In Defense of Jesus:
A Challenge To Those Claiming To “Follow Jesus” (part I)

Like many, I have grown tired of hearing overzealous Christian apologists and fundamentalists claim that they “follow Jesus” or are “followers of Jesus.” Why?

• Because (1) as a biblical scholar (PhD in New Testament & Early Christianity), I actually know what such claims meant to Jesus and his real 1^st-2^nd century followers, based on both textual and cultural evidence.
  
  
• And (2) as an ancient historian, I am also aware of the radical and glaring differences between our 21^st century socioeconomic worldview, values, feigned religious beliefs, ethics, judicial ideas, and views of the Self and the world, and those of Jesus’ own time period, which, in point of fact, he and his followers sought to overturn (see forthcoming)—differences, in other words, that make it impossible to follow Jesus in the 21^st century, and would have made it extremely difficult to have done so in the 1^st  & 2^nd centuries.
  
  
• And (3) because I’m tired of people glibly using soundbites and catchphrases to justify and promote their own agendas and beliefs with no accountability, especially when this irresponsibleness misrepresents and defames the biblical texts, or Jesus himself and what he stood for, at least according to the extant traditions about him.

So I ask anew: What does it actually mean to “follow Jesus”? What does Jesus himself, or the extant traditions about him, say about this matter? Do Christian apologists even know? And more importantly, are they being honest to Jesus?

This essay and those forthcoming, broken down into 8 different topics or posts—

Following Jesus means abandoning (1) a socioeconomic lifestyle & value system, (2) worldly matters, (3) oneself or one’s Self, (4) our judicial ideas and conventions, and (5) modern notions of family values. (6) What following Jesus means in terms of religion and ethics. (7) Following Jesus is a counter-cultural movement. (8) Following Jesus means waiting . . . or having an overzealous eschatological outlook

—will textually demonstrate that such claims are not only untenable, but hypocritical and disingenuous at the very least. But don’t take my word for it—take Jesus’ words!

Part 1: Following Jesus Means Abandoning a Socioeconomic Lifestyle & Value System

Some of the first words Jesus speaks in the gospels to his disciples are “Follow me!” (Mk 1:16, 2:14; Matt 4:19, 8:22, 9:9; Lk 5:11, 5:27, 9:59-62; Jn 1:43).

At heart these words express an imminent socioeconomic imperative: immediately stop what you’re doing, leave your job, your livelihood, and even your family, and “follow me!” And indeed, this is what the disciples are depicted doing in every account—immediately leaving behind jobs, possessions, social status, family, and even social and familial obligations.

Luke is more emphatic in representing this as a complete abandonment through his additions of the word panta (“all,” “everything”) to the textual tradition.

On a larger note, Luke’s emphasis on abandoning everything to follow Jesus goes hand-and-hand with his Jesus’ emphasis on the fact that those on the bottom rung of the socioeconomic ladder—the poor, the hungry, the despised, the socially exploited and outcast, i.e., “the last”—will inherit the kingdom. Indeed, these individuals become “the first” in the redefined value system that Jesus is advocating, contrary to that of the current socioeconomic worldview. (Discussed in more detail below.)

In any case, these “Follow me!” passages express an immediate urgency. Indeed, several of these “Follow me!” imperatives anticipate objections, that is requests to delay following Jesus in order to fulfill prior or immediate social and/or familial obligations, by relaying the point that this too is not permissible (Matt 8:22; Lk 9:59-62). The message is clear: Following Jesus means to immediately “forsake all” and “leave everything behind.”

Analogously, in modern terms it is to, without any preparation, without any hesitation, without any insurance policy—this is what ‘having faith’ truly means in these ancient texts—abandon one’s job, bank account(s), future plans, social stability and status, familial and social obligations, entitlements, etc. It is at heart a call to leave behind the socioeconomic trappings of the world. More specifically, it is a calling to abandon the value system created by our, or any, socioeconomic worldview! And there are historical reasons why this message arose in the Judaism of the 1^st century.

First century Judaism, its beliefs and messages, including those of Jesus and the early Jesus movement, was shaped by the socioeconomic injustices, exploitation, and heavy taxation brought under the Roman empire, which created stark class inequalities between wealthy Jewish landowners and the aristocracy on the one hand and the people on the other. Jesus’ teachings and message were shaped by this socioeconomic background and, as we shall see, sought to counter it by delivering a completely opposite message.

As a counter-cultural movement one of the things that the early church engaged in, reflected in Jesus’ own teachings, was the reassessment of value, particularly as it was defined by the socioeconomic world in which they found themselves living. For Jesus and his real followers what is of value was no longer to be defined by this socioeconomic worldview. Indeed, the very concept of value, social status, success, individual worth, and other socioeconomic markers such as ownership, material possessions, money, and financial security were all challenged and ultimately overturned in Jesus’ message.

In other words, Jesus’ sayings were designed to overturn and reject value as defined by the exploitative and self-serving socioeconomic worldview of his day.

Money is the king of any socioeconomic system and how it defines value—the more you have the more value you have! Thus, the goal in any socioeconomic system is increased wealth, increased material possessions, increased financial independence, which ultimately translates to increased privileges, social status, and security. But these socioeconomic markers and the value system they inherently endorse are exactly what Jesus questions. Following Jesus means abandoning a life driven by this value system. Let’s look at some specific examples.

1. “Do not store up treasures for yourself on earth.” (Mat 6:19; Lk 12:21, 33)
In the original Greek, the verb and the direct object of this sentence are the same word. Me thesaurizete humin thesauros epi tes ges. The verb thesaurizo means “to store-up,” or “save” in the modern sense, and the noun thesauros means “store” or that which is stored, usually understood as goods or money. So literally this says: “Do not store-up stores [of goods/money] for yourself on earth.” Or, in a modern sense: Do not save anything on earth!

The saying, in other words, fundamentally challenges, and even rejects, how value is defined in a socioeconomic worldview, claiming that what is normally understood as valuable, and good, for living a successful and secure life—saving money and goods that can be exchanged for money—are of no value in the worldview preached by Jesus. In fact, Luke’s Jesus goes on to claim that monetary security and the value associated with it are not only no longer of value in this new world order, but are to be completely abandoned (see below). One must “forsake everything and follow Jesus.”

Unlike Matthew where this saying is a self-contained unit (Matt 6:19-21), Luke embeds this saying around two stories, at the end of which this saying serves as a double conclusion (vv. 21 & 33). He intends, in other words, that his readers understand this saying in this newly created context. There are several salient points to note.

• Luke 12:15b-34 can be divided into two sections: the parable of the rich man which exemplifies what happens when one stores-up goods & money on earth, concluding in the first occurrence of the saying (v. 21), and the opposite message—Jesus’ imperative to not only NOT store up goods/money but don’t even seek to store up food and clothing! (Yes! This is how radically inconceivable Jesus’ message is for us who can’t even conceptualize life in non-socioeconomic terms.) This section also ends with the second occurrence of the saying (v. 33). Let’s look at this in more detail.
  
  
• “For one’s life does not consist in the abundance of the things he possesses” (Lk 12:15). The key word in this axiom that sets the stage for the parable of the rich man is “life.” The rich man in the parable, he who has stored up wealth and possessions, feels that his life/soul is secure and at ease. And indeed, saved up money and material possessions do provide security in a life defined in socioeconomic terms, as we are all well aware of. But this is precisely what Jesus is challenging and overturning by presenting this so-called “secure” soul as having no security at all in relation to the kingdom of God. The parable concludes by arguing that on the contrary such an individual has not procured for himself any security vis-à-vis his life/soul. True security is to be sought in one’s trust in God. In other words, the passage challenges and overturns how one’s life and the security of that life are assessed in relationship to socioeconomic markers—bank accounts, ownership, material possessions, and social stability.
  
  
• Luke 12:22-34 is also a direct challenge to this socioeconomic assessment of life. “Do not worry about your life . . . nor your body. . . Life is more than food, and the body more than clothing. . . Do not seek what you should eat or what you should drink” Contrary to the rich man whose life is secure in the abundance of his material possessions, including food and clothing, Jesus claims just the opposite: that one should not even seek to store up food and clothing, but rather seek the kingdom of God and nothing else and then you shall have ‘treasures’ and security in heaven. It is the pinnacle example of trusting in God, or in the context of the rich man parable, trusting not in one’s stored-up goods & money for security. The message here is that life and the security of one’s life (i.e., one’s soul (v. 19)) are no longer to be understood in socioeconomic terms, but are now to be defined vis-à-vis the kingdom of God. And it is taken to an extreme counter-socioeconomic message: don’t even concern yourself with storing up food or clothing for tomorrow!
  
  
• Finally, Jesus’ message ends by instructing his followers to “Sell your possessions/property,” thus providing for yourselves “treasures in heaven.” Following from the immediate context, Jesus’ followers are not only to sell their possessions, but not even seek out food and clothing. Rather trust in God for these provisions. The message should be unsettling and horrifying for anyone leaving in the socioeconomic world of the 21^st century!

2. “Sell as much as you have . . . and come follow me!” 
All of the gospels’ “Sell as much as you have . . . and come follow me” stories (Mk 10:17-25; Matt 19:16-24; Lk 18:18-30) express the same message: that being morally irreproachable with respect to the Torah no longer gets you into the kingdom of God (contra other 1^st century forms of Judaism). Jesus’ message adds a new requirement: abandon the socioeconomic constructs that shape one’s life, thoughts, and value system. That is, in all 3 accounts the rich man is presented as fulfilling the requirements of the Torah, at least as it was reevaluated in the Judaism of the 1^st century—i.e., with a focus on the 10 Commandments. In any case, we are to understand that the rich man is morally irreproachable and that his obedience to the Torah (again loosely conceived) fulfills the requirements to enter God’s kingdom. Jesus, however, adds to this purely ethic requirement another requirement, and it’s a socioeconomic one. Let’s look at Jesus’ specific response in all three accounts.

• Mark 10:21: “[There is] one thing you lack [hustereo]: Go! Sell as much as [hosa] you have and give it to the poor, and you will have treasures in heaven and come follow me!”
  • The verb hustereo expresses that besides the ethic requirements that the rich man has fulfilled, there is still one requirement lacking—selling all you have and distributing it among the poor.
  • Additionally, there is a reciprocal relationship between one’s earthly savings in goods & money (thesauros) and heavenly ‘treasure.’ The sentence is constructed as a cause-effect imperative: Go now; sell all you have and then you will have treasures in heaven. This is the same message as #1 above. Secondly, although this “treasure” is not defined, we are to understand Jesus’ response in the context of the rich man’s initial query: How to enter the kingdom of God.

• Luke 18:22 “There still remains [leipo] one thing for you (to do): Sell as much as you have, everything [panta], and distribute it to the poor, and you will have treasures in heaven and come follow me!” Luke adds some minor modifications:
  • “One thing remains (to do)” seems to express greater urgency: ‘Remains to do’ now in order to “inherit eternal life.”
  • The addition of the word panta (see the treatment above also: Lk 5:11, 28) seems to over-stress the case: “all that you possess!” This goes along with Luke’s earlier commentary: “They abandoned everything”; “He forsook everything and followed Jesus.” Again, the message is to abandon and turn away from a socioeconomic lifestyle by selling all your possesses, leaving behind your job and social status and by following Jesus, and then you will have treasures in heaven.

• Matthew 19:21: “If you want to be perfect/complete [teleios], Go! Sell your possessions and give them to the poor, and you will have treasure in heaven and come follow me!”
  • From “lacking” to “being teleios [complete/perfect].” Matthew’s modifications to the Markan tradition are most interesting; but they nevertheless go hand-and-hand with Matthew’s larger emphasis that righteousness is the sole requirement to inherit eternal life: “Unless your righteousness excels beyond that of the scribes and Pharisees you will not enter into the kingdom of heaven!” (See my Matthew’s Jesus and the Criterion of Righteousness). Again, the rich man is presented as fulfilling the Torah requirements for inheriting eternal life. But unlike Mark and Luke who both add a purely socioeconomic requirement, Matthew conceives of this act, the selling of one’s possessions, in ethical terms, the goal of which is to excel beyond the righteousness demanded in the Torah! Thus, Matthew rewrites the tradition in order to present the selling of one’s possessions as an added moral requirement—one that excels in righteousness vis-à-vis the Torah’s moral stipulations. Thus teleios is a loaded ethical term denoting an added ethical requirement in order to inherit eternal life!

In all of these passages, “selling all one’s possessions” is not only presented as an additional requirement to obeying the Torah (again, loosely conceived) in order to enter the kingdom of God, but it is also seen as the prerequisite for following Jesus. Again, and particularly for Luke, the gospel was a message directed to the poor (Lk 4:18; 6:20; 7:22). There are several reasons why this was the case, but pertaining to our socioeconomic focus, its purpose was to present an opposing value system to that of the current socioeconomic worldview. That is, it was no longer the wealthy, the “first” on the socioeconomic hierarchy, the landowners, aristocrats, and merchants who were of highest value, but those who were deemed the lowest on the socioeconomic ladder. And if you were of the wealthy class, the socially privileged, the message was to abandon this worldview. “Go! Sell all you have and come follow me!”

Secondly, we might briefly note that as early as the 8^th century book of Amos, Judaism, and especially the prophetic tradition, sought to develop a clearly defined tradition that viewed the wealthy as unjust and unrighteous, since their wealth feed on the lower classes. Conversely, this tradition has viewed the poor, outcast, socially exploited as righteous, and Yahweh as protector—indeed savior—of these righteous poor. One could argue that this tradition extends into Luke in particular, and is re-expressed in the gospels in general through Jesus’ insistence that “the last” in such as socioeconomic structure will be the first in God’s kingdom (see #5 below).

3 & 4. “You cannot serve God and money/wealth [mamona]!” 
This saying, found in both Matthew and Luke (Matt 6:21; Lk 16:13), means exactly what it says, and is yet another requirement for following Jesus that demands one to denounce and abandon a life conceived, built, and valued upon socioeconomic principles.

• The verb “to serve” here is the typical Greek verb expressing enslavement: doulein. As such it expresses complete submission and enslavement to, and implicitly, the notion of loyalty and vassal-ship. Like our previous textual examples, this saying also advocates that the follower abandon any fidelity to money, wealth, or possessions—all understood in the word mamona. It conveys the stark opposition between earthly wealth and heavenly ‘wealth’ that Jesus’ sayings have been expressing all along. Moreover, it emphatically says, one cannot serve both God and money; rather, one must choose. The point that this essay has sought to convey is that if you’ve been born into our global socioeconomic way of life where we inherently measure and value our life, future plans, stability, success, social status, etc. in terms of money, wealth, or possessions then that choice has already been made for us! We have chosen mamona! We inherently define success, progress, and advancement, and social hierarchies—for us and our children—in monetary and socioeconomic terms. Want to really follow Jesus? “Forsake all”; “Sell your possessions and distribute your wealth to the poor,” and chose to serve God as defined by these sayings (see the treatment of Lk 12:22-34 above)! But no so-called modern follower of Jesus is doing this because we have been inherently conditioned to associate our life’s success, stability, and future in socioeconomic terms. And as long as that is viable, we have chosen mamona!

• Matthew embeds this saying in between the imperative not to store up money & possessions on earth (Matt 6:19-21; see Lk 12:15-33 above) and the pericope on trusting God and not seeking earthly concerns (Matt 6:25-34 = Lk 12:22-34). Again, looking at this broader context its central message becomes clear:
  • “Do not save money & possessions (thesauros) on earth!” (Matt 6:19)
  • “No one can serve two masters . . . You cannot serve God and money!” (Matt 6:24)
  • “Look at the birds of the sky; they neither sow, nor reap, nor gather into barns”—so much more so should you NOT!  (Matt 6:26-32)
• Conclusion: “Seek the kingdom of God!” (Matt 6:33). But in order to accomplish this one has to abandon the security, social prestige and status, and ideas of success and advancement associated with our socioeconomic worldview. This is the stark reality behind Jesus’ sayings, which most modern Christians do not want to acknowledge! Rather they seek a Jesus who will confirm their own beliefs and worldly pursuits rather than truly grappling with Jesus’ sayings and meeting them on his terms!
  
  
• Again, the message is one that challenges and ultimately attempts to overturn how value is defined in a socioeconomic worldview. The way one “stores up treasures” in heaven is reciprocally related to ridding oneself of “value” stored up on earth. “Forsake everything and follow me!”

5. “Those who are first will be last, and the last first!”(Mk 10:31)
In its immediate context, Jesus’ saying is in response to Peter’s claim that “we have forsaken everything and followed you” (Mk 10:28). And in the broader context (Mk 10:21-31), “everything” follows from the previous story of the rich man who Jesus just told to “Go sell as much as you have and give to the poor. . .” Peter remarks that similar to this man who is ordered to go sell all his possessions in order to have an inheritance in heaven, he too has left behind “everything.” The message once again is clear: one must leave behind “everything,” understood as material possessions, money, jobs, stability, family, home, and even land or earthly inheritance—all things deemed as valuable and necessary in socioeconomic terms—to follow Jesus. But it is precisely this way of defining value that is challenged and tossed on its head: “the last will become the first.” In socioeconomic terms, Jesus’ followers are “the last.”

We should stop and grapple with what is meant here and in all of Jesus’ anti- or counter-socioeconomic sayings, which in point of fact is the sole purpose of this essay. All of us who are born into this vibrant 21^st century socioeconomic world define our lives, what it means to succeed and be successful, our present and future stability and welfare, in socioeconomic terms. We have all been pre-conditioned to assess and value our, our children’s, and our neighbor’s lives in terms of success, stability, and advancement as defined by the socioeconomic paradigm we live under. Jesus’ injunctions are all directed at overthrowing that value system. Those at the top of the socioeconomic hierarchy, “the first,” are in effect really the last in regards to entering the kingdom of God, and those valued least of all in this socioeconomic worldview will be the first. All I’m asking for is some honesty, to both ourselves and Jesus—nobody follows this, nor is potentially able to, in our modern thoroughly entrenched socioeconomic worldview.

• This saying also appears in Mark 9:35, and explicitly links the idea of “the last” with being “a servant.” In the socioeconomic hierarchy of the ancient world, the landless slave or servant would have certainly been the least according to its value system. But this is exactly what Jesus requires of his true followers: that they become “worthless/valueless servants” (Lk 17:10). I will discuss this more when we look at how the Self is re-evaluated, but here it needs to be stressed that this too is an anti-socioeconomic restructuring of value. To be a servant is to be last among those in any socioeconomic structure, but it is to be first among those in heaven! The addition of the word achreios, “worthless” or “valueless” is an added strike against the value system inherent in a socioeconomic world. We are commanded not to simply become servants, but servants that have zero worth or value in the current socioeconomic system. These are the requirements for following Jesus!

There are numerous other sayings from Jesus which would only further support the conclusions reached here. But seeing how this essay has grown too lengthy already I will stop here.

Conclusion: So what does it mean to follow Jesus per Jesus’ own words?
In terms of the socioeconomic message, to be a follower of Jesus one needs to not save money or possessions; to sell what one does have and distribute that to the poor; to not define nor seek security of one’s life in monetary or social terms, as well as not to conceptualize life, a good life, as one that consists in the abundance of possessions.

In more radical terms, Jesus’ followers are to abandon any and all means of procuring a socio-economic livelihood, or more accurately conceiving of a livelihood in socio-economic terms. Matters of clothing, food, drink, shelter, etc. are not to be sought out. Indeed, desiring to be first and successful in terms of our socio-economic worldview is exactly the opposite of what it means to follow Jesus. In sum, value or life in general is redefined: life is no longer to be valued by the fruits provided by the socio-economic worldview (material possessions, money, social status, etc.)—everything that defines our world today. Indeed one is to become a “worthless or valueless servant”—that is  become “last” in socioeconomic terms, to have no worth or value as defined in our socioeconomic world.

Modern Christian apologists must think that “following Jesus” is analogous to following someone on twitter—where the sole task is merely clicking a button and fastening a pin on their lapel. Surprisingly, this is not the case. And I might make a larger exhortation: our goal as modern readers of these ancient texts—all of us—is to set modern beliefs aside and to enter into the worldview and messages conveyed in these ancient text, to listen and acknowledge their messages and even competing beliefs to those of our own, and lastly to understand the world from which the Jesus movement emerged and Jesus’ reaction to that­­—not to hypocritically claim that we believe the same or are followers of Jesus, because we need to justify our own guilt and fragility in accepting a world where we are all servants of mammon. Being honest to these ancient texts, and here being honest to Jesus, means listening to his counter-cultural message, acknowledging it, and grappling with it, and attempting to historically understand it­—not to feign allegiance to it, or unabashedly manipulate Jesus’ saying so that they conform to our own socioeconomic beliefs and lifestyle. That is to be disingenuous at the very least. Thus we honor Jesus by acknowledging the radical intent of his message and by also acknowledging that no one in our 21^st century socioeconomic worldview follows Jesus.

In my forthcoming post, I will additionally argue that: Following Jesus means abandoning (2) worldly matters, (3) oneself or one’s Self, (4) our judicial ideas and conventions, and (5) modern notions of family values.