Solomon (if he is the writer and he certainly seems to be
given the subject matter and his mention of building a temple) says something
interesting here, “the reasoning of mortals is worthless, and our designs are
likely to fail; for a perishable body
weighs down the soul, and this earthy tent burdens the thoughtful mind.” Is that suggesting a dualism between body and
soul? There is a dualism without the Holy
Spirit. It is the same dualism Paul
wrote about in Romans 7, the dualism of desire.
We are both body and soul and we have always experienced a war between
the two, the body making the demands of satisfaction of immediate desire while
the soul seeks to satisfy its desire to please the Lord, and those two are
sometimes, if not frequently, in tension with one another. In the garden, the desire for the fruit of
the tree of knowledge, expressed as “good for food, and that it was a delight
to the eyes, and that the tree was to be desired to make one wise” overcame the
desire for obedience. We live in a
technological age where we are pressing towards trying to overcome this
perishable body and live forever by science.
Solomon offers us reassurance that the reasoning of mortals is
worthless, pursue immortality God’s way, being willing to lose this life in
order to gain eternity.
The Pharisee thinks he knows something that Jesus
doesn’t. He thinks Jesus doesn’t know
who this woman washing His feet really is, that she is a prostitute, and if
Jesus knew that He would surely condemn her.
He has no respect for Jesus, as a teacher or as a man, and he has proven
it by not offering basic hospitality.
According to the law, he is sinning against Jesus by this failure. The woman is doing abundantly more than the
man was required to do but she was making up the lack by her own
ablutions. Jesus’ parable points out two
things, that He indeed knows of this woman’s sin and that He recognizes that
this Simon the Pharisee has slighted Him and sinned. Jesus proclaimed forgiveness to the woman,
she was made new. Who had real wisdom?
Why does Paul give these commands to the Colossians? He would only be writing such things to the
extent they were counter-cultural. He is
telling them how Christians treat other people.
All these admonitions find their type in the relationships between God
and man as revealed in Christ Jesus.
Paul writes these things from a unique perspective, as a man whose
understanding of the world around him was utterly changed on the road to
Damascus. What he believes now about
other people, Gentiles, is radically different from what he believed that
day. He now calls these people brothers,
loves them, prays for them and gives himself on their behalf. Do we have the attitude of Simon the Pharisee
or Paul towards others?
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