Heaven part eight

Continuing on with heaven in the New Testament:

In Matthew 18:18, Jesus tells all the disciples the same exact thing he told Peter in 16:19, that whatever he bound on earth will be bound in heaven, and whatever he loosed on earth would be loosed in heaven. But what does the binding and loosing mean? Your guess is as good as mine. However it does show that binding and loosing is not specific to Peter.

Verses18:23-35 are another parable about the kingdom of heaven. (In the churches I've attended, parables were called earthly stories with a heavenly meaning.) This time the kingdom of heaven is like a king (obviously representing god) who wanted the servants (Jews, or everybody?) in debt to him to pay up. One man owed him a ton of money, so the king ordered that his whole family and all his possessions be sold. The servant begged for time to pay the debt. The king cancelled the debt. That servant went out and had another servant thrown in prison for owing him money that he couldn't pay. The king heard about it and scolded the servant for not showing the same mercy that was shown to him. The king had the servant thrown in jail and tortured (representing hell?)until he could pay back the original debt. "This is how my heavenly father will treat each of you unless you forgive your brother from your heart."

There is so much wrong with this parable. First, we don't owe an invisible god in the sky any huge debt that we need to be forgiven of. Next, we do not need to fear what that god will do to us if we do not repay that nonexistent debt. Also, people have plenty of other reasons to forgive without threats of torture if they don't. Last, should we forgive everyone everything? Really? Or is it limited to debts owed? Certainly we should not be like Ebenezer Scrooge, but must we completely wipe out all debts when petitioned?

In Matthew 19:14, Jesus repeats that the kingdom of heaven belongs to people who are like children. In 19:21, Jesus tells a young man to sell his possessions and give to the poor to get treasure in heaven. What does one do with treasure in heaven? Verses 19:23-24 tells us it is incredibly hard for a rich man to enter the kingdom of heaven. (Heaven is to be made up of the poor?)

Matthew 20:1-16 is another parable. It says the kingdom of heaven is like a landowner (god again) who hired men  (representing people, just males?) to work in his vineyard one day. He hired different people at different times of the day but at the end of the day they all received the same pay (representing their heavenly reward). The men who worked longer hours grumbled at the fact that the people hired later got the same pay. The landowner then claims the right to pay everyone exactly what he wants, it's his money to begin with. Should they be envious because he is generous? In the kingdom of heaven, the last will be first and the first will be last, whatever that means. One interpretation might be that the gentiles who were Yahweh fearers for much less time than the Jews would receive the same heavenly reward, and the Jews shouldn't grumble about it. There is so much ambiguous language in the bible, so many deepities, so much word salad. You could make it mean whatever you want.

More to come.