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Source: (consider it)
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Thread: Labourers in the vineyard. Matthew 20:1-16
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grumpyoldman
Apprentice
# 18188
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Posted
In my view the parable has been misread for many decades and centuries because it is viewed through a western, middle class, privileged, lens.
When reading Matthew 20:1-16 it helps to try and position oneself so that the parable can be heard from the standpoint of the peasants around Jesus when he told the story.
It is a simple tale. Peasants who have lost their access to land through debt or through having it taken away have to find work as day labourers. They need the denarius – a very basic day’s pay – as it is just enough to keep a household’s body and soul together.
The landowners (who offend against the covenant by taking away the land of others necessary to their lives) want to have their crops picked at minimum cost. It is a story that rings true down the ages. Therefore the landowner in the parable chooses as few workers as he dares, no doubt leaving out the weaker, the less healthy, and known trouble makers. For reasons unstated he needs more and more workers as the day draws on.
At pay time (end of the day – Deuteronomy 24) the employer calls the workers out in reverse order. This increases the tension in the story and between the workers. Understandably those who have worked longer feel cheated. However, they have all received the basic, subsistence, daily pay. This is not generous. It is a meagre amount for a family, but, with care, it ought to keep the workers alive a bit longer until the landowners need them again. The payment is as much about the self-interest of the landowner as anything else.
The crucial aspect of the process, however, is that it divides people who should be in some sort of solidarity. They are from the same area, even the same village, and in those times in that context they need each other; they depend on each other. Breaking them apart serves the needs of the landowners because it creates competition. To survive, I must find a way to push you down and be first in the queue for work. Then I must behave myself, cause no trouble, in order to to maintain my place which is privileged compared to yours. Divide and rule.
The appearance of the manager at pay time reveals the desire of the landowner to distance himself from the workers.
Finally, in an attempt at self-justification the landowner speaks of himself in glowing terms which may be accurate from his perspective but are a contradiction of the way he has manipulated and used those who are weaker and less powerful, attempting and succeeding in dividing them from each other. In fact he describes himself as “good” (the actual translation of the Greek word which the NRSV translates as generous) which, if we take seriously 19:17 where Jesus addresses the rich man, is blasphemous. Only God is good.
Most commentaries see the landowner as an example of God. Only in a world where such wicked, greedy, and manipulative ways are common, if not the norm, might that comparison be made. Sadly that is our world.
Jesus is revealing the truth to his hearers. The system and its rulers are wicked and are against the people who are used and abused for gain. The need is to be strong together and not fall into the trap. The Kingdom will reverse this economic injustice – the last will be first and the first will be last is a saying which brackets this parable. The power of an individual to make the lives of many hard and miserable will be overthrown.
Once again, I commend the section on this passage in www.urbanmatthew.co.uk.
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The Gospel is the same for everybody. However, the poor hear it as a promise; the rich hear it as a threat.
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Ad Orientem
Shipmate
# 17574
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Posted
Your first paragraph is wrong. The interpretation you disagree with is not modern, western and middle-class. The vineyard owner has been seen as God since commentaries and sermons on the parable have been given. An example would be St. Chrysostom as one among many.
The main problem I have with interpretations such as yours is not so much that it turns the traditional understanding on its head (though that is a problem if you ask me). The main problem is that is seeks to impose a certain political view on the parable. That's not to say that our politics should not be influenced by the Gospel. It should. It's that I would argue that the Gospel does not approve of one political system above another and therefore it is wrong to impose one on it as if it did approve of it. This is what I think your interpretation does. The Gospel isn't a political manifesto. At its heart it is spiritual and the parable is telling us a spritual truth about a spiritual kingdom.
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RuthW
liberal "peace first" hankie squeezer
# 13
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by grumpyoldman:
The crucial aspect of the process, however, is that it divides people who should be in some sort of solidarity. They are from the same area, even the same village, and in those times in that context they need each other; they depend on each other. Breaking them apart serves the needs of the landowners because it creates competition. To survive, I must find a way to push you down and be first in the queue for work. Then I must behave myself, cause no trouble, in order to to maintain my place which is privileged compared to yours. Divide and rule.
But what the landowner actually did was not to divide them according to how long each had worked and reward them accordingly. He lumped them all together, despite what seems to us the very relevant differences in the amount of labor put in, and paid them all a day's wage. This chimes with the "daily bread" of the Lord's Prayer.
Paying them all the same without regard for how long each had worked in fact provides incentive not to compete with each other.
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Adam.
Like as the
# 4991
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Posted
The parable is introduced "the kingdom of heaven is like..." (v. 1). Your interpretation would seem to need that introduction to read "the kingdom of heaven is not like..."
Sorry. It doesn't.
I'm sure there's more that can be gotten out of this parable, but the most obvious meaning, it seems to me, is an attempt to wrestle with what it means to affirm divine justice given Matthew's view that us johnny-come-lately Gentile Christians receive the same reward as a longtime faithful Jew who acknowledges Christ.
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Preaching blog
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Baptist Trainfan
Shipmate
# 15128
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Posted
I agree with Hart. And this ties in with a view I once read which suggested that this could be called the parable of the “The Eccentric Employer" who takes on people without work late in the day simply so they can buy food and retain their dignity. This would seem to tie in with notions of God's free grace.
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RuthW
liberal "peace first" hankie squeezer
# 13
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Posted
I once heard a sermon on this text that summed up, "God's not fair. Thank God!"
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Lamb Chopped
Ship's kebab
# 5528
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Posted
Dang. That's an exact quote from the sermon I wrote which my husband preached and also gave to some of his sem students. Were you in a Lutheran church?
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Er, this is what I've been up to (book).
Oh, that you would rend the heavens and come down!
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RuthW
liberal "peace first" hankie squeezer
# 13
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Posted
Nope, Episcopal. And the priest didn't credit someone else with the line, which he would have if he hadn't come up with it on his own.
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Evensong
Shipmate
# 14696
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by grumpyoldman:
the last will be first and the first will be last is a saying which brackets this parable.
In a recent sermon, I argued that this parable was designed to tell off the disciples not to presume that they would be first. This makes sense in the context of the preceding story (the rich young man) and the story after it (the request of James and John to be first).
Unusual but it fits. And NT Wright agrees. ![[Big Grin]](biggrin.gif)
IMV it has nothing to do with gentiles (the most common historical interpretation) because there is no mention of gentiles in the literary context.
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a theological scrapbook
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grumpyoldman
Apprentice
# 18188
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Posted
This thread contains almost the whole gamut of approaches to interpreting a New Testament parable. These approaches suggest:
1) Jesus is speaking to the disciples, teaching them about what it means to be true followers.
2) Jesus’ message is being presented by the Gospel redactor in a way which is intended to instruct, inform and build the church of the mid to late first century.
3) Jesus is offering through his work and words a message which has universal and eternal significance – for all now who would call themselves Christians, and even for those now who would not accept that label.
4) Jesus is speaking to those around him about their immediate context and issues.
5) Jesus is speaking of the “end times”.
These approaches are not mutually exclusive.
This diversity is made more complex by other factors.
6) The notion of “spirituality” – does it mean now what it might have meant then? Is it an acceptable category to use in relation to the Biblical texts? Is there a dualistic tendency?
7) Divergent ideologies held by the interpreters. I was upbraided in the thread because of my approach. It was stated:
quote:
The main problem is that is (sic) seeks to impose a certain political view on the parable. (Ad Orientem)
Whether we like it or not we all do that, including Ms/Mr Orientem. Because my approach is a critical stance (i.e. not political, just critically focused on the status quo, the world and its dominant forces) then it is labelled as “political”, and therefore can be dismissed as such.
8) An understanding that Jesus and the Gospel writers were focused on “church”. This is a common view. I think that is reading back our own concerns, wrongly.
9) Anachronistic understandings of what “church” meant in the first century. We need to be aware of the meaning of ekklesia at the time. Like “synagogue” it was as much political as religious, if not more so.
10) A view of the Gospel shaped by the structure, culture and interests of the 21st century ecclesiastical institutions.
11) The ideas that God’s salvation has either nothing, or everything or something to do with human life now.
12) An academic approach that sees the text mainly as a subject for study and analysis.
Regardless of what has been made of this parable (and other parables) subsequent to its first use, it seems more than likely that when it was first told by Jesus there were certain implications and intentions:
1) Jesus was the incarnate Son of God.
2) Incarnation meant being part of the real, concrete, and massively unjust and oppressive world order that reigned in Galilee and the rest of the Roman Empire.
3) That when the parable was spoken the crowd would have been poor peasants, caught up in the struggle to survive against the odds.
4) That the incarnate Son of God would have spoken to the immediate reality of those around.
5) The immediate reality had to do with economic oppression under the latifundialisation programme which began very early, certainly with the beginnings of monarchy in Israel. (See Isaiah 5:8-10. Also try the article Latifundialization and Isaiah 5.8-10: D.N. Premnath
, Journal for the Study of the Old Testament 1988; 13; 49 DOI: 10.1177/030908928801304003.)
So, to take Jesus seriously, he was revealing the need for justice.
The landowner was dividing the workers. He was a bad man manipulating, creating jealousy and resentment. That is clear from the text.
There are too many complex arguments about the Greek construction which comes out as “The Kingdom of Heaven is like” to go into here. These verses are far from straightforward, but the negative connotations (the intertextual clues) of much of this parable lead to the view that there is a comparison taking place between the way this man works and the life of the kingdom. The parable does not reveal reversal (the only thing reversed is the queue for the wages) but reveals the awareness of the need for the reversal of the economic system. Growing awareness is about the dawning of the Kingdom.
This story was not produced for the disciples. Jesus was in the middle of a crowd, with children around. He had spent some time showing how the rich elite kept down the majority poor peasants. He was not going to turn aside and tell the disciples, “Oh, by the way, don’t think you’re so special; you’ll find out in heaven.” It is not an “end times” scenario.
These workers are desperate. They are pushed into competing for life itself. The landowner exploits this and adds to it. In Colombia I came across an expression used by the poor to cover this relentless need to find the food for the day – rebuscarse (re-look) – a reflexive verb indicating a person’s need to look, and look, and look again in the perpetual search for food. This is what those peasants in Matthew 20 were engaged in – rebuscarse.
The peasants are described by the landowner as “having the evil eye” translated by the NRSV as envious. This is a classic defence strategy of the rich and powerful; the victims of their machinations are dismissed because of their morally questionable
"envy" of their betters who, after all, have earned their superior position in society. It is a mystification of the oppressive structures. If you have eyes to see you will be aware of it.
So, I return to the point I made when I set out with this thread. This parable has usually been interpreted through the lens of the hegemony. In reality it is about the lives of the marginalised and the way the Kingdom reveals the possibilities of reversal and the methods the powerful use to prevent it.
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The Gospel is the same for everybody. However, the poor hear it as a promise; the rich hear it as a threat.
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Eutychus
From the edge
# 3081
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Posted
All I can say is that in the past week, I've volunteered for potato harvesting for our organic food co-op, once in the morning and once in the afternoon, and this parable immediately sprang to mind.
I think grumpyoldman's take shows that a lot of fun can be had with unexpected aspects of many parables, but to my mind this parable is all about grace and its perceived unfairness compared to the economic hegemony in which we live.
This I think is the kernel of what the Kingdom of God is all about.
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Let's remember that we are to build the Kingdom of God, not drive people away - pastor Frank Pomeroy
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Moo
Ship's tough old bird
# 107
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by grumpyoldman
We need to be aware of the meaning of ekklesia at the time. Like “synagogue” it was as much political as religious, if not more so.
What is your evidence for this?
You speak as if everyone listening to Jesus was a peasant, but somehow he acquired well-to-do followers such as Joseph of Arimathea.
Moo
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Nigel M
Shipmate
# 11256
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by grumpyoldman:
...
3) That when the parable was spoken the crowd would have been poor peasants, caught up in the struggle to survive against the odds.
...
I think this is still the bit that nags at me and I'm not yet convinced it is the case, or at least the full picture. Leaving aside for the moment Matthew's agenda – his intent in writing his gospel – there is a need to justify the sociological point because so much of the conclusion flows from it.
Granted that the archaeology shows agreement with the point that – from at least the 8th century BC in the hill country – there was a transformation from individual family land ownership to a situation where a limited number of landowners owned a maximal amount of land (thus forcing many individual families into tied labour. This much is OK and accounts for the message in some of the prophets to the north (e.g., Hosea and Amos), but it doesn’t necessarily account for the situation in other parts of the Judea/Israel area. The situation in the south does not seem to have been on a par with that of the northern hill country and the situation in the urban environments different again.
Following Jesus around on his recorded ministry I sense that his audience hailed from across the social spectrum. He covered rural and urban areas, traditional and peripheral Jewish sites, hills and plains. He engaged with those at the edge (the mad, the bad, and the ugly), but also with the self-employed, the artisans, the technocrats, and the intelligentsia. The four gospels do not seem to be concerned about narrowing that audience down in any way.
Getting back to Matthew's slant, as it were, it would probably be the work of a 'John-a-verse-at-a-time' type thread to identify Matthew's themes and the rhetoric he uses to affect his audience. Still, it's worth noting that the parable in chapter 20 closes with the 'point' that the last will be first and the first last, echoing Matthew's emphasis of that theme in 19:30. As this brackets the parable, it seems reasonable to conclude that Matthew had every intention to pick a parable that would fit that theme. If a principle of Kingdom administration is a reversal of some kind, then the parable demonstrates the resemblance. Entering and working in the Kingdom resembles the Administrator (20:1 oikodespetes = οἰκοδεσπότης) who goes out and does a first-last activity.
We're also just past the place in Matthew where Jesus tells his disciples not to scold the parents of children who were being brought to him (19:13-15). Again, there is a reversal first-last point being made by Matthew – the Kingdom is for them as well.
As I say, I just can't square all this with the idea that there is a different reality in the text. We can get principles for acting in support of the economically poor from a variety of places in the bible, but I'm not sure we get it from here.
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Lamb Chopped
Ship's kebab
# 5528
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Posted
I'm finding it sort of odd to assume that Jesus' audience was in "survive at any odds" mode if they could afford to take a day away from work to go listen to the latest preacher. More likely to have been an audience of all sorts.
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Er, this is what I've been up to (book).
Oh, that you would rend the heavens and come down!
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grumpyoldman
Apprentice
# 18188
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Posted
Well I seem to have stirred it a bit so I will make this my last contribution. I stand by my interpretation because it was given to me by those rooted in the concrete struggles of the poor – the marginalised themselves.
quote:
Me: We need to be aware of the meaning of ekklesia at the time. Like “synagogue” it was as much political as religious, if not more so.
Moo: What is your evidence for this?
First you could check out the Encyclopaedia Brittanica. Or maybe Richard A Horsley. Galilee – History, politics, people; Trinity Press International; Valley Forge PA; 1995.
In the Greek world there were three spaces for the democratic process. The basic level was the οικοζ - the household. The high level was the εκκλεσια - the place where public issues were debated. Between the two was the αγορα - the space in which the personal or household could be translated into the common and public issue to be decided in the εκκλεσια. Incidentally, the αγορα was a public space, the space for identifying issues, and it was the space where the workers were waiting.
quote:
Nigel M: I sense that his audience hailed from across the social spectrum. He covered rural and urban areas, traditional and peripheral Jewish sites, hills and plains. He engaged with those at the edge (the mad, the bad, and the ugly), but also with the self-employed, the artisans, the technocrats, and the intelligentsia. The four gospels do not seem to be concerned about narrowing that audience down in any way.
There has been a great deal of social/anthropological work done on this in recent years. An early expression of it was made by Gottwald, noting that Jesus’ audiences were “…primarily Palestinian peasant…” Social Class as an Analytic and Hermeneutical Category in Biblical Studies. Author: Norman K. Gottwald. Source: Journal of Biblical Literature, Vol. 112, No. 1 (Spring, 1993), pp. 3-22. Published by: The Society of Biblical Literature.
We need to see the significance of ochlos (crowd) in Matthew. They are the village peasants; ochlos it is not a wider term including a broad social spectrum. As has been mentioned elsewhere there was a small (2%) elite and Jesus was unlikely to meet them.They came when they wanted to challenge Jesus. In 7, 8 and 9 the ochlos attest to Jesus’ authority. His status is affirmed by the poor peasants.
It is clear in Matthew that the crowd is important. In the so-called “authority cycle” the crowd frame it, marking the beginning and the end. Jesus receives his authority from God through the people of the land, the people of the “Little Tradition”. The authority Jesus holds and exerts is rooted and grounded in the poor and marginalised of Galilee. The crowd of marginalised Galileans brackets or frames assertion of the total authority of Jesus.
Their situation has been systematically researched and described in recent studies; way too many to books to list here, but try Horsley, Scott, Malina, Carter. Survival was the order of the day.
quote:
Nigel M: We can get principles for acting in support of the economically poor from a variety of places in the bible, but I'm not sure we get it from here.
This is missing the crucial point. Jesus affirms the marginalised (from whom he comes). He is not seeking to establish principles for supporting them for us to draw on in the 21st century. The marginalised carry the clues of the Kingdom; their behaviour sows the seeds of the Kingdom. It is not that they are perfect human beings but their collective life is less compromised. The liberation theologians would talk about evangelisation from the poor – Gutiérrez, Sobrino, Segundo, Boff, Dussel, etc. The praxis of the poor over and against the oppressive structures brings the liberation which is the hallmark of the Kingdom and which saves the whole world under God.
Which takes me back to my starting point. The interpretation of this parable comes from those today closest to the marginalised protagonists of the first decades of the first century. Not that I will convince anybody who starts with approaches 1, 2, 3 and 5 as listed in my previous post. It is offered because for me, and others, it is crucial.
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The Gospel is the same for everybody. However, the poor hear it as a promise; the rich hear it as a threat.
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Moo
Ship's tough old bird
# 107
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by grumpyoldman
In the Greek world there were three spaces for the democratic process. The basic level was the οικοζ - the household. The high level was the εκκλεσια - the place where public issues were debated.
Here is what Moulton and Milligan's The Vocabulary of the Greek New Testament has to say about the meaning of εκκλεσια.- The original meaning was any public assembly of citizens summoned by a herald
- It is the LXX word for the community of Israel, whether assembled or not.
- In the Gospels the word is confined to Matthew 16:12, 18:17, where it denotes Christ's new εκκλεσια, as distinguished from the old.
I have never seen any references to ecclesia meaning a space.
Moo
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See you later, alligator.
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BroJames
Shipmate
# 9636
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Posted
The textual context in Matthew specifically makes it clear that Jesus is addressing his disciples with this parable, and it addresses the question raised by Peter in Matthew 19.27: "Look, we have left everything and followed you. What then will we have?" Jesus responds first by saying there will be plenty for them : quote:
Truly I tell you, at the renewal of all things, when the Son of Man is seated on the throne of his glory, you who have followed me will also sit on twelve thrones, judging the twelve tribes of Israel. 29 And everyone who has left houses or brothers or sisters or father or mother or children or fields, for my name’s sake, will receive a hundredfold, and will inherit eternal life. (Matt 19.27-30)
but then he utters a caution quote:
But many who are first will be last, and the last will be first. (Matt 19.30)
The parable illustrates/expands this caution, and Matthew makes this clear by repeating again at the end (Matt 20.16) the initial 'reversal' statement, but in a mirror image form.
One can see the parable as a message to the early church, and indeed, almost by definition, that is Matthew's reason for preserving it. It is, however, perfectly adequately accounted for as a response to the questions Peter and the other disciples are voicing in the account.
Incidentally, the word translated 'landowner' is οἰκοδεσπότῃ which can equally be translated householder or 'head of the house' or 'head of the family', and does not inherently have any of the connotations associated with landowner in post-Enlightenment political thought in the West. Even people whose land simply consisted of their own ancestral holding (i.e without depriving others) were likely to need considerable additional help at the time of harvest.
Of course once the text is 'out', so to speak, all sorts of readings are available, whether pietistic and 'spiritualising' or political and 'radicalising'. If some kind of faithfulness to the text in terms of its form and origin is important, however, then what these readings have to say, however, valuable in its own right are likely to be seen as unsuccessful in articulating the meaning of the text.
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Tortuf
Ship's fisherman
# 3784
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Posted
Thank you grumpyoldman for a fascinating interpretation of that passage.
As I understand it, there was quite a lot of unrest at the time Jesus trod the Earth. The poor were uprooted from their traditional means of livelihood and sustenance because of the rising privileged class who depended upon the even more privileged class of the Romans instead of on traditional values and adherence to the Law.
So I can see where a group of peasants might be angry about large landowners. I agree that Jesus was no fan of the privileged class as well.
Where I am having problems is the final portion of your interpretation; the bit where Jesus is using the otherwise odd behavior of the landowner as a call to action for the angry peasants.
The passage starts off with "The Kingdom of Heaven is like . . ." Perhaps I am missing the subtlety of your argument. Are you suggesting that the call for action is against the way Heaven has been understood by the peasants? Doesn't that introductory passage mediate the entire message? Are you suggesting that the introductory passage was added later by a member of the privileged class to dissipate the meaning of the passage?
On the other hand, to me at least, God and Jesus have multiple meanings to everything. They are beyond our understanding and therefore obtaining only one meaning from what they say in the Bible is to miss out on the wonder that lies beyond.
My understanding of the Bible (and many other things) changes as my life experiences change me. This is, to my understanding, normal and healthy. So, perhaps your life experiences have lead you to that interpretation and it is the one God wants you to have at this point.
My interpretation at this point in my life is that, among other things, Jesus is pointing out that God cannot be understood by our judgmental minds; that God and God's works cannot be categorized by us according to our thinking. For us to say "That is not fair to the ones who worked all day" is to miss the generosity portion. At the same time if we concentrate on the generosity portion we have trouble understanding why the workers who worked all day are not overwhelmed with joy at what appears to be an unjust (not fair by their point of view) landowner/God.
The seeming self contradictory message cannot be understood by us as the judgmental thinkers we tend to be. It is only when we absorb the passage without needing to interpret it that we can begin to be at home with the ambiguity and mystery that God seems to ask us to grasp throughout the Bible.
To illustrate my point, how is Mary both a mother and a virgin? How is Jesus fully human and fully divine? How is God the one God of the Hebrew scriptures and at the same time one with the Holy Spirit and Jesus? Accepting these mysteries without needing to judge them or label them is part of grasping the Gospels - in my experience at this time in my life.
Earlier in my life I understood the passage to be about God's supreme generosity. I still hold on to that understanding as my past is part of who I am. So, in a way, my having both my present understanding and my past understanding with me at all times is an ambiguity that helps me understand the ambiguity that Jesus us asking us to grasp with that passage.
(There are Tee shirts for all of you who read through this entire post without falling asleep.)
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Gramps49
Shipmate
# 16378
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Posted
Another way of looking at this
The “parable of the laborers in the vineyard” is unique to Matthew. The stories that surround this parable -- the rich young man/Peter’s claim to have “left everything” and Jesus’ third prediction of his death/James & John’s request -- were consecutive stories in Mark. Matthew’s inclusion of this parable interrupts that narrative flow. In Matthew’s narrative context, Jesus’ parable seems to be a story directly (connected) to discipleship issues, possessions, and authority.
Matthew’s placement was significant. In the larger narrative sequence, this “parable” was exemplified. For example, in the preceding story (cf. 19:23-29), Peter claimed, “we have left everything and followed you” (19:27). This kind of dedicated service to Jesus will reap a reward (cf. 19:28), but these rewards are not just for the immediate disciples but for all who have followed, since “many who are first will be last” (19:30). In like manner, in this week’s story, special privileges were downplayed.
The parable also played out in the story that followed the parable (21:17-28): Jesus predicted his death to the disciples for the third and final time (cf. Matthew 16:21; 17:12; 17:22-23). Right after this prediction, the mother of James and John requested special privilege for her sons (rather than a direct request from James and John themselves, as in Mark 10:35-45). They, too, “have borne the burden of the day” since they’ve been with Jesus from the beginning of his mission.
In this following story, we hear the concern -- and, perhaps some of that “envious” spirit -- from the other disciples. But, Jesus warned them as well: greatness comes through service (cf. Matthew 20:25-28). God’s generosity will not succumb to human jealousy. As Matthew’s Jesus preached earlier, God provides rain for the just and unjust alike (cf. Matthew 5:45).
In other words, Jesus is dealing with the grumbling within his own ranks. He is nipping it at the bud. No one is greater than any other.
It was probably something the disciples and the first generation hearers could easily identify with. As grumpyoldman points out this could very well be one way for a master to keep his workers on edge. But Jesus is using a lesser to greater argument here. While a denarii would be just barely enough to keep a man and his family alive to the next day when the struggle starts all over again, the generosity of God knows no bounds.
Something about the grumbling, though:
The landowner’s question, “Are you envious because I am generous?” (verse 15), is the translation of a Greek idiom which literally translates as “Is your eye evil because I am good?” An “evil eye” (ophthalmos poneros) suggested a deeper problem than meets the eye. As Jesus taught earlier, “The eye is the lamp of the body. So, if your eye is healthy, your whole body will be full of light; but if your eye is unhealthy (ophthalmos poneros; so, if you have the “evil eye”), your whole body will be full of darkness” (cf. 6:22-23). In this account, the “evil eye” was the opposite of generosity (e.g., jealousy, greed, stinginess, etc.).
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Nigel M
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Well, grumpyoldman may have left us now, but like an effective herbal infusion it's no bad thing to be stirred and although the consensus appears to be that his particular theory on interpretation raised more questions that it answered, it did at least force a close reading of a few texts.
No bad thing for anyone who wants to provide a Christian basis for activity in the world. As Jürgen Moltmann said about the tension between identity and relevance in Christianity, if Christians fail to keep a unique identity when they engage with the world, they will simply pick up someone else's identity.
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Nigel M
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...and can I put my hand up for one of Tortuf's T-shirts? I suppose I should offer long-johns for some of my posts.
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Gramps49
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Re reading Grumpyoldman's OP and response, I see where he is coming from. Liberation Theology. I hope he continues to post here. As you said, he challenges us to look at the stories in a different way.
Thank you Grumpy... for your input. Keep coming back.
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