Only Matthew 13 and Hebrews 9 discuss the "foundation" of the world and its final "consummation" in the same narrative

What is noteworthy is that Matthew's narrative is wholly lacking in any notion of an "intervening" sacrifice for sins (the case is similar in Matthew 25 where "foundation of the world" also appears in a context of final judgment):

That it might be fulfilled which was spoken by the prophet, saying, I will open my mouth in parables; I will utter things which have been kept secret from the foundation [καταβολῆς] of the world. Then Jesus sent the multitude away, and went into the house: and his disciples came unto him, saying, Declare unto us the parable of the tares of the field. He answered and said unto them, He that soweth the good seed is the Son of man; The field is the world; the good seed are the children of the kingdom; but the tares are the children of the wicked one; The enemy that sowed them is the devil; the harvest is the end [συντέλεια] of the world; and the reapers are the angels. As therefore the tares are gathered and burned in the fire; so shall it be in the end [συντελείᾳ] of this world. The Son of man shall send forth his angels, and they shall gather out of his kingdom all things that offend, and them which do iniquity; And shall cast them into a furnace of fire: there shall be wailing and gnashing of teeth. ... So shall it be at the end [συντελείᾳ] of the world: the angels shall come forth, and sever the wicked from among the just, And shall cast them into the furnace of fire: there shall be wailing and gnashing of teeth.

-- Matthew 13:35ff., 49f.

The narrative in Hebrews borrows this terminology but reinterprets the apocalypticism in the christological and soteriological terms which came to rationalize the Son of man's death as well as individual deaths among mankind generally. The Son of man now has to come back a second time at some unspecified but presumably near future date to effect the final judgment which did not occur the first time (obviously this too is now long "delayed"):

For Christ is not entered into the holy places made with hands, which are the figures of the true; but into heaven itself, now to appear in the presence of God for us: Nor yet that he should offer himself often, as the high priest entereth into the holy place every year with blood of others; For then must he often have suffered since the foundation [καταβολῆς] of the world: but now once in the end [συντελείᾳ] of the world hath he appeared to put away sin by the sacrifice of himself. And as it is appointed unto men once to die, but after this the judgment: So Christ was once offered to bear the sins of many; and unto them that look for him shall he appear the second time without sin unto salvation.

-- Hebrews 9:24ff.

What Matthew 13 imagines intervening is repentance in obedience to the warning, variously demonstrated by accepting the message with a good heart, turning away from evil, and bearing good fruits of righteousness, by selling everything one has to acquire the kingdom, giving to the poor, etc.

The most obvious indication that Jesus taught that few would be saved is the parable of the sower

The parable of the sower is found in the triple tradition, in Matthew 13:3ff., Mark 4:3ff. and  Luke 8:5ff. 

In each version the word of God sown in only 25% of the territories described becomes harvestable, and in each version this wisdom is revealed only to the disciples. This is in keeping with the double-edged sword of the prophetic message of Jesus, to issue one last call to repentance before the final judgment. It is good news to the few who repent, and bad news to the many who do not.

And he said unto them, Unto you it is given to know the mystery of the kingdom of God: but unto them that are without, all these things are done in parables.

-- Mark 4:11

He answered and said unto them, Because it is given unto you to know the mysteries of the kingdom of heaven, but to them it is not given.

-- Matthew 13:11

And he said, Unto you it is given to know the mysteries of the kingdom of God: but to others in parables; that seeing they might not see, and hearing they might not understand.

-- Luke 8:10

A big part of the attraction of Christianity in China is its answer to communism

From the story in The Atlantic, here:

“[Auntie Wei] was not someone who heard the word wansui [long live] too often. If she heard it, she would have thought it applied to China, or the Communist Party, or Chairman Mao. Wansui: that’s almost always reserved for them. This is wrong. Wansui, this word, if it belongs to anyone, it belongs to Auntie Wei.” A couple of people looked up startled.

“I tell you that she can hear wansui now because she is wansui; she is immortal because of Jesus. It’s not the government that can confer this word. It’s God, and it’s us by how we live our daily lives. It’s the choices we make despite the immoral society we live in. This is what real wansui is. It’s nothing that the Communist Party can provide. It’s something we can make ourselves.”

Suddenly people were smiling; this was why they came to Early Rain Reformed Church. It was different from the anodyne churches sponsored by the state. It was warm and direct, but most of all it was relevant. It was for people who didn’t want the status quo, who were searching for alternatives to the life around them.

Early Rain Reformed Church is located in Chengdu

Reinhold Niebuhr's Christianity fatefully argued that the end justifies the means, playing into the hands of today's radicals

With which Jesus would most certainly not have agreed, otherwise we would know Jesus as a zealot instead of as an eschatological prophet who eschewed human agency in establishing the kingdom of God.

The pacifism against which Niebuhr was reacting is simply one of human beings' competing fall-back positions put forward from his teaching to take the place of Jesus' ultimately mistaken prediction of the end of the world. Pacifism is monstrous in the sense that it is an exaggeration of a part of Jesus' message, distorting that message, as are all interpretations divorced from the eschatological imperative, including Niebuhr's.

There is a direct line connecting Niebuhr to the present, where leftist radicals now eschew the nonviolence of previous civil rights movements and justify aggravated battery in the streets, destruction of private property, and suppression of freedom of speech, among other crimes against the liberal democratic order, in the name of the goals of that order. It's not a coincidence that Niebuhr is a hero to people like Barack Obama, John McCain and James Comey, realists who justify lying for the greater good.

If Niebuhr were alive today, one wonders if the irony of the unintended consequences of his own thinking would be lost on him.

Reinhold Niebuhr, recently discussed here:

A reviewer wrote in 1933 of Moral Man and Immoral Society, “To call this book fully Christian in tone is to travesty the heart of Jesus’ message to the world.” The reviewer took issue with the text because Niebuhr implied that Christians must sometimes resort to violence when dealing with groups. Niebuhr traded barbs with pacifists for the rest of the decade. “If modern churches were to symbolize their true faith,” he wrote in 1940, “they would take the crucifix from their altars and substitute the three little monkeys who counsel men to ‘speak no evil, hear no evil, see no evil.” ... In his view the aggressive fascist powers stood on one side. On the other were the naïve pacifists who would refuse to fight evil. We must choose the sensible middle ground, he argued. We must do evil for the sake of the good.

The basic meaning of honoring father and mother has been truncated by the introspective conscience of the West

kabad -- to be honored, to be great, to be plentiful, to be glorious, to multiply oneself, to make oneself numerous

The basic meaning of adding honor to father and mother is giving them grandchildren, in obedience to the Urgebot to be fruitful and multiply, and in fulfillment of the promise to Abraham to make his descendants as the sands of the seashore and the stars of the firmament. It's not simply about "obedience", as Luther would have it in his Large Catechism. Few commentators, in fact, connect the honoring of parents with the number of their posterity as the Old Testament does generally.

Children's children are the crown of old men; and the glory of children are their fathers.

-- Proverbs 17:6

Lo, children are an heritage of the LORD: and the fruit of the womb is his reward. As arrows are in the hand of a mighty man; so are children of the youth. Happy is the man that hath his quiver full of them: they shall not be ashamed, but they shall speak with the enemies in the gate.

-- Psalm 127:3ff.

That in blessing I will bless thee, and in multiplying I will multiply thy seed as the stars of the heaven, and as the sand which is upon the sea shore; and thy seed shall possess the gate of his enemies;

-- Genesis 22:17

The Hatfield Clan in 1897

The first schismatics are the Roman Catholics themselves, and then the Greek Orthodox, and they are divided to this day

Spare me the critique of "schismatic" Protestantism beginning with Luther in 1517.

You Catholics and Orthodox were at it over 400 years before us, and still are.

Meanwhile Protestants laid the groundwork for the most free, enlightened and prosperous populations which have ever existed in human history while you sit there arguing about who runs this rathole and that rathole as both are being overrun by Muslims.

In 1053, the first step was taken in the process which led to formal schism: the Ecumenical Patriarch of Constantinople Michael I Cerularius ordered the closure of all Latin churches in Constantinople, in response to the Greek churches in southern Italy having been forced either to close or to conform to Latin practices. According to the historian J. B. Bury, Cerularius' purpose in closing the Latin churches was "to cut short any attempt at conciliation". ... Several attempts at reconciliation did not bear fruit. In 1965, Pope Paul VI and the Ecumenical Patriarch of Constantinople Athenagoras I nullified the anathemas of 1054, although this nullification of measures taken against a few individuals was essentially a goodwill gesture and did not constitute any sort of reunion. Contacts between the two sides continue: every year a delegation from each joins in the other's celebration of its patronal feast, Saints Peter and Paul (29 June) for Rome and Saint Andrew (30 November) for Constantinople, and there have been a number of visits by the head of each to the other. The efforts of the Ecumenical Patriarchs towards reconciliation with the Catholic Church have often been the target of sharp criticism from some fellow Orthodox.

"Bible Answer Man" Hank Hanegraaff falls for superstition, booted from US radio network serving 51 million listeners, mostly Baptist, for converting to Greek Orthodoxy

From the story here:

[Bott Radio Network] had reportedly been broadcasting the "Bible Answer Man" since the 1980s, even before Hanegraaff joined the show in 1989. ... BRN says on its website that it operates over 100 broadcast signals with a combined coverage of 51 million people in 15 states, offering "family quality Christian programming 24 hours a day." The "Bible Answer Man" page could no longer be found on the BRN website. The Christian Post confirmed last week that Hanegraaff, who is also the president and chairman of the Christian Research Institute, was chrismated on Palm Sunday at Saint Nektarios Greek Orthodox Church in Charlotte, North Carolina.

http://www.stnektarios.org/files/various_pdf/baptism_requirements.pdf

Filial piety: The first rule for a long and happy life

Honour thy father and thy mother: that thy days may be long upon the land which the LORD thy God giveth thee.

-- Exodus 20:12

Honour thy father and thy mother, as the LORD thy God hath commanded thee; that thy days may be prolonged, and that it may go well with thee, in the land which the LORD thy God giveth thee.

-- Deuteronomy 5:16

My, how the country, and even NYC, has changed in the last 61 years

Perhaps Jesus' worst legacy is the trail of "heroic" but really mentally ill "self-sacrificial" suicides he encouraged, starting with Paul

He that findeth his life shall lose it: and he that loseth his life for my sake shall find it. -- Matthew 10:39

For whosoever will save his life shall lose it: and whosoever will lose his life for my sake shall find it. -- Matthew 16:25

For whosoever will save his life shall lose it; but whosoever shall lose his life for my sake and the gospel's, the same shall save it. -- Mark 8:35

For whosoever will save his life shall lose it: but whosoever will lose his life for my sake, the same shall save it. -- Luke 9:24

Whosoever shall seek to save his life shall lose it; and whosoever shall lose his life shall preserve it. -- Luke 17:33

He that loveth his life shall lose it; and he that hateth his life in this world shall keep it unto life eternal. -- John 12:25 (!)

For to me to live is Christ, and to die is gain. -- Philippians 1:21

Organs of the liberal media showcase anti-Christian progressive Christians preening and calling Trump anti-Christian

Tutt Tutt . . . looks like bullshit

The Rev. Ann Kansfield, smoking, cursing, lesbian preacher employed by the FDNY (church and state issue anybody?), sure knows how to get her name in the newspapers, here, where however you never learn from the Christian Science Monitor that she's a smoking, cursing, lesbian:

Rev. Ann Kansfield, the minister of proclamation at Greenpoint Reformed, isn’t sure how much the congregation’s recent surge can be attributed to a “Trump bump.” More people voted for Bernie Sanders in Greenpoint, after all, than any other area of New York City in the Democratic primary last year, and Reverend Kansfield noticed a simmering political energy going back to 2015.  

Up to then, the church had plateaued with about 35 adult members. On Sunday, there were more than 60, including children. “We were already established as the progressive church in the neighborhood,” she says, noting that LGBT inclusion and its soup kitchen and food pantry were its primary ministries. “But with this new energy, we’ve been doing some deciding over who we are and what we do, and what following Jesus should look like in our context.”

As it happens, this Christian Science Monitor story links to an Atlantic story here from last December which is in fact skeptical of the surge in attendance, but where, lo and behold, another guy pops up who also manages to work the organs of the liberal media by being outrageous, namely the devil-denying Timothy Tutt, except the Atlantic never tells you that Timothy Tutt denies the existence of the devil:

While a number of pastors spoke about their parishioners’ feelings of pain, they also spoke of a newfound sense of mission. “I am finding the coming Trump presidency … to be clarifying,” wrote Timothy Tutt, the senior minister at Westmoreland Congregational United Church of Christ in Bethesda, Maryland, in an email. “As a liberal Christian preacher it helps me find my voice. It helps me know who I am called to be. And helps our congregation know who we are—and who we aren’t.”

"Progressive" Christians such as these, the Atlantic informs us, imagine that Trump is "the antithesis of everything Christian".

Written without the slightest hint of irony.

Actual forgiveness of sins, without a bloody sacrifice, without resurrection from the dead

For if ye forgive men their trespasses, your heavenly Father will also forgive you. -- Matthew 6:14

And, behold, they brought to him a man sick of the palsy, lying on a bed: and Jesus seeing their faith said unto the sick of the palsy; Son, be of good cheer; thy sins be forgiven thee. -- Matthew 9:2

When Jesus saw their faith, he said unto the sick of the palsy, Son, thy sins be forgiven thee. -- Mark 2:5

And when ye stand praying, forgive, if ye have ought against any: that your Father also which is in heaven may forgive you your trespasses. -- Mark 11:25

And when he saw their faith, he said unto him, Man, thy sins are forgiven thee. -- Luke 5:20

Judge not, and ye shall not be judged: condemn not, and ye shall not be condemned: forgive, and ye shall be forgiven. -- Luke 6:37

And he said unto her, Thy sins are forgiven. -- Luke 7:48

What if the Jesus Movement wasn't originally a resurrection cult at all?

For a resurrection cult which came to believe in Jesus' resurrection, Jesus' closest followers seem like the biggest bunch of dimwits about it despite all of Jesus' "predictions" that he would rise on the third day.

One begins in Matthew 12:40 with the prediction that the Son of Man would be "three days and three nights in the heart of the earth".

Then follow all the rising-on-the-third-day predictions in Matthew 16:21, 17:23, 20:19 and 26:32.

Mark has these in 8:31, 9:31, 10:34 and 14:28.

Luke in 9:22, 44, 18:33, and ex post facto 24:6ff., 21, 26, 46.

Yet there is unaccountable bewilderment on the part of the disciples about Jesus' prediction: "what the rising from the dead should mean" (Mark 9:10).

There is even fear to inquire: "But they understood not that saying, and were afraid to ask him" (Mark 9:32).

You have to wonder about such dumbfoundedness given the ubiquity of the topic in the gospels otherwise.

In Matthew 10:8 Jesus sent out these same disciples to "raise the dead"! Well, did they?

Resurrections are proof of Jesus' ministry (Matthew 11:5, Luke 7:14, 22 and 8:54).

And speculation existed that Jesus himself was John the Baptist risen from the dead (Matthew 14:2), or one of the prophets (Luke 9:8, 19). Like they hadn't heard that.

You also have to wonder about other perplexing behavior.

Why would the women followers of Jesus bother to prepare spices for the burial of his body and bring them on the third day if he actually predicted that he would die and rise, and they believed this? (Mark 16:1, Luke 23: 56, Luke 24:1)

Even the authorities knew of this prediction, we are led to understand, and took measures to secure against it. (Matthew 27:63f. "that deceiver said 'After three days I will rise again'") The unbelievers knew, but Jesus' own followers did not? (John 20:9 "For as yet they knew not the scripture, that he must rise again from the dead")

None of this is satisfactory.

The predictions of Jesus' death and rising on the third day all look to be revisionist history, imported into the narrative from the future when reflection had settled on a narrative.

That narrative was largely Pauline. It made resurrection the centerpiece of the religion, replacing Jesus' original message of the imminent coming of the kingdom of God. As such the narrative was a Christian form of Pharisaism, in which Paul's genius as a theologian invented the new availability of individual holiness apart from the temple cult, secured through the once for all sacrifice of God's own son.

Jesus meanwhile had intended none of this, not to die for the sins of Israel let alone the whole world. If he intended the replacement of the temple cult, it was with individual repentance and mercy, prayer, and delight in the law of the Lord, bringing an end to the shedding of blood in preparation for the descent of the heavenly temple when God himself would establish justice and peace once and for all, and remove everything from Israel which offended. "Thy kingdom come, thy will be done . . .."

The historical kernel on which was built a religion wholly different from this was simply Jesus' own conviction that as a prophet he would likely be killed.

Out of the molehill of this sober expectation and its unfortunate realization was made the historical accident, the mountain we call Christianity.

The durable Great Commission and the transitory Not So Great Commission: Pick one

Go therefore and make disciples of all the nations, baptizing them . . . teaching them . . . and, lo, I am with you alway, even unto the end of the world. Amen.

-- Mt. 28:19f.

Go not into the way of the Gentiles, and into any city of the Samaritans enter ye not: But go rather to the lost sheep of the house of Israel. And as ye go, preach, saying, The kingdom of heaven is at hand. . . . for verily I say unto you, Ye shall not have gone over the cities of Israel, till the Son of man be come.

-- Mt. 10:5ff., 23

The anti-Protestant lunatics get to spread their hate at Rod Dreher's blog

Seen here in the comments section from Roman Catholic partisans:

Luther, in effect, by concocting a doctrine that he said was THE essence of the faith, swept away all church history . . ..

And this:

. . . God was killed by Martin Luther. What we are now witnessing is the final product of that deicide.

Meanwhile Muslims are mass-murdering Coptic Christians in Egypt in coordinated attacks on Palm Sunday.

But the enemy for Catholics is Lutherans. And anti-migrant populists.

Last time I checked it was Protestant America that saved Rome's sorry ass.

I'm so Protestant . . .

. . . I object to what even I believe.

N. T. Wright tells an existential whopper about Jesus' triumphal entry into Jerusalem

Here's N. T. Wrong telling us Jesus was weeping as he entered Jerusalem on Palm Sunday, for all manner of reasons except for what the text says:

The crowd went wild as they got nearer. This was the moment they had been waiting for. All the old songs came flooding back, and they were singing, chanting, cheering and laughing. At last, their dreams were going to come true. But in the middle of it all, their leader wasn't singing. He was in tears. Yes, their dreams were indeed coming true. But not in the way they had imagined. He was not the king they expected. Not like the monarchs of old, who sat on their jewelled and ivory thrones, dispensing their justice and wisdom. Nor was he the great warrior-king some had wanted. He didn't raise an army and ride to battle at its head. He was riding on a donkey. And he was weeping - weeping for the dream that had to die, weeping for the sword that would pierce his supporters to the soul. Weeping for the kingdom that wasn't coming as well as the kingdom that was. What was it all about? What did Jesus think he was doing?

What a gooey mess this is, which is fitting I suppose for a part of the tradition which is itself utterly confused and self-contradictory.

The weeping is only Luke's. Matthew, Mark and John do not know it in the triumphal entry.

Luke for his part nevertheless explains quite clearly that Jesus wept for a good and sober reason, namely the coming judgment of Jerusalem, which he believed was the consequence of the imminent coming of the kingdom:


And when he was come near, he beheld the city, and wept over it, Saying, If thou hadst known, even thou, at least in this thy day, the things which belong unto thy peace! but now they are hid from thine eyes. For the days shall come upon thee, that thine enemies shall cast a trench about thee, and compass thee round, and keep thee in on every side, And shall lay thee even with the ground, and thy children within thee; and they shall not leave in thee one stone upon another; because thou knewest not the time of thy visitation.

-- Luke 19:41ff.

This is no dream dying. This is a nightmare being expressed, the bad news part of the good news. It's Luke's Jesus at his eschatological best.

This is what Jesus expected, that many would be called, but only few chosen. Not even his father's house would survive in its current form.

And he went through the cities and villages, teaching, and journeying toward Jerusalem. Then said one unto him, Lord, are there few that be saved? And he said unto them, Strive to enter in at the strait gate: for many, I say unto you, will seek to enter in, and shall not be able. When once the master of the house is risen up, and hath shut to the door, and ye begin to stand without, and to knock at the door, saying, Lord, Lord, open unto us; and he shall answer and say unto you, I know you not whence ye are: Then shall ye begin to say, We have eaten and drunk in thy presence, and thou hast taught in our streets. But he shall say, I tell you, I know you not whence ye are; depart from me, all ye workers of iniquity. There shall be weeping and gnashing of teeth, when ye shall see Abraham, and Isaac, and Jacob, and all the prophets, in the kingdom of God, and you yourselves thrust out.

-- Luke 13:22ff.

Luke says Jesus believed this bad dream to the bitter end, even while being led to crucifixion:

And there followed him a great company of people, and of women, which also bewailed and lamented him. But Jesus turning unto them said, Daughters of Jerusalem, weep not for me, but weep for yourselves, and for your children.

-- Luke 23:27f.

Instead of Rod Dreher's Benedict Option, just try the Book of Proverbs

Train up a child in the way he should go: and when he is old, he will not depart from it.

-- Proverbs 22:6

The one time being a dumb ass was a good thing

 

[Balaam] was rebuked for his own transgression; a dumb ass spoke with human voice and restrained the prophet's madness.

-- 2 Peter 2:16

Can't dig ditches, too ashamed to beg

Then the manager said to himself, What should I do, since my master is taking my position away from me? I'm not strong enough to dig, and I'm too ashamed to beg.

-- Luke 16:3

Be a good dog

Be thou faithful unto death, and I will give thee a crown of life. -- Revelation 2:10