Everything about Ministry Of Jesus totally explained
According to the
Canonical Gospels, the
Ministry of Jesus began when
Jesus was around 30 years old, and lasted a period of 1-3 years. In the
Biblical narrative, Jesus' method of teaching involved
parables,
metaphor,
allegory,
sayings,
proverbs, and a small number of direct
sermons. This was the
first coming of Jesus, most
Christian denominations believe in a
Second Coming when Jesus will return to the earth to fulfill aspects of
Messianic prophecy, such as the general
Resurrection of the Dead, the
Last Judgment of the dead and the living and the full establishment of the
Kingdom of God on earth (also called the "Reign of God"), including the
Messianic Age.
The start of Jesus' ministry
From Nazareth to Capernaum
Some time after having been
baptized by John in the Jordan river and
tempted by Satan in the Judean desert, Jesus is described as leaving his hometown,
Nazareth. While Matthew doesn't explain why Jesus did this, both he and Mark mention that
John the Baptist was arrested by
Herod Antipas at this time. Luke gives a different circumstance, stating that Jesus left when the
people of Nazareth rejected him. The texts don't recount what occurred between Jesus being tempted and John being arrested, but Jones believes that some months likely elapsed, with Jesus frequently being seen as a
disciple of John the Baptist, until this was no longer possible (due to John being arrested). France argues that it was the flight from Nazareth which resulted in Jesus carrying out a ministry based on itinerant preaching, which France sees as being quite different to the ministry which John the Baptist had carried out.
Curiously, the passage describing Jesus leaving Nazareth, both in Luke and Matthew, uses the spelling
Nazara for
Nazareth, which between them are the only places in the Bible that Nazareth is spelt this way. This has led some scholars to suspect that the parts of this scene were copied by Luke and Matthew from the
Q document, although this neglects the fact that most scholars view Q as a collection of quotes, much like the
Gospel of Thomas, and so wouldn't really contain any
scenes at all. After leaving Nazareth, Jesus goes to
Capernaum, a sizeable town on the northwest shore of the
Sea of Galilee, located in the region that Jewish sources considered to be
Naphtali, but near the region considered to be
Zebulun.
Although the town is mentioned nowhere in the
Old Testament, it does feature in all the Gospels, and is likely to be a new town that arose at some point during Roman control of the region, see also
Iudaea Province. Matthew is the only source that has Jesus actually living in the town, while the other Gospels only have him preaching and meeting disciples there. To explain this, those who view the Gospels as harmonious with each other, such as France, feel that the town was less a home and more a base of operations to which Jesus and his disciples would occasionally return. Gundry rejects this view, since to him
dwelt unambiguously means that Jesus set up house in the town, and Gundry considers that this was a deliberate embellishment by Matthew to make it easier to find a prophecy to justify the move.
Matthew doesn't mention why Jesus chose Capernaum to relocate to, though historically the town was prosperous, mainly due to its location on a large lake (the
Sea of Galilee) and simultaneously a location on the
Via Maris, the
Damascus to
Egypt trade route. France feels that Jesus moved there as such a prosperous community offered more opportunities to preach, while Albright and Mann propose that Jesus moved there because he was already friends with his disciples prior to them becoming disciples, and he wanted to live with his friends, who lived in Capernaum. According to Matthew, when he spies certain fishermen in the region,
Jesus recruits them as his disciples - Simon, John, Andrew, and James.
Capernaum as prophecy
Matthew justifies Jesus' move to Capernaum by claiming that it fulfilled a prophecy. The prophecy Matthew quotes is from
Isaiah (specifically ), but Matthew has considerably abridged it, turning it into little more than a geographic list of places. In Isaiah, the passage describes how
Assyrian invaders are increasingly aggressive as they progress toward the sea, while Matthew has re-interpreted the description as a prophecy stating that Jesus would progress (without any hint of becoming more aggressive) toward Galilee.
While Matthew uses the
Septuagint rendering of Isaiah, in the
Masoretic text it refers to
the region of the gentiles rather than
Galilee of the nations, and it's likely that the presence of the word
Galilee in the Septuagint is a translation error - the Hebrew word for
region is
galil which can easily be corrupted to
galilee. Gundry feels that instead of Isaiah referring to Assyrians progressing to the Mediterranian, Matthew is trying to rewrite the statement so that it refers to the Sea of Galilee. Schweizer considers it odd that the phrase
beyond the Jordan wasn't among those cut in Matthew, as it makes clear that the author of the passage is writing from east of the Jordan, and the geography doesn't work with the sea in question being the Sea of Galilee, which is on the Jordan, not beyond it.
The quote goes on to prophecy that after the dark period of Assyrian dominance, a light would shine, and Matthew words his quote to imply that Jesus would be this light. Carter, who has advanced the thesis that much of Matthew is intended to prophecy the imminent destruction of the
Roman Empire, sees this quote as a deliberate allegory, with the Assyrians representing the then current domination of the region by Rome. The wording of this part of the quote isn't consistent with any single known ancient manuscript, but several parts of it match different versions of the Septuagint, and three versions in particular. It was long thought to be combined from differing versions, but it could also be taken from a now lost version of the Septuagint, although Matthew differs by placing the text in the
past tense, to fit better with his narrative. Also, while the Septuagint states that a light would
shine, Matthew states that it would
dawn, an important difference that makes it refer to the appearance of a messiah, rather than the continuous behaviour of God.
Shedinger rejects the traditional view that this quote is merely a corruption of Isaiah, instead feeling that, in the original version of Matthew, the text was derived both from Isaiah 9:1-2 and
Psalm 107:10. Shedinger alleges that later translators didn't realise that there was a second reference to the Psalms, and so altered the verse to make it conform more to Isaiah.
Preaching, healing, and teaching
John the Baptist had delivered prior to Jesus being baptised by John, namely
repent, for the kingdom of heaven is near, which Matthew refers to as
the good news of the kingdom - a phrase from which the term
gospel derives (
gospel is derived from the
Old English for
good news) - and then goes on to preach, teach, and
heal, throughout Galilee. Matthew depicts him teaching in
synagogues, unlike the other gospels, which neither make a clear distinction between teaching and preaching, nor connect Jesus so strongly to
Pharisaic behaviour. Being permitted to speak in a synagogue is generally an indication that an individual was a respected figure, and could also speak
Hebrew, and by placing Jesus in synagogues, Matthew implies that these attributes are ones applying to Jesus.
Matthew describes Jesus as carrying out
healing in a far less metaphorical way than Mark describes it, specifically Matthew presents it as quite literal healing of
all the sickness and disease. Matthew doesn't indicate, however, whether there's anything
miraculous about that, or if it just indicates that Jesus had a good knowledge of medicine and herbology, a knowledge many religious people of the time were expected to hold, though many Christians, particularly fundamentalists, view it as miracle not purely medicine. This healing came to the attention of people in the nearby region, if Matthew is to be believed, and they brought their sick and ill people to him, specifically those who suffered
Torment (severe pain),
paralysis,
seizure (referred to as
epilepsy, since at that time
epilepsy was a more general term than it's now), and
demonic possession (while conservative Christians tend to interpret this literally, most scholars see it as an ancient mis-perception about
mental illness). In most ancient manuscripts this region is named as
Syria, a Roman Province that covered a very large area, but one late manuscript names it as
Synoria, making Matthew's claim more credible, as fame in a small region nearby is far more plausible for a new preacher to obtain than is fame across the whole of a huge province the size of half of Mesopotamia. At the time, in Judaism, disease was seen as an atonement for sin, and so
healing was seen as
forgiveness of sin, and was usually attributed to charismatic and devout priests and other religious leaders.
Matthew states that people came from several other regions to see Jesus, implying that the Syrians/Synorians had spread his fame even further. Specifically, Matthew lists
Decapolis,
Jerusalem,
Judea, and
Peraea (identified as
beyond the Jordan River).
Decapolis isn't a single location but ten, it literally means
the ten towns, and refers to Greek settlements in Palestine, while Galilee (where Jesus is), Judea, and Peraea, constitute the remainder of the traditional Jewish region, and Syria constitutes the remainder of the lands that traditionally were seen as having once been under
David and
Solomon's control. Thus, people from the entire
Holy Land are described by Matthew as amassing to experience Jesus. However, it's important to point out that the capitals of the previous
Kingdom of Israel and
Kingdom of Judah were seen as quasi-independent, thus the mention of Jerusalem, the prior capital of Judah/Judea, in its own right, but this leaves
Samaria, the prior capital of Israel, without mention. This is generally seen by scholars as part of a continued slur against the
Samaritans that Matthew perpetuates throughout, since they were a group that held themselves to be the
original form of Judaism, but the Jews viewed them as
heretics.
Teachings
As well as more general sermons, such as the
Sermons
on the Mount and
on the Plain, which touch briefly on several different topics, the Biblical narrative portrays Jesus as also having concentrated on particular themes and topics. The biblical narrative of the
Synoptic Gospels mentions and details several instances in which these subjects are more specifically discussed; the
Gospel of John appears less interested in the teachings, concentrating instead more on Jesus' life and
attributing various miracles to him.
General Ethics
commandment is, Jesus is portrayed by the Gospels
of Mark and
of Matthew as stating that the first two
commandments, and the greatest, are
- One should love Yahweh with one's entire heart, soul, mind, and strength
- One should love one's neighbour as one would love oneself
Though it isn't clear what
commandment refers to, the latter part of the first of these two is a quotation from the
Ritual Decalogue in
Deuteronomy. The second, however, doesn't appear as one of either set of
Ten Commandments, instead appearing in the
Holiness Code (at ), and therefore it's likely that
commandment is a reference to the
613 mitzvot of Jewish law. The first part of the first commandment given by Jesus is from the
Shema, an important daily Jewish prayer of the period, suggesting to several scholars that when the earliest of the
Synoptic Gospels was written the Christian groups still retained Jewish prayer formats (Brown 144). The second commandment, essentially a formulation of the
ethic of reciprocity, is also present in the
Pauline Epistles ( also in, ), where it's portrayed as the summary of Jewish law (for example as the most important command, not the second most important), and textual critics argue that this is likely where Mark ultimately derived the passage from. See also
Didache#The Two Ways.
The Gospel of Mark, but not that of Matthew, states that the man who posed the question responds that these commands are wise teachings, and so Jesus replies that the man is "not far from the
kingdom of God". While being
not far from God can be seen in the sense of close to knowledge of God, and this is the usual interpretation, more literal minded Christians have argued that
far here refers to a
spatial distance from God, for example that Jesus is categorically stating that he's God (Kilgallen 237).
The
Gospel of John also has one commandment, often called
The New Commandment: "A new commandment I give unto you, that you love one another" .
Establishmentarianism
In both the
Gospel of Mark and the
Gospel of Thomas (
Thomas 100
), when presented with a coin and questioned about
taxation, Jesus is stated to have said that one should
give to Caesar what is Caesar's and to God what is God's. This passage has often been used in arguments on the nature of
the relationship between church and state in North America and in questions of
disestablishmentarianism and
antidisestablishmentarianism in the UK, and similar questions in other western countries.
In Mark this saying is framed as the response of Jesus to a clever trap laid by the
Sadducees, who had sent the
Pharisees together with supporters of
Herod Antipas to him; the supporters of Herod (see also
Herodians) favoured Rome and hence the payment of taxes to it, while the Pharisees (in particular the
Zealot faction) opposed such taxes and regarded them as a form of oppression, hence favouring one option above the other would have insulted the other side. In Thomas there's no such framing, as is the case with most sayings in Thomas, and its presence in Thomas as well as Mark makes it plausible that the saying originated in the
Q document, which also is a collection of sayings without any narrative context.
Mark also specifies that the coin in question is a
denarius, and was hence marked with the image of the Caesar, signifying ownership. The coin thus is technically Rome's anyway, and so giving it back by paying it as tax could be
logically argued as changing nothing. On the other hand, the instruction to give to God could be argued to imply that one ought to fulfil religious obligations as strongly as secular ones. In Thomas, the saying has the additional instruction to
give [Jesus] what is [his], raising
Christological questions since Jesus is presented as a distinct third division apart from God and from Secular Authority, as well as more obvious questions of what exactly is meant by it. Further interpretations of this passage alude to the statement in Genesis 1:26-27 that man and woman were created "in the image of God." Therefore, the coin, which bore Caesar's image, was rightly to be rendered to Caesar, and people, which bore God's image, were rightly to render their obedience to God.
Ritual cleanliness
The Gospels
of Mark and
of Thomas present Jesus as making a significant statement about ritual cleanliness:
» "Nothing outside a man can make him ritually unclean by going into him. Rather, it's what comes out of a man that makes him ritually unclean
. -
Unlike Thomas (
Thomas 14), Mark adds an explanation, stating that it's the evils of
sexual immorality,
theft,
murder,
adultery,
greed,
malice,
deceit,
lewdness,
envy,
slander,
arrogance, and
folly, which make someone
ritually unclean, not what they eat. The Gospel of Thomas has a simpler implication, since rather than stating that it's
what comes out of a man that makes him
unclean, Thomas states that it's
what comes out of a man's mouth, for example his words are what condemn him. Since the Thomas version of the saying directly contrasts that which goes into the mouth with that which comes out of it, rather than the weaker contrast between what one eats and what one produces, many scholars think it's the Thomas version of the saying that's more original than that present in Mark.
As is common in sayings like this, the point of the passage, the latter part, is frequently ignored and much more literature is devoted to considering the implications of the former section. The passage has been considered by most Christians over the centuries to imply that Christians are not bound by the laws of
unclean food that apply in
Judaism, for example Kilgallen (135) argues that which food one eats matters not to God. The passage also played a central role in the arguments in the
early church between
Pauline Christianity and
Jewish Christianity, as to how much of
Old Testament law one ought obey, see also
Council of Jerusalem,
Proselyte,
Antinomianism,
Cafeteria Christianity.
In Mark, the saying is framed as a response by Jesus to the
Pharisees criticising how some of the followers of Jesus didn't follow the ritual Jewish practice of
washing their hands before eating. Mark also has Jesus refer to a quote from the
Book of Isaiah about superficial adherence to the law, and instead following rules laid by men. Mark more specifically portrays Jesus as condemn the Pharisees as hypocrites for letting people give money to the priests (theoretically an
offering to
God, see
korbanas) in order to be excused from helping their own parents, violating one of the commands of the
Ritual Decalogue. Similar, but more general, criticism also appears in the introduction to the saying in Thomas, where Jesus is presented as sarcastically complaining that it's sinful to
fast,
prayer leads to condemnation, and
charity harms one's spirit. Mark's claim about the Pharisees allowing people to buy their way out of the Ritual Decalogue is not, however, found in other sources of the period, although there are hints of the possibility in some rabbinic texts (Miller 29), and it may simply be the case that Mark has refined the more general introduction present also in Thomas into a more specific case.
The
Jewish Encyclopedia article on
Gentile: Gentiles May Not Be Taught the Torah notes the following reconciliation:
Innocence
The
Synoptic Gospels portray Jesus as very strongly asserting that innocence ought to be preserved, arguing that it's better for someone to be cast into the sea with a millstone around one's neck, than to destroy the innocence of children . Furthermore, it's asserted that one should dispose of other things which bring sin, even to the extreme of cutting off one's own hands and plucking out one's eyes, if their action results in sinfulness, arguing that it's better to be maimed in heaven than to be fully functional in hell . See also
Expounding of the Law#Adultery.
The Synoptics describe Jesus as insisting that whoever welcomes the children in his name also welcomes him . Indeed when the disciples question which of them would be the greatest, Jesus rebukes them saying that he who wishes to be first must be last, and the least shall be the greatest, emphasising that unless they
receive the kingdom of God like a child that'll never enter . While many Christians argue that the children are metaphorical in this saying, and a reference to childlike dependence and unquestioning acceptance of God (Brown et al. 618), the ancient gnostics argued that it referred instead to reclaiming innocence and curiosity about the world.
Divorce
In
Jewish law, men were permitted to
divorce their wives simply by writing out a formal certificate of divorce, but Jesus is portrayed by the
Gospels
of Mark and
of Matthew as arguing that
divorce is invalid, essentially arguing that any marriage subsequent to a divorce, whether by the man or by the woman, constitutes
adultery. In Mark, Jesus is described as attempting to justify his stance by combining two parts of
Genesis (and ), referring to the creation of the sexes, and how the two
become one flesh by marriage. According to the Documentary Hypothesis, however, these two passages
originally came from quite separate sources. In Matthew, but not in Mark, there's an explicit exception to this prohibition, namely that divorce is permitted if adultery has been committed by one or more of the spouses.
Historically, the teaching was upheld by official Christian doctrine, and there remains a general prohibition of divorce in the
Roman Catholic Church, and the
Eastern Orthodox Church, although the exception is retained in the case of adultery and the
Pauline privilege. In the time of Jesus, the view of divorce as an evil was shared primarily with the
Essenes, a group with which Jesus is often considered by scholars to have had significant connections (Brown 141). Amongst
gnostic groups, who generally had what would now be considered
liberal stances, divorce was also frequently rejected, since it was argued to be a thing whose purpose could only be related to
carnal desires, and hence logically inappropriate for people who are trying to escape the carnal world. Many gnostics also argued that the Bible supported their interpretation since there's also, in Matthew and Paul, an emphasis on
celibacy being the best choice, which also was a rejection of carnal desire.
Poverty
During his Journey to Jerusalem, Jesus is described by the
Gospel of Mark as meeting a rich man, who addresses him as
Good Teacher. Mark, however, states that Jesus responds by saying
none is good but God alone, seemingly rejecting the form of address, but in a way which also appears to exclude Jesus from being God, and hence forming one of the main issues in
Christology, see also
Nontrinitarianism. The rich man is described as explaining that he's always kept the
commandments, presumably the
ten commandments or the
Didache or the
613 mitzvot, Jesus stating that he's aware that the man knows them.
The narrative goes on to portray Jesus as arguing that the man should give up everything, giving it to the poor, and only then follow Jesus, since
it is easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle than for a rich man to enter the kingdom of God. Though the surviving full manuscripts of Mark have the rich man leave at this point, apparently dejected, and not seeming to ever return to the narrative, the
Secret Gospel of Mark, if genuine, implies that the original text of Mark had the rich man complying with Jesus' request, and appearing to Jesus naked one night, whereupon Jesus indeed teaches him the
secrets of the kingdom of God.
Though quite radical to the
Pharisees and
Sadduccees, non-ownership was the normal way of life for
Essenes, who lived at varying levels of
asceticism, and this is one of the reasons that many scholars suspect that Jesus was originally part of an Essene group. The insistence on giving up ownership of riches was one of the major arguments between different monastic orders in the mediaeval world, with the
Franciscans in particular arguing that Jesus' teaching meant the church shouldn't seek riches, but the
Pope, at that time living in great luxury, ruled otherwise, and the non-ownership restrictions on
mendicant orders were lifted. Despite their separation from the
papacy, conservative
protestants have traditionally supported this papal line.
Resurrection of the dead
Jesus preached the
resurrection. His parable of
Lazarus and Dives portrays the common Jewish belief of the time that the righteous and unrighteous await
Judgment Day in peace (in the
bosom of Abraham) or in torment, respectively (see
particular judgment).
The belief in the
resurrection of the dead was largely a late innovation in ancient Jewish thought, and the
Sadducees, who only considered the
Pentateuch to be
divinely inspired, considered it to be a false teaching. Since
Deuteronomy orders
levirate marriage, for example the brother of a dead man must marry the dead man's wife if the wife is childless, the logical conclusion is that if there are seven brothers, each dying for some reason, the wife could potentially have been married seven times, and hence if the dead were resurrected she'd find herself in a highly
polygamous situation. According to the
Gospel of Mark , the Sadducees used this logical conundrum to challenge the idea of the resurrection of the dead, but
Jesus argues that the resolution is simple - there will be no marriage after the resurrection and the people will be like
angels.
Jesus is described by Mark as going on to justify the doctrine of resurrection, by referring to the story of the
burning bush, in which God is described as stating, at one moment in time, that he's the God of each of the three
Patriarchs -
Abraham,
Isaac, and
Jacob, using the
present tense -
I am ... not
I was. Mark portrays Jesus as stating that, since God
is God of the Living and not of the dead, Abraham, Isaac and Jacob are still living, for example,
resurrection.
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