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Luke: Duality In Deity!, Transcript, Problematic Passages

Main Points” Problematic Passages

Transcript Prblematic Passages

Okay, I have a lot written down. I'm not sure how many I'm going to cover, but let's just get started. Luke 12:49-53: "I have come to bring fire on the earth, and how I wish it were already kindled! But I have a baptism to undergo, and what constraint I am under until it is completed! Do you think I came to bring peace on earth? No, I tell you, but division." So much for the peacebringer, so much for the UNIF fire.

(19:29) So much for hippie Jesus, the spirit of the law, and forgetting the contradictions about the character of Jesus versus other Jesus or Jesus versus Yahweh. What a gross verse, what a terrible excuse for a perfect God of divine justice, and all Christians can do is talk about the value of family—a God-given value, a right, the most important thing to protect against the evils of the world—where Jesus doesn't even care to protect it. Don't go bury your father, hate your kids, and leave them if you must. I am here to cause division. These are his words. If you're

(20:08) going to believe it, you have to believe all of it, but all of it is a big pill to swallow. And by the way, stick around because the last one I'm going to cover is one of the most problematic passages in the New Testament. But let's go to Luke 22:36: "He said to them, 'But now if you have a purse, take it, and also a bag; and if you don't have a sword, sell your cloak and buy one.'" So much for "blessed are the peacemakers" from the Sermon on the Mount in Matthew. But here we have what we see in, by the way, all of the Gospel accounts: Jesus as Zealot, Jesus as

(20:38) someone who believed himself to be on the path to raising up the Jews and restoring them, even politically. He just died first, and then we have the alterations afterward to make sense of it. And in doing so, we try to make this Jesus about forgiveness and salvation. And so there's a whole lot. I'm not saying the pretty parts aren't in here—they are—but so are these parts. Luke 10:1-11:5: "But when you enter a town and are not welcomed, go into the streets and say, 'Even the dust of your town we wipe from our feet as a warning to you. Yet be sure of this: The kingdom of God has come near.' I tell you, it will be more bearable

(21:15) on that day for Sodom than for that town." We do like to point out the differences between Jesus and Yahweh, but here all I see is Yahweh. In the Old Testament, Yahweh tells his people to go to a town and offer them peace. And by the way, he describes that peace—everyone stops right there—he describes that peace as essentially letting them be slaves for you. And if they refuse the peace offered, go and utterly destroy them. Kudos to Jesus for being consistent here because this is the same thing: go into the towns and give them the opportunity to what? To

(21:45) be Jesus's slaves. This is what Jesus calls us to be. See my entire video on the slave mentality of Jesus. It didn't pop out of nowhere; it popped out of all of the times that Jesus talked about the right, proper attitude and positioning of oneself in following him. It is to be a slave. And if they reject it, wipe the dust off your feet, move to the next town as a warning to them because what comes for them if they reject Jesus and his peace and love will be a fate worse than that of Sodom and Gomorrah. When you put the last few verses together along with

(22:15) this one, you see Christianity almost being told to spread at the tip of the sword: convert or else. Not quite so pretty. Luke 14:26: "If anyone comes to me and does not hate father and mother, wife and children, brothers and sisters—yes, even their own life—such a person cannot be my disciple." Hyperbole or not, this is Jesus above everything else. This is not about family; this isn't about loving your family as an act of loving Jesus. It's if push comes to shove, it better be Jesus. And how many terrible things have happened to children because of this verse and verses like it? How

(22:50) many people were told that their parents love this invisible, imaginary figure more than they love their own children, and that was just the parents doing what they thought was the correct thing? This has tons of implications for how we view ourselves. We must hate our own life to follow Jesus; we must deny ourselves these kinds of things. It's just awful. What about Luke 6:29-30: "If someone slaps you on one cheek, turn to them the other also. If someone takes your coat, do not withhold your shirt from them. Give to everyone who asks you, and if anyone takes what belongs to you, do not demand

(23:23) it back." Not only is this completely hypocritical—as you'll see from my video on loving your enemies, if you didn't see that, check it out—I also talk about some of the harm in that episode, so I'm not going to cover it too much here. But it is not love or compassion to just be completely vulnerable and railroaded. And again, I'm not saying that this verse doesn't have some elements of a radical idea of love or inclusion because Luke has this. Luke is this real dichotomy. But why do we have to be on either extreme? Why do we have to say to a city, "You will

(23:54) have a fate worse than Sodom and Gomorrah if you deny me and my teaching," and also "Turn the other cheek, take everything I have, I won't fight back, buy a sword, hate your family"? Oh, you wanted my coat? Here's this also. Like, what is going on here? It's not my fault these things aren't reconciled. I've talked about Luke 8:32-33 so many times I can't do it again, but that is the demon possession with the large herd of pigs and all the things wrong with that. I mentioned Luke 9:60 earlier, where someone was told not to go bury their dead father so that they could follow Christ. In Luke 13:24: "Make every effort

(24:26) to enter through the narrow door, because many, I tell you, will try to enter and will not be able to." The idea that many will try and fail makes it sound like salvation cannot be guaranteed, that many will think they are and are not, which means that for every single one of you in the comments who tells me, "No, I am assured of this, I know this," you're contradicting Jesus. But you're also not contradicting him because Jesus says the same thing you're saying in other places, or people have it being said for Jesus, like what John will do and what Paul

(24:56) will do for us. So I guess it's the own internal inconsistencies that are your problem, but it's definitely not me. Okay, Luke 17:32-33: "Remember Lot's wife! Whoever tries to keep their life will lose it, and whoever loses their life will preserve it." Again, promoting self-denial to such an extreme degree as a religious tenet is obviously cultish and harmful. Why make us if you don't want us to be us? Luke 10:19, similar to that ending in Mark, we get: "I have given you authority to trample on snakes and scorpions and

(25:30) to overcome all the power of the enemy; nothing will harm you." What a lack of practical guidance, superstitious mystical powers. You thought we were done away with that in the Old Testament? It continues on in the character of Christ because of course it does. But modern Christians love to divorce themselves from that reality, and you can't when you read the text. In Luke 17:34-35, Jesus says: "I tell you, on that night two people will be in one bed; one will be taken and the other left. Two women will be grinding grain together; one will be taken, the other left." Again, this idea of salvation not being something we can know for

(26:07) certain or being guaranteed, this exclusionary purpose of Christ, this fear-based salvation—you better try, do your best, you don't want to be left behind, your fate will be worse than Sodom, remember Lot's wife. So many examples like this in Luke where we see the fear-based teaching that is so well known in at least American churches, but they're just following the gospel. Luke 6:24-26: "Woe to you who are rich, for you have already received your comfort. Woe to you who are well-fed now, for you will go hungry. Woe to you who laugh now, for

(26:43) you will mourn and weep." Listen, I understand that comfort and wealth can potentially lead to things that are not in our best interest, but saying these things are inherently bad and that by having them you deserve a comeuppance is also promoting the idea that to be a follower of Christ, one must be downtrodden. No wonder there's a slave mentality in Christianity. Don't do well now, or I'll take you down. Suffer for me, and then I will lift you up. But the Bible is so vague and contradictory that you can also get an entire prosperity gospel from it as well. But these verses exist too, and they're ridiculous. Of

(27:23) course, there's Luke 9:23: "Whoever wants to be my disciple must deny themselves and take up their cross daily and follow me." The hypocrisy of this statement from Jesus in Luke 11:46: "Jesus replied, 'And you experts in the law, woe to you because you load people down with burdens they can hardly carry, and you yourselves will not lift one finger to help them.'" Oh, you mean it's impossible to follow the law, the very law that you supposedly yourself, when you were still one as God in heaven, gave to the people and enforced on penalty of death most of the time throughout the entirety of the

(27:56) millennia of the Old Testament? Sorry, you changed your tune, earthly Jesus at 32 years old. They were just trying to be consistent with the entire history of this religion and this God, not an incorrect understanding of this. And this is why I made my entire video on the Pharisees because Jesus is the one who is off base here. Not defending the Jewish religion or the Pharisees, but insofar as that religion is real and the things that were written down were correct, they were in the right, clearly. But okay, let's end with moving over here

(28:27) to the worst verse I think is in all of Luke, which comes to us from the parable of the ten minas. This is in Luke chapter 19, and the whole parable is there, but then it ends. The last line of the parable comes to us in verse 27, and in it, Jesus says this: "But those enemies of mine who did not want me to be king over them—bring them here and kill them in front of me." Now, this is in parable form, so it's not to be taken literally, and I think it's important to point that out. I think many people just quote this as if Jesus said this about actual people in front of him. He didn't, but in many

(29:00) interpretations of this parable—and again, if you go back to Mark, we are told Jesus uses parables to confuse us, essentially, so keep that in mind here—but in many interpretations of this parable, it is Jesus comparing himself to the nobleman. In fact, the beginning of the parable states this: "Because he was near Jerusalem and the people thought that the kingdom of God was going to appear at once, he said this parable to them: A man of noble birth went to a distant country to have himself appointed king and then to return." Sound like anyone familiar? And then he calls

(29:31) ten servants and he tells them to put this money to work, and then he judges each for how they have done with their commission, which sounds a lot like Jesus talking about his followers and the authority he has given them over creating more to follow, making more disciples. So at the end of the parable, when the nobleman is dealing extremely harshly with "those enemies of mine who did not want me to be king over them," people that then would reject Jesus as Christ, kind of like the people in the towns whose fate would be worse than Sodom and Gomorrah, is even in parable

(30:07) form—is it "but I forgive you"? Is it "but you go to jail"? Is it "but I'm disappointed in you"? Or is it "bring them in front of me and kill them"? Make no mistake about this: we have a consistent representation of the God of Yahweh. Believe in me or else, follow me or else. It looked a little different in the Old Testament: if you weren't for me, you were against me; if you weren't a Jew, you were an enemy, and I will destroy you, I will have you genocided, I will have you enslaved, I will have you tortured. And many people think that that part of Jesus in

(30:39) the New Testament is just completely gone because he also says a lot of other stuff, most of which—the pretty stuff—he's only saying to the Jews, by the way. Sometimes he says a couple of things for the Gentiles, sure, but most of what he has for anyone who will not believe in him is this. So hopefully you have seen this world of Jesus in Luke as clearly as I do. That's my take on Luke. That's what I think is important to understand about this book. It is probably the toughest book to reconcile: social justice warrior and also militant warlord. I mean, oh,

(31:14) that's a hard thread to sew. But regardless, we have Luke working hard to make this story as much as he could change it palatable to a Roman audience for what was potentially a Roman patron, if not even for the selfless sake of trying to spread the gospel to Gentiles and make this religion grow. We have a change in Jesus's character to get him back in control. Instead of falling in, overcoming depression and fear to pray in the garden, he chooses to kneel. Instead of talking about being forsaken, he makes the choice to commit his spirit into the hands of the Father. And many more examples like this that show the

(31:55) obvious agenda of the writer of Luke. It's so fascinating to me to see this evolution of a historical figure into the God that many people today—billions of people today—actually believe they have a personal relationship with. I could go on like this for 15 hours, so I'm going to stop myself. But these are the problems with the gospels, these are the problems with the religion of Christianity. And just wait, be here next Thursday. Let's talk about John, and you can really see where the wheels start to come off. So thank you for being here. Have a wonderful day. If you didn't watch my video on my 1-year anniversary, go

(32:29) back and check that out. I'll see you on Sunday with a new video, and until then, keep thinking. I wanted to personally thank my top tiers of support: my conic list and Boris Gvi, Jacob, Joe, Martin, Oliver, Perry, Rocket, and Shan; my humanist heroes Jared, James, and Christie; my Aest Advocates Caleb, Imposter, Jeff, Jeffrey, Karen, Sparky, and Todd; as well as all of my secular scholar patrons. If you believe in the mission of the channel or you just enjoy the content, please consider joining these fine people. Thanks and have a great day.