediction. Just as Jesus would serve others by suffering, so the disciples must learn to serve others as well.

Mark situates these “sayings” between “they came to [his home base in] Capernaum” (9:33) and “Jesus left that place” to go to Judea (10:1). The narrative offers this as one integrated segment—a teaching moment for the disciples. The section begins with a dispute over who is the greatest (9:33) and ends with Jesus’ imperative to live in peace with each other (9:50).

This teaching moment is occasioned by the disciples’ own self-interestedness, pride and envy. As they travelled to Capernaum, they had argued over the question “who was the greatest?” This sets the tone and theme of this pericope. Jesus understood what the argument was about—who is first? How will each of the twelve rank in the kingdom of God? Disciples wondered and debated where each would fall in the coming kingdom. Who would be first?

The narrative is deliberate here. When no one would confess the topic of their argument, Jesus sat down and called the twelve together. This enhances the point and signals how significant this section is to the narrator. Jesus then articulates the theme that will run through the rest of his conversation with the disciples: “you must be last and servant of all if you want to be first.”

This is a radical reorientation for the disciples. They imagined that they would be rulers in the coming kingdom. They imagined that as the twelve, specially empowered by Jesus, that they would have “firsts” in the kingdom and that even one of them would be at the right hand of King Jesus–the “greatest” besides Jesus. Now they hear that they must serve others as “lasts” in the kingdom rather than “firsts.” No doubt they had a difficult time fathoming what that meant.

Jesus then enacts a parable to explain his meaning. He places a child in the middle of the twelve and then enwraps the child in his arms. Both acts are symbolic. The child reminds them of the focus of their mission and how others are the center of attention rather than themselves. When Jesus hugs the child, it symbolizes how Jesus welcomes the “little ones” and loves them.

The task of the disciples is to welcome “little ones” in the name of Jesus because this is to welcome Jesus himself. Moreover, it is to welcome God who sent Jesus. When we love our neighbor—welcome the little ones—we love God in our neighbor. The disciples are reminded that their ministry is not self-aggrandizement, power or wealth but to welcome others in the name of Jesus.

At this point John interrupts Jesus to announce how the disciples stood up for the integrity of Jesus’s ministry. This is apparently something that they took great pride in doing. They had hindered the ministry of another—someone who was exorcizing demons in the name of Jesus—“because he did not follow us” (literal translation). The disciples seemed to have reasoned that because this person was not one of the twelve or not attached to their entourage that he should not be “doing good” in the name of Jesus. That privilege, they thought, belonged to them. They were the ones who were with Jesus and empowered by him to do miracles. This other person’s ministry threatened their status and potential role in the kingdom. He did not “follow us.” And the emphasis is on “us.”

Jesus must have been incredulous. His immediate response is an imperative: “don’t stop him!” We can feel the exasperation in Jesus’ language. Anyone who does anything good in the name of Jesus is for “us” and not against “us,” he said. Just because they do not “follow us” (in the language of the disciples) does not mean that they are not “for us.” The “us” is larger than the disciples imagined. They thought of their discipleship as an exclusive group but Jesus enlarges it. Indeed, anyone who offers a cup of cold water (a small act of kindness) in the name of Jesus should be welcomed rather than excluded. God will welcome them; God will reward them. And the community of faith—the Twelve in this case—must welcome them too.

It is important to link the next section to the previous one. What the disciples did to this exorcist was scandalous. They failed to welcome a “little one;” they failed to welcome another who was doing good in the name of Jesus. Now they must hear Jesus’s rebuke.

What the disciples did to this exorcist, this “little one,” endangered their life in the kingdom. They had scandalized (“cause to sin” in the NIV) him by hindering and discouraging him. The disciples would have been better off if they had thrown themselves into the sea with a heavy weight. The hyperbole has a point. If anyone’s hand, foot or eye scandalizes another, it is better to remove them than to injure yourselves or others.

The hyperbole points to the seriousness with which Jesus regarded the actions of the disciples. Because of their pride and kingdom power-seeking (they wanted to be “first”), they had scandalized one of Jesus’s “little ones”—a person who was doing good in the name of Jesus. This approach to kingdom life and the scandals it creates leads to ghenna (hell). It is a path that leads to destruction. It is better to remove all obstacles to authentic kingdom life than it is to live comfortably (with hands, feet, and eyes) in a way that leads to hell. “It is better,” Jesus says, “to enter the kingdom of God with one eye than to have two eyes and be thrown into hell.”

Jesus reminds them that hell is destruction. It is not a way of life but a way of death. Kingdom living gives life but prideful self-exaltation is the way of death, the way of hell. He underscores the destructive end of such a life by quoting Isaiah 66:24. Hell is the place where the worms do not die (where worm feed on dead bodies) and the fire is unquenchable (that is, a place where the fire accomplishes its purpose). Isaiah envisions a field of unbuired corpses where worms and fire destroy life and confirm death. It is a picture of shame rather than pain; it is a picture of destruction.

The most difficult aspect of this text is whether Mark 9:49 is a comment on the Isaianic text (linked by the word “fire”) or whether it belongs with the final saying of Jesus in the chapter in Mark 9:50 (linked by the word “salt”). The majority understanding is that Jesus is alluding to the practice of salting sacrifices in the Levitical system (Leviticus 2:13). In other words, a life dedicated to God is like a salted sacrifice that is purified by fire. Others—a minority report—suggest that it is an image of destruction that more naturally goes with Isaiah’s description. When a city was burned, the victors would sometimes sprinkle salt on the ground to render it uninhabitable (Judges 9:45). Thus, the meaning would be that everyone who is thrown into hell will be destroyed by fire. Whichever is the case, either meaning contributes to the thread of the text as scandalizers will be destroyed (salted) or disciples will be tried (salted) by fire.

The final saying in this section, like the first thematic one in Mark 9:35, summarizes the proper orientation of kingdom living. Kingdom people are salt, that is, they are ministers of good in the world. Scandalizing the “little ones” or seeking preeminence in the kingdom corrupts that salt so that it is no longer any good. Instead, disciples must continue as salt so that they might live in peace with each other.

The final imperative, live in peace with each other, unites the narrative. In the light of their previous argument about who was the greatest, Jesus insists that they live in peace—not only with themselves, but with the “little ones” as well. When God reigns, peace reigns, but when pride reigns, we find ourselves on a path to hell.

Radical kingdom reorientation saturates this text. Disciples are “servants of all.” Disciples welcome others; they welcome “little ones” even when it appears a threat to their own status. Disciples would rather cut off their own hand than scandalize another who is doing good in the name of Jesus. Disciples live in peace because they love the kingdom more than their own lives.

Where can we find disciples like that?

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Posted by John Mark Hicks

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