What is Jesus Saying?

Why can’t Jesus say things without being so obscure and challenging about it? Jesus continues to lay out the cost and dangers awaiting those who say they want to follow him. Take up your cross, who me? Be persecuted, I did not sign up for that? Don’t look back, not even a little? Jesus can be quite difficult at times if we are honest about it.

What about the crazy way Jesus handles the scriptures, anybody notice what’s up with that? Here is Jesus quoting the Old Testament saying “it is written” but look at what he says:

In Luke 4:18, Jesus quotes Isaiah 61:1-2 but omits a couple of phrases and inserts one from Isaiah 58.  At the last supper (Mark 14:27), Jesus quotes from Zechariah 13:7, but changes the words from “strike down the shepherds and draw out the sheep” to “I will strike down the shepherd and the sheep will be scattered.” This again appears to change the initial meaning.

Matthew 27:9-10 quotes Zechariah 11:12 (but ascribes it to Jeremiah), which mentions 30 pieces of silver as part of the narrative, and turns it into a prophesy of Judas betrayal of Jesus----which says something very different from the original context.

          Even Paul follows Jesus' Pesher-Midrash style of interpretation when he quotes Psalm 68 in Ephesians 4:8, he changes the wording from “you took many captives; you received gifts from people” to “he took many captives and gave gifts to his people.” Again, the meaning is thereby changed from God receiving gifts to God giving them.

       What Jesus and his later disciples are doing are following the spirit of the biblical text and not the letter of the biblical law. There is some freedom, flexibility, Stretch-ability when it comes to rightly handling the Word of Truth we call the Bible. The whole point is Jesus is the true fulfillment and meaning of the scriptures.

          I love the way Jesus says this in Luke 24:45-46 to the disciples on the road to Emmaus. He says, 

          Then he opened their minds to understand

          the Scriptures, and said to them, ‘Thus it
          is written,’ that the Christ (Messiah)
          should suffer and on the third day rise
          from the dead.

Did you catch it? All of Scripture is pointing towards Christ and the cross and resurrection. Jesus is continually making all things new. Please don’t even try to put Jesus in a Bible box because he is the box-crusher of all boxes. He can not be contained, tamed, or censored. His words are life and they are always breathing life into the deadness of this world.