Bible study explores
Jesus’ defining journey
By Paula R. Kincaid, The Layman, July 23, 2009
NEW WILMINGTON, Pa. – The “Defining Journey,” based upon Luke 9:51-56, was the topic of the Wednesday Bible study by the Rev. Dr. James R. Edwards at the 104th New Wilmington Mission Conference in New Wilmington, Pa.
Edwards, professor of religion at Whitworth University in Spokane, Wash., is spending the week at the conference teaching a Bible study on “Journeys in Luke’s Gospel.”
“When you read the first three Gospels, they presented the life of Jesus in the same perspective,” said Edwards. John was an independent writer who went his own way. … When you read Matthew, Mark and Luke, there was some relationship among those three Gospels.”
He said that Luke 3-9 follows very closely Mark 1-8 and Matthew 3-11. But when we get to today’s passage, “Luke breaks stride. He completely passes and leaves Matthew and Mark behind. … Luke 9:51-19 contains material that is found nowhere else in Matthew and Mark.”
“Jesus sends His disciples before Himself, and we are the shock troops, in a sense,” said Edwards. “God uses us to prepare people for the real face – the face of Jesus who is the human face of God. That is what the Incarnation is – the human face of God.”
In the Scripture passage, James and John want to call down fire on Samaria. They were quoting Scripture, II Kings 2 – when Elijah called down fire on representatives of the king – twice.
Edwards said that James and John felt the experience in Samaria was like that, “So let’s call down fire and settle this the right way.”
But Jesus rebukes them. Edwards said that the Greek word used here for rebuke is the same one Jesus used to rebuke the demon and Peter. “Can Jesus rebuke Christians? He can and does. Does Jesus rebuke the church? He can and does,” said Edwards.
From this point on, he said, “Jesus is like a rifle shot, going to Jerusalem.” Before now, Jesus had been criss-crossing the Sea of Galilee, and then at the midpoint of His ministry, the Scripture says He sets His face to go to Jerusalem.
“There is no more criss-crossing, no more divergences,” Edwards said. “He sets His face to go to Jerusalem – a riveting declaration that there is something in Jerusalem that defines who He is.”
“This is the defining journey for Jesus,” said Edwards, “We all have defining journeys.”
“At this point in Luke 9:51 Luke wants to tell us that the journey to the cross is rooted in the consciousness of Jesus long before the cross,” he said. “The cross is not just bad luck for a kid. … Luke wants us to know this is something that must happen.”
While Matthew and Mark each predict three times that Jesus must go to Jerusalem and die, Edwards said that Luke emphasizes the journey to Jerusalem seven times: 9:51; 9:53; 13:22; 13:33; 17:11; 18:31-34; and 19:28.
The last reference was the end of Luke’s big journey, from there he picks up with material found in Mark.
“This is important for us today,” Edwards said. “The message of the cross is being muted, downplayed perhaps sometimes even denied.”
Edwards spoke of three doctrines: the doctrine of creation, the doctrine of redemption in Jesus and the doctrine of the Holy Spirit. He said that for many today, “the first doctrine is being inflated while the second is deflated.”
The first doctrine speaks of creation. People are created in the image of God, and since God doesn’t create junk, people don’t need to change in part of the agenda used by the gay movement, he said. They contend that God’s creation did everything right and nothing else needs to be done.
“The Christian church as always said God made the world good. It reflects His divine nature and being,” he said. But … we humans, because of pride have interjected something into creation that God didn’t have – our single contribution to the world – sin.”
Edwards defined sin as “taking what God gives us to use for His glory and using that good thing for our own purposes.”
“So we must have this second doctrine. He not only creates, but He redeems,” Edwards said. “Redeems means that God gets back what was His. … The second doctrine comes at an enormous cost that Jesus paid.”
Edwards spoke of how the Christian faith has been able to boil down the whole purpose of the Incarnation into one statement. He went through some of those statements: Acts 13:29; Hebrews 10:12; I Peter 3:18- and I John 3:8.
“The reason Jesus became a human being was to free us from enslavement from sin. We must first be free and healed before we can be healthy,” he said. “And this is sole reason that in the midst of His life He sets His face to go to Jerusalem.”