Ep. 235. Matthew 18-19a | Various Teachings
EPISODE 235
VARIOUS TEACHINGS: MATTHEW 18-19A
Probably the most challenging thing for us in the video today is the take on Matthew 18:15-20. Let's think briefly about how most of us learned and understood the Bible. If you are anything like me and you grew up in the church or at least exposed to the church, you have years of hearing texts used over and over again. (I can almost guarantee there are texts you have never heard as well) Church leaders tend to gravitate to the same texts repetitiously, and then those texts make their way into the foundation of our belief system. Because we've usually only ever heard the text from a singular perspective, we assume that perspective must be the right one. That is, I believe, the case here.
If this section of Scripture has always been held up as the standard for church discipline, it will be nearly impossible to see the Jewish context of this passage. But isn't it incumbent on us to at least try to get to the heart of the intent by examining the language, the audience, and the cultural framework? Don't we have to ask ourselves why the language seems so strikingly similar to Deuteronomy 17 and 19? Have we previously seen Jesus reference the Old Testament in this way? Don't we have to concern ourselves with the question of why Jesus would tell "Christians" to treat the unrepentant one like a "Gentile or tax collector?" Does that language make more sense when we consider that the audience was Jewish? I contend again that the only reason we've concluded that this has anything to do with believers, rather than culturally Jewish teaching, is because the word "Ekklesia" was not adequately translated as "assembly." Don't the Jews have regular "assembly" in the Synagogue? Don't the Jews have a practice in their law to not entertain a charge against someone without two or three witnesses? Don't the Jews accept the charge of two or three witnesses as binding? Don't the Jews have disdain for the Gentiles and tax collectors? Doesn't that make this text more easily understood when we apply the correct context?
We need to keep in mind that even the disciples of Jesus in this crowd that would later be the first proclaimers of the gospel do not yet understand the kind of Messiah Jesus came to be, do not yet believe he was about to die, do not yet comprehend the resurrection, nor do they have the Holy Spirit. Why, then, do we think this is instruction for the church? (apart, of course, from the biased translation of Ekklesia) If "Ekklesia" had always been translated as "assembly" here in Matthew 18, would there be anything in the text that would imply Jesus was speaking to a "church" audience with the idea of "church discipline" in mind? I think not.
ADDITIONAL READING: Matthew 5:18-20; Matthew 5:27-30; Deuteronomy 17:6-7; Deuteronomy 19:15; Acts 19:32,39,41; Hebrews 2:12; Genesis 4:15,24; Matthew 6:12-15; Genesis 2:24; Ephesians 5:21-33; 1 Corinthians 7:32-34
