31 Then he took the twelve aside and said to them, “See, we are going up to Jerusalem, and everything that is written about the Son of Man by the prophets will be accomplished. 32 For he will be handed over to the Gentiles; and he will be mocked and insulted and spat upon. 33 After they have flogged him, they will kill him, and on the third day he will rise again.” 34 But they understood nothing about all these things; in fact, what he said was hidden from them, and they did not grasp what was said.
I don’t blame the disciples here; I also understand nothing that was written by the prophets. I’ve been working my way through a yearlong Bible reading plan – for the second time – and I still don’t really know what to make of the prophetic books. I just finished off Habakkuk and Zephaniah; the minor prophets are not necessarily easier to digest, but at least they are bite-sized. Not gonna lie, though, I was unduly excited to flip the pages back to Job. I’ll take an existential struggle full of suffering, futility, random affliction, and human impotence over a locust swarm metaphor any day.
Presumably, though, the disciples would have had a better grasp on the scripture than I do, and indeed, it wasn’t just a case of them not paying enough attention to the animated explainer video – “what he said was hidden from them.” But why? Why did Jesus hide the meaning from them? Did he think they would have tried to stop him? Couldn’t he have stopped them from stopping him? And why even tell them in the first place?
That last question is easy – so they would look back on it and remember. But that’s very hindsight bias. You can always look back on things and selectively remember things that support what actually happened while forgetting all of the noise or even the contradictory events. We do that today with the entire Bible, not just the prophets. Someone somewhere has calculated the exact date/time of the Day of the Lord and blocked it on their Outlook calendar; someone somewhere has fit a psalm to the latest macrogeopolitical event. Someone somewhere (who is me) has discovered that Isaiah told us not to listen to Twitter. (I guess I understand the prophets better than I give myself credit for).
Back to the disciples. Jesus knew a lot about what was going to happen. He knew Judas would betray him; he knew Peter would deny him; he knew – presumably – in the garden of Gethsemane that he wouldn’t get a reprieve. Does this mean it was all destined to happen? Well, yes, if it had been hinted at in the prophetic writings for centuries. But what about free will?
That question is above my paygrade; maybe I’ll tackle it next year, when I’m 2.5x through the Bible. In the meantime, I’ll keep listening, keep trying to understand, and keep grasping what I can grasp.
— MeganPrestonMeyer
I don’t blame the disciples here; I also understand nothing that was written by the prophets. I’ve been working my way through a yearlong Bible reading plan – for the second time – and I still don’t really know what to make of the prophetic books. I just finished off Habakkuk and Zephaniah; the minor prophets are not necessarily easier to digest, but at least they are bite-sized. Not gonna lie, though, I was unduly excited to flip the pages back to Job. I’ll take an existential struggle full of suffering, futility, random affliction, and human impotence over a locust swarm metaphor any day.
Presumably, though, the disciples would have had a better grasp on the scripture than I do, and indeed, it wasn’t just a case of them not paying enough attention to the animated explainer video – “what he said was hidden from them.” But why? Why did Jesus hide the meaning from them? Did he think they would have tried to stop him? Couldn’t he have stopped them from stopping him? And why even tell them in the first place?
That last question is easy – so they would look back on it and remember. But that’s very hindsight bias. You can always look back on things and selectively remember things that support what actually happened while forgetting all of the noise or even the contradictory events. We do that today with the entire Bible, not just the prophets. Someone somewhere has calculated the exact date/time of the Day of the Lord and blocked it on their Outlook calendar; someone somewhere has fit a psalm to the latest macrogeopolitical event. Someone somewhere (who is me) has discovered that Isaiah told us not to listen to Twitter. (I guess I understand the prophets better than I give myself credit for).
Back to the disciples. Jesus knew a lot about what was going to happen. He knew Judas would betray him; he knew Peter would deny him; he knew – presumably – in the garden of Gethsemane that he wouldn’t get a reprieve. Does this mean it was all destined to happen? Well, yes, if it had been hinted at in the prophetic writings for centuries. But what about free will?
That question is above my paygrade; maybe I’ll tackle it next year, when I’m 2.5x through the Bible. In the meantime, I’ll keep listening, keep trying to understand, and keep grasping what I can grasp.
— MeganPrestonMeyer
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