BEMA 106: Jury Duty in Sodom
Transcription Status
8 Aug 23 — Initial public release
10 Feb 23 — Transcript approved for release
Jury Duty in Sodom
Brent Billings: This is The BEMA Podcast with Marty Solomon. I’m his co-host Brent Billings. Today, we hear Jesus as he moves on from John the Baptist and begins to confront the religious worldview around him.
Marty Solomon: More confrontation with the religious worldview. It’s Matthew’s agenda, looking out for the mamzers. If he’s going to look out for the mamzers, he’s going to have to take care of this religious worldview that makes the mamzers in the first place.
Brent: We talk about Matthew’s agenda a lot. I’m assuming this isn’t the only way to read Matthew, or maybe there’s more to Matthew than this. If someone is interested in a different or wider perspective on Matthew, or the Gospels in general, I don’t know if you want to throw out some recommendations, but I just want to make sure we’re covering the whole realm of possibilities for the listeners.
Marty: Yes, and I get a lot of emails asking for resources and, “Where do you find that? Where do you get that?” Lots of different answers to each specific question, but I’ll give you some for the Gospels, in general. I don’t know if I’ve actually read anything directly as it pertains to Matthew specifically. I have a Luke reference. We’ve actually linked it before, if you will. Kenneth Bailey wrote a book and it’s a two-volume work. It has both books in one book, if you will. Two books in one binding. Through Peasant Eyes, and then, the second one is called Poet and Peasant.
A lot of Kenneth Bailey’s focus is on the Gospel of Luke. Just some great work there, as far as just Gospels and the ministry of Jesus, especially in its context. Super great there.
We’ve talked about Tverberg’s books before. We just linked those a few episodes ago, but just great introductory work. Along the same lines as what we do here on the podcast, love Lois. She was taught by some of the same teachers I was and went on to do just some incredible great things. Love her books. If we do want to talk about some Matthew references, at least, there’s a book.
David Bivin was the chief editor. I don’t know if he still is, but he was the chief editor of Jerusalem Perspective, which was an online archaeological abstract database. You had to have a membership to be a part of it. He sees a lot of great archaeology. Ideas and theories came across his desk and he wrote a book called New Light on the Difficult Words of Jesus, or Difficult Sayings of Jesus, or something along those lines. New Light on the Difficult Words of Jesus by David Bivin. Maybe just one more I could throw in there. This isn’t really academic, Jewish, contextual, but just a book that’s been on my favorite shelf for years. Secret Message of Jesus by Brian McLaren.
I just love that book and the way it made me think, and I love that about Brian McLaren, period. That’s a book that when I think of the Gospels and Jesus, that always comes to mind. I will look through my bookshelf, my favorite shelf, and I will try to identify some more.
By the time this session is over, Session 3, working on the Gospels, at the very least, I’ll point you in the direction of some authors by the time we’re done too. Not necessarily books specifically, but just authors where if you’re reading these authors about Jesus, you’re in good hands, that kind of an idea. We’ll do that before we’re done.
Brent: You read a lot of books, Marty. Listeners may not realize this, but you are quite the reader.
Marty: I try. I try to read a lot of stuff and just get better, and better, and better.
Brent: You keep track of your books. Do you have a sense of how many books you’ve read? I’m sure you haven’t been doing that forever.
Marty: I have a Goodreads account online and I think I just rolled over—it was either 100 or 200 books, but I only just started keeping track of those. It has to be two or three times that since. I’ve tried to go back and think of all the books I had read and add them to my account, but there is a whole bunch that I just haven’t even included there, so however many years that’s been. It’s got to be a few hundred at least. Somewhere in the 300 to 500 range of books that I’ve read. Somewhere there.
Brent: Significantly more than I ever have, I’m sure.
Marty: I just love to read and love to read a little bit of everything, but we’ll talk about this more some other time.
Brent: All right.
Marty: We have Matthew to discuss.
Brent: Yes, let’s dig into the Text.
Marty: We have the eleventh chapter of Matthew to finish up today. I say just go for it.
Brent: Okay.
Marty: Let’s do this thing.
Brent: Then, Jesus began to denounce the towns in which most of His miracles had been performed, because they did not repent. “Woe to you, Chorazin. Woe to you, Bethsaida. For if the miracles that were performed in you had been performed in Tyre and Sidon, they would have repented long ago in sackcloth and ashes. But I tell you, it will be more bearable for Tyre and Sidon on the day of judgment than for you. And you, Capernaum, will you be lifted to the heavens? No, you will go down to Hades. For if the miracles that were performed in you had been performed in Sodom, it would have remained to this day. But I tell you that it will be more bearable for Sodom on the day of judgment than for you.”
Marty: Okay, that’s pretty hefty. Pretty hefty judgment statement there.
Brent: Considering what we know happened to Sodom, that’s quite the statement.
Marty: What three towns are we talking about here? What region are we talking about? Very deliberately? He mentions the three towns of the what?
Brent: They’re on the coast.
Marty: Yes. Okay, sorry. The three towns that he is pronouncing woes upon are the three towns that make up the…?
Brent: The Triangle.
Marty: The Triangle. Chorazin, Bethsaida, Capernaum. Those are the three major towns of the Triangle, so we are talking about the central orthodox Jewish, committed, devoted life, the Hasidim—that worldview, that religious, “We know our Text. We have a synagogue in the center. We are not compromising with Hellenism. We have our Text memorized.” That religious worldview is what he’s talking about here. I find it interesting when he starts the paragraph, Matthew says that he went all throughout—let’s see here, “Jesus began to denounce the towns in which most of His miracles had been performed.” I find that interesting. He had been performing miracles in these towns.
Brent: Remember, we just came off the John the Baptist—that story with His disciples. He says, “Go back to John and report what you see.” Blind receive sight, the lame are healed, et cetera, et cetera. All these miracles have been happening right here.
Marty: It says here that He begins to denounce them because they did not what, Brent?
Brent: They did not repent.
Marty: They did not repent. I find most people read this and we just hear, “They did not believe.” That’s not what the passage says. The passage says they didn’t repent. In fact, I would say we have verses in the other Gospels where it says Jesus could not perform miracles in some other towns because they did not what, Brent?
Brent: Believe.
Marty: Believe. Yet, here we’re told He performed miracles. I would suggest that insinuates they… what?
Brent: They did believe.
Marty: They did believe. The problem is not their belief. The problem is their repentance. Listen to me. This group of people, they believe more than any of the five groups. They totally believe. They know their Text. They’ve got it all memorized. They’re committed to walking it out. They’re not hypocrites, in the sense that we think of hypocrites as two-faced. They’re completely one-faced, as far as what they say and what they do. They are committed believers. These are believers. I think we read this and we go, “Oh, they didn’t believe in Jesus.” No. Apparently, they totally believed. What they didn’t do was repent. I find that so, if I would be so bold, damning.
Just think about the religious world that so many of us belong to. They believed. They didn’t repent. You went with me, Brent. We walked through Chorazin. We went to Bethsaida. We went to Capernaum. When I say they didn’t repent, what’s so confusing about that to you? You were there.
Brent: They had everything figured out.
Marty: Their commitment level was, what?
Brent: Unreal.
Marty: Enormous.
Brent: They were completely shut off from everything. They did not compromise at all.
Marty: How in the world is this about repentance? Well, let’s listen to what Jesus says. Now, why do you suppose Jesus says what he does? He’s always saying these rabbinic things. He’s talking about Tyre and Sidon and Sodom. Why do you suppose He’s talking about those things, Brent?
Brent: They got to be in the Text.
Marty: It’s got to be in the Text.
Brent: What audience better to know what’s in the Text?
Marty: Oh, man. Preach it. Preach it, Billings. Just take over this podcast at this point. I like it. Let’s just do what we were doing before, if you remember our PaRDeS. We talked about PaRDeS before, have we not? We did a little bit. PaRDeS. I don’t know if we talked about PaRDeS, PaRDeS. Let’s see. If you were to see PaRDeS—if I were on a whiteboard, I would write a capital P, a little A, a capital R, a capital D, a little E, and a capital S. P, R, D, S, with the two vowels in there. P, R, D, S, little A, little E. PaRDeS refers to those four levels of Jewish hermeneutics. Let’s see, you would remember what they are. What are they, Brent?
Brent: P’shat.
Marty: P’shat.
Brent: Remez.
Marty: Remez.
Brent: Drash
Marty: Drash
Brent: Sod.
Marty: Sod. We’ll talk more about those as we keep going, but let’s keep talking about them.
Brent: Have we not talked about those yet?
Marty: We’ve binged on the p’shat. We’ve done the whole, “What’s on the p’shat level? What’s the remez? What’s the drash?” We’ve done that. We just need to keep talking about it because it’s such a new idea for so many of our listeners, so we’re just going to keep coming back to it over and over and over again. PaRDeS. If you want to look it up on Google. The reason I brought up PaRDeS is that’s what you want to look for. Capital P, little A, capital R, capital D, little E, capital S. PaRDeS. You can find all kinds of stuff. Some of it is garbage but some of it is really good, so just be aware of what you’re looking at. Let’s just look through these and say p’shat.
Let’s take the first thing He says. “Woe to you, Chorazin. Woe to you, Bethsaida. For if the miracles that were performed in you had been performed in Tyre and Sidon, they would have repented long ago in sackcloth and ashes. But I tell you, it will be more bearable for Tyre and Sidon on the day of judgment than for you.” What’s the p’shat of that, Brent? What’s the surface level reading of that?
Brent: The miracles themselves are happening and if they had simply happened at a different time, different place, it would have been a different response.
Marty: Right, Tyre and Sidon, pagan, totally pagan, non believing people. If they would have seen the things that you’ve seen, they would have changed their ways. Yet, you’ve seen what you’ve seen, and you haven’t changed your ways. God’s judgment is going to rest. That’s all p’shat, we can all say that surface-level reading. Just right off the surface, God’s judgment is going to rest on you because you haven’t changed your ways. Like we said, what ways? What is the next reference? Let’s see the p’shat of the next reference through here.
“And you Capernaum, will you be lifted to the heavens? No, you will go down to the Hades. For the miracles that were performed in you have been performed in Sodom, it would have remained to this day, but I tell you it will be more bearable for Sodom on the day of judgment than for you.” Feels like the same p’shat to me.
Brent: Pretty much.
Marty: Pretty much. Now, let’s think—
Brent: I just want to say, every time I bring this up, I feel like we say surface level and people are like, “Oh, man, my faith has been shallow and my understanding has been useless,” or whatever. Not useless.
Marty: Not useless.
Brent: This is the beginning of the journey, there’s more to the journey, but the other three levels do not invalidate the p’shat level.
Marty: Absolutely not. God doesn’t work on the deeper levels any less—this is really important. I’m glad you brought this up. God does not work any less at a deeper level, anymore at a deeper level than he does on a shallow level. God is at work on all the levels. This is not like, “I gotta get down deeper, because that’s where God—” No, no, no. The only thing that depth does is widen, it opens it up, it gives it color and depth and life. It doesn’t change the meaning. It doesn’t make you more equipped or God does that work and people just have to believe this, because you’re right, people get discouraged and like, “I don’t even know, I’ll never know drash, I’ll never be able to do remez,” which is all false. You can do all these things, especially with Google. It’s amazing—thing called biblegateway.com and Blue Letter Bible and Bible Hub.
Brent: You can’t do sod with Google.
Marty: Yes, great point. We’ll talk about sod more later, but you’re right. It’s not like if you’re on drash, God’s speaking to you more than the person at p’shat. No, absolutely not. God can be working more on the p’shat level with somebody seeking the heart of God than he can with a trained Pharisee. Obviously, the whole essence of the teaching we’re having here. He can do more with somebody, a brainless nobody on p’shat than he can with a super trained academic at drash.
It’s no indication of the working of God. Wonderful point. We need to keep reminding ourselves of that, because everybody feels like, “Oh, I’m not getting to the good stuff.” No, the good stuff is where God is working. If that’s on p’shat, great. We just want to ask rabbinical questions, because if we are ready, if we do have ears to hear, as Jesus said last week. If we do have eyes to see and ears to hear, we want to dig, we want to go further. We want to see what God has for us. We want the text to become alive and not stale and old and nasty.
Okay, so now let’s talk, we did p’shat. What’s the next one?
Brent: Remez.
Marty: Remez. Let’s see the first one. We got Tyre and Sidon. We could Bible Gateway and we could do all that stuff and people ought to do that. You got to pause the podcast. You want to go word search Tyre and Sidon and see what passages come up. My favorite, and I think the one they’re going to think of is Ezekiel 28, which we talked about in Session 2 in the Ezekiel podcast.
We could even link it if we wanted to, but the Ezekiel podcast we talked about the passage of Ezekiel 28, written to Tyre and Sidon deliberately stated, like obviously stated in the text of Ezekiel 28 that it’s about Tyre and Sidon, and it’s the passage that we always use to talk about Satan. Now, the whole chapter is about Tyre and Sidon, but I just chose a section for you to read. I want us to listen to what God said about the king of Tyre and people of Tyre. Listen to this.
Brent: This is Ezekiel 28:11–19. The word of the Lord came to me, son of man take up a lament concerning the king of Tyre and say to him, ‘This is what the Sovereign Lord says. You were the seal of perfection, full of wisdom and perfect beauty. You were in Eden the garden of God. Every precious stone adorned you. Carnelian, chrysolite and emerald, topaz, onyx, and jasper, lapis lazuli, turquoise, and beryl. Your settings and mountings were made of gold. On the day you were created they were prepared. You were anointed as a guardian cherub for so I ordained you.
You were on the holy mount of God. You walked among the fiery stones. You were blameless in your ways from the day you were created till weakness was found in you. Through your widespread trade, you were filled with violence and you sinned. So I drove you in disgrace from the mount of God and I expelled you, guardian cherub from among the fiery stones. Your heart became proud on account of your beauty, and you corrupted your wisdom because of your splendor. So I threw you to the earth and made a spectacle of you before kings, by your many sins and dishonest trade, you have desecrated your sanctuaries. So I made a fire come out from you and it consumed you and I reduced you to ashes on the ground in the sight of all who are watching. All the nations who knew you are appalled at you. You have come to a horrible end and will be no more.
Marty: Okay, so that passage is about who, Brent?
Brent: Satan.
[laughter]
Brent: Oh, oh, sorry.
Marty: Thank you for listening so closely.
Brent: Sorry, sorry, sorry. The word of the Lord came to me, son of man take up a lament concerning the king of Tyre.
Marty: When Ezekiel uttered this in its original form, this was about Tyre. Now I’ve had people write me and say, “After listening to Session 2, could it have also been about Satan?” Sure, I don’t know why we would need it to be because the passage is about the king of Tyre. This is deliberately about the king of Tyre and what is the sin? This is the remez that Jesus—or at least one of a few possible remez-es, but the one that I like, this is the remez that people would think of when Jesus says, “It’d be better for Tyre and Sidon.” The passage that talks about Tyre and Sidon is Ezekiel 28. What is the sin of Tyre here, Brent?
Brent: Filled with violence?
Marty: Filled with violence? You’re not taking care of people, you are actually taking advantage.
Brent: Your heart was proud.
Marty: Proud, pride.
Brent: Corrupted wisdom.
Marty: Corrupted wisdom. I think dishonest trade, that comes up a couple times. This is the sin. There’s a proud, corrupted people in Tyre that take advantage of others. We found the remez, what’s the next level we want to wrestle with here?
Brent: Drash.
Marty: Drash. Why does Jesus quote this passage when he’s critiquing? We said that the question here is, woe to you because you didn’t what? It’s not that you didn’t believe, is that you didn’t…?
Brent: Repent.
Marty: Repent. They’re seeing the miracles. They believe in God. What behavior are they not changing? Is it not pride? Is it not a corrupted wisdom? Is it not the fact that they take advantage of other people and they don’t care about the—who would Matthew say?
Brent: The mumzer.
Marty: The mamzer. Jesus in the passage just before this said, “The Son of Man came eating and drinking, and they say he’s a glutton, and a drunkard, a friend of…” What?
Brent: A friend of sinners.
Marty: A friend of tax collectors and sinners. That’s the critique in the triangle of who Jesus is. Jesus says “That’s your problem. You haven’t actually changed the way you treat people. You have all the wisdom, you have all the knowledge, you’ve got all the scriptures. You’ve got all this pride, and you know you have it.” You’re full of this and yet, Tyre and Sidon who aren’t even God’s people, they’re outsiders. That’s why the judgment is going to be greater on God’s people, because they should know better. Tyre and Sidon are going to rise up on the day of judgment and judge you, because they’re going to say, if we discovered this, how much more should you have known this?
Either way, if you want a fun exercise, here’s the thing. I don’t know why we always read this and assume Satan, can I give everybody a fun exercise? What if they went back through that whole passage and instead of seeing Satan, what if they saw Adam as the representative of God’s people? Adam as mankind. Doesn’t the passage fit? Maybe even better, you were the seal of perfection. We always assume this is about Satan when he was in heaven. He rebelled against God as a—we have this whole backstory from this thing, the crazy stuff we talked about in Session 2—what if it’s not Satan? What if it’s just Adam?
Brent: God saw what he had made and it was very good.
Marty: It was good. Full of wisdom and perfect in beauty. Wasn’t Adam and Eve in Eden, the Garden of God? “Every precious stone adorned you. Carnelian, chrysolite, emerald, topaz, onyx, jasper, lapis lazuli, turquoise, beryl. Your settings and mountains were made of gold on the day you were created. They were prepared. I anointed you as a guardian cherub.” What was Adam’s job in Genesis?
Brent: To be a steward of the garden.
Marty: To be a steward, a guardian of the garden. A guardian cherub for so I ordained you. Did he ever ordain Satan to be the guardian cherub? We all are like, “In heaven he did.” Says who? [chuckles] But the Bible does say he anointed Adam to be that guardian cherub. Let’s see here. “You are on the holy mount of God, you walked among the fiery stones. You are blameless in all your ways from the day you were created till weakness was found in you. Through your widespread trade you were filled with violence and sin.”
You can keep going through that. This fits. Actually keep reading that passage, not you, but our listeners. Read that passage and ask yourself does this fit Adam more or Satan when it says like threw you to the earth? What was Adam and Cain’s curse?
Brent: They’ll toil in the earth.
Marty: They’ll toil in the earth. He cast Adam out of the garden to head east to work the soil. What does he curse? What curses Adam, the earth. Anyway, enough. Let’s move on to the—we did the whole p’shat for Sodom and Gomorrah. Let’s think about what the remez might be. We got ready for this episode. What passage did we choose for the remez here?
Brent: We have Ezekiel 16, starting in verse 49.
Marty: All right. Let’s remind ourselves of what the prophets say about Sodom and Gomorrah and their sin. By the way, somewhere between 7 to 11 direct references of Sodom in the Old Testament or in the Bible as a whole, depending on how you count “direct.” Somewhere between 7 and 11 direct references to Sodom, only one of them mentions sexuality. It’s the book of Jude at the very end. Every other reference associates Sodom with the same group of sins. Sexuality does not make the list, just as a passing reference. Go ahead.
Brent: Ezekiel 16. Now, this was the sin of your sister Sodom.
Marty: Seems pretty direct. This is it.
Brent: This ought to be it. She and her daughters were arrogant, overfed, and unconcerned. They did not help the poor and needy. They were haughty and did detestable things before me.
Marty: Sounds similar to Tyre. Does it not?
Brent: A little bit.
Marty: What city was associated with Sodom?
Brent: Gomorrah.
Marty: Excuse me. The triangle city.
Brent: Capernaum.
Marty: Capernaum. Tell me about Capernaum.
Brent: They were the religious leaders.
Marty: The Harvard, right?
Brent: Yes.
Marty: Who is more haughty than Capernaum? A very similar list to Tyre and yet—okay, go ahead and keep reading.
Brent: Therefore I did away with them as you have seen, Samaria did not commit half the sins you did.
Marty: I wonder how that sounds too. Keep going.
Brent: You have done more detestable things than they and have made your sisters seem righteous by all these things you have done. Bear your disgrace for you have furnished some justification for your sisters. Because your sins were more vile than theirs, they appear more righteous than you, so then be ashamed and bear your disgrace for you have made your sisters appear righteous.
Marty: By the way, who is Ezekiel talking to here? Ezekiel. Both of these came out of Ezekiel. Ezekiel, and the other one was talking about Tyre. Who is Ezekiel talking about here?
Brent: He’s talking about Sodom.
Marty: Okay, but he’s talking to, who’s the audience? Because he’s saying this was the sin of your sister Sodom. Sodom is the sister, who is the “your”?
Brent: See, I always regret it when I don’t load the entire chapter.
Marty: Yes. That’s my fault too. I told you which verses to get.
Brent: The word of the LORD came to me, “Son of man, confront Jerusalem.”
Marty: Who is this? This is God’s people. The word from Ezekiel to God’s people. See, I wonder if Jesus remez’s these in order on purpose. Here’s Tyre and Sidon, but I also want to remind you of your own history. In your own history, God confronted you and said, “Your sins are worse than that of Sodom.” You make your sister Sodom look brilliant in comparison to your sins. Isn’t that a brilliant remez for what Jesus is going and which leads us to the drash? What is the sin of the triangle? What is Jesus saying woe to them for? What are they not repenting from? It’s not their knowledge. They got all the scripture in the world. It’s not their belief in God. They totally believe and are devoted and committed to following God.
It’s that in their devotion and in their walk of obedience, they don’t take care of apparently the poor, the needy among them, those on the outside. Sodom and Gomorrah was about who? If you go back to Genesis, they took advantage of who?
Brent: Of foreigners.
Marty: Foreigners; it’s about the mamzer. According to Matthew, God’s judgment will fall on his people. Not because they don’t know their Bible, not because they’re not committed to following the rules, but because they don’t take care of people on the outside. Again, I hope my listeners are hearing why I chose Matthew to be the Gospel we walk through, because I feel like this is the Gospel. This is the challenge. This is the prophecy, the warning, the Gospel warning that we ought to wrestle with a day’s modern evangelical church.
I think we are so wound up about preserving our comfort and the world that we feel like we built. Now we feel like it’s under attack and everybody is out to get us and it’s all falling apart and it’s no longer this wonderful, comfortable thing for one particular group of people. I’ll leave my own comments for what that group of people look like, and don’t look like, but we’re so wound up about losing that. I think Jesus says, “Woe to you, you know your doctrine, you know your theology, you worship me with long songs at your church services, and yet you don’t take care of people that are looking for the face of God.” Good stuff. Let’s finish this thing out. What’s next? Matthew.
Brent: All right. Matthew. At that time, Jesus said, “I praise you, Father, Lord of heaven and earth because you have hidden these things from the wise and learned and revealed them to little children. Yes, Father, for this is what you were pleased to do. All things have been committed to me by my Father. No one knows the Son except the Father, and no one knows the Father except the Son and those to whom the Son chooses to reveal him. Come to me, all you who are weary and burdened, and I will give you rest. Take my yoke upon you and learn from me. For I am gentle and humble in heart, and you will find rest for your souls. For my yoke is easy, and my burden is light”
Marty: Wonderfully known passage there. Wonderful, beautiful verse there. Jesus follows up this woe, woe to God’s people, because they’re not taking care of the heavy-laden, the burdened, the tired, the weary. Jesus turns around and says, “If you’re burdened, if you’re weary, if you’re heavy-laden, come to me and I will give you rest and take my yoke upon.” The Pharisees have a yoke. The problem is it loads all of these expectations down and it loads you with guilt and shame and it loads you with things to do, but I’ve got a yolk that is easy. It’s burden is light and you can find rest for your souls in my world, under my teaching in the way that I interpret Torah in the way that I teach you how to follow God, there’s a lightness, not an easiness.
Lightness doesn’t mean easy. Remember Jesus said the way is narrow. It’s not an easiness. It’s a lightness. The burden is light. The way is not easy, but the burden that you’re carrying on that way is light. Now, why does he say this, Brent? It’s a weird, cryptic thing to say. Rabbi is talking again. Why is he saying all this, Brent?
Brent: It’s in the Text.
Marty: It’s in the Text. Of course, he’s in the triangle, so everybody catches these things. Let’s take this apart one by one, first thing Jesus says. Come to me, all you who are weary and burdened, and I will give you rest. Now, as this was taught to me, my rabbi Ray said I promise you that when he said the words come to me and I will give you rest. He said people either picked up stones to stone Jesus, or you could’ve heard a pin drop because they would’ve said, did he just say, “I will give you rest?”
He can’t say I will give you rest. He has to say it like: God said, “I will give you rest.” He has to say the scriptures say I will give—but he just said, I will give, come to me and I will give you rest—but he must be quoting what you said, Brent.
Brent: Exodus 33.
Marty: How about Exodus 33:14, right?
Brent: The Lord replied, “My presence will go with you and I will give you rest.”
Marty: Jesus, in essence—see, I find this so interesting, because we often love to go to verses where we think Jesus is claiming to be God, and we love to say, “Look, Jesus claimed to be God.” When you see it from a Jewish contextual perspective, you realize Jesus is hardly ever claiming to be God in those passages. Did we miss the passages where Jesus is claiming to be God, because he’s remez-ing, there’s p’shat, remez, and drash? He’s remez-ing passages where God says this is what I do. Not what my people do. This is what I do.
God said to Moses, “My presence will go with you and I will give you rest.” Jesus just said, “Come to me and I will give you rest.” Every Jew, every trained Jew in that crowd that heard him say that went “Did He just say I will give you…?” He can’t say, “I will give you.” He just said he’s God. He just made the claim that he was the one that would give rest. Only God gives rest. Who does he think he is? Then he ups the ante. He takes it up. He kicks it up a notch, as one of our favorite chefs would say.
Brent: Our favorite?
Marty: [laughs]
Brent: I feel like I just got lumped in unjustly.
Marty: Let’s see—go ahead and read the next one, Brent.
Brent: The next portion in Matthew. “Take my yoke upon you and learn from me for I’m gentle and humble in heart.”
Marty: Okay. Must be quoting?
Brent: Number 12.
Marty: Number 12. Tell me, which is interesting by the way. That’s funny, whenever somebody says, “You know me, I’m just—” what, Brent?
Brent: Humble.
Marty: “I’m just humble.” We all laugh and joke because there’s nothing more antithetical to humility than somebody saying, “You know me, I’m humble.” One of the jokes in Jewish rabbinical thought was there’s only one person who had the chutzpah and the audacity to say, “I’m humble”. Read me Numbers 12:3.
Brent: Numbers 12. Books of Moses.
Marty: Yes. Written by apparently, traditionally, who?
Brent: By Moses. Now Moses was a very humble man, more humble than anyone else on the face of the earth.
Marty: Rabbinical thought joked and said only Moses would say, “You know me, I’m the most humble man on the face of the earth.” What does Jesus say? Come to me because I’m humble. Jesus just got done saying I’m God, what did He just say in this one?
Brent: I’m gentle and humble in heart.
Marty: He now just said, “I’m…”?
Brent: “I’m Moses.”
Marty: “I’m Moses.” Now, if anybody went last or two podcasts ago, or however many podcasts ago, we talked about the Bible Project. If anybody listened to those videos or looked at the material that we showed there, you noticed that one of the themes the Bible Project guys brought out was Matthew keeps trying to suggest that Jesus is the new Moses. This is one of those places where Jesus blatantly states in essence, “I’m God and I’m the second Moses. I am the one who gives rest, and I am the one that you’re waiting for, and I’m here.” Then he finishes that statement with this phrase.
Brent: “You will find rest for your souls.”
Marty: That sounds like another statement right out of the scriptures. I believe you had this first one when we went to Israel. Is that correct?
Brent: Yes.
Marty: Alright. Lay it on me.
Brent: Jeremiah 6. This is what the Lord says. “Stand at the crossroads and look, ask for the ancient paths, ask where the good way is, and walk in it, and you will find rest for your souls.”
Marty: In this statement, which we love like we quote this verse all the time, “Come to me, all you who are weary and heavy-laden. You will find rest for your souls. Take my yoke upon me. Learn from me, for it is light.” Let’s see here. Hold on. I should just read it. Come to me all you who are weary and burdened, I will give you rest. Take my yoke upon you and learn from me, for I’m gentle and humble in heart, and you will find rest for your souls for my yoke is easy and my burden is light.
We quote this, we read this and we quote it, what we don’t realize is Jesus makes these thunderous statements. “I am God. I am Moses. I am…” What is that talking about, Brent? What will give them rest for your souls?
Brent: The way,
Marty: The way and what is the way in Jewish thought?
Brent: Like the path of God.
Marty: The path and the path is quite literally…?
Brent: The word of God.
Marty: The Text, right? Jesus is saying, “I am God. I am Moses and I am Torah. I am all of it. I am everything that you’re looking for and everything that you’re trying to follow. God, Moses, Torah, I’m it. You found it in this Jewish rabbi. I’m showing you how to walk Torah. I am Torah in flesh in front of you. You’re looking for a new Moses? I’m the new Moses,” because this whole Pharisaical worldview ain’t cutting it. Not at this point in history.
It might be later in Judaism, but at this point in history, Jesus is offering a critique on what this religious worldview is doing. It’s making people suffer. It’s pushing mamzers to the outside, into the margins. Just a great way to respond to the religious worldview around him. He’s not going to be done yet. Right after Matthew 11 is going to come Matthew 12, and we’re going to have a bunch more stories of the religious worldview coming to Jesus, push him back, and Jesus is going to critique and go, “That’s not what this is about. You got it all backwards. You got your Torah, you got your obedience, you got your path. You’re just not interpreting it correctly. You’re abolishing it.” Jesus would say, “I’ve come to fulfill it and you’re abolishing it. Let me correct your interpretation.” Beautiful! Brilliant.
Brent: Well, that definitely does it for another episode.
Marty: Certainly does.
Brent: [laughs] We’ve probably given you enough to think about for one day. If you have any questions about it, we hope you dig into the Text, read some more of that Ezekiel, read some more—find your own remezes, see if there’s anything that we missed, whatever. Just dig into it and hopefully, you enjoy the work, because it’s pretty fun when you stumble on something. You can find any extra details you need to know about the show at bemadiscipleship.com. Thanks for joining us on The BEMA Podcast. We will talk to you again soon.