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QUESTIONS: Bruce, we know you
aren't a theologian, but you studied so hard for your role in Matthew, I
wonder if you can help me understand two things in the Gospel that
puzzle me as they seem so "out of character" for Jesus. First, His words
to the apostle, "leave the dead to bury their own dead." It seems so
harsh - what about honoring thy father? And second, the initial refusal
of the Canaanite woman's plea, where Jesus says, "I came for the
children of Israel." Do you have any insight into why Jesus may have
been so seemingly curt to those petitions?
ANSWER: Man, I did
the research on these encounters so long ago, and forgive me for not
digging it all out here. Believe it or not, I just flew in from Africa
yesterday and I'm the picture of jet-lag and still on Africa time. In
fact, right now it's about 3 a.m. to me (y-a-a-a-a-a-a-w-w-w-w-n...),
but I'll do my best.
Here's the thing with these
Scriptures and ALL Scriptures - they ALL have to be read and studied "in
context." It's when you take Scriptures out of context that they become
a problem, but in context it's always like the light bulb goes on and
you say, "Oh, now I see it!" Glory to Jesus!
So what you need to do is
look at both of these passages within the context of the setting Jesus
spoke them in, both in terms of the immediate surroundings and audience,
and in terms of the culture of the day. That will shed a whole new light
for you.
For example, the first one
you mentioned - "Let the dead bury their own dead" - what is actually
going on there is miles from what you think. When the apostle says, "Let
me first go bury my father, then I will follow you," it's not that his
father has just died and he wanted to go tend to funeral arrangements.
The guy's father was alive and well, and outside of some accident or
something, would be for a long time to come.
What the apostle is saying
to Jesus is, "Let me first take care of all my family business and of
course, secure my inheritance when my father passes on, and just
generally attend to my own personal needs and matters, THEN I'll follow
You, Jesus." Now that sheds a whole different light, doesn't it?
So when Jesus says what He
says, He's actually saying the same thing He said to Peter, and the rich
& young ruler, and everyone else - "No, you've got it all wrong, kid.
You've got to leave EVERYTHING behind to truly follow Me." Amen, and
amen!
Now there's another aspect
to 'in context' that is hugely overlooked - most always overlooked -
most tragically overlooked - and it is the golden key I discovered that
cemented everything together for me in playing Jesus. It is so simple I
feel funny even saying it, but at the same time, I'm embarrassed I never
saw it before playing Jesus.
That context is this: Jesus
LOVES people. He is for them, not against them. He came to bring life
and freedom, not judgment and condemnation. 100% of His heart feels 100%
the exact same thing toward 100% of whoever He's with 100% of the time -
"I love you, I love you, I love you..." Jesus!
So the 'trick' for me in
accurately portraying Jesus was to convey this no matter what was going
on - the Pharisees, Judas, this Canaanite woman... He loves them one and
all, and that HAD to be at the core of EVERY encounter with EVERY one of
them.
So the thing is to look at
that encounter you mentioned within that framework - Jesus loves that
Canaanite woman. Go from that assumption and make your interpretations
based on it. I can promise you, it brings a whole different light - the
light of unarguable truth. And on the aside, it's when you take the love
of Jesus out of the equation that Scriptures can easily becomes the
ugly, ungodly, self-righteous hammers in people's hands that through
history they have often been twisted to be.
But about that encounter
with the Canaanite woman, I remember thinking, "Jesus loves this woman.
He also knows all along that He's going to heal her daughter." So how do
those truths 'paint' the passage? Yes, that's the thing - instead of
letting the passage paint a picture of Jesus, we need to take what we
unarguably know of His heart and who He is, and let that paint the
passage!
So with those words that
appear so harsh, maybe Jesus was just drawing this woman into deeper
faith with Him? And then, all the people around the tow of them that day
were Jews, and He was undoubtedly setting them up, also. I mean, here He
blows their minds first by even talking with her (in those days the Jews
despised the Canaanites), then He proclaims her faith beyond theirs. So
point in fact, Jesus didn't talk nasty to her at all, but rather He
actually honored her - "Woman," He went on to say in the face of stunned
Jewish onlookers, "You have great faith. Your request is granted!" Oh,
glory to His Name!
So keep things in context -
historically, culturally, in terms of the specific circumstances and
surroundings, and MOST ESPECIALLY, in terms of His nature which is 100%,
"I love you" - and watch these difficult passages open up wide in their
goodness, power, and revelation of His person. Glory to Jesus! Go To Top
QUESTION: What do you mean when you say, "I gave my life to Jesus?"
I saw in your story you used that phrase. I hear different people say
this and they seem to be saying different things. One tells me he prayed
the sinners prayer, another tells me he realized what Jesus had done for
him and this wonderful feeling came over him, another tells me he spoke
in tongues, another says he was not saved until he was baptized like
Acts 2:38... Does any of this really make any difference?
ANSWER: Yes, I
understand how a person might be a little confused. One of the sad
things about Christianity is that certain terms and phrases get tossed
around so much they lose their meaning.
I remember once speaking at
an outreach that was full of folks who needed Jesus. I finished sharing,
then sat down and another guy stepped up to invite the people to 'give
their lives to Jesus' (sorry, but I couldn't resist).
But this guy started using
all these Christian 'insider' terms that no one would understand outside
of the body of Christ. I remember specifically he talked about 'the
exercise of saving faith,' and even I scratched my head on that one. Of
course, very few in the audience understood him either, and as you could
imagine, their response was pretty slim. It's interesting how we can
easily become so 'Christiany' we lose touch with the people around us.
So what does it mean when a
person says, 'I gave my life to Jesus'? Well, it's kind of un-specific
in terms of activity, and at the same time it's the most specific event
in eternity. It means that a person comes to a place in his life where
he realizes he NEEDS Jesus and makes a serious, from deep in the heart,
sold-out, no turning back, crossing a line in his life decision to want
Jesus in His life as total Lord and God, as his Savior from all the sin
in his life, as his Redeemer from all the sin in his life...
It's a point of
understanding that a guy comes to - "I'm full of sin and I need a
Savior, and Jesus is the only Savior, and I want Him in my life to rule
my life because He is the Son of living God!"
For some people that means
saying something called 'the sinner's prayer.' For another that means
just getting on one's face and crying out like I did, "Jesus, You've got
to save me! I need you!" For some it's a purely non-emotional point of
commitment, and others have an emotional experience. For me there was no
emotional experience - just a sigh of relief in that I'd known I needed
Jesus in my life for a long time and I'd finally given over to that.
And on the aside, I can tell
you, something 'changed' inside me. I couldn't identify it at the time,
but I knew something had changed inside me. That change was the living
God in Jesus coming into my heart, and what it meant is that I would
never be the same again. Praise His glorious Name!
But there are many who teach
that you have to do certain things to receive Jesus, whatever those
specific actions might be. The interesting thing is that for every one
who teaches a,b,c there's a dozen who teach x, y, z - so what else is
new...
But I'm no theologian, so
take what I say with a huge grain of salt, but I'm not so sure about
"You have to do this or that..." It just seems so inconsistent with the
word 'grace,' and besides, the bottom line is a person's heart. That's
where God's eyes are 100%, and believe me, He knows who truly 'means
it,' and who doesn't. There can be no doubt that simple criteria His
bottom line.
I mean, I could be confirmed
and baptized and graduated from Bible school and preaching in my own
church, and believe it or not, not have Jesus in my life. It's a
shocker, I know, but I've met many such people in my ministry travels,
and it's a consistent theme all through the Word of God - the trappings
on the outside mean nothing. It's where a man's HEART is at that is
everything (read Matthew 23).
So... Where is your heart
at? Do you 'know' Jesus in your heart? Are you His today and for all
eternity? What do those terms mean exactly? I don't know - but I think
you do.
Do you want Jesus? He says,
"Ask, and you will receive." "Come to Me... and I will give you rest for
your soul."
Whatever you do, whoever you
are - please, please, cry out in prayer and 'come' to Jesus! Glory,
glory, glory to His name! Hallelujah! Go To Top
QUESTION: Bruce, I've
been getting a scripture, Micah 2:9, for awhile now. It's about false
prophets. Have you ever run into a false prophet? How do you know?
ANSWER: Yeah, I've
run into a million of them, and forgive me but it's just plain true -
the real thing is extremely rare.
There are so many people out
there running around saying, "Thus saith the Lord..." I tell you, it'll
make your head spin, and what a horror to attach God's Name to one's own
imaginations. My goodness! What we surely need is fewer self-proclaimed
prophets and a little more fear of the Lord. Glory to His Name.
But it's been going on since
forever - 'there's nothing new under the sun' the Scripture says. It's
easy to see why there's so much confusion out there in the body of
Christ. And make no mistake, the Scripture doesn't play games with false
prophets. Forgive me that I'm not going to take the time to look up the
references, but all through the Old and New Testament it warns against
people who prophesy their own imaginations and desires. It's the
big-time, "Woe to you, baby!" I tell you, to put words in God's mouth -
that's a dangerous game for sure.
So how do you know what's
true and what isn't? It's actually very easy. First of all, no true word
from God will ever contradict the Word of God. God will never contradict
Himself. So if a so-called prophet's words don't line up with the living
Word, run for the hills, baby! In other words, check EVERYTHING you
hear, be it a sermon or a prophecy or whatever, against the Word of God
and you will never be steered wrong.
Example. I had a friend
years ago who divorced her husband. They were having trouble and
frankly, she was mostly the cause. Well, Mr. Self-proclaimed prophet
came along and told her that the Lord said she needed to divorce because
" your husband is holding you back from your ministry and calling."
"That's absurd." I told her.
"It flatly and totally contradicts the Word of God." Well, trouble comes
when we listen to what we want to hear instead of what's true, and today
that family is blown apart. I tell you, I'd hate to be that 'prophet'
when it comes time to stand before God. But that's an obvious example -
check EVERYTHING against the Word.
Second, prophecy is not
fortune-telling. Anytime anyone comes to you with dates and names and
specifics... my goodness, run, baby, run. Just this morning I was
reading 1 Corinthians 14:3 - "everyone who prophesies speaks to men for
their strengthening, encouragement, and comfort." PERIOD!
Prophecy is encouragement
from the Word of God, pure and simple - not fortune-telling or
Revelation-date and place predicting... none of that nonsense. And as I
write that I know I'm probably stepping on lots of people's toes because
we love that kind of stuff. It tickles our imaginations. We so go for
the 'bells and whistles' when God just wants us to get about the
business of winning souls. And oh, the hurt and fallout when none of it
comes to pass.
I did a documentary video a
few years ago called 'Millennial Madness.' It was all about all the year
2000 predictions that we all suffered under. But did you know that the
exact same things predicted to us then and now have been predicted for
1000 years and more? The only thing that changes are the dates and names
and places. Over and over the nonsense rolls on, and oh how so many get
all caught up in it, and oh, what a shame.
On a 'micro' level, again,
run for the hills when people start in with specifics. This is kind of
embarrassing, but do you know how many 'prophets' have said to me, "The
Lord showed me *** is your wife," or "### is your wife." I tell you,
I've got the Lord showing me so many wives, if I followed the 'prophets'
I'd be doing better than Solomon. It's downright ridiculous, I know, and
as funny as it is, oh, how terribly harmful.
So run for the hills when
you hear that stuff. And if someone you know and trust and has their
feet on the ground shares something with you - something from the Word
of God that encourages and edifies - just thank the Lord for it, leave
it at His feet, praying, "Lord, if that is You, You just do it," and
carry on with your life. If it is a true prophecy there's nothing you
can do to miss it. Glory to the Name of Jesus! Go To Top
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