The ethics of Jesus is a difficult topic to address. A couple of years ago I had contemplated looking into this subject matter pertaining to Canadian politics. I had hoped to entitle my paper “WWJV: hoW Would Jesus Vote.” I abandoned this idea for two reasons. 1) The topic of Jesus’ ethics seems much too vast to reduce to a WWJV formula, and 2) WWJV is probably not a legitimate question as Jesus is more concerned (and directly teaches about) a heavenly kingdom rather than an earthly democracy. His ethics, I submit, relate to the fact that the Kingdom of God has arrived and as such we should act appropriately.
The authors of each of the gospels present a slightly different view of Jesus and have their own message. As such each of the books needs to be read independently. The Gospel of John “is above all concerned with the way the tradition is being lived in his community.”[1] “The Gospel of Matthew has traditionally and popularly been known as the Jewish Gospel;”[2] Mark spends almost one half of his gospel relating an account of the death and resurrection of Jesus; Luke’s gospel is interested in the oppressed and the poor and a theme is that “Salvation embraces the totality of embodied life, including its social, economic, and political concerns;”[3] for the purposes of this article, I will concentrate on Luke’s portrayal of the ethics of Jesus.
Luke relays much of Jesus’ teaching through his parables. In the following days submissions I will examine Jesus’ ethics as they are reflected in the parables that he taught on the road to Jerusalem (Luke 9:51-19:57). I chose to concentrate on the parables in this section of Luke’s gospel because, even though “much can be gained…if one is moving through a book in continuous or semi-continuous readings…now and then one comes to a major block of material that demands some consideration as a whole…such is the nature of the block before us now.”[4] As such the teachings in this section of Scripture offer a good glimpse of Luke’s portrayal of the ethics of Jesus. The aforementioned combined with the fact that the parables and their themes are very much intertwined here contributed to my decision to order this work chronologically rather than thematically and conclude with a summary analysis. As will be shown through an analysis of the parables recorded in this section of the gospel, Luke makes it apparent that central to Jesus’ teaching on ethics is an encouragement for us to persevere in seeking God, place our faith in Him alone, and extend mercy to others for the Kingdom of God is arriving.
Today, given the arrival of the Kingdom of God, let us reflect on how we can:
The authors of each of the gospels present a slightly different view of Jesus and have their own message. As such each of the books needs to be read independently. The Gospel of John “is above all concerned with the way the tradition is being lived in his community.”[1] “The Gospel of Matthew has traditionally and popularly been known as the Jewish Gospel;”[2] Mark spends almost one half of his gospel relating an account of the death and resurrection of Jesus; Luke’s gospel is interested in the oppressed and the poor and a theme is that “Salvation embraces the totality of embodied life, including its social, economic, and political concerns;”[3] for the purposes of this article, I will concentrate on Luke’s portrayal of the ethics of Jesus.
Luke relays much of Jesus’ teaching through his parables. In the following days submissions I will examine Jesus’ ethics as they are reflected in the parables that he taught on the road to Jerusalem (Luke 9:51-19:57). I chose to concentrate on the parables in this section of Luke’s gospel because, even though “much can be gained…if one is moving through a book in continuous or semi-continuous readings…now and then one comes to a major block of material that demands some consideration as a whole…such is the nature of the block before us now.”[4] As such the teachings in this section of Scripture offer a good glimpse of Luke’s portrayal of the ethics of Jesus. The aforementioned combined with the fact that the parables and their themes are very much intertwined here contributed to my decision to order this work chronologically rather than thematically and conclude with a summary analysis. As will be shown through an analysis of the parables recorded in this section of the gospel, Luke makes it apparent that central to Jesus’ teaching on ethics is an encouragement for us to persevere in seeking God, place our faith in Him alone, and extend mercy to others for the Kingdom of God is arriving.
Today, given the arrival of the Kingdom of God, let us reflect on how we can:
- have faith in God
- persevere in seeking God, encourage others to do the same
- and extend mercy to others
More daily blogs at
Comments
Post a Comment