Ask Adrian

The York Community Church is blessed with a strong contingent of members who really do know their Bible. Adrian is one of them. He is a university professor in a secular academic field, but his long working hours do not prevent him from finding time for the Scripture. He has even learned some New Testament Greek to aid his studies.

Adrian is by no means the only YCC member capable of bringing his knowledge to bear on issues that may arise for others when they read the Scripture. Besides, it is possible that some of his answers differ from the answers that Jim (the full time pastor) or another knowledgeable YCC member would have given. They are his personal responses, which should not be taken as some kind of official church doctrine.

If you have a question about the Scripture arising from your private study or a housegroup discussion, please e-mail it to vladimir@andrle.org.uk, and it will get passed on to Adrian.

How do we account for discrepancies in Gospel accounts of the resurrection?

Question

Can the apparent discrepancies in the resurrection narratives be accounted for?

Adrian's answer

The simple answer to this question is “Yes, probably”. Many people over the centuries have thought so. Probably the earliest attempt was by Tatian the Assyrian, a convert from paganism in the second century AD, who produced a whole ‘mixed gospel’ by copying verses from the four gospels into a single document. This became known as the Diatesseron, and for two centuries was used almost exclusively by the churches in Syria. Eventually, it fell out of favour (possibly because of Tatian’s strange and possibly heretical views) and the original separate gospels were restored in the Syriac churches. More recently (1874) Simon Greenleaf produced a “Harmony of the Gospels” for the same purpose. However, none of these attempts can be considered wholly satisfactory, and a quick search of the internet shows that the question is still being discussed as actively as ever.

I see little benefit in adding to this extensive literature by suggesting yet another clever and creative scheme designed ‘to make all the pieces fit’. Instead, let us consider some related questions which may serve to put the issue into perspective.

(1) Why are there four gospels in the New Testament rather than one?

Firstly, we must consider why there are ONLY four gospels in the Christian Bible. In fact, during the first four centuries of the Christian era there were many more ‘gospels’ in circulation purporting to represent the views of one or other of the apostles. Most of these were inventions of anonymous writers seeking to promote their own personal (and often whacky) religious opinions by inventing strange miracles and putting unlikely words into the mouth of Jesus. Over the course of time the leaders of the early church managed to weed out these fakes, using some sensible tests. Their aim was

to establish that the written documents are the true record of the voice and message of apostolic witness (J N Birdsall, 1968 Canon of the New Testament in New Bible Commentary, IVP , London)

The most important criterion they used was whether the document could be traced back reliably to the first apostles or their close associates - in other words, was it authentic? All of the NT gospels passed this test, as well as being consistent with sound doctrine and widely accepted throughout the Christian churches.

However, no test of mutual consistency was used. Each gospel was accepted on its own merits, despite various seeming differences of detail, timing and wording between the gospels when they referred to the same events (including the resurrection accounts). This is a serious problem for modern scientific minds - we always want to know “What really happened? Who is right and who is wrong?” But for early Christians what mattered was whether the documents came from a trustworthy source - from someone who was there at the time - and to hear from FOUR such reliable people was clearly better than one!

(2) So how should we read the gospels - are they true or not?

The risen Jesus gave the apostles a clear mandate to act as witnesses to what they had heard and seen; to His teaching, His way of life, His miracles, His death and His resurrection (Luke 24:48 & Acts 1:8). If we think of the gospels as written witness statements, the apparent anomalies between the accounts (especially of the resurrection) can be seen as strengths rather than weaknesses. When several witnesses are called to give evidence in court we expect them to tell what they saw and heard from their own memories and point of view. Some of the details may differ, but if the main facts are much the same then the case is stronger. However, if everyone says the same thing word-for-word then we are rightly suspicious that there may be a conspiracy to deceive the court.

In the case of the resurrection accounts, we have the recollections of the key witnesses as to what they noticed and remembered of those extraordinary events, as well as how they understood what had happened. So how many figures did the disciples meet at the tomb - one or two? Were they men or angels? There is no way of knowing these details for sure. But if the witnesses were really there at the time and were honest men and women, then we can be confident that we have the best testimony that human beings can give us. ‘The truth, the whole truth and nothing but the truth’ is still only ‘the truth as I saw it and understood it’!

(3) Do apparent differences between accounts of the resurrection of Jesus matter?

If we approach the gospel accounts as we would a modern scientific textbook, looking for ‘the right answer’, then we will soon become confused and disturbed. The modern scientific concept of truth is more abstract and less human than Truth as understood in biblical times (and indeed throughout most of human history). In reality any clever scheme to marry together every part of the four separate gospel accounts is doomed to failure, because we are not dealing with a complex crossword or jigsaw puzzle with one ‘right answer’. Instead we are privileged to listen to the voices of four giants of the apostolic age - Peter (as Mark recorded his words), Matthew, John and Luke (who interviewed many of the key witnesses) - talking about the single event which determined their whole lives from that time onward, the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead. Even if we could have perfect knowledge it would make very little difference to our understanding, or what we believe or how we live. The essential facts are clear, as summarised by Paul in I Corinthians 15:3-8, and none of these would be challenged or changed by more detailed information.

Why did Jesus ask his disciples to remember him with bread and wine?

Question

We take part in communion at church every week, but there seems to be very little in the New Testament to help us understand what it is all about. What did the first Christians believe the bread and wine represented? What did Jesus mean when He said "When you do this remember me"?

Adrian's answer

It is certainly quite surprising that such a universal Christian practice as communion (known by many different names - the Lord’s Supper, Eucharist, Holy Communion, Mass, the Breaking of Bread) is described only 4 times in the New Testament - and then in a very brief and sketchy way.

The most likely reason for this is that the writers and readers of the New Testament were so familiar with the details of what went on that night that it didn’t need much explanation. The only events that are recorded are those which were unexpected or even shocking at the time. Suppose that you are telling someone about a recent church wedding that you attended. You might comment on the bride’s fabulous dress, or the choice of music, or that the best man couldn’t find the ring when it was asked for. But you are not likely to give a detailed description of the order of service or the seating arrangements of the guests or how the vicar was dressed: all these things can be assumed to be 'common knowledge' - it is enough to say 'it was a church wedding' for everyone to know what was involved. In the same way the gospel writers felt it was good enough to say that the Lord Jesus and his disciples had come together to 'celebrate Passover'.

As non-Jews, we do not have the 'common knowledge' of what is involved in the Pesach Seder (the Passover Order) which took place that evening. But we can learn from published English versions of the 'Haggadah' (see Suggested reading below).

Passover has been celebrated every year by Jews throughout the world for over three thousand years. For most of that time the main features of the formal rituals have remained essentially unchanged, being based on retelling the story of Israel’s rescue by God from slavery in Egypt. Passover takes place in the home (not temple or synagogue), it involves all members of the family, and it is probably the single most important practice which has helped to preserve Jewish identity throughout centuries of exile, oppression and persecution.

A typical Pesach Seder will last several hours, including a full celebration meal (like Christmas dinner, or Thanksgiving in US). The formal 'service' is in two parts. Before the meal, the events described in Exodus are retold in detail, in a question-and-answer format and in a manner which can be understood by even young children. After the meal, five great psalms of praise and other joyful poems are recited and songs of celebration are sung.

At four key points during the evening, a cup of wine is poured, a blessing is pronounced and the wine is drunk together. Each of these four 'cups of rejoicing' celebrates the fulfilment of a different promise made by God to the Hebrews in Exodus 6:6-8.

"Therefore, say to the Israelites: 'I am the LORD, and I will bring you out from the yoke of the Egyptians. I will free you from being slaves to them, and I will redeem you with an outstretched arm and with mighty acts of judgement. I will take you as my own people, and I will be your God. Then you will know that I am the LORD your God, who brought you out from under the yoke of the Egyptians. And I will bring you to the land I swore with uplifted hand to give to Abraham, to Isaac and to Jacob. I will give it to you as a possession. I am the LORD.'"

Only unleavened bread ('flat' bread made without yeast) may be eaten during the Passover, to commemorate the poverty of the Hebrew slaves as well as the haste with which they had to leave Egypt (there was no time to let the dough rise). Today crisp matzoh wafers are used, but in the time of Jesus the bread was more like flat tortillas.

As regards the 'Last Passover' that we commemorate in our Christian communion, the fullest gospel account is in Luke 22:14-20.

When the hour came, Jesus and his apostles reclined at the table. And he said to them, "I have eagerly desired to eat this Passover with you before I suffer. For I tell you, I will not eat it again until it finds fulfilment in the kingdom of God."

After taking the cup, he gave thanks and said, "Take this and divide it among you. For I tell you I will not drink again of the fruit of the vine until the kingdom of God comes."

And he took bread, gave thanks and broke it, and gave it to them, saying, "This is my body given for you; do this in remembrance of me."

In the same way, after the supper he took the cup, saying, "This cup is the new covenant in my blood, which is poured out for you."

Luke gives here a more detailed account than the other gospel writers, but it still records only a few remembered fragments of an event that lasted a few hours. We need to fit the fragments into the framework of the Pesach Seder if we want to appreciate the real meaning of the things which Jesus said and did that evening.

VERSES 14-16 (the first paragraph in the excerpt above)
At the beginning of the traditional Passover celebration, it is clear that Jesus is preoccupied with the imminent climax to His ministry. Before the formal ceremony gets under way, He makes a passionate speech emphasising to the disciples that the Kingdom of God is about to be revealed to the world.

VERSES 17-18 (the second paragraph in the excerpt above)
The Pesach Seder begins with the pouring of the first cup of wine and the blessing, "Blessed are you, O God our Lord, King of the world, Creator of the fruit of the vine". As the disciples drink from the cup, Jesus continues His theme and tells them that after the celebrations, He will not enjoy 'the fruit of the vine' again until God’s Kingdom becomes a reality. Then begins the formal and lengthy retelling of the story of Israel’s exodus from Egypt. The head of the gathering shows the unleavened bread to the assembled company and says, "This is the bread of affliction which our fathers ate in the land of Egypt..."

VERSE 19 (the third paragraph in the excerpt above)
Only when the story is complete and all the symbols of the feast have been explained does the first part of the Pesach Seder come to its climax. The second cup of wine is drunk, and the bread is blessed and eaten together. In Jesus’ time the recommended method was to tear off a piece of bread and make a 'wrap sandwich' containing some bitter herbs (e.g. strong tasting lettuce) and a piece of cooked lamb from the Passover sacrifice. This brings together the three key symbols:
the bread of affliction for slavery and oppression
bitter herbs for pain and suffering
the lamb as a sacrifice appointed by God as the means of redemption.
It is while the disciples eat this 'symbol sandwich' that Jesus makes His startling statement, "This is my body which is given for you. Do this [now and in the future] in remembrance of me". The implication of these words is clear: Jesus declares that He is about to initiate a new drama of redemption; that it will involve pain, suffering and sacrifice; and that it will outshine the first exodus as a cause of rejoicing and remembrance in the ages to come.

There is a long period of time elapsed between verses 19 and 20, enough for a hearty feast followed by extended recitation and singing of psalms, hymns and poems.

VERSE 20 (the fourth paragraph in the excerpt above)
At the end of the Pesach Seder, the fourth cup of wine is poured and the blessing pronounced. This cup commemorates the fourth promise of God to the Hebrews (Exodus 6:7), "I will take you for my people, and I will be your God...", which was fulfilled at Mount Sinai when God made a solemn covenant with the freed Israelites, sealed by the blood of the sacrifice which was sprinkled over all the people. Here, at the end of the ceremony, Jesus makes the startling statement that from now on this symbol of the ancient covenant with God is going to have a new meaning. A new and greater covenant is about to be made between God and man, centred around His own sacrifice.

THE FIFTH CUP?

All these events recorded in Luke’s gospel fit neatly into the flow of the Passover liturgy, but there remain some 'loose ends' which are controversial to this day among Jews. A careful reading of Exodus 6 shows that God made not four but five promises to the people of Israel; why then are there only four cups of wine at the Passover table? In his essay "The Missing Fifth", the Chief Rabbi Jonathan Sacks discusses the evidence suggesting that, prior to the Babylonian exile, there was a fifth cup of wine drunk at Passover, to celebrate the settling of the Hebrews in the land of Israel. He offers this likely explanation for its disappearance:

The missing fifth [cup] represented the missing element in redemption. How could Jews celebrate arriving in the land of Israel when they were in exile?... The fifth cup - poured but not drunk - was like the cup broken at Jewish weddings. It was a symbol of incompletion. It meant that as long as Jews were dispersed throughout the world, facing persecution and danger, they could not celebrate to the full.

To this day a fifth cup of wine is indeed poured out at the same time as the fourth cup. Placed in front of an empty chair at the Passover table, it is the 'cup of Elijah' at the 'seat of Elijah'. It expresses the longing for Elijah to appear as herald of the coming Messiah who will establish the rule of God on earth, and restore the fortunes of Israel.

It is clear in Matthew 11:14 that Jesus saw John the Baptist as the fulfilment of the Elijah prophecy (Malachi 4:5). The gospel writers also make it clear that Jesus demonstrated by word and deed His claim to be the true Messiah. It is then quite conceivable that the most startling and dramatic action of Jesus on that evening occurred immediately after the fourth cup of wine had been shared, when He seized the cup of Elijah and pronounced the (to us) familiar words with a special emphasis, so vividly driving home to His disciples that He is the expected Messiah who is about to be revealed to the world:

"This [fifth] cup which is poured out [now] for you [not for a future prophet] is the new covenant in my blood."

We can never be sure whether this suggestion is accurate, but we can draw valuable insights from considering our practice of communion in the light of the Pesach Seder liturgy, which retells "..the journey from the bread of affliction to the wine of freedom". The eating of bread together commemorates the suffering and sacrifice of our Saviour who offered himself for the redemption of the world. The wine is drunk as a symbol of rejoicing that the risen Christ has achieved our deliverance, and established a new covenant community united in the grace, mercy and love of God.

Was Jesus a pacifist?

Question

Could you please comment on Jesus' attitude to war - 'blessed are the peace-makers' (Mt5:9); he lived in an occupied country with many groups opposed to the Romans and still maintained we should turn the other cheek, go the second mile, love our enemies, do good to those who hate us etc. Since we claim to follow the teachings of the Bible, why do so many not respond to this very important message, especially when bombs kill innocent women and children, and nuclear bombs are an abomination?

Adrian's answer

It can sometimes be misleading to consider only one or two verses in isolation; a wider search can lead us to other Bible passages which throw a different light on an issue. For example, when Jesus appointed the twelve apostles, he gave them specific instructions about how they were to behave, and about the nature of His ministry. In Matthew 10:34 we read

Do not think that I have come to bring peace on earth; I have not come to bring peace, but a sword.

This is a very forceful statement. Some may argue that Jesus was using hyperbole in His teaching to emphasise a point. But then, of course, a similar argument might also apply to His reference to ‘peace-makers’ in Matthew 5. Unfortunately, neither verse can be taken to be a ‘proof text’ for or against a particular viewpoint.

A further problem for any attempt to claim Jesus as essentially pacifist is the inconvenient fact that Jesus knew that some of His disciples carried swords, and did not forbid them. Indeed when Jesus spoke to the apostles shortly before His arrest, far from condemning the carrying of weapons, He seems to encourage it (Luke 22:35-38):

And he said to them, “When I sent you out with no purse or bag or sandals, did you lack anything?” They said, “Nothing.” He said to them, “But now, let him who has a purse take it, and likewise a bag. And let him who has no sword sell his mantle and buy one. For I tell you that this scripture must be fulfilled in me, ‘And he was reckoned with transgressors’; for what is written about me has its fulfilment.” And they said. “Look, Lord, here are two swords.” And he said to them, “It is enough.”

A particularly difficult incident to interpret concerns the moment of His arrest in Gethsemane. John’s gospel records that Peter not only had a sword with him, but was ready to use it (John 18:10-11). Of particular interest is that in John’s account Jesus did not reprimand Peter for having the weapon, or for being prepared to defend his master with it - the rebuke was because Peter did not understand that Jesus had decided to accept His Father’s plan, which could not and should not be thwarted:

Then Simon Peter, having a sword, drew it and struck the high priest’s slave and cut off his right ear. The slave’s name was Malchus. Jesus said to Peter, “Put your sword into its sheath; shall I not drink the cup which the Father has given me?”

By contrast, Matthew puts a slightly different slant on the incident (Matt 26:51-54), which implies that habitual resort to force is self-destructive:

And behold one of those who were with Jesus stretched out his hand and drew his sword, and struck the slave of the high priest, and cut off his ear. Then Jesus said to him, “Put your sword into its place, for all who take the sword will perish by the sword. Do you think that I cannot appeal to my Father, and he will at once send me more than twelve legions of angels? But how then should the scriptures be fulfilled, that it must be so?”

Mark does not mention any words of Jesus at the time, whereas Luke gives yet a third differing account (Luke 22:49-51):

And when those who were about him saw what would follow, they said, “Lord, shall we strike with the sword?” And one of them struck the slave of the high priest and cut off his ear. But Jesus said, “No more of this!” And he touched his ear and healed him.

This just serves to show how easy it is to take phrases from one or another of these passages to support one point of view, or to interpret different phrases as bolstering the opposite opinion. Personally, I have yet to be convinced that Jesus in His teaching or in His actions could be said to be a supporter of either a pacifist or non-pacifist position (as understood in the European philosophical tradition). Most of Jesus moral teaching was aimed at the attitudes and actions of individuals in the social and political context of 1st century Palestine. It is a huge leap to take these and to apply (our understanding of) them directly into the radically different circumstances of a 21st century global community of nation states. The scope for getting it seriously wrong is immense - and doing so may put us at risk of ‘taking God’s name in vain’ and ascribing our own views to God.

I have come to realise that honest thinking Christians can and do hold very different views on the question of war and peace. Since greater minds and hearts than I cannot reach a common position, I feel it best to keep my peace. Moreover, there are many men and women among us (Christian and non-Christian) who have sincerely believed that it was their duty to God and to their neighbours to oppose a monstrous evil force which threatened to overwhelm Christian civilisation - even at the cost of their own lives. There are also others who out of sincere conviction believed that it was inconceivable that they should bear arms and kill another human being under any circumstances, regardless of the cost to themselves. I cannot and will not stand in judgement over my brothers and sisters in these most appalling choices - ultimately we must each give personal account to Him who alone is qualified to pass true judgement.

Reading Note: If you want to consider the range of views held by Christians, I would recommend reading the book “Pacifism and War” edited by Oliver R.Barclay (IVP 1984). Though written over twenty years ago (during the Cold War) the debate between eight prominent Christian thinkers is still remarkably relevant today.

"Whoever is angry with his brother..." (Matthew 5:22)

Question

In Matthew 5:22 some versions of the Bible say

"whoever is angry with his brother without cause shall be liable to judgement"

but other versions just say

"whoever is angry with his brother shall be liable to judgement"

Which is right? It makes a big difference to the meaning.

Adrian's answer

This problem of the correct text cannot be resolved simply by looking at the oldest manuscripts. This is one of the situations where different manuscripts of apparently similar reliability don’t agree whether the phrase "without cause" should be included or not. However, the scholars who produced the English Revised Version of the Bible (1881-85) (who showed a remarkable attention to accuracy and detail - often at the expense of readability!), and those who translated the American Revised Standard Version (1946-53) agreed that the phrase was probably not original. This view was also followed when the Bible Society Greek New Testament was compiled (1904, revised 1958).

So why did they come to this conclusion? Almost certainly, because the phrase just doesn’t seem to fit with the argument that Jesus was presenting in this passage, and it doesn’t seem to fit with Jesus’ manner of teaching throughout the New Testament. Here the Lord is making a stark contrast between what the Pharisees were teaching - ‘if you make sure you don’t murder anyone than you are OK’ - and the more challenging message He was delivering - ‘that you are not just responsible for what you do, but also for what you think and for what you say’. It just doesn’t make sense to slot in a ‘softener’ right in the middle of your punch line! It seems more likely that a teacher in one of the early church communities had some Gentile believers who thought that their salvation was in jeopardy if they ever lost their temper, and wrote this phrase in the margin as a reminder of his way of overcoming their anxiety.

But beyond the particular passage in Matthew’s gospel, there is the wider question of how we should view anger in our own experience. There are two different aspects of anger:
- the powerful and often sudden emotion we can feel at some offence (real or just perceived) inflicted on us or those we care about;
- the nurtured and calculated resentment and bitterness we may come to harbour against another person.
Both of these are dangerous in all circumstances, primarily because as faulty human beings we cannot control them: we cannot avoid the expanding waves of damage which spread out to devastate ourselves and our community. Human anger is a destructive weapon which too often destroys or subverts all the good around it, even undermining any good intentions we thought we had.

The curious incident of Jesus and the fig tree (Mark 11:12-14, 20-24)

Question

In Mark 11:12-14, Jesus expects to find figs before their season and curses a tree that does not have them. What's your angle on that?

Adrian's answer

This minor incident in the last week of Jesus’ ministry seems to provoke strong negative reactions from many modern readers. In these verses, Jesus seems:
- to have acted selfishly, merely to satisfy a personal need for breakfast;
- to have made unreasonable demands by looking for fruit when he knew it was ‘out of season’;
- to have responded vindictively when his desire was thwarted;
- to have been unjust in condemning the tree; and
- to have made arbitrary and tyrannical use of his divine power.

From this point of view, the character of Jesus we find portrayed by Mark seems to be almost a mirror image of what we have come to expect from Jesus’ teaching and example elsewhere in the gospels. So what are we to make of the apparent contradiction?

Firstly, we need to deal with the charge of being unreasonable, which arises from a misunderstanding about the fruiting patterns of the species of fig tree common in Palestine at that time. For most of the year (about 10 months) you could normally expect to find some kind of edible fruit on a fig tree; in particular, the last batch of fruit growing in the autumn would often stay unripe on the tree over winter, and remain until the new growth produced the first full crop of the year in late spring/early summer. These figs were small and not particularly appetising, but were valued by the poor as a source of sustenance through hard times. Thus a worker going to work without any breakfast might reasonably hope to find something to ease his hunger from the trees he passed along the roadside. For whatever reason, this was the situation Jesus was in that morning and Mark did not see it as unusual that he should turn off in search of food.

Secondly, we should be careful to recognise that notions of injustice and tyranny are only really meaningful in relation to how human beings or other morally-responsible beings are treated. We may think it unwise or wasteful to damage plants and flowers, but we should not imagine that plants have human feelings in such circumstances.

However, we are still left feeling that the whole episode seems rather unbecoming for any moral teacher, particularly for Jesus as we have seem him elsewhere in the gospels. The most perplexing thing is why Mark thought it was important to recount this incident (later summarised by Matthew) - he must have believed that it would strengthen Jesus’ reputation rather than harm it!

To make sense of this paradox, we must set aside our 21st century mindset, and to try to see the events from the perspective of a 1st century Jew. We also need to get rid of any idea that Jesus was not acting without careful forethought. The gospels make it quite clear that He planned for months in advance, and orchestrated virtually everything that took place in Jerusalem during the fateful final week. We need to look for the meaning in this incident which Mark (and his mentor, Peter) clearly saw in it, but we have lost due to the passage of time.

The key to understanding comes from the fig tree itself - just as today the thistle represents the Scottish nation and the rose stands for England, the fig tree at the time of Jesus was the international symbol of Judea (Titus’ capture of Jerusalem in AD70 was commemorated by minting coins showing a triumphant Roman warrior standing beside a fig tree and inscribed ‘Judea capta’). With this in mind the position of this story in Mark’s gospel, wrapped around an account of Jesus’ provocative day of action against abuse of the temple by the Jewish authorities (verses 15-19), suggests that Jesus was in fact using the fig tree as a way of explaining to the disciples what was happening that day. In effect it was a vivid acted parable, which they would never forget.

From this viewpoint, we can see that Jesus was following in the tradition of all the prophets before him, who frequently carried out dramatic public acts to reinforce their spoken message. Here the fig tree stands for the nation of Israel; it had promised so much when it was chosen by God to be the vehicle for His message of hope to the world. But in reality the nation had repeatedly failed to produce the results (the fruit) which God had a right to expect. Jesus’ actions were a visual demonstration that the nation now faced judgement for that failure - God would no longer try to fulfil His plan through Israel, but from now on He would by-pass them altogether in favour of ‘direct action’. Though no-one could appreciate just how radical that ‘direct action’ would be until the climax of that week had come and gone.....

The verb "to love" in John's Gospel

Question

Ancient Greek had several different verbs for "to love". Which Greek verb(s) were actually used in John 21:15-17, where Jesus asks Simon Peter three times, if he loves him?

Adrian's answer

In John 21:15-17 the sequence of use is as follows (excuse the Roman characters in place of the Greek):

verse 15: Jesus - "agapas me" --- Simon - "philo se"
verse 16: Jesus - "agapas me" --- Simon - "philo se"
verse 17: Jesus - "phileis me" --- Simon - "philo se"

There is some debate among commentators whether this difference really matters, but I am convinced from the context that it is central to the point that the writer is making i.e. that the big brave Peter ("I'm more loyal and committed to Jesus than any of you") has been completely humbled by his denial experience (John 18:15-27).

'Philos' is Greek for 'friend' - so the verb means "I am your close friend".
'Agape' is reserved for Christian love and is used between God and Christ, God/Christ and Man, and (divinely inspired) between Christians.

Question

In John, the writer refers to himself as the disciple whom Jesus loved (13:23; 21:7; 21:20). Which verb is used here?

Adrian's answer

When John refers to 'whom Jesus loved' (13:23, 21:7 and 21:20) the verb is "Egapa" which is the simple continuous past tense of "agapao".

"Salt" and "salted" in Mark's Gospel

Question

In Mark 9:49-50, Jesus says:

Everyone will be salted with fire.
Salt is good, but if it loses its saltiness, how can you make it salty again? Have salt in yourselves, and be at peace with each other.

What's your take on this passage?

Answer

These verses provide one of the clearest examples of the way that this gospel was constructed from a loose collection of ‘sayings of Jesus’ remembered from the teaching of Peter (as explained by Papias). If we try to read these verses like a modern textbook we will probably feel confused, and may draw some strange conclusions, because we expect sentences which follow each other to be neatly and logically connected. In this case it is better to think of verses 49 and 50 as being two ‘stand-alone’ nuggets of truth to be savoured separately.

Mark has just finished a lengthy group of sayings warning of the timeless dangers risked by those who compromise their morals and their obedience to God. It ends in verse 48 with a reference to fire as a symbol of purging and disinfection from corruption. This offers Mark an opportunity to make a (slightly fortuitous) link into two further sayings of Jesus - v.49 about fire and salt, followed by v.50 on salty-ness in the community.

The nature of these links is not just wordplay, but is based on some of the ideas which would have been evoked naturally in his readers’ minds.

‘Fire’ was considered a cleansing force which removed the contamination of rotting material (e.g. in a rubbish dump) by completely destroying the offensive material. As a symbol, ‘fire’ then came to represent the purging of moral and spiritual corruption.

‘Salt’ was seen in two ways: in the kitchen salt was a valuable and necessary preservative to prevent decay, and allow food to be kept for eating ‘out of season’; but it was also used to represent the purging or disinfecting of a contaminated area, since salty ground cannot grow crops (indeed a common practice of military victors was to ‘sew the ground with salt’ to prevent future use of the defeated enemy’s lands - as the Romans did to Carthage at the end of the Punic wars).

If we consider each verse on its own, then it is helpful to look at similar references in the New Testament to help our understanding. Verse 49 confirms for us that Paul’s teaching about how God will judge our life’s work in I Corinthians 3:10-15 was not his own invention, but developed from Jesus’ own teaching to the disciples. Verse 50 is the raw prototype of what Matthew (5:13) includes in his ‘sermon on the mount’ collection, and Luke (14:34-35) repeats in a different setting. The special light that Mark throws on this saying is that it was aimed particularly at the community of disciples/believers, and was a plea for them to live in peace and mutual harmony.