![\"alaskab&w\"](\"https:\/\/wp-media.patheos.com\/blogs\/sites\/941\/2013\/03\/alaskabw.jpg\")
<\/a><\/p>\nRight before John the Baptist became John the Headless, the writer of Mark records that Jesus gathered \u201cthe Twelve\u201d together and sent them out with these instructions,<\/p>\n
\u201cTake nothing for the journey except a staff\u2014no bread, no bag, no money in your belts. Wear sandals but not an extra shirt. Whenever you enter a house, stay there until you leave that town. <\/b>And if any place will not welcome you or listen to you, leave that place and shake the dust off your feet as a testimony against them.\u201d<\/p><\/blockquote>\n
On the surface this isn\u2019t a particularly exciting passage. Most of us pass it by without much thought \u2013 except, of course, for that last little bit about shaking the dust off your feet. There are few things better than finding Biblical justification for throwing a temper tantrum at church because something didn\u2019t go your way.<\/p>\n
But I digress.<\/p>\n
As it turns out, this seemingly innocuous portion of scripture is, in fact, one of the most challenging passages in the Bible.<\/p>\n
That is,it\u2019s one of the most challenging passages in the Bible\u2026if you\u2019re a fundamentalist.<\/p>\n
You see, if you call yourself a Biblical fundamentalist, that is to say, if you believe that everything in the Bible is to be taking literally, everything in it is absolutely true (i.e. inerrant), including historical and scientific information, and, above all, all of Jesus\u2019 commands are to be followed literally then his passage raises a bit of a problem.<\/p>\n
Particularly if you happen to live in a cold climate.<\/p>\n
When Jesus sent out his disciples he gave them very specific instruction on what to wear. He said, \u201cWear sandals but not an extra shirt.\u201d<\/p>\n
Now, if you\u2019re going to take this Biblical fundamentalism thing seriously, you\u2019ve got to take this passage seriously. These are the clear, easy to understand instructions Jesus gives to his followers for how to conduct themselves as his disciples in the world. Yes, he\u2019s talking specifically to the Twelve, but he was also talking specifically to a first-century crowd on a hillside when he gave the Sermon on the Mount, yet we still take his teachings are being relevant to us. Why? Because when Jesus gave instructions for how to be his follower he was never talking just to the people right in front of him at the time. He was talking to anyone who would choose to follow him for all time.<\/p>\n
So, if you\u2019re a fundamentalist you\u2019ve got to take his commands as literally here as you do everywhere, otherwise you\u2019re not being faithful to a plain reading of the text.<\/p>\n
Which means, when our only option for footwear is a pair of sandals it\u2019s hard to be a fundamentalist in Alaska.<\/p>\n
Now, if you count yourself as a fundamentalist, or just somebody who believes they take the Bible literally, maybe you want to push back on me here. Maybe, like I alluded to before, you want to claim that Jesus just meant his instructions for the disciples who could actually hear his voice.<\/p>\n
If that\u2019s the case, I would like to caution you. As you so often like to warn me, if you can\u2019t take one part of the Bible literally true, how can you believe any of it is true?<\/p>\n
Now if you want to continue to argue that Jesus only meant what he said here only for his immediate audience, how do you know that for sure? The Bible certainly doesn\u2019t say that. Sure it says he was talking to \u201cthe Twelve,\u201d but it didn\u2019t say those instructions were only<\/em> for them? Besides, we have no problem employing that part about shaking off dust. Why is it that only that part is still relevant to us? Is it because that part\u2019s easy, but the stuff about wearing only sandals is not so much? But that just makes me confused, because I\u2019ve never seen anyone actually shake dust off their sandals who was leaving the church, service, or blog they were mad at.<\/p>\n
Moreover, how do we know Jesus wasn\u2019t talking only to his first century audience when he was telling all those other parables and preaching all those other sermons. Given a plain reading of scripture there\u2019s never any explicit mention that he was talking to anyone not standing right in front of him. So why it that we can ignore his instructions here, but not elsewhere, like when he tells these same Twelve to go and make disciples of all the world baptizing them in the name of the Father, Son and Spirit?<\/p>\n
Those words were spoken with the same directness to a specific audience as the command about only wearing sandals, and yet we extend the so-called Great Commission to us, but not the footwear restrictions.<\/p>\n
How strange.<\/p>\n
We\u2019re not being very literal here if you ask me.<\/p>\n
We\u2019re certainly not being very consistent.<\/p>\n
You see, if you\u2019re going to claim that you can be a fundamentalist, live in Alaska, and not wear sandals, then you\u2019re going to have to do one of one things \u2013 either pretend like this passage doesn\u2019t exist (which, of course, would be lying; something Jesus definitely said not to do) or admit that you\u2019re interpreting this passage.<\/p>\n
Now, don\u2019t go freaking out on me. Interpretation isn\u2019t that scary. You do it all the time and don\u2019t even realize it. In fact, it\u2019s a necessary and unavoidable part of reading the BIble.<\/p>\n
The truth of the matter is if you\u2019ve ever preached a sermon, taught Sunday school lesson about the meaning of a Bible story, or even \u201cjust\u201d quoted a verse verbatim to make a point about something you\u2019ve done the work of interpretation.<\/p>\n
And that\u2019s ok.<\/p>\n
Because without that act of interpretation there\u2019s no room for God to work, no space for God to speak, no way for God to do the transforming work that God intended the Bible to bring about in our lives.<\/p>\n
\u00a0<\/p>\n
To be continued tomorrow\u2026.<\/em><\/p>\n
\u00a0<\/p>\n
Grace and peace,<\/p>\n
Zack Hunt<\/p>\n<\/body><\/html>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Right before John the Baptist became John the Headless, the writer of Mark records that Jesus gathered \u201cthe Twelve\u201d together and sent them out with these instructions, \u201cTake nothing for the journey except a staff\u2014no bread, no bag, no money in your belts. Wear sandals but not an extra shirt. Whenever you enter a house, […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3437,"featured_media":9146,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-9144","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"yoast_head":"\n
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