The Divine Conspiracy, part 2

Part 1 is here.

Chapters 4 and 5 were where I really started to enjoy this book.  It is becoming evident that the major theme is “God’s kingdom is now,” and that Jesus’ teachings are best interpreted through this lens.  I apologize that this is not a particularly “readable” summary.  This is my summary of the book that allows me to better understand what I read.

Chapter 4: Who is really well off?  — The Beatitudes

No one is actually being told that they are better off for being poor, for mourning, for being persecuted, and so on, or that the conditions listed are recommended ways to well-being before God or man.  Nor are the Beatitudes indications of who will be on top “after the revolution.”  They are explanations and illustrations, drawn from the immediate setting, of the present availability of the kingdom through personal relationship to Jesus.

• The Beatitudes answer the question of “who has the good life?”
• Jesus teaches through context: parable, present occasions
• Teachers in Jesus’ time taught to cause behavioral change in their hearers, not increase their knowledge.
• The Beatitudes proclaim Jesus’ fundamental message: God’s rule and righteousness is available to anyone through Jesus.
• Therefore, all people – especially regular people, are who God wants to use

Chapter 5: The Rightness of the Kingdom Heart: Beyond the Goodness of Scribes and Pharisees

He [Jesus] knew that we cannot keep the law by trying to keep the law.  To succeed in keeping the law one must aim at something other and something more.  One must aim to become the kind of person from whom the deeds of the law naturally flow.

• Recognizing the Sermon on the Mount is a single discourse allows us to see the Kingdom theme therein.  It is not a group of laws to follow.
• Jesus was actually SMART
• Matthew 5 is a progression through how the old law focused on right behavior, but the Kingdom focuses on the result of goodness in the heart.
• When I want to go to New York, my plan is not to “not go to Atlanta” and hope that I end up in New York.  In the same way, “not sinning” will not produce a heart close to God.
• In the kingdom, the presumption is that I will return good for evil.  This is an inversion of the human order, which presumes retaliation.

Chapter 6: Investing in the Heavens: Escaping the Deceptions of Reputation and Wealth.

Accordingly, when we speak of freedom from dependency on reputation and material wealth, we are not suggesting an easy triumphalism.  Indeed, there will be times when we have no friends or wealth to be free from dependence upon.  And that, of course, is precisely the point.  In such a case we will be undisturbed.

• Based on Matthew 6
• Two things block our movement into the kingdom: human approval and treasuring material things.
• God’s kingdom can meet actual physical needs (as when Jesus fasted in the desert)
• Without honesty about personal weakness in the church, no spiritual growth can occur.