I am very fortunate, I must confess. As far as I’m concerned, I’ve successfully removed any log from my own eye and, of course, kept it out of my eye continuously since. Therefore, I have free reign to remove specks from the eyes of others. How convenient.
Thus, I turn to the four writers of the gospels: Matthew, Mark, Luke and John. Especially Matthew and Luke, although I find all four blameworthy. You see, in both Matthew and Luke, Jesus is confronted with the question of the greatest commandment. In Matthew we find the following:
Matthew 22:36-40 New American Standard Bible (NASB)
36 “Teacher, which is the great commandment in the Law?” 37 And He said to him, “‘You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your mind.’ 38 This is the great and foremost commandment. 39 The second is like it, ‘You shall love your neighbor as yourself.’ 40 On these two commandments depend the whole Law and the Prophets.”
Do you see the problem here? None of the gospel writers included the more important thing Jesus said. They intentionally omitted the second part of verse 39 which should have added “but always remember and emphasize this phrase, ‘hate the sin, love the sinner'”. Instead, the scurrilous gospel writers added verse 40 to imply that Jesus actually meant that the whole law and prophets depended on loving God and loving others. What a radical mischaracterization!
What good are log-less eyes if I don’t have the right to go around removing specks from the eyes of everyone else, especially those who aren’t just like me? Fortunately I am in a better position to know what Jesus really meant than those wayward gospel writers, who are really just all a bunch of journalists. After all, if I am actually supposed to believe that there was a period inserted after the hogwash about “love your neighbor as yourself”, what am I left to do? Am I supposed to actually concern myself with my actions, my heart and my attitudes? Of course not. I’m sure that the gospel writers will be held to account for their deeds!
The whole problem with their soft misrepresentations of Jesus is that we, as Christians, would be left with the idea that we are not to be harsh, judgmental and hateful. We could get the wrong idea about things like kindness and love, as if those concepts are really of any importance. It all smacks of being weak, very weak. That kind of gospel interpretation would turn all of us into low energy losers. We would be clowns and dopes and we might even have blood coming out of our wherevers. We don’t want that, do we?
Daniel Blake
Copyright March 2016
reflections of a flawed man 