YES.....what Yusuphhai is experiencing is amazing and rare indeed......I remember reading "Tortured for Christ" by Richard Wurmbrand. He stated that in the Gulag......whether one is Protestant or Catholic or Jehovah Witness or Mormon or whatever.....is irrelevant..............persecuted Christians tend to be able to love each other and connect with each other and give each other some respect for their courage that is forged in fire......that non-persecuted Christians and Messianic Jews seem to have a terrible time understanding how to do??????????
United in Christ takes time to walk out in reality.
Even Yeshua experienced the same. Jesus came into a context that was divided along lines/polarities like that what we can often see today with political parties (i.e. right vs left, religious right vs secular right, liberal left vs. Christian Left, Independent, Radical Middle, etc). Jews in the second temple period believed that God would act to rescue and restore Israel. The issue then became, “Who is True Israel?”, i.e., what do we do to demonstrate in the present that we are part of the community that God will rescue in the near future? Some of the answers came in these ways:
- Zealots, who believed that God wanted them to physically rise up against the oppressive tyrant of Roman occupation,
- Herodians/Sadduccees, who believed that God had sided with Rome, or that amassing political power within the Roman system was the way forward,
- Essenes, who advocated complete withdrawal from society,
- Pharisees, who scapegoated “the sinners” in society, believing that God would act to rescue Israel from the oppressors if they increased the morality of society by strict adherence to the Mosaic Law.
And so we arrive at Jesus. He steps in to this context, and I suggest that if we can’t make sense of Jesus within this context, we’re probably misunderstanding or limiting the meaning of his words and actions. Here’s what I see when I look at Jesus: he did not play into any of the competing narratives of the day, but subverted them all. He rejected violence (”Turn the other cheek”
, assimilation (”seek first the kingdom of God and his justice”
, withdrawal (”give to Caesar what is Caesar’s”
, and scapegoating (”let he who is without sin cast the first stone”
, in favor of a completely new way of being “true Israel” - through generosity, selflessness, embrace of “the other” (indeed even “the sinner”!) and care for the poor.
Of course, there were many things he quoted that came directly from the aformentioned camps---for the Lord was not against acknowledgement of truth in camp you may not fullu belong to. For he did not say things within a vaccum and the camps he fought against were often the same ones whom he'd support the next minute (As discussed here in #
408 ). Nonetheless, as the Lord himself shared similarities with the other camps in Judaism of his day, he also chose to stand apart from them...creating a group that'd go against the norm.
When looking at the very group of disciples he chose from, they all came from a very diverse background--and this diversity was reflected within the very make-up of the early church. Seeing how even the people Christ chose as his inner circle were among those who came from DIFFERENT Camps of VASTLY DIFFERENT IDEOLOGIES--some who were against GOVERNMENTS and others that were all for it, as seen when HE simultaneouly chose both ZEALOTS and TAX-Collectors to be apart of His inner circle---despite how BOTH sides had significant issue with the other, with Zealots wishing to overthrow Rome and feeling as if Tax-Collectors had "Sold out"...
12One of those days Jesus went out to a mountainside to pray, and spent the night praying to God. 13When morning came, he called his disciples to him and chose twelve of them, whom he also designated apostles: 14Simon (whom he named Peter), his brother Andrew, James, John, Philip, Bartholomew, 15Matthew, Thomas, James son of Alphaeus, Simon who was
called the Zealot, 16Judas son of James, and Judas Iscariot, who became a traitor.-
Mark 3 /
Matthew 10
Matthew 9:9
[
The Calling of Matthew ] As Jesus went on from there, he saw a man named
Matthew sitting at the
tax collector's booth. "Follow me," he told him, and
Matthew got up and followed him.
Of course, one must also factor in the Pharisees who were divided because of him in John 7 and how many followed him in that camp as well, such as Nicodemus and Josephus. I think it's very much intentional that the gospel writers portray Jesus' disciples as backstabbing, betraying, cowardly, dense, poor, uneducated, blue-collar, "terrorist" (as in, plotting against the government), criminal (as in, stealing from people in the name of the government)...and that they didn't always agree with each other.
Just another example of unity within diversity/disagreement.
In regards to the issue of having unity within Diversity, Simon the Zealot is someone who stands out on the issue (IMHO).
Simon was called a "
Zealot" in his lifestyle before ministry with Jesus, probably a member of the
Zealot party, which was a party determined to overthrow Roman Domination in Palestine. Interestingly enough, the "
Zealot" term is still used for the man AFTER Christ rose from the Grave
Acts 1:13,
Acts 1:12-14 Acts 1 .IMHO, it gives room to indicate that even after being in the midst of Jesus, that which he may have been known for was probably with him to one degree or another---such as still possibly wishing for Rome to be overthrown or having sympathies for those against Roman Oppression. When considering how the man died, some say he was martyred---whereas others say that he was involved in a Jewish revolt against the Romans, , which was brutally suppressed in A.D 70. If knowing of the work by Robert Eisenman (Eisenman 1997 pp 33-4), he pointed out the contemporary talmudic references to Zealots as kanna'im "but not really as a group — rather as avenging priests in the Temple." For more info, one can look up the work entitled
James the Brother of Jesus : The Key to Unlocking the Secrets of Early Christianity and the Dead Sea Scrolls. (Viking Penguin). But on
Simon, when Jesus called him, nowhere is there sign that there was an immediate change over night..especially considering how often they argued amongst themselves...
By all logical means, things SHOULD HAVE FAILED with the group of men He chose to work together/form the core of his leadership. But again, it's very much intentional that the gospel writers portray Jesus' disciples as acting in a MYRIAD of ways----yet they had to learn how to work with one another in order for Kingdom Power to be demonstrate. Praying for the day when that can be shown across the boards in the Body of Christ.