Jesus burning part 4

Now let's look at Jesus's words of damnation in Luke, that we haven't visited before.

As I go through the book, at first I see very little outright condemnation and descriptive punishments, eternal or otherwise. I do see some warnings to "be on your guard",  "woe unto" various groups of people, and suggestions that things won't be so good for some people. Then we get to 12:5, which says, " But I will show you whom you should fear: fear him who after killing the body, has power to throw you into hell (gehenna). Yes, I tell you fear him." I find it interesting that this one verse could be left out of the passage and it would make more sense. The surrounding context of the passage is an encouragement to Not fear. It's not even clear who we are expected to fear in verse 5. If it is god, then this passage also contradicts those who say god does not throw people in hell.

In Luke 12, We find a repeat of the Matthew 24 parable in which a servant abuses other servants while the master is away. Here, when the master returns and cuts the bad servant into pieces, he assigns him a place with the unbelievers, not with the hypocrites as in Matthew. This passage continues on to say that the servant who knows his master's will and doesn't do it "will be beaten with many blows." However, the servant that doesn't know the master's wishes and does some things worthy of punishment will be beaten with few blows."

Wow. First of all, it is wrong for the servant to beat other servants, but not wrong for the master to beat a servant? Who is the hypocrite? Actually, I'm being too hard on the master here. It's all about property rights and who is allowed to beat who. The law of Moses allows masters to beat their slaves, but a slave clearly has no right to beat other slaves whom he doesn't own. What a minute, you say, this passage calls the person a "servant" not a slave. The word in Greek translated as the English word servant in this passage is doulos. It appears to have one meaning in greek, slave, or a person who is owned by another person and who has no personal property rights himself. That it was translated as servant, giving modern audiences the impression that this person was employed for pay, is thoroughly dishonest and misleading on the part of the translators.

Second, after this parable, the author clearly implies that there are gradients  of punishments that will be meted out when Jesus returns. It also implies that doing wrong when you are ignorant of what is wrong is not as bad as wrongs committed with full knowledge. I would mostly agree. It also seems like the author of Luke is trying to soften the blow of this parable. The punishment gets downgraded from getting cut in pieces, to merely being beaten, which is objectively better for one's health.

In chapter 13, Jesus is asked, "Lord, are only a few people going to be saved?" Good question. Jesus answers by telling them, "Make every effort to enter through the narrow door, because many will try to enter and will not be able to. Once the owner of the house (god) gets up and closes the door, you will stand outside knocking and pleading. 'Sir, open the door for us.'.....He will reply, 'I don't know you.....Away from me you evildoers!' There will be weeping and gnashing of teeth when you see Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, and all the prophets in the kingdom of god, but you yourselves thrown out. This is the only case of simultaneous weeping and gnashing of teeth outside of Matthew.

More to come.