and he gave gifts unto men

And he gave some apostles, some prophets, others evangelists, others shepherds and teachers ...
- Paul, Ephesians 4:11, Wycliffe Translation
καὶ αὐτὸς ἔδωκεν τοὺς μὲν ἀποστόλους, τοὺς δὲ προφήτας, τοὺς δὲ εὐαγγελιστάς, τοὺς δὲ ποιμένας καὶ διδασκάλους ...

- Paul, Ephesians 4:11, original Greek
And he gave some, apostles; and some, prophets; and some, evangelists; and some, pastors and teachers;

- Paul, Ephesians 4:11, King James Version

This passage continues from Paul's prophetic interpretation of "he led captivity captive  [i.e. took the spoils of war] and gave gifts to persons" as a prophetic witness to Jesus as the Messiah.  Some of the spoils of war that are given to persons are, for Paul the charismata [χαρίσματα] take form not just in the signs worked in believers, but in the gifts that we actually become to each other.  One is made a gift of apostle to some persons; to another, a gift of prophet; to others a shepherd (pastor) or a teacher, according to the grace given us (or channeled through us).  I think this might be paraphrased as "And he gave some of these gifts as apostles to some people; some as prophets to others, etc."

What sort of hierarchy did Jesus envisage for his Ekklesia?  One of generals and lieutenants and footsoldiers?  Or one where the last is first, the first is last, and the greatest is the one who washes the feet of the others?

When we look upon some gifts (i.e. some people) as more essential than others, more important than others, are we not guilty of not discerning His Body?  Are we not in a place of condemnation and pettiness and belittlement?

The Holy Spirit may make the gift of apostle or prophet or teacher out of anyone, for there is no Teacher other than the Holy Spirit.  There are only vessels, tabernacles for the Spirit.  You are the temple of the Holy Spirit.  And that temple may potentially be the conduit of any gift that the Holy Spirit wishes.  

The Good News

The Spirit of the Lord Yahweh is upon me for Yahweh has anointed me to bring good news to the afflicted.

His mission for me: 

To pick up the pieces the brokenhearted.

To proclaim liberty to captives and release to prisoners.

To proclaim the year of Yahweh's favor and the day that our Elohim settles the score [on our behalf]. 

To console all those who grieve.

To bestow on the mourners of Zion a garland of celebration instead of ashes, giving the oil of joy instead of grief, the mantle of praise instead of a malaise of weariness, so they will be known as oaks of righteousness, Yahweh's [own] planting that exhibits His splendor. 

Isaiah 61

Was Jesus Hung On A Tree?

He is despised and rejected of men; a man of sorrows, and acquainted with grief: and we hid as it were our faces from him; he was despised, and we esteemed him not ...
 - Isaiah 53:3

Men weep, and bewail their lot, and curse Cadmus with many curses for introducing Tau into the family of letters; they say it was his body [the letter's form] that tyrants took for a model, his shape that they imitated, when they set up structures on which men are crucified. Stauros (cross) the vile engine is called, and it derives its vile name from him.
  - Lucian, 160 A.D., quoted on Wikipedia

Χριστῷ συνεσταύρωμαι·
 - Saul of Tarsus, Galatians 2:19

Christ redeemed us from the curse of the Law, having become a curse for us-- for it is written, "CURSED IS EVERYONE WHO HANGS ON A TREE."
- Saul of Tarsus, Galatians 3:13

In yet another instance of the rash of gospel revisionism, there are those who cite the many NT references to Jesus being hung on a "tree" claiming things like:

Although some accounts say that he was convicted and turned over to the Romans for execution, 1 Thess. 2:14-15, an undoubtedly genuine letter of Paul, and probably the oldest book in the entire NT, plainly states that Jesus was killed by the Jews. Assuming this to be correct, Jesus could not possibly have been crucified. [ref]

This particular commentator claims a special priority of the letter to the Thessalonians, but the letter to the Galatians is at least as well attested to, and in that letter Paul claims that the stauros/σταυρος (cross) counts as a tree in terms of the laws of Moses.  The Sanhedrin and the Pharisees did not want to be viewed directly bringing his downfall.  There were strong ties between the ministry of John the Baptizer and Jesus of Nazareth, and they evidently thought it prudent for Jerusalem see the false messiah defeated by the Roman oppressors.  On the other hand, it may not have seemed enough to merely stone Jesus.  With crucifixion, the people would see the would-be messiah utterly destroyed as well as seeing him utterly shamed.  What kind of Messiah would be suffered to die the death of a blasphemer and traitor?  Hence the jibes about him getting himself down from the cross.  No messiah could hang dead on the tree.  His teaching would be discredited when people realized that this man was no deliverer.  

The Israelites didnʼt kill criminals using the method of hanging, but they would at times hang the criminalʼs body after they applied a capital punishment. This action was to show the curse that came from breaking Godʼs Law.  The Hebrew word for curse is qalal (#7043) and it means something that is lifted or lightened, as in, making it little or contemptible. A curse is the opposite of a blessing. When someone was given a blessing, they were shown favor, or value. When someone was hung, it signified that they were despised, without honor. [ref]

Even though Pilate knew they were setting up an innocent rival of theirs, there is only so much he could ignore the person that was welcomed on palm leaves after the Sanhedrin say that he claims to be the Messianic king.  His first revenge is to state Jesus' crime in a way that offends the religious leaders.  Later Pilate allows Jesus to be taken down in order for Joseph of Arimathea to give him an honorable burial and not leave him hanging all night. Of course, the gospel narratives tell us that Pilate did not believe Jesus to be the threat the Sanhedrin claimed him to be; he was a threat to their authority perhaps, but not to his.   

But it is interesting to consider the Torah-based shame that was connected to the Roman cross. 

Three times in the book of Acts the word tree is used to refer to Jesus' crucifixion. In these cases, it appears in a Jewish context as well. [ref]

Also,

..for any Jew...the cross would be doubly repulsive... crucifixion was the most
abhorrent of all deaths because of its cruelty and shame, but for the Jew it also
involved the curse of the Torah, the curse pronounced on 'every one that hangeth on
a tree' (Davies, 1980:227).  [qtd in ref]

But Jewish tradition upholds the view of the Jewish leaders having hung Jesus from some sort of tree or stake rather than him being nailed to a Roman cross.  One writer avers that the stauros could refer to other sorts of stakes, even though Lucian traces the derivation of stauros from the letter tau, which has a crossbeam.  The cross on which Simon Peter was eventually crucified was in the shape of the early Phoenician tau/tav: its crossbeams fashioned as an X.  By extension, a stauros may well have referred to any execution stake or pike.  The Talmud recounts that Jesus was stoned and then hung as accursed according to the law:

On (Sabbath eve and) the eve of Passover Jesus the Nazarene was hanged and a herald went forth before him forty days heralding, 'Jesus the Nazarene is going forth to be stoned because he practiced sorcery and instigated and seduced Israel to idolatry. Whoever knows anything in defense may come and state it.' But since they did not find anything in his defense they hanged him on (Sabbath eve and) the eve of Passover. Ulla said: Do you suppose that Jesus the Nazarene was one for whom a defense could be made? He was a mesit (someone who instigated Israel to idolatry), concerning whom the Merciful [God] says: Show him no compassion and do not shield him (Deut. 13:9). [ref]

Rabbi Moshe ben Maimon (Maimonides) in the 12th century summarized in his letter to Yemen:

Jesus ... impelled people to believe that he was a prophet sent by God to clarify perplexities in the Torah, and that he was the Messiah that was predicted by each and every seer. He interpreted the Torah and its precepts in such a fashion as to lead to their total annulment, to the abolition of all its commandments and to the violation of its prohibitions.  The sages, of blessed memory, having become aware of his plans before his reputation spread among our people, meted out fitting punishment to him.

Some have even conjectured that this is the way it happened and that the early Jewish Christians somehow shifted the blame to the Romans, in extreme contradiction to the sort of revisionism that claims the Romans were at least as much to blame.  Both of these extremes are rejected in the Acts of the Apostles.  There are very clear claims that Jesus was given a Roman execution at the prompting of the Jewish leadership and with the support of the crowds of Israelites inhabiting Jerusalem for the Passover pilgrimage.  Jesus was "handed over to the Gentiles" to be abused and killed;  by Israel he was "disowned" because they "asked for a murderer [Barabbas] to be released instead" and so "put to death the Prince of Life"; the people of Jerusalem "condemned him" and "asked Pilate that he be executed"; and so they "nailed [him] to a cross by the hands of godless men and [thus] put him to death."

At one point the high priest accuses Simon Peter and the disciples of trying to "bring this man's blood down upon us."  Peter responds that he has no choice but to obey God and tell the truth.  The Daily Beast, of course, rejects the NT as anti-Semitic and chides believers for not realizing that the gospels are the sort of "unsympathetic portraits of Jesus’s Jewish contemporaries [that] persist in simplistic TV adaptations of the Easter story and in Mel Gibson’s drunken rants."  American Christians hold to the NT, this writer avers, out of "historical [in]competency."  David Klinghoffer, an Orthodox Jewish writer, states that "if Gibson is an anti-Semite, then to be consistent you would have to say that so was Maimonides," and admonishes, "I don't think it's very wise for a few Jewish leaders to try to tell millions of Christians what they are supposed to believe. Would we want some Christians to try to edit our scriptures and to tell us what we should believe?"

Ex-Pope Benedict Ratzinger in his latest book revels in the political correctness of the times, first by repudiating  (implicitly) the many proclamations in the Acts in favor of an interpretation that implicates only the "Temple aristocracy" and a fortuitous gathering of Barabbas supporters.  If Ratzinger were to travel back in time, he could correct the evangelists!  He seems to imply curiously (for a Catholic) that the chant of the crowd that appears in Matthew's gospel alone should be understood mystically, as an unknowing cry for salvation, finding some way for the text to have some  metaphysical truth, if not literal truth. These unnecessary detours eventually lead to some essential truth: that Jesus' blood  "does not cry out for vengeance and punishment, it brings reconciliation. It is not poured out against anyone, it is poured out for many, for all."  Well, shoot, he could've just started there.

The New Testament writings are synoptic on these points: (1) that Jesus was killed because God's chosen people rejected him and turned him over to death in their hardness of heart,  (2) that they were too blind to understand what they were doing, and (3) that there is nothing but forgiveness in the heart of the suffering Messiah for that betrayal and rejection.

Having taken the curse upon himself, "on the tree" as Paul says, he repudiates the curse.  Where Jerusalem says, "Let his blood be upon us and our children," Jesus can only reply, "Father, forgive them."  Those that look for anti-Semitism in the New Testament, whether moralizing secularists or anti-Semites, they are barking up the wrong tree.  

Belief in the Resurrection

From Craig's "Jesus and His Passion":

In opposition to Crossans’s conjecture let me summarize four facts which are agreed upon by the majority of New Testament critics who have written on this subject.   

The Name of God

"... our ancestors were arrogant ... but you are Eloah Selichot Channun v'Rachum (God of pardons, grace and mercy), slow to anger, and of great chesed, and you did not forsake them."
  - Nehemiah, (in Nehemiah 9:17)

"In order to forestall this [business of repentance and forgiveness], I fled to Tarshish, since I had knowledge that You are El Channun v'Rachum Erech Apayim V'Rav Chesed, (God of Grace and Mercy, Slow to Anger and of Great Chesed), Who relents from judgment."
  - the prophet Jonah (in Jonah 4:2)

"I will make all my goodness pass before you, declaring the name of I AM [THAT I AM]:  And I Will Have Chen (grace) On Whom I Will Have Chen and Racham (compassion) On Whom I Will Have Racham."
  - God to Moses, (in Exodus 33:19)

"Because of the chasdei (faithful kindnesses) of Yahweh we are not destroyed, because his rachamim (mercies) are unfailing and are new every morning.  Great is Your faithfulness."
   - Jeremiah, (in Lamentations 3:22-23)

"But God, being rich in mercy, because of His great love with which He loved us, even when we were dead in our transgressions, made us alive together with Christ (by grace you have been saved), and raised us up with Him, and seated us with Him in the heavenly places in Christ Jesus ..."

  - Saul of Tarsus, (in Ephesians 4:19-21)

Questions about an Exclusive Way of Salvation

For most people the "scandal of particularity" is a stumbling block.  Is Jesus the only way?

There is a sort of modern Christian parable in which someone receives a letter offering to wipe out any large debt if only the letter is brought to an obscure office in town. In the story, the person crumples up the letter as an obvious scam.  This is supposed to represent the relationship between faith and salvation in Jesus: the debt remains because this person was unconvinced by the letter, and how sad too.  His debt will remain unpaid.

But think how many believe that salvation is predicated on the being convinced of a particular idea, and not only that but that one's salvation is predicated on not having the wrong idea about how salvation works.  How much does one have to understand about what a Messiah even is in order to believe Jesus is the Messiah and escape eternal damnation?

It is one thing for the Creator to draw his human creatures to Himself through the revelation of a certain people, through a certain rabbi among a certain religion among a small group of people in a small territory; it is another to commit to eternal damnation all that remain unconvinced of this.  Why, the idea must be so convincing all on its own that everyone who doesn't come around to the truth must hate the truth (or so we tell ourselves) -- and we're convinced of this because otherwise it would mean that some cosmic injustice has been perpetrated on humanity.

Of course, this manner of thinking is often used as an excuse to deny any number of things about Jesus of Nazareth.  It is more hip to believe that he was merely a compassionate rabbi who never suggested any metaphysically untoward things about himself.  It is more hip to believe that he never made himself out to be anything special.  It is more hip to think that he was an Hindu guru who was trying to shake the Israelis out of their provincial monotheism.  It is more hip to declare him to be yet another political revolutionary.  It is more hip to declare him to be merely a Marxist ahead of his time.  Because nothing is more uncool than the belief that Jesus was a supernatural being from the Father God with a message that was connected to God's covenant with Abraham.  In this Western culture's recommitment to secularism and to the Mammon of utopianism, nothing could be more uncool.

In spite of all these many ways to reject received wisdom about Jesus, we have so have some curious stories told in the Gospels.  Contradictory sayings, if superficially so, bizarre generalizations, friendship with sinners and unholy, extreme grace at times and extreme law at others.  There is such a diversity in Christendom about the relationship of God's free grace to holy living that one can pick almost any point of view about it they want.  Some denominations will teach that salvation is has nothing to do with what you do and only with what beliefs you profess with conviction.  Some denominations predicate one's salvation on paying the high cost of discipleship (as they envision it), effectively being as holy as the Father above.  Grace is only in operation if you are perfect as your Father in Heaven; and so any number of modern day Pharisees (figuratively speaking) walk around believing they are walking uprightly, as they are assured of damnation otherwise.

Grace seems to be a critical concept to the New Covenant, but how can we generalize it?  If anything can be generalized historically, from the standpoint of recorded Christian experience, is this:

'Son of God' Movie - Remembering When Newsweek Bashed the New Testament

And the high priest questioned them, saying, “We strictly charged you not to teach in this name, yet here you have filled Jerusalem with your teaching and you intend to bring this man’s blood upon us.” But Peter and the apostles answered, “We must obey God rather than men.  The God of our fathers raised Jesus whom you killed by hanging him on a tree."
- Acts 5 

The Roma Downey project Son of God appears to be coming out this Easter, and it's difficult to believe that it will be the 10th anniversary of Passion of the Christ.  For almost 10 years now, I've wanted to respond to Newsweek's response to Passion, published before the release date.  But first, let me say ...