Maybe Jesus Didn't Say The Things He Said

In Luke 21 the Gospel writer says that Jesus talked about how the Temple would be destroyed and that there would be earthquakes and famines, and that his followers would be persecuted, imprisoned, and worse. There’s a branch of Christianity that assumes these words of Jesus refer to the “end times” leading up to the end of the world or the apocalypse, but that is unlikely the case.

The truth is that when the temple was destroyed by the Romans in 70AD, the early Christians considered that event confirmation of words that Jesus had uttered during his time on earth.

BUT.

Here’s the interesting thing - the temple was destroyed in 70AD, but Luke’s Gospel was written some 10 or maybe even 20-30 years later somewhere between 80 and 100AD.

Why is that important?

Because that means that Luke is writing his Gospel …

60 years AFTER Jesus died.

AND.

20 years AFTER the temple was destroyed.

We also know that the Gospel writers weren’t looking to record historical documents in the way that you and I would understand historical documents today. They weren’t looking to write down historical records so that you and I would know the exact things that Jesus did and said some 2000 years later.

People of that time weren’t really interested in that sort of thing like you and I are.

Rather, the Gospel writers were writing to specific audiences to encourage them to walk the Jesus way in the midst of their own very specific circumstances. And so, to them, getting every detail 1000% right wasn’t the goal. Writers in that time often took creative liberties not to trick their audience or lie or paint a false picture, but to make a greater point about what they were writing and who they were writing about.

Luke’s point, then, wasn’t so much to paint a accurate picture of the person of Jesus as much as it was to remind his audience that Jesus is the Christ and his way is the way to follow.

And so as Luke sat down to write his Gospel 60 years after Jesus had died and 20 years after the temple was destroyed, perhaps he embellished the words of Jesus or crafted them in such a way that his audience would know without a doubt that Luke believed that Jesus’ words were foreshadowing a specific event that they had lived through just some 20 years earlier.

And why is that important?

Because perhaps his goal wasn’t to record history in a way that would satisfy our Westernized North American curiosity, but to remind his readers that as they looked back on that catastrophic event and realized that Jesus knew it was coming … they could (also) look forward into the unknowns of their own lives and know that nothing is unknown to Christ and that no matter what might come their way - he will be with them, he will guide them, and the path of love and grace and forgiveness and peace is the way that will carry them through it just as it had carried them through the destruction of the temple.

The same is true for you, today, in 2019.

Much love,