Jesus and his family
Last Thursday, at lunch time, me and some of the guys from my UG (I was asked to keep leading it until last week) were having a discussion with one of our friends, who is a polytheist, while playing pool in the Zoo Lounge.
One thing she reckons is that within the context of Jewish family heirarchy was Jesus supposed to be the head of the family after Joseph died, because he was the oldest son. Apparently this was very important in First Century CE Jewish society.
I also brought up the part of the story where Jesus family come looking for him:
While he [Jesus] was still speaking to the people, behold, his mother and his brothers stood outside, asking to speak to him. But he replied to the man who told him, 'Who is my mother, and who are my brothers?' And stretching out his hand toward his disciples, he said, 'Here are my mother and my brothers! For whoever does the will of my Father in heaven is my brother and sister and mother.'It seems like Jesus is disrespecting his mother and breaking the sixth commandment (Exodus 20:12).
Matthew 12:46-50
Later that day I brought this up with some other Christians. One person said that if Jesus had disrespected his mother, he would've been killed with rocks. But I don't think that necessarily means Jesus wasn't disrespectful. It could be just interepreted as a plot-hole ina made-up story.
This guy also reckoned, because of the story of little Jesus at the Temple (Luke 2:41-51), that Jesus was obedient to his parents, but just wasn't your average person.
Another person reckoned that since nothing that happened for the rest of the day is recorded, Jesus might have spent the rest of the day with his family.
Another person was pretty sure Jesus was disrespectful to his parents, and that he was about to get his head bitten off for saying so.
He was then told by someone else, 'Jesus was completely blameless in his walk on earth. Do you really think breaking one of the ten commandments was really in him? ... If you do, then everything the Bible is about is all wrong and flawed. So what are you "pretty sure" about? We know his heart and motive was never to disrespect his mother. Why we do presume it was so?'
Much as I agree that Jesus didn't have any sin, (I'm just trying to understand what was going on) I don't think saying that Jesus was blameless helps to show that Jesus was blameless.
Any other thoughts regarding this would be welcome.
2 comments:
yeah man, i don't think Jesus was disrespecting his mum, but just simply making a point that people who are doing God's will are apart of God's family, trying to get them to see past being part of an earthly family to a kingdom family.
Yeah, but what about him being head of the family?
Post a Comment