Texts and Contexts

Gospels and Pauline Studies

Todd D. Still

• Publisher: Baylor University Press
• Year: 2017
• Print ISBN: 9781481300742
• eBook ISBN: 9781481307604
• Topic: Theology & Religion
• Subtopic: Biblical Criticism & Interpretation

Texts and Contexts honors the life and scholarship of David E. Garland. Fifteen colleagues, friends, and former students each offer a study on one of the canonical Gospels or Paul's letters, demonstrating how these texts continue to reveal new surprises and a wealth of resources for service to the gospel.

Throughout his productive career as a New Testament scholar--first at the Southern Seminary and later at Baylor University's George W. Truett Theological Seminary--Garland became widely known and highly regarded for his wise and careful interpretive work. His commentaries on the Gospels (Matthew, Mark, and Luke) as well as Paul's letters (1 Corinthians, 2 Corinthians, Philippians, Colossians, and Philemon) exemplify careful, thoughtful, and faithful biblical scholarship in service of both the academy and the church.

This present volume begins with five studies on Gospels texts and the Jesus tradition (Margaret E. Ramey, Richard Bauckham, Mikeal C. Parsons, Andrew E. Arterbury, and Craig L. Blomberg). Five essays on Pauline passages and interpretation follow (Todd D. Still, Mark A. Seifrid, Craig S. Keener, Bradley Arnold, and Klyne R. Snodgrass). Five homilies round out the collection (Ben Witherington III, W. Hulitt Gloer, Bill J. Leonard, Timothy George, and Daniel O. Aleshire). Even as this book celebrates and commemorates what Garland has already done, it anticipates scholarship yet to be received.

Part One

Gospels Studies

Chapter 1

Seasoning in the Sermon

Wealth Wisdom in the Sermon on the Mount

Margaret E. Ramey

Preface

I teach at a small Anabaptist college in south central Pennsylvania where surnames such as Sider and Yoder not only are common on my class rosters but also are names of revered scholars. Originally though, I come from a Baptist heritage in South Carolina where those surnames are as unfamiliar as these scholars’ views on kingdom ethics are. Although my two cultural contexts share the words “south” and “Baptist,” they can be as far from one another on some issues as my drive from Pennsylvania to the Carolinas can be, a fact that I was reminded of not too long ago on a visit home.

After completing my first year of teaching at Messiah College, I headed down to see my family. One Sunday, we visited a very large and wealthy Baptist church of the Reformed persuasion whose extensive grounds were as pristinely well manicured as its thousands of congregants were well dressed.

At first, I found nothing unusual with the service. It was the traditional procession of announcements, songs, and offerings, leading up to the pinnacle of Protestant worship—the sermon. Initially, there was nothing too out of the ordinary about the sermon. It was simply a description of an upcoming mission trip and an admirable plea for assistance. Soon, however, the pastor’s talk took a dramatic shift from charitable giving to a heated defense of personal wealth.

The detour began with an allusion to Francis Chan’s book Crazy Love, then newly released, and its call for Christians to live simply and with less in order to be able to share generously with others. The pastor referred to this book and its movement as a “fad” and told how he had seen “all of this” before. Books with similar ideas, such as Ron Sider’s Rich Christians in an Age of Hunger, were popular when he was in seminary. He joked that their arguments made sense to him when he was a poor student because when you have no money it always seems like a great idea for everyone to live that way, too. Of course, people grow up and realize how nonsensical this suggestion is once they actually start earning a salary. After having a good laugh with the congregation over this observation, the pastor explained that the real problem was that the authors’ ideas were simply “unbiblical” as the Bible never says that being wealthy is wrong.

At this point, I was so shocked by the direction that the sermon had taken that, before I could stop myself, I blurted out, “What Bible is he reading?,” an unfortunate breach in Southern etiquette that earned me a good nudging in the ribs by my very embarrassed father.

The pastor continued explaining to his highly affluent, nearly all-white congregation why being wealthy was a good and godly way to be and why they should not bother themselves with these “unbiblical” (a.k.a. very Anabaptist) fads. I, however, had become so agitated with what he was teaching his parishioners and how he was handling the biblical text that I walked out of the sanctuary.

As I sat in the parking lot waiting for the service to end, I was saddened at the thought of the influence his message was having on people who were some of the most blessed, most well-equipped Christians to give generously. Instead of receiving a prophetic call to embody the good news of the kingdom in a material way, we had simply received affirmation for our prosperous Western lifestyles, mine included.

Then I began to think about how, if I had heard the same sermon just eight years earlier in my life, I probably would have nodded my head along with the other congregants and accepted the pastor’s sermon as the biblical teaching on wealth. I certainly would not have ended up sitting alone wondering why no one else had left.

Of course, that was before I went to a little place in Texas called Truett Seminary.

That was before I had professors like David Garland.

Dr. Garland and other mentors at Truett were the first ones to help me wrestle with the nature of the prophetic call found in the Gospels and to discern how it could relate to our own modern culture on pertinent issues, such as wealth. So when I was asked to contribute a piece on the Gospel of Matthew to this Festschrift honoring David Garland, I knew what I wanted to write.

Introduction

“No aspect of Jesus’ teaching is so confrontational and so difficult to implement as his teaching on money. Many Christians, if they even know what Jesus says about money, do not pay much attention to it.”1

Perform a search on the topic of wealth in Jesus’ teachings, and most of your scholarly returns will deal with the Gospel of Luke.2 Well known as the champion of the poor and the castigator of the wealthy, Luke has rightly received such attention, but what about Matthew’s collection of teachings? Why has not more effort been given to exploring his cache of wisdom on this topic? Even though most of the sayings we will examine are not unique to Matthew,3 the fact that our evangelist chose to include so many teachings related to wealth is significant.4

When we explore the wealth passages scattered throughout the first Gospel, we find that Jesus’ teachings on wealth permeate almost every part of this book. Tellingly, every one of Matthew’s five major discourses includes teachings on wealth.5 Unfortunately, space constrains us to address only those found in the first major discourse, the Sermon on the Mount. Even a brief journey through this sermon, though, foreshadows almost every one of Jesus’ later teachings.6

Traveling through the various pericopae, we will be reminded of Matthew’s penchant for presenting Jesus as a teacher who instructs in the Israelite wisdom style with which he was so familiar. The movement of our journey will follow Kingsbury’s structural division of the sermon,7 in part because it highlights its main theme—“the greater righteousness.” Investigating these teachings, we shall find that, contrary to what the Carolina pastor taught, Matthew, at least, “had a rather hostile attitude toward wealth and possessions, since the accumulation of earthly treasures was directly contrary to the life of discipleship and the will of God.”8 Perhaps we may dare hope that this reexamination of Matthew’s wisdom sayings scattered as seasoning throughout the sermon will provide a challenge to us as modern disciples who struggle with how best to handle wealth in light of our allegiance to God’s empire.

Introduction: On Those Who Practice the Greater Righteousness (5:3-16)

A Strange Blessing Indeed (5:3)

“Blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven.” (Matt 5:3)

Our introduction to the theme of wealth in the sermon comes in the form of a blessing. Ironically, and contrary to all cultural expectations for Jesus’ original audience, it is not the wealthy or the powerful who are viewed as blessed, but the poor! Since the beatitudes are famous for presenting a divine reign that turns the present regime on its head, perhaps we should not be surprised that the first blessing heading the list in this topsy-turvy empire is no exception. John P. Meier perhaps puts it best when he observes, “Jesus the revolutionary is heaving a verbal grenade into our homiletic garden.”9

Some past interpreters, though, have downplayed the revolutionary nature of this statement, disagreeing that this beatitude refers to those who are economically, and not just spiritually, impoverished.10 Much of current scholarship, however, emphasizes the similarity in the meaning of Matthew’s “poor in spirit” (5:3) and Luke’s “poor” (6:20b).11 Matthew’s version simply allows for a wider meaning than just material poverty.

If such is our introduction to Jesus’ view of wealth, or, more precisely, one’s lack of wealth, then we should be prepared for potentially more unexpected and uncommon wisdom. Moving through the rest of the sermon, we will discover that, ironically, there is a multifaceted type of poverty that wealth itself can produce.

On Practicing the Greater Righteousness toward the Neighbor (5:17-48): Financial Dealings between Friends and Foes

The next three pericopae related to wealth in the sermon fall into a section known as the six antitheses (5:21-48), each of which begins with the phrase “You have heard that it was said . . . but (δέ) I say to you.” This moniker is perhaps misleading since δέ is better translated as “and” to emphasize not a contradiction of the original laws (cf. 5:17-20) but an elucidation of their true spirit and the even greater demand of righteousness than that required by those laws placed on citizens of God’s empire.12

Reconciling Relationships Ruptured by Debt (5:25-26)

“Make friends quickly with your opponent at law while you are with him on the way, so that your opponent may not hand you over to the judge, and the judge to the officer, and you be thrown into prison. Truly I say to you, you will not come out of there until you have paid up the last cent.” (Matt 5:25-26 NASB)

Matthew 5:25-26 resides in the first “antithesis” (5:21-26) at the end of material dealing with issues of anger and reconciliation, an appropriate location for a teaching on wealth since money is frequently the root of anger and damaged relationships. The OT precedents from which Jesus begins in v. 21 are the Mosaic laws listing punishments for violent acts.13 Jesus’ expansion of the Law on these topics, however, deals not with their proper punishment but rather with their prevention.14 After delivering general prohibitions in apodictic style against not only murder but also anger and insults, Jesus goes on to offer two, more casuistic, rules for reconciliation (5:23-26). Both case studies offer guidance on deescalating the tensions that might lead to further ruptured relationships and perhaps violence itself.

The second of these scenarios pictures two adversaries walking together to court to settle a case, presumably regarding a financial debt.15 As with the first case study (vv. 23-24), immediate reconciliation is advised with an adverse warning of imprisonment if the situation is allowed to escalate. Not only is a settlement that precludes judiciary mediation and, presumably, full restitution of the debt a preferable outcome for the defendant, but also it carries the additional benefit of a restored relationship, even a friendship (cf. εὐνοῶν).

In both cases mentioned in the first antithesis, what is important is not retribution, whether of insults or financial debts, but reconciliation.16 Restoration of right relationships is so essential that one is not to allow anything, whether great distances of travel or great sums of money, to hinder it.

Generosity beyond Justice (5:38-42)

Our next proverbial pieces of wealth wisdom fall into the fifth “antithesis” (5:38-42) and pertain to the topic of justice. The OT lex talionis,17 from which Jesus begins this section, ensured that punishments were appropriate to their crimes—an eye for an eye, not an entire life—and prevented escalation in matters of retribution—only one eye for one eye, not two or twenty. It was the literal em-body-ment of a just response to another’s violent act.

Jesus’ teachings, however, prevent even measured retaliation against those who are clearly in the wrong, being labeled as “evil” (τῷ πονηρῷ). Once again, his teachings move from a general apodictic command to elucidations of that principle with casuistic examples of how to respond to mistreatment, one of which involves a dispute over assets (v. 40). After these, Jesus concludes with two commands (v. 42a, b) that are a much better form of embodiment of the “greater righteousness” God demands.

Naked Generosity (5:40)

“And if anyone would sue you and take your tunic, let him have your cloak as well.” (Matt 5:40 esv)

The picture again involves a courtroom scene and a legal dispute. Unlike the previous case (vv. 25-26) in which the defendant appeared guilty, this time the plaintiff is the “evildoer” who pursues a clearly impoverished person even to the point of demanding the shirt off his ba...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Title Page
• Copyright Page
• Contents
• Preface
• Abbreviations
• Part One: Gospels Studies
• Part Two: Pauline Studies
• Part Three: Gospels and Pauline Sermons
• Notes
• A Comprehensive Bibliography of the Works of David E. Garland
• Contributors
• Modern Author Index