Radical Christianity

Radical Christianity

Scripture

“Then a demon-possessed man who was blind and mute was brought to Jesus, and He healed him, so that the mute man spoke and saw” ().

Message

Much of this chapter deals with Jesus confronting the Pharisees about their use of the “truth.” When they declared that the disciples’ picking of grain on the Sabbath was unlawful, Jesus replied: “But if you had known what this means, ‘I desire compassion, and not a sacrifice,’ you would not have condemned the innocent” ().

You see, the Pharisees were using their knowledge of the Law to ascertain others’ measure of righteousness. In doing so, they fell into condemning the righteous.

Then, when Jesus healed the man with the withered hand, verse 10 tells us they asked questions about it in order “to accuse him.” When He did heal, verse 14 gives us their response:

“But the Pharisees went out and conspired against Him, as to how they might destroy Him.”

Why? Because He healed on the Sabbath? Partly — but the bottom line was they loved their ability to keep the Law more than the hurting. They reveled in their own righteousness and prided themselves in not messing up. Now, they never accomplished anything either, but they’d rather be barren and clean, useless and right, than to be fruitful though messy.

· Births are messy.

· Growth is expensive.

· Life requires maintenance.

· Success includes failures.

The Bible says in , “Where no oxen are, the manger is clean, but much increase comes with the strength of an ox.”

Proverbs 14:4 NASB95

Where no oxen are, the manger is clean, But much revenue comes by the strength of the ox.

But Jesus exemplifies a radical Christianity. I noticed how He knew that the end of the Law was to love God and it would end us up in loving people. The end of the Law is not keeping it. That’s not the end of my reach; it’s the beginning. Church planting is not the end of our reach; it’s the beginning. Getting a ministry assignment, a church, a position, isn’t the end of your reach. It’s the beginning!

I noticed something that disturbed everything about my traditional theology – “There was brought to Him a demon-possessed man, who was blind and mute, and He healed him.”

Now, at first pass, that sounds nice, but why were the religious people so outraged to the point where they said that “Jesus was a cult?” (v. 24).

It would be like praying for healing for a demon-possessed man in our Wednesday service and not even leading him to faith in Christ. It would be helping people before preaching to them – unlike the old “mission” at the train stations where they’d preach first and feed later.

Jesus just fed! And the Pharisees got “fed up.”

Jesus wasn’t on a “recruitment” kick. He loved, He healed, He fed … because His Father loves lost people.