mighty hunters
For those of you who’ve been waiting with baited breaths to see for yourselves, well here it is: the hunter with his quarry at bay:
For those of you who’ve been waiting with baited breaths to see for yourselves, well here it is: the hunter with his quarry at bay:
The original James Gang wasn’t led by Jesse James. Nor was it led by Joe Walsh in the 1970s. Rather, it was led by James who was the half-brother of Jesus Christ.
The James Gang…they look tough…
James was an astonishingly powerful guy. During Christ’s lifetime he was a non-believer in effect, enduring the antics of a crazy older brother. He got fed up with Jesus and at least twice tried to set Jesus straight. First, he tried to drag Jesus back home where he belonged–in the carpentry shop! No doubt he resented the free-floating lifestyle Jesus lived and wanted him to contribute to the family’s financial welfare.
“While [Jesus] was still speaking to the crowds, behold, His mother and brothers were standing outside, seeking to speak to Him.” (Matthew 12:46)
Did they wish talk with Jesus because they missed him? Not at all. They were tired of his wacko wanderings!
“When his family heard what was happening, they tried to take him away. ‘He’s out of his mind,’ they said.’” (Mark 3:21).
Oh how bold! James was certainly the ringleader of these family ”interventions” and confrontations with Jesus — he was, after all, the oldest son since Jesus left home, and dad was dead so James was the default head of the family and running this show (so he felt).
When the James Gang (plus mom) decide to confront Jesus, how did Jesus deal with them? Did he argue like we might? Here is a classic Jesus Christ response:
Someone told Jesus, “Your mother and your brothers are outside, and they want to speak to you.”
Jesus asked, “Who is my mother? Who are my brothers?”
Then he pointed to his disciples and said, “Look, these are my mother and brothers.
Anyone who does the will of my Father in heaven is my brother and sister and mother!”
Matthew 12:47-50
That stung!
Later the James Gang told Jesus he was a small-time, backwoods loser:
And Jesus’ brothers said to him, “Leave here [small-time Galilee] and go to [big-time] Judea, where your followers can see your miracles! You can’t become famous if you hide like this! If you can do such wonderful things, show yourself to the world!” For even his brothers didn’t believe in him. John 7:3-5
The James Gang treated Jesus like he was a circus clown in search of a crowd.
Fast-forward about 10 years later and we see a reconstituted James Gang confronting Paul, as Paul tells the story:
“But when Peter came to Antioch, I had to oppose him to his face…when some friends of James came, Peter wouldn’t eat with the Gentiles anymore. He was afraid of criticism from these people who insisted on the necessity of circumcision.” Galatians 2:11-12
This James Gang created this powerful disturbance in Paul’s home church, and even more, while Paul and Barnabas were overseas! The James Gang was so effective, they convinced everyone to trash Paul’s leadership and teachings and join their gang! They not only won strong-willed Peter, but more amazing they won Barnabas, Paul’s co-leader! Nobody knows precisely how much of this division was controlled by James back in Jerusalem, but it is difficult to imagine that James was clueless. It certainly demonstrates the far reach of his influence.
By all accounts, when James finally became a Christian he quickly took charge of Peter’s ministry in Jerusalem (in Acts 15), and Peter let him. Yet James never traveled with Jesus and his disciples, and James was an unbeliever until he faced the resurrected Christ. Still, for whatever reason the entire Jerusalem church was scooped into the James Gang.
It is at this point James writes his famous letter called, of course, “James.” He writes with authority, with many commands (43 imperatives in all), and his letter called for a radical change in Jewish religious orientation. After pushing Jesus and Paul around, James next tackles the rest of Christendom. This is an indication of the tough intellect and drive operating in that letter.
I am intrigued by this author and his book. This will be a great series at CT. Study material about James is accumlating at BibleNet - check it out! There are many invaluable insights to be gleaned with this colorful character. Most mysterious to me is the way so many Bible teachers try to avoid teaching this book. I wonder why?
Ed. note: this lays a foundation for understanding the difference between immaturity and maturity, between immature and mature love.
“The best expression of the aesthetic existence comes down to saying that it lies in the moment” - KIERKEGAARD, S., L’Equilibrie, p. 207.
The here-and-now is a big deal in the postmodern mind, by necessity, since personal experience is the final measure of truth, and hence reality. This undoubtedly explains the mass appeal and rapid dissemination of this world view in American culture, so absorbed we are in the here-and-now. Industries thrive on the fixation with immediacy: fast foods, convenience stores, fast cars and so forth. Everything depends on the moment, and it’s an presumed moral imperative: “Carpe diem!” as the Latin poet said long ago.** It’s an understandable fixation if death means the end of it all, as Paul says:
If there is no resurrection, “Let’s feast and drink, for tomorrow we die!” 1 Corinthians 15:32 (NLT)
What’s wrong with here-and-now anyway? Didn’t Jesus Christ extol it?
“So don’t worry about tomorrow, for tomorrow will bring its own worries. Today’s trouble is enough for today.” Matthew 6:34 (NLT)
The problem with here-and-now postmodern living is its naked immaturity. When Christ says “don’t worry about tomorrow,” he’s talking specifically about useless anxiety. The postmodernist, however, dumps all meaning and existence into the here-and-now.
“Everything good is instinct - and consequently easy and free.” - Nietzsche
Nietzsche fits into the American psyche well, although he was German, and although writing more than 100 years ago, modern Americans would love this articulation of lower-brainstem life:
“The use of reason to control instincts is a fatal flaw. Nietzsche calls this decadent.” - Kierkegaard, Dostoevsky and Nietzsche
They say Nietzsche went insane from an STD, but it was probably well underway by that time. To label self-control as “decadent” is a stretch. Nietzsche is a Christian-hater, of course, so his rants are often geared to shock the traditional church.
More than 100 years ago Dostoevsky also captured the future American revulsion with the biblical world view:
“If one has grasped the blasphemousness of such a rebellion against life as has, in Christian morality, become virtually sacrosanct, one has fortunately therewith grasped something else as well; the uselessness, illusoriness, absurdity, falsity of such a rebellion.” - Dostoevsky
The “rebellion” label is well-deserved and worn with pride, especially by those New Testament characters like Christ and Paul, and they were also called absurd, useless and liars by the elitists of their time. Dostoevsky’s slander fits the traditional Kosmos mold from long ago, but his amorality also typifies the postmodern Kosmos today. This here-and-now lifestyle spans the existence of man. It is so ancient its foundational tenants are recorded in the first book ever written in the Bible, around 4,000 years ago:
If you sin, how does that affect God? Even if you sin again and again, what effect will it have on him? If you are good, is this some great gift to him? What could you possibly give him? Job 35:6-7 (NLT)
Therein lies the true cause for the grapes of wrath*: human indifference towards God. Once God is eliminated by whatever means, the road opens for moral drift and, ultimately, the fixation with here-and-now. Some do it by feigning God’s indifference the way all manmade religions do, either by setting him aloof and transcendent as in Job 35, or casting Him as a non-person in the tradition of eastern speculation. Others deny God’s existence altogether, as with modernists. Still others revile His world view, as with the above proto-postmodernists. The result is the same: only I am concerned with my here-and-now, and there my concern must and will lie.
