-- Matthew 6:25, 28
And he said unto his disciples, Therefore I say unto you, Take no thought for your life, what ye shall eat; neither for the body, what ye shall put on.
-- Luke 12:22
From his couch in Dallas, Ben Kirby began asking questions about the lifestyles of the rich and famous pastors when he was watching some worship songs on YouTube on a Sunday morning in 2019. ...
Kirby said he has been to churches where a volunteer was designated solely for the purpose of carrying the pastor’s Bible. Often, he writes, these pastors have private entrances, reserved parking spaces, security details and a gaggle of personal assistants or handlers. And, often, they promise blessings from God to their followers if their followers bless the church. ...
The U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics estimates the median salary for clergy was $53,180 in 2019 [55% higher than the median wage in 2019 of $34,248 for all Americans], but Kirby’s Instagram feed showcases how a nationwide evangelical market has become lucrative for leaders with celebrity status. Like other social media influencers, sometimes these pastors are gifted the shoes and clothes they wear. ...
Since starting the Instagram account, Kirby has been dipping his own toes into the evangelical marketplace, entering a world that he has so openly critiqued. Like church leaders, his income is partially dependent on his podcast advertising and book sales, and he sells merch based off the brand. ...
Kirby doesn’t want Christians to abandon fashion or celebrities, but he does want more transparency and accountability.
“I’m getting people to question the status quo within the church and hopefully push for a reevaluation of what we value,” he said. “People aren’t going to reach God without this guy wearing Yeezys? Come on.”
C’mon man.
Paul's idea of imitation is a repudiation of Jesus' radical ideas of eschatological repentance, which involved flight from traditional social conventions in order to escape the imminently coming judgment. In point of fact Jesus' idea left nothing positive to imitate. This is why Schweitzer could speak of Jesus' ethic as a negation of ethics.
Paul's "way" on the other hand was a rationalization of those conventions after the failure of the eschaton and the impending failure of the parousia. Instead of rejecting traditional social roles he simply accepted them and invested them with new meaning.
For though you have countless guides in Christ, you do not have many fathers. For I became your father in Christ Jesus through the gospel. I urge you, then, be imitators of me. Therefore I sent to you Timothy, my beloved and faithful child in the Lord, to remind you of my ways in Christ, as I teach them everywhere in every church.
-- I Corinthians 4:15ff. (RSV)
And you became imitators of us and of the Lord, for you received the word in much affliction, with joy inspired by the Holy Spirit;
-- I Thessalonians 1:6 (RSV)
As ye know how we exhorted and comforted and charged every one of you, as a father doth his children,
-- I Thessalonians 2:11
Paul is, in fact, all over the map on this, spilling a lot of ink on the patriarchs Abraham, Isaac and Jacob as fathers even though he knows we have but one father, God. He seems completely ignorant of the teaching of Jesus, which rejected all human fathers in favor of the fatherhood of God. Paul notably also does not use the language of "following" as found in the gospels ("come after me", "follow me"). Instead he speaks of mimesis, which in its turn is foreign to the gospels.
Therefore it is of faith, that it might be by grace; to the end the promise might be sure to all the seed; not to that only which is of the law, but to that also which is of the faith of Abraham; who is the father of us all,
-- Romans 4:16
And not only this; but when Rebecca also had conceived by one, even by our father Isaac;
-- Romans 9:10
As concerning the gospel, they are enemies for your sakes: but as touching the election, they are beloved for the fathers' sakes.
-- Romans 11:28
... all our fathers were under the cloud ...
-- I Corinthians 10:1
But ye know the proof of him [Timothy], that, as a son with the father, he hath served with me in the gospel.
-- Philippians 2:22
The whole thing degenerates into the familial as the pressure of the delay of the parousia re-invigorates traditional human social roles:
Unto Timothy, my own son in the faith: Grace, mercy, and peace, from God our Father and Jesus Christ our Lord.
-- I Timothy 1:2
Rebuke not an elder, but intreat him as a father; and the younger men as brethren;
-- I Timothy 5:1
To Timothy, my dearly beloved son: Grace, mercy, and peace, from God the Father and Christ Jesus our Lord.
-- II Timothy 1:2
To Titus, mine own son after the common faith: Grace, mercy, and peace, from God the Father and the Lord Jesus Christ our Saviour.
-- Titus 1:4
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And call no man your father upon the earth: for one is your Father, which is in heaven.
-- Matthew 23:9
I'm guessing he probably never read either one.
"The guardians, Plato’s philosopher-kings, can utterly control the lives of those in his charge, even to the point of censoring music and poetry, regulating pregnancy and childbirth, eliminating private property, and annulling the individual family. Aristotle departed from this conception of the good society and took as his point of departure the aspiration and freedom of the individual."
Aristotle, Politics, 1.1253a:
"The city-state is prior in nature to the household and to each of us individually...the state is prior by nature to the individual...a man incapable of entering into partnership...must be either a lower animal or a god."
Critics of Plato on this subject routinely omit that the idealistic elements of his utopian state apply only to the few, the guardian class, not to the general population, and that the guardians will be comprised only of the best sort. One may criticize Plato for making naive assumptions about human nature, but he does not deserve to be read any less carefully than does Aristotle, who is anything but a libertarian individualist.
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But the choice of twelve disciples by Jesus as a function of this explicitly Jewish conception of the imminently coming kingdom as a kingdom of the twelve tribes of Israel is also evidence. If the former nearly was expunged from the record, the tradition of the twelve survived because they did.
Those elements, the future Jewish kingdom and its twelve Jewish judges, are consistent with other surviving evidence of Jesus' original Jewish Gospel, for example with the charge in Matthew 10 and 15 not to go into the way of the Gentiles but to go only to the lost sheep of the house of Israel, as well as with the scattered derogatory references to Gentiles, for example as dogs.
Needless to say, a future Gentile kingdom would have required more judges than the twelve, and a Gospel to the Gentiles worked out to go with it. The latter was the innovation of Paul, not coincidentally a missionary Pharisee. The former never existed but for him.
And Jesus said unto them, Verily I say unto you, That ye which have followed me, in the regeneration when the Son of man shall sit in the throne of his glory, ye also shall sit upon twelve thrones, judging the twelve tribes of Israel. And every one that hath forsaken houses, or brethren, or sisters, or father, or mother, or wife, or children, or lands, for my name's sake, shall receive an hundredfold, and shall inherit everlasting life.
-- Matthew 19:28f.
Ye are they which have continued with me in my temptations. And I appoint unto you a kingdom, as my Father hath appointed unto me; That ye may eat and drink at my table in my kingdom, and sit on thrones judging the twelve tribes of Israel.
-- Luke 22:28ff.
That this conception of a future Jewish kingdom was there from the beginning explains the many instances of the disciples' fascination with who would be greatest in that kingdom which survive.
Those discourses need not be historical in all their particulars. The failure of the Jewish kingdom to appear necessitated rationalization of the conception involved under and for the new circumstances. Hence the emphasis upon selfless servanthood in the light of the reinterpretation of Jesus' death as a sacrifice for the sins of the whole world.
At the same time came the disciples unto Jesus, saying, Who is the greatest in the kingdom of heaven?
-- Matthew 18:1
But he that is greatest among you shall be your servant.
-- Matthew 23:11
And he came to Capernaum: and being in the house he asked them, What was it that ye disputed among yourselves by the way? But they held their peace: for by the way they had disputed among themselves, who should be the greatest.
-- Mark 9:33f.
Then there arose a reasoning among them, which of them should be greatest.
-- Luke 9:46
Luke says the dispute among the twelve persisted even to the Last Supper, which is remarkably self-absorbed of them given the supposed gravity of the moment. It also suggests the lectures by Jesus all along didn't do them much good. It's almost as if the fact of the incipient nativism were a pretext for Luke's narrative invention. And then there's the irony that even in correcting the disciples' preoccupation with themselves, Luke still makes Jesus contrast the proper behavior with the improper behavior in terms of Jew vs. Gentile.
And there was also a strife among them, which of them should be accounted the greatest. And he said unto them, The kings of the Gentiles exercise lordship over them; and they that exercise authority upon them are called benefactors. But ye shall not be so: but he that is greatest among you, let him be as the younger; and he that is chief, as he that doth serve. For whether is greater, he that sitteth at meat, or he that serveth? is not he that sitteth at meat? but I am among you as he that serveth.
-- Luke 22:24ff.
But ye shall not be so.
It is easier to explain the more inclusive conception of the kingdom of God with Gentiles as a development from this original narrower one without Gentiles than the other way around.
The narrower conception died hard, especially for example in the person of Peter, whom Paul accused of lingering hypocrisy about it in Galatians 2.
Luke, on the other hand, paints Peter in a more sympathetic light, in Acts 10, 11, and 15, showing how God himself miraculously intervened to change Peter's opinion about Gentiles.
But that Peter persisted in the nativism so long is the point. He didn't invent it. He got it from someone and stuck with it the whole time almost up until the moment he disappears from Luke's narrative never to be heard from again.
Peggy Wehmeyer in The Dallas Morning News:
In the middle of the Capitol siege on Jan. 6, I received a text message from a close friend in Colorado who’s been skeptical of my evangelical faith for years. He wanted me to see the picture on his TV screen: a giant Jesus 2020 flag waving beside protesters storming the nation’s capital. “I guess Jesus supports this mob!” he wrote. “Good to know.” Moments later, my daughter, alarmed, texted me a Facebook post from a friend calling on everyone to repent, for Jesus has come to the rescue. ...
When Trump became president, a rapidly growing faith movement began stirring political uprising in the evangelical church.
Largely unnoticed by any of the media, and rooted in charismatic and Pentecostal traditions, this informal network of mega churches counts its members in the tens of millions, many of them in their 20 and 30s.
Unlike other evangelicals, they believe their leaders are modern-day apostles and prophets who get their orders directly from God. Their mission is to usher in the Kingdom of God on Earth now, by, as they put it, “taking dominion” over politics, business and culture.
Trump caught on to the size and power of the movement quickly. When he lost the election in November, his spiritual adviser, Florida-based prophet Paula White, called for a “bold spiritual army” to restore him to power.
From California to Colorado to Texas, networks of apostolic prophets insisted that Trump won the election and was chosen by God to restore Christian values to America. Disagree with the prophets, according to this thinking, and you’re opposing God. If I didn’t know better, I’d ask them: If God is speaking through you and tells a lie, which one of you is the huckster?
One of the most influential churches in this movement is the Bethel Church in Redding, Calif., where spiritual leaders Bill and Beni Johnson oversee an 11,000-member ministry compound, including the popular Bethel Music label and the Bethel School of Supernatural Ministry. Thousands of students enroll at schools like this to learn how to miraculously heal the sick, prophesy, and cast out demons.
Following the attack on the Capitol, Beni Johnson tweeted, “Pick up your sword and stand. Where’s your faith friends, is it in what God said or in a man? Find those seasoned prophets who are still standing and saying God has this!” Twitter quickly suspended Johnson’s account.
The Gnostic heresy’s political successors :
First, they are all essentially apostate projects, enterprises that have arisen in the midst of Christian civilization with the aim of supplanting it. And they could have arisen only within the Christian context, because, second, these projects are all heretical in the broad sense of that term. That is to say, they are all founded on some idea inherited from Christianity (the dignity of the individual, human equality, a law-governed universe, a final consummation, etc.) but removed from the theological framework that originally gave it meaning, and radically distorted in the process. ... the key marks of the Gnostic mindset – the positing of unseen malign forces, the hermeneutics of suspicion and “dream world” theorizing, Manicheanism and shrill intolerance of all dissenters, even something like an immanentized eschaton (“The Storm”).
For we wrestle not against flesh and blood, but against principalities, against powers, against the rulers of the darkness of this world, against spiritual wickedness in high places. -- Ephesians 6:12
Howbeit we speak wisdom among them that are perfect: yet not the wisdom of this world, nor of the princes of this world, that come to nought: But we speak the wisdom of God in a mystery, even the hidden wisdom, which God ordained before the world unto our glory: Which none of the princes of this world knew: for had they known it, they would not have crucified the Lord of glory. But as it is written, Eye hath not seen, nor ear heard, neither have entered into the heart of man, the things which God hath prepared for them that love him. But God hath revealed them unto us by his Spirit: for the Spirit searcheth all things, yea, the deep things of God. For what man knoweth the things of a man, save the spirit of man which is in him? even so the things of God knoweth no man, but the Spirit of God. Now we have received, not the spirit of the world, but the spirit which is of God; that we might know the things that are freely given to us of God. Which things also we speak, not in the words which man's wisdom teacheth, but which the Holy Ghost teacheth; comparing spiritual things with spiritual. But the natural man receiveth not the things of the Spirit of God: for they are foolishness unto him: neither can he know them, because they are spiritually discerned. But he that is spiritual judgeth all things, yet he himself is judged of no man. For who hath known the mind of the Lord, that he may instruct him? But we have the mind of Christ. -- I Corinthians 2:6ff.
Be not ye therefore partakers with them. For ye were sometimes darkness, but now are ye light in the Lord: walk as children of light: ... And have no fellowship with the unfruitful works of darkness, but rather reprove them. ... Wherefore he saith, Awake thou that sleepest, and arise from the dead, and Christ shall give thee light. -- Ephesians 5:7f.,11,14
Giving thanks unto the Father, which hath made us meet to be partakers of the inheritance of the saints in light: Who hath delivered us from the power of darkness, and hath translated us into the kingdom of his dear Son: -- Colossians 1:12f.
Who Must Renounce All Possessions to Follow Jesus?:
To start with, it’s very important to consider to whom Jesus’ words apply in this instance. I deny that it is required of every Christian to leave their families, or to be single and celibate. That is the higher calling of what Catholics call the “evangelical counsels.” Some are called to that; most of us are not. St. Paul makes these distinctions very clear in 1 Corinthians 7.
Michael Malice, here, because when it comes down to it in the end, he simply wants to be alone:
"I simply pray to be left alone."
Aristotle, Politics 1, 1253:
A man that is by nature and not merely by fortune citiless is either low in the scale of humanity or above it inasmuch as he is solitary ... the clanless, lawless, hearthless man reviled by Homer, for one by nature unsocial is also a lover of war. ...
The city-state is prior in nature to the household and to each of us individually. ...
When the whole body is destroyed, foot or hand will not exist except in an equivocal sense. ...
If each individual when separate is not self-sufficient, he must be related to the whole state as other parts are to their whole, while a man who is incapable of entering into partnership, or who is so self-sufficing that he has no need to do so, is no part of a state, so that he must be either a lower animal or a god. ...
The radical cannot abide the co-existence of opposites.
So the servants of the householder came and said unto him, Sir, didst not thou sow good seed in thy field? from whence then hath it tares? He said unto them, An enemy hath done this. The servants said unto him, Wilt thou then that we go and gather them up? But he said, Nay; lest while ye gather up the tares, ye root up also the wheat with them. Let both grow together until the harvest . . ..
-- Matthew 13:27ff.
