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Source: (consider it)
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Thread: juxtraposition
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LeRoc
Famous Dutch pirate
# 3216
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Posted
I thought the Romans didn't care if you had one god more or less, and Jesus's religious dispute was more with the Jewish establishment?
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I know why God made the rhinoceros, it's because He couldn't see the rhinoceros, so He made the rhinoceros to be able to see it. (Clarice Lispector)
Posts: 9474 | From: Brazil / Africa | Registered: Aug 2002
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Nigel M
Shipmate
# 11256
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Posted
Perhaps what Jesus was doing in taking his disciples out to the region around Caesarea Philippi was to make the religious/political point that Caesar was not God's (or whichever god's) appointed ruler - rather the Messiah was. His followers would have to take decisions about that when persecuted for their faith: it wasn't just about another god, it was about who ruled the world.
Posts: 2826 | From: London, UK | Registered: Apr 2006
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Gramps49
Shipmate
# 16378
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Posted
Rather than starting a separate thread over the same story, I have been intrigued by what Jesus means when he says he gives the disciples the keys of the kingdom, to loosen and to bind.
Traditionally I have the impression this has to do with church discipline; namely, the power of excommunication.
But could their be a wider meaning? Could it mean that the church is given the power to change the rules of the game, as it were, as the changes that take place.
A Old Testament scholar friend of mine explained it this way.
We all know the command "Do not steal." But what if you found a bag of money on a path. Is it stealing to take it?
Rabbis wrestled with this question and others like it. Eventually the consensus developed that if you find a bag of money on the ground. You should ask people within 50 feet of the bag if they had lost it. If no one says they lost the money, then the money was yours. It was not steeling.
Jesus himself would be asked questions like this. The one comes to mind is if a man and woman marry but the man dies and the man's brother takes the widow as his wife, whose wife would she be in eternity.
Over the years changes have brought similar concerns in matters of the church. At one time women were expected to wear hats when they went to church (my grandmother did up until she died). By the time my mom married my dad, though, this custom was not as important. However, I can remember the great fear and trepidation when my mom first went to church in a pant suit. Thank God, the building did not fall down on her.
Women were to keep silent in the church. They were not even supposed to lead or teach men after the men turned 14. I bet no one here remembers the last part of that rule. But then churches allowed for women voters, women's ordination, even women becoming bishops. In the ELCA, now, the Presiding Bishop is a woman. She has even been received by Pope Francis! This would have been unheard of just 20 years ago.
On the other hand the church has been binding things as well.
Used to be the church would allow for slavery. We do not allow for that anymore--the church is now working to reduce human trafficing in all its forms.
At one time the church encouraged a manifest destiny mentality which said the earth is ours to use. Now the church is preaching environmental stewardship and sustainability.
All of these are examples of binding and loosening, in my understanding. But I am interested in how you look at that phrase too. Has your understanding of binding and loosening changed in your own experience.
Posts: 2193 | From: Pullman WA | Registered: Apr 2011
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