hello and before i begin this episode , i just want to apologize for the very poor audio quality
of the videos i'm aware of this and earlier today i ordered from amazon as you can see
here the yeti microphone which has had good reviews and i certainly look forward to having
that delivered . because of covid though it won't be arriving as it should do
tomorrow the day after but it could be a week or so who knows when it will arrive but anyway
it's definitely ordered and that promises to really improve the quality of the audio
dramatically so in the in the meantime we're gonna have to i'm afraid make do with
my trusty macbook pro it's a brand new macbook pro 16-inch built-in microphone
which i'm just getting used to but it's proving not to be up to the task of recording youtube
videos celebi so i've ordered this new yeti and see what happens to that
so , in today's episode i want to look at a little verse in matthew's gospel
with huge significance and the verse is found in matthew 28 and it's called the great
commission that's how it's known in christian circles in the churches and his word jesus
says go therefore and make disciples of all nations baptizing them in the name of the father
and of the son and of the holy spirit and teaching them to obey everything that i have commanded you
so this is amazing so here we have jesus telling his disciples to baptize in the three-fold name of
father son holy spirit and also to go into all the nations of the world um not just the jews
now there are some problems with this passage historically it's not something i've made up
this is something that christian scholars have noticed and i want to share with you what
those problems are and leave you to reflect on them and see if there's a problem for you
now firstly i want to look at a passage in this book the parting of the ways between christianity
and judaism and their significance for the character of christianity by jimmy dunn again
now this is an academic work for written for scholars and for students so it's not written
for absolutely everyone but it is a marvelous text and he makes a very interesting comment
right in the footnote on page 77 right at the bottom there you can see if i move my hand out of
the way right at the bottom there's a footnote and i put a little mark next to it a little footnote
perhaps nothing of terribly terribly important you'd think but actually it's a bombshell
and this is what he says and i want to discuss it he says in the little note at the bottom it
is difficult to see the great commission this is jesus going out baptized telling people to
baptize the name of the father the son and the holy spirit this trinitarian verse that christians
refer to it's difficult to see this as given out in its present form at the time indicated or why
was it so ignored so completely as luke implies in acts if you look at the beginning of acts
jesus ascended the disciples in jerusalem there is no great commission in fact it's the opposite
certainly he says the evidence of the rest of the new testament indicates that the baptismal formula
in the threefold name is a later elaboration all the christian baptisms referred to in the
new testament were in the name of jesus whenever there's a baptism and there are lots of them in
the book of acts it is never done in the name of the father and the son and the holy spirit
this is the history of the early church uh it's done in the name of jesus the name of the messiah
so the words of the commission he says reflect a later perception of the missionary task
and it becomes impossible to say what the original impulse was and then he he says to
look at a further passage in the book where he repeats what he says and then says the following
as already noted it is almost certain that the great commission of matthew 28 19-20 reflects
an understanding of mission which only came to such clear and full expression at a later stage
whatever may have been the historical root of the saying itself and this is the
really difficult bit the total disregard of it by the first jerusalem disciples
that's james peter john not paul of course who didn't know jesus never met jesus
their total disregard of it they baptized only in the name of jesus
they did not go out and make disciples of other nations so it's very hard to explain otherwise
so in short he says the idea of a mission to the gentiles cannot be attributed to the earliest
jerusalem community of the nazarenes with any conviction that's page 156 and if you look at the
first four or five chapters of acts where the disciples are in jerusalem and you have pentecost
and so on it doesn't mention any commandments to go to the gentiles indeed that's the whole point
peter has to have a revelation later on in acts 10 and 11 a startling new thing to him
he's never had you know that the gentiles are also recipients of the of the salvation message of the
gospel so jimmy dunn concludes understandably that matthew 28 is a later elaboration in other
words it's a made-up story . what's also interesting before we come to the quran which
also has something to say on this as it often does i want to look at a passage in matthew's gospel
which i think is quite interesting and this is the famous story in matthew 15 of the canaanite woman
and there are two points to be made about this i'll just read it and then
comment on them jesus left that place and went away to the district of tyre and sidden
just then a canaanite woman and this is a gentile woman not a jew
a canaanite woman from that region came out and started shouting have mercy on me lord son of
david my daughter is tormented by a demon but he did not answer her at all and his disciples
came and urged him saying send her away but she keeps shouting after us he answered i was sent
only to the lost sheep of the house of israel so jesus said to the gentile woman he was only sent
to the lost sheep of the house of israel but she came up and knelt before him saying lord help me
he answered it is not fair to take the children's food and throw it to the dogs she said yes lord
even the dogs eat the crumbs that fall from their master's table then jesus answered her woman
great is your faith let it be done for you as you wish and her daughter was healed instantly
wow that's quite an amazing passage . for several reasons one because obviously jesus
tells the gentile woman who came to him implored him for help he didn't answer her at all firstly
he just ignores he blanks her out you know that's because she's a gentile woman and
then he tells her look i'm not sent for you i'm sent for the jews for the israelites and
then she pesters him and gives a witty reply and then exceptionally he because of her great faith
her daughter was healed but clearly it was only because of her witty reply even the dogs eat the
crumbs that fall from under the masters table that he relented but he makes it clear he wasn't sent
for her so this is an exceptional healing but also a dark and a darker way
that he appears to racially abuse this gentile woman by calling her a dog
now dogs for jews then as for most muslims now are unclean animals you don't keep them as pets
they're not like chihuahuas with little hats on and so on the these are unclean animals and
he basically called her a dog he says here it is not fair to take the children's food these
are the children of israel and the ministry that he was offering them he was feeding them
and supporting them with god's spiritual truth and throw it to the dogs by her and her kind so
this passage is shocking for christians for the two reasons : one - jesus is very clear
his ministry is restricted to the jews only and secondly his ignoring and then
explaining to the woman he wasn't sent for her and her people the gentiles and then calling her
and her people dogs and only relenting ultimately in an exceptional way because of her great faith
so what's interesting is the quran has an input on this and actually confirms the historical
jesus here as opposed to the christian jesus but the historical the real jesus and it says
in the quran chapter 3 verse 49 i'm reading from the abdul halim translation god will send him he
will send him as a messenger to the children of israel so he was sent to the children of israel
it is not the case as the quran as the bible says in matthew 28 that he was sent to all of the world
so the quran is agreeing with jesus in matthew 15 that he was only sent to the lost sheep of israel
matthew it seems writing towards the end of the first century
has invented the story because in his time , the after paul a good several decades
after paul non-jews were being incorporated into the church and indeed quite quickly
they took over the church and it became a gentile religion and it's judaism . judaism became anathema
people like justin martyr at the turn of the second century basically said
that judaism is absolutely unacceptable and you must now follow christianity
so what we have here in luke if you read chapters one to four is a clear
statement that the disciples had no idea about a great commission they didn't go to the all the
nations they waited in jerusalem presumably perhaps for jesus second coming for i know
and it was only many chapters later that peter had a vision as you know of the the food
on a great sheet and god saying you know don't , god has declared clean what was
unclean and this is understood to refer to the gentiles not to food it wasn't to do with food
it was a symbolic a metaphorical vision and only at that point and peter proclaims his astonishment
that such a widening of the mission should now be permitted so there we go
this great trinitarian verse in matthew 28 is a later christian invention according to
some of the top christian scholars and he's not the only one to say this . this is actually
the mainstream view in biblical scholarship that jesus restricted his ministry to the jews
and that's exactly what the quran says as well . so which is interesting , there we go till next time