Jesus teaches that those who inherit his kingdom treat the most insignificant members of his family as they would treat Jesus himself. Great news - right? But there is bad news too... those who don't treat others like Jesus teaches, they are sent into eternal punishment.
Jesus divides his true followers from his fake followers - not along lines of theology and not along lines of successful rule keeping - but along the lines of how they treat the other members of his family.
Matthew 25:31-46 31 "When the Son of Man comes in his glory, and all the angels with him, then he will sit on the throne of his glory. 32 All the nations will be gathered before him, and he will separate people one from another as a shepherd separates the sheep from the goats, 33 and he will put the sheep at his right hand and the goats at the left.
34 Then the king will say to those at his right hand, 'Come, you that are blessed by my Father, inherit the kingdom prepared for you from the foundation of the world; 35 for I was hungry and you gave me food, I was thirsty and you gave me something to drink, I was a stranger and you welcomed me, 36 I was naked and you gave me clothing, I was sick and you took care of me, I was in prison and you visited me.' 37 Then the righteous will answer him, 'Lord, when was it that we saw you hungry and gave you food, or thirsty and gave you something to drink? 38 And when was it that we saw you a stranger and welcomed you, or naked and gave you clothing? 39 And when was it that we saw you sick or in prison and visited you?' 40 And the king will answer them, 'Truly I tell you, just as you did it to one of the least of these who are members of my family, you did it to me.'
41 Then he will say to those at his left hand, 'You that are accursed, depart from me into the eternal fire prepared for the devil and his angels; 42 for I was hungry and you gave me no food, I was thirsty and you gave me nothing to drink, 43 I was a stranger and you did not welcome me, naked and you did not give me clothing, sick and in prison and you did not visit me.' 44 Then they also will answer, 'Lord, when was it that we saw you hungry or thirsty or a stranger or naked or sick or in prison, and did not take care of you?' 45 Then he will answer them, 'Truly I tell you, just as you did not do it to one of the least of these, you did not do it to me.' 46 And these will go away into eternal punishment, but the righteous into eternal life."
There is some scholarly disagreement over the underlined segment in verse 40 above: "who are members of my family" . Many say Jesus was including the entire human race in the directive to treat others with great love. But many read "who are members of my family" in verse 40 to mean that in this case, Jesus is saying he will judge us on how we treat other followers of Jesus - not on how we treat the entire human race. It is true, that Jesus defines his family earlier in Matthew 12:46-50 as "whoever does the will of my Father in heaven is my brother and sister and mother." Jesus also says that the world will identify his followers by their love for each other. So... I agree with the latter interpretation that here Jesus is saying that within the earthly church's membership rolls his true followers can be identified by how they treat each other. And those who are not his true followers mistreat and neglect and fail to take care of other followers of Jesus. As a shepherd would look at his flock and be able to separate the goat from the sheep by their characteristics, Jesus will use the determining characteristic of how his supposed followers have treated each other in order to separate the true follower from the fake ones.
Does that mean we shouldn't care for those who are not followers of Jesus? Of course not! We can join together as Jesus' family and by sharing resources treat them even better than we treat each other. There are plenty of places and examples where Jesus has taught and demonstrated the kind of love and abundance to non-followers. It just isn't what Jesus is going to use to separate true from fake followers - at least not according to Matthew's gospel.
Do we ignore Jesus' teaching that his followers can be identified by the care they offer each other? Do we recognize that we are to be servants to each other... that this is an identifying mark of whether we are really part of Jesus' family or not? Think of the least of Jesus' followers - how have you loved them?
No comments:
Post a Comment