There's an anti-Samaritan Jesus in both Matthew and Luke, despite the so-called Good Samaritan Jesus of Luke 10

 

These twelve Jesus sent forth, and commanded them, saying, 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.

-- Matthew 10:5f.

In Luke 17 Jesus himself practices what he preaches in Matthew 10, avoiding Samaria.

He takes the route south from Galilee after his ministry in Galilee, passing through the Valley of Jezreel which runs between Galilee and Samaria from northwest to southeast.

He does this to get over to the Jordan Valley, where John had baptized him like everybody else (Luke 3:21; 4:1) and which runs straight south to Jericho (Luke 18:35). Once in Jericho, he literally goes up to Jerusalem from there (Luke 18:31; 19:28) to meet his fate, a climb of as much as 3,700 feet in elevation.

Note that for their part the Samaritans in Luke's telling also avoid Jesus (Luke 9:52f.), because he's headed to the rival religious center in Jerusalem. The bad feelings are mutual.

But by the time we get to Luke 17 we are met with at least one thankful leper whom Luke says is a Samaritan but Jesus merely calls a foreigner:

On the way to Jerusalem he was passing along between Sama'ria and Galilee. ... "Was no one found to return and give praise to God except this foreigner [ἀλλογενὴς]?"

-- Luke 17:11, 18

Were the ungrateful nine healed lepers in the story also Samaritans?

The text does not say.

Luke does not have the saying found in Matthew, Many are called, but few are chosen (Matthew 20:16; 22:14), but it might not be wrong to say that he is illustrating that in every tribe and tongue most people really suck, but not all of them.

The chosen few

... [William James] gave special attention to the people he called the “sick souls,” those whose inner lives were marked by melancholy or fear, people who felt the world’s brokenness with burning intensity. Instead of dismissing them as unstable, he saw them as people who grasped the seriousness of life. Their suffering, he believed, was a sign that their hearts were tuned to deeper realities. ... 

More. 

Prodigal vineyard owner lavishes a full day's pay on workers who worked but one hour, Calvinists most hurt

 

 For the kingdom of heaven is like a landowner who went out early in the morning to hire laborers for his vineyard. Now when he had agreed with the laborers for a denarius a day, he sent them into his vineyard.

And he went out about the third hour and saw others standing idle in the marketplace, and said to them, You also go into the vineyard, and whatever is right I will give you. So they went. Again he went out about the sixth and the ninth hour, and did likewise. And about the eleventh hour he went out and found others standing idle, and said to them, Why have you been standing here idle all day? They said to him, Because no one hired us. He said to them, You also go into the vineyard, and whatever is right you will receive.

So when evening had come, the owner of the vineyard said to his steward, Call the laborers and give them their wages, beginning with the last to the first. And when those came who were hired about the eleventh hour, they each received a denarius. But when the first came, they supposed that they would receive more; and they likewise received each a denarius. And when they had received it, they complained against the landowner, saying, These last men have worked only one hour, and you made them equal to us who have borne the burden and the heat of the day.

But he answered one of them and said, Friend, I am doing you no wrong. Did you not agree with me for a denarius? Take what is yours and go your way. I wish to give to this last man the same as to you. Is it not lawful for me to do what I wish with my own things? Or is your eye evil because I am good? So the last will be first, and the first last. For many are called, but few chosen.

-- Matthew 20:1ff. 

Oh no! Rod Dreher's demonic UFOs appear more in wealthier areas and sightings increase during economic recessions

 

 

After accounting for weather conditions and external factors, they found that reports of such phenomena were more common in wealthier regions  . . ..

"We found that wealthier areas report more unidentified aerial phenomena, while such reports increase during economic recessions within specific regions, suggesting that public attention shifts more toward unusual events during times of crisis,” he added. ... the public showed increased attention to unusual phenomena (like UAPs) during recessions, likely due to having more free time or a decline in distractions caused by other economic factors.

 

"Our findings also indicate that the COVID-19 pandemic, with its movement restrictions and lockdowns, led to a significant rise in UAP reports, suggesting that when daily pressures ease, public attention shifts more toward extraordinary events.

 

Reported here.

 

"Idle hands are the devil's workshop". 

 

 

 

LOL, let's just pretend Saul of Tarsus and the Pharisees never existed, nevermind the other sects of the "chosen" people

It is later Christians, rather than first century Jews, who seek to exclude others based on interpretive disagreements.

-- Candida Moss 

Yeah, those guys at Qumran weren't exclusionary at all, and salvation was never "of the Jews".

God's chosen gaslighters

No, Jews Aren’t White:

[W]e alone have been singled out for a specific kind of steady stream of suspicion and persecution throughout history ... In 2019, for example, nearly two-thirds of all religious-based hate crimes in America targeted Jews, a 14 percent increase from the previous year… and rising.

The author, Liel Leibovitz, editor at large for Tablet, doesn't read his own magazine:

What the left doesn’t want to mention about New York City hate crimes:

The perpetrators have been disproportionately black.

As the investigative reporter ­Armin Rosen pointed out in Tablet, “many of the [anti-Jewish] attacks are being carried out by people of color with no ties to the politics of white supremacy.” As he noted, even in cases where no one is caught, video footage overwhelmingly shows minority attackers. Blacks comprised seven of the nine anti-Jewish hate-crime perpetrators arrested during the third quarter.

In the most recent report, blacks comprised 24 of the 34 (71 percent) perpetrators arrested for all hate crimes. After reaching a high of 61 percent in the second quarter of 2018, the black share consistently declined to 14 percent in the second quarter of 2019 but has now shot back up. The NYPD doesn’t account for this odd oscillation, though one wonders if there is a political component to this, as well.

 

Jesus believed only a few in Israel would be saved, Paul believed all Israel would be, along with many Gentiles

For I would not, brethren, that ye should be ignorant of this mystery, lest ye should be wise in your own conceits; that blindness in part is happened to Israel, until the fulness of the Gentiles be come in. And so all Israel shall be saved: as it is written, There shall come out of Sion the Deliverer, and shall turn away ungodliness from Jacob: For this is my covenant unto them, when I shall take away their sins. ... For God hath concluded them all in unbelief, that he might have mercy upon all.

-- Romans 11:25ff., 32

Give not that which is holy unto the dogs, neither cast ye your pearls before swine, lest they trample them under their feet, and turn again and rend you. ... Enter ye in at the strait gate: for wide is the gate, and broad is the way, that leadeth to destruction, and many there be which go in thereat:  Because strait is the gate, and narrow is the way, which leadeth unto life, and few there be that find it. 

-- Matthew 7:6, 13f.

These twelve Jesus sent forth, and commanded them, saying, 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 ye shall be brought before governors and kings for my sake, for a testimony against them and the Gentiles. ... But when they persecute you in this city, flee ye into another: for verily I say unto you, Ye shall not have gone over the cities of Israel, till the Son of man be come.

-- Matthew 10:5f., 18, 23

But he answered and said, I am not sent but unto the lost sheep of the house of Israel. ... But he answered and said, It is not meet to take the children's bread, and to cast it to dogs.

-- Matthew 15:24, 26

So the last shall be first, and the first last: for many be called, but few chosen.

-- Matthew 20:16

For many are called, but few are chosen.

-- Matthew 22:14

Both things cannot be true.

Rod Dreher is praying for 1.1 million dead at Auschwitz, 100+ BILLION dead since 50,000 BC are chopped liver

The chosen people.

The religious left is as unwoke as they claim is the right

The anti-Semitic theology behind the Christian Zionist lobby:

As clergy and people of deep faith and conscience, we do not know a God that ignores or justifies the suffering of one group of people for the security and comfort of others.

 

Awake O! Sleepers:

For thou art an holy people unto the LORD thy God: the LORD thy God hath chosen thee to be a special people unto himself, above all people that are upon the face of the earth. ... And repayeth them that hate him to their face, to destroy them: he will not be slack to him that hateth him, he will repay him to his face. ... Thou shalt be blessed above all people ... . And the LORD will take away from thee all sickness, and will put none of the evil diseases of Egypt, which thou knowest, upon thee; but will lay them upon all them that hate thee. And thou shalt consume all the people which the LORD thy God shall deliver thee; thine eye shall have no pity upon them: neither shalt thou serve their gods; for that will be a snare unto thee. ... Moreover the LORD thy God will send the hornet among them, until they that are left, and hide themselves from thee, be destroyed. ... And he shall deliver their kings into thine hand, and thou shalt destroy their name from under heaven: there shall no man be able to stand before thee, until thou have destroyed them.

-- Deuteronomy 7:6, 10, 14, 15, 16, 20, 24

 

 

Meanwhile . . . 

On Jewish Chosenness and Israeli Chauvinism: 

A survey of the “Beliefs, Observance and Values among Israeli Jews” conducted in 2009 found that 70 percent of Israeli Jews believe that Jews are the chosen people. Since 46 percent of Israeli Jews define themselves as secular according to the survey, the numbers indicate that even within the secular minority, at least one-third maintains a belief in Jewish chosenness, and that the concept has taken on shades of simple ethnic chauvinism beyond any original theological significance. This is reminiscent of the quip about secular Zionists who don’t believe in God but do believe that God gave them the land. ... Half of Israeli Jews (48 percent) believe Arabs should be transferred or expelled from Israel.

Anthropocentric twaddle on hell from the Jesuit priest Thomas Reese of the Religion News Service

 

 

 

God did not create hell; we did. On the other hand, some theologians think that hell is empty because once we meet God, we will choose him.

Here.

The unspoken corollary is that we also created heaven.

Which is fine if you're an atheist, who typically maintains that religion is not the stuff of revelation but is a human creation. But such talk is hardly compatible with the teaching and perspective of Jesus, who was anything but sanguine about human nature, or its fate.

"For many are called, but few are chosen."

"Enter ye in at the strait gate: for wide is the gate, and broad is the way, that leadeth to destruction, and many there be which go in thereat: Because strait is the gate, and narrow is the way, which leadeth unto life, and few there be that find it."

It's no surprise that the many would disagree with this. The offense of the gospel is not the cross, it's the exclusiveness of the club. St. Paul tried to ameliorate this by opening the club to the Gentiles, and the universalists among us carry it a step further, opening the club to the denizens of hell, but at which point nothing Jesus has to say matters much anymore.

And yet they claim to be his worshipers, or at least his followers.

They are neither.

INC Christianity: Paulinism's Achilles' heel is disintegrating Protestantism into a Corinthian chaos of self-appointed profiteering prophets and apostles

And its locus is libertarian America, which worships at the altar of the unencumbered individual, fruitful ground for those who claim they are imitating the self-appointed apostle who was "not sent from men nor through the agency of man, but [directly] through Jesus Christ and God the Father, who raised Him from the dead" (Galatians 1:1).

From the story here:

These apostles are able to access a lot more money, because they are operating with a pay-for-service model, rather than relying on people’s donations and their goodwill. Congregations bend over backwards to keep people happy and keep the butts in the seats; people don’t have to pay unless they feel like it. But this is a completely different financial model, and it tends to generate much more money. ...

It’s all sort of self-appointed. Leaders in the [movement] would say that people are recognized as apostles because of the influence that they have—not only over your own congregation but over other leaders. But there’s definitely a good deal of self-appointing going on. Peter Wagner, a leader in the New Apostolic Reformation movement, referred to himself as a “super apostle,” because he was influential with a bunch of other apostles. ...

[T]he INC movement is explicitly post-millennial. In their minds, God’s kingdom can come to earth before Christ returns—and, by the way, it will be in America. There is this interesting combination of America first, Americans as God’s chosen people, and a romantic vision of God working it out through the people he chooses. /end

You happily put up with whatever anyone tells you, even if they preach a different Jesus than the one we preach, or a different kind of Spirit than the one you received, or a different kind of gospel than the one you believed. But I don't consider myself inferior in any way to these "super apostles" who teach such things. ... But I will continue doing what I have always done [paying my own way, not charging for the gospel]. This will undercut those who are looking for an opportunity to boast that their work is just like ours. These people are false apostles. They are deceitful workers who disguise themselves as apostles of Christ.

-- 2 Corinthians 11:4f., 12f.

Peter Leithart wrings his hands over the divisions caused by the Reformation, uttering complete rubbish

Here in First Things:

The catastrophic effects of these divisions rippled out into European culture, society, and politics. They’re rippling still. Worse, the fragmentation of the Church undermined the evangelical aims of the Reformers. By its sibling feuds, the Reformation quenched the very Spirit it had unleashed.

Protestants were not solely responsible for the division of the Church. Catholic intransigence and treachery silenced prophetic voices and delayed and prevented the deep self-examination the Church needed. Yet Protestants were responsible, especially for the divisions within the Reformation’s own ranks.

Quenched the Spirit, eh? Which spirit? Peter Leithart, like most Christians of the contemporary period, doesn't grasp the essentially divisive nature of the coming of the Spirit, as if the prophets were put to death for preaching the unity of the faith in the bond of peace. The prophets critiqued the household of God, calling it to repentance and revealing its sins, often at the cost of their lives.

It is a fetish of our utopian age to exclude this point of view in favor of a preoccupation with unity. But it's still disturbing that churchmen seem caught up in it, even at this late hour in the ridiculous history of ecumenism. They'll do anything it seems not to face the fact that in the Bible the idea is a development of its later literature, emphasized in the Fourth Gospel (especially John 10 and 17) and the Pauline Ephesian letter (chapter 4), neither of which can be reconciled with the Synoptic tradition nor the early genuine letters of Paul without doing a little violence to reason. Even the Passion narratives have been reworked from this point of view of the later "church", which is the first concrete expression of Christianity's decadence. Robust preoccupation with "the Other" from the original period of the Spirit gave way to the crabbed self-reflection and identity "politics" of Christian, Jew, church, synagogue, Greek, barbarian, male, female, slave, free, and Roman citizen.  

Jesus the eschatological prophet, on the other hand, never imagined a "church", let alone this long, drawn out history betwixt heaven and hell. He did not imagine "identities". Those who do the will of God are my mother, sisters and brothers, he said. Many are called. Few are chosen. Narrow is the gate and difficult the way that leads to life. Few are they who find it. Repent while you still can. The reign of God is nigh. Come follow me.

What a polarizing fellow.

"All his ways are judgment" (Deut. 32:4).

 

Protestants shouldn't apologize for it.

Paul imagines many brethren, but Jesus only a chosen few

For as by one man's disobedience many were made sinners, so by the obedience of one shall many be made righteous.

-- Romans 5:19

For whom he did foreknow, he also did predestinate to be conformed to the image of his Son, that he might be the firstborn among many brethren.

-- Romans 8:29

Even as I please all men in all things, not seeking mine own profit, but the [profit] of many, that they may be saved.

-- 1 Corinthians 10:33

And except that the Lord had shortened those days, no flesh should be saved: but for the elect's sake, whom he hath chosen, he hath shortened the days.

-- Mark 13:20

Because strait is the gate, and narrow is the way, which leadeth unto life, and few there be that find it.

-- Matthew 7:14

So the last shall be first, and the first last: for many be called, but few chosen.

-- Matthew 20:16

NT Wright settles for remnant theology to resolve the conflict between kingdom and cross

Here, imagining that God's kingdom is really present in a new form because of the cross even though the concept of final judgment and a transformed world, so prominent in the mouth of the Jesus of the Gospels whom he seeks to recover, rescue and defend, makes narry an appearance. You will find neither the term "judgment" nor the concept once in the essay.

"Kingdom and cross are woven tightly together in some of the very texts which the gospel writers themselves highlight in their interpretation of the story of Jesus. There are of course many, many more, all of which point to the following conclusion. When we see the story of Jesus as the climax of the story of Israel, we should not be surprised to discover that the suffering of Israel, and of Israel's supreme representative, is to be understood in terms of the longer and larger purposes of Israel's God - in other words, the establishment of his worldwide healing sovereignty. Conversely, we should not be surprised to discover that when this God finally claims the nations as his own possession, rescuing them from their evil ways, the means by which he does it is through the suffering of his people - or, as in the story the gospels themselves are telling, the suffering of his people's official, divinely appointed representative."

If that's the best he's got, the greatest living New Testament scholar is nothing but a tired trimmer for whom passages such as "many are called but few are chosen" must be roughly resolved into the single personality of the Messiah who suffers the judgment in the stead of everyone else, an allegorical interpretation designed to escape the difficulty of the plain meaning of the many warning sayings and calls to repentance of the Gospels, not a serious attempt at interpretation. I heard it in preparation for Lutheran seminary already in the early 1970s. 

NT Wright remains NT Wrong, a creature of orthodoxy first and foremost.

Many Are Called, But The Jesuits Aren't Chosen

"For many are called, but few are chosen."

"For many are called, but few are chosen."

Matthew 22:14

Sin Is Not Counted Where There Is No Law?

few are chosen

 

Sin indeed was in the world before the law was given, but sin is not counted where there is no law. ... Law came in, to increase the trespass.

-- Romans 5:13, 20

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Was sin not counted as in the days of Noah? Were they not all destroyed, but for the few?

 

And what's the point of increasing the trespass if the "lesser" trespass made God repent of the creation itself and bring it to utter annihilation?

 

Paul argues as if he is completely ignorant of the flood narrative. 

And to think Hans Dieter Betz really meant it when he called Paul a genius.

The LORD saw that the wickedness of man was great in the earth, and that every imagination of the thoughts of his heart was only evil continually. And it repented the LORD that he had made man on the earth, and it grieved him at his heart. And the LORD said, I will destroy man whom I have created from the face of the earth; both man, and beast, and the creeping thing, and the fowls of the air; for it repenteth me that I have made them.

-- Genesis 6:5ff.

The Synoptic Jesus Did Not Expect Many To Be Saved

"Enter by the narrow gate; for the gate is wide and the way is easy, that leads to destruction, and those who enter by it are many. For the gate is narrow and the way is hard, that leads to life, and those who find it are few."

-- Matthew 7:13f

"For many are called, but few are chosen."

-- Matthew 22:14

And some one said to him, "Lord, will those who are saved be few?" And he said to them, "Strive to enter by the narrow door; for many, I tell you, will seek to enter and will not be able."

-- Luke 13:23f.

"Not every one who says to me, 'Lord, Lord,' shall enter the kingdom of heaven, but he who does the will of my Father who is in heaven. On that day many will say to me, 'Lord, Lord, did we not prophesy in your name, and cast out demons in your name, and do many mighty works in your name?' And then will I declare to them, 'I never knew you; depart from me, you evildoers.'"

-- Matthew 7:21ff.

"For then shall be great tribulation, such as was not since the beginning of the world to this time, no, nor ever shall be. And except those days should be shortened, there should no flesh be saved: but for the elect's sake those days shall be shortened."

-- Matthew 24:21f.


And [the disciples] were astonished out of measure, saying among themselves, 'Who then can be saved?'

-- Mark 10:26

When his disciples heard it, they were exceedingly amazed, saying, 'Who then can be saved?'

-- Matthew 19:25

"And except that the Lord had shortened those days, no flesh should be saved: but for the elect's sake, whom he hath chosen, he hath shortened the days."

-- Mark 13:20

And they that heard it said, 'Who then can be saved?'

-- Luke 18:26

Is Jesus Good, or Not?

And, behold, one came and said unto him, Good Master, what good thing shall I do, that I may have eternal life? And he said unto him, Why callest thou me good? [there is] none good but one, [that is], God: but if thou wilt enter into life, keep the commandments.

-- Matthew 19:16f.

And when he was gone forth into the way, there came one running, and kneeled to him, and asked him, Good Master, what shall I do that I may inherit eternal life? And Jesus said unto him, Why callest thou me good? [there is] none good but one, [that is], God.

-- Mark 10:17f.

And a certain ruler asked him, saying, Good Master, what shall I do to inherit eternal life? And Jesus said unto him, Why callest thou me good? none [is] good, save one, [that is], God.

-- Luke 18:18f.

For the kingdom of heaven is like unto a man [that is] an householder, which went out early in the morning to hire labourers into his vineyard. And when he had agreed with the labourers for a penny a day, he sent them into his vineyard. And he went out about the third hour, and saw others standing idle in the marketplace, And said unto them; Go ye also into the vineyard, and whatsoever is right I will give you. And they went their way. Again he went out about the sixth and ninth hour, and did likewise. And about the eleventh hour he went out, and found others standing idle, and saith unto them, Why stand ye here all the day idle? They say unto him, Because no man hath hired us. He saith unto them, Go ye also into the vineyard; and whatsoever is right, [that] shall ye receive. So when even was come, the lord of the vineyard saith unto his steward, Call the labourers, and give them [their] hire, beginning from the last unto the first. And when they came that [were hired] about the eleventh hour, they received every man a penny. But when the first came, they supposed that they should have received more; and they likewise received every man a penny. And when they had received [it], they murmured against the goodman of the house, Saying, These last have wrought [but] one hour, and thou hast made them equal unto us, which have borne the burden and heat of the day. But he answered one of them, and said, Friend, I do thee no wrong: didst not thou agree with me for a penny? Take [that] thine [is], and go thy way: I will give unto this last, even as unto thee. Is it not lawful for me to do what I will with mine own? Is thine eye evil, because I am good? So the last shall be first, and the first last: for many be called, but few chosen.

-- Matthew 20:1-16

Now it came to pass, as they went, that he entered into a certain village: and a certain woman named Martha received him into her house. And she had a sister called Mary, which also sat at Jesus' feet, and heard his word. But Martha was cumbered about much serving, and came to him, and said, Lord, dost thou not care that my sister hath left me to serve alone? bid her therefore that she help me. And Jesus answered and said unto her, Martha, Martha, thou art careful and troubled about many things: But one thing is needful: and Mary hath chosen that good part, which shall not be taken away from her.

-- Luke 10:38-42

And Nathanael said unto him, Can there any good thing come out of Nazareth? Philip saith unto him, Come and see.

-- John 1:46

I am the good shepherd: the good shepherd giveth his life for the sheep.

-- John 10:11

I am the good shepherd, and know my [sheep], and am known of mine.

-- John 10:14

h/t Theo

The Sickness at the Highest Levels of United Methodism

The sickness at the highest levels of United Methodism is most lately demonstrated by this statement from an emeritus professor of theology at Perkins School of Theology:

The church should be concerned with being biblical in the deepest sense. What might that look like? The ranking of a few statements by Paul above all the persuasive and powerful texts related to God’s radical love through Jesus Christ can hardly qualify as serious biblical inquiry and authority. Paul and his generation had no knowledge or awareness of long-term consensual same-gender loving relationships so prevalent today.

At this late date in the study of the New Testament one would think that there would be other matters over which to argue when it comes to the differences between Jesus and Paul than the categories of their moral universe.

It is only a measure of contemporary decadence that a person who should know better would seek to divide them over an issue which would have been non-existent at the time, not just for Paul but for Jesus himself. No one can say with a straight face that Jesus and his generation knew of "long-term consensual same-gender loving relationships." The reason for this is that in Judaism they were stoned to death when they were found out, not unlike other malefactors.

Like the Christians, for example. Just ask Saul. He stood by holding the coats while Stephen was dispatched to the next world. I suppose it won't be long before some enterprising New Testament scholar tries to make a name for himself by claiming homosexuality was a chief tenet of Stephen's Hellenistic circle in Jerusalem. We already have one claiming there was advocacy for suicide in early Christianity, so why not Greek homosexuality, too?

No, the law of God is wise because it demands that evil be stamped out when it is discovered before the people can become inured to it. But, of course, inuring the people is the modus operandi of Fabian socialism.

The problem with the preachers of the radical love of Jesus is that to them, radical is measured on a meter whose needle only goes into the red zone when fellow Christians are outraged, not the world. What they intend is anarchism, not radicalism. It drinks from the same well as the revolution of the 1960s. A new order is not its object, merely overthrow of the existing order. These would give us license, not liberation.

These people don't know the first thing about radicalism, otherwise they'd be out of a job. The sorry truth about the church since the dawn of the twentieth century is the way it has made peace with the liberal Jesus of the nineteenth. Jesus is nothing more than a moralist who taught forgiveness and love, reigning interminably in heaven while ceaseless ages here below roll on and on and on, to be improved year upon year by the presence of God's holy people. This Jesus was a sitting duck for the Progressive Movement, the Social Gospel, liberation theology, the civil rights movement, and all the other forms of Marxism which now plague the world, and the United Methodist Church now in particular. Rick Santorum was more right than he knows.

If the church were "biblical in the deepest sense," the church as we know it wouldn't exist. The cost of discipleship rules that out, but, of course, recovering what that means is almost impossible for the church because it has been trimming and compromising Jesus since the beginning. Jesus asked his followers to turn their backs on their jobs, their money, and their wives and children because the form of this world was passing away in an instant. So urgent was his message of the kingdom and the coming judgment that there was no time even to bury the dead. The judgment would come even before the disciples had finished preaching in Israel.

Yes, judgment. And Jesus' vision of it is horrific. Many are called, but few are chosen. Homosexuals will make up only a small few of us who don't make it.

Radical.

For many are called, but few are chosen

"[T]he worthy disciples of philosophy will be but a small remnant."

-- Socrates, Plato's Republic, Book 6

πάνσμικρον δή τι, ἔφην ἐγώ, ὦ Ἀδείμαντε, λείπεται τῶν κατ᾽ ἀξίαν ὁμιλούντων φιλοσοφίᾳ

"Because strait [is] the gate, and narrow [is] the way, which leadeth unto life, and few there be that find it."

-- Matthew 7:14

 ὅτί στενὴ ἡ πύλη καὶ τεθλιμμένη ἡ ὁδὸς ἡ ἀπάγουσα εἰς τὴν ζωήν, καὶ ὀλίγοι εἰσὶν οἱ εὑρίσκοντες αὐτήν