“The apostles understood this also, as shown by Paul’s writing in Romans 1:24-27, Peter’s in 2 Peter 2:4-22, and John’s in Revelation 22:15.”

 

Actually Lucy, the Bible itself consistently shows – with the possible exception of an extremely nuanced reading of the Gospel of John – that Jesus’ apostles were not the cleverest of men, and that they frequently failed to comprehend even the most fundamental aspects of The Way he was consistently showing them … Please consider the following small collection of  examples that prove this point:
*Example #01)  After the feeding of the four thousand, Jesus admonished his disciples to “Beware the yeast of the Pharisees” (Mark 8:14-21), whereupon they quite densely assumed that he was warning them of the actual yeast used by Pharisee bread-makers.   The author of Matthew then explains what most of us knew already – that Jesus was speaking about the spiritual doctrines of the Pharisees and not their poor bread-making skills (Matthew 16:12), and yet we are left to wonder how it could be that his disciples – men who had spent significant time listening to Jesus teach, watching Jesus live, and actually living with him, could make such an embarrassing mistake.

 

*Example #02)  Shortly thereafter, Jesus proclaimed that he was the “bread of life” (a powerful symbolic reference he liked to use when speaking about his Way of selfless service and radical Kindness) and that people must “eat of his flesh and drink his blood” in order to experience salvation (John 6:32-35) … Rather than immediately comprehend that he was speaking of our need to fully embody and courageously emulate the radical form of selfless LOVE he was exhibiting, his disciples were instead confused and complained about this being a “difficult teaching” to understand (John 6:68).

 

*Example #03)  After Jesus had called out the Pharisees about their hypocritical obsession with ritual cleanliness, the disciples had to later ask Jesus what he had meant (even though they had already been exposed to his teachings for many months), whereupon he incredulously responded “Are you still so dim-witted?” (Matthew 15:2-16)

 

*Example #04)  Another time, after asking the seemingly innocuous question “Who do you think I am?” (Mark 8:27) Jesus’ disciples gave him answers that were all over the place.  Yes, Peter eventually gave a response that seemed acceptable to Jesus (“You are the Christ” ~ Mark 8:29), and yet even Peter obviously didn’t understand what Jesus meant by this title (as evidenced by his mistaken belief that “the Christ” was some sort of conquering military hero – see Mark 8:31), whereupon Jesus (who had been teaching a Way of selfless sacrifice for the downtrodden and unconditional Love even for one’s enemies) sternly rebuked him (Mark 8:33) … And things didn’t get any better for Peter, who – despite believing (as Paul also later mistakenly believed) that Jesus was the Davidian Messiah who would save them all and reward them with seats of honor in Heaven – still ended up denying Jesus three times after his post-Gethsemane abduction.

 

*Example #05)  In another dramatic example of intellectual ineptitude, we see Jesus telling the disciples quite clearly that they must each take up their own cross of self-sacrifice in order to serve others (rather than be served by them – see Mark 8:34 & Mark 10:45) – and then not long afterwards we see the disciples sitting around and cluelessly wondering about which one of them was going to be considered the greatest in the Kingdom to come (Mark 9:33-34).

 

*Example #06)  Shortly thereafter, we see Jesus again explaining his Gospel-Purpose to the disciples, and we see them again either fully failing to comprehend what he was saying &/or being completely surprised by the same (Mark 10:24-32).

 

*Example #07)  And of course, in the greatest showing of the disciples’ complete miscomprehension of Jesus’ greatness, in the hour of Jesus’ greatest trial, they all ultimately deserted him and fled (Mark 16:13 & John 20:9).

 

There are quite a few other examples that could be listed here, and yet the proof has been made clearly enough – Jesus’ disciples were not only not the brightest of men, they had hopes for who Jesus would become that in no way resonated with his true Peace-full Purpose.  And because of this powerful combination of ignorance-inducers, Jesus chose to wait until a very late date (if at all) to speak clearly to them – not only about his revolutionarily moral principles, but also about his revolutionarily courageous plans.

“Do you still not understand? How will you understand all the parables? …  Do you have eyes, and yet still fail to see? Do you have ears, and yet still fail to hear? … I have said these things even to you in figures of speech. The hour is one day coming when I will no longer speak to you in figures, but will tell you plainly of the Father.” ~ Jesus Christ (Mark 4:13 & Mark 8:18 & John 16:25)

Filed under: Burnishing Bigotry by Scaughdt