Becoming Christ: The Political Context Becoming Adam Podcast – Becoming Adam, Becoming Christ

Are there any parallels between the political context 2,000 years ago and our own sad situation today?















Listen or Read. Your Choice.















Since everyone is

obsessed with politics this week, the time seemed right for another episode of

Becoming Christ. As I mentioned in the first episode, to understand Jesus, we must enter his

story and view him through the eyes of his first-century audience. Seeing Jesus

as they saw him requires historical context – the political, economic, social,

and cultural factors that shaped Christ’s world. Today, I’ll examine the

political context.







Under normal

circumstances, I would follow this essay with a bit of commentary on how it

affects our understanding of the life of Christ. But the times aren’t normal,

are they? So, instead, I’ll reverse the order and note a few parallels between

the political climate 2,000 years ago and our present sad situation.







First, Israel was firmly in the grip

of messianic fever in the first century. Popular beliefs about the Messiah ran

the gamut, but they primarily centered on earthly and political hopes for a

king who would defeat Israel’s enemies and rule the world. When Pilate asked

Jesus if he was king of the Jews, Jesus replied that his kingdom was not of

this world (John 18:33-36). Christ rejected the people’s desire for political,

earthly power, and the false messiahs who promised those things ultimately led

their followers to death and destruction.







Christian, where do you place your hope? Is it an earthly, political deliverance you seek?







Second, notice how often the “divine

king” threatens the existence of God’s people, from Antiochus Epiphanes to

Caesar Augustus to Nero. The gospels present the “good news” of Jesus Christ,

the Son of God, as an alternative to the cult of emperor worship. The charge

above the cross was “King of the Jews,” and the crowd taunted Jesus to “come

down from there, if you’re the Son of God.” Two of Christ’s temptations in the

desert were earthly power and the abuse of his authority as God’s Son.







Christian, which king do you worship?







Finally, pay attention to the severe

factionalism between the Pharisees and Sadducees. More than once, their

political rivalry and theological disagreements resulted in bloodshed and civil

war. The Zealots appeared in the first century, preaching that paying taxes to

the emperor was a form of slavery. Tax collectors stood at the opposite end of

the social and political spectrum. They were collaborators with Rome, and their

regular contact with Gentiles made them “untouchable” for observant Jews. A

regular charge against Jesus was that he was a “friend of tax collectors and

sinners.” The fact that Jesus names Simon the Zealot and Matthew the tax

collector among his apostles negates politics.







Christian, your primary allegiance is

not to faction or nation, but to Christ and his kingdom. Never let yourself

become confused on that question.















By

the time of Jesus’ birth, his homeland of Palestine had been bandied about for

eight centuries by successive empires: Assyria, Babylon, Persia, Macedonia

(Alexander the Great), and Rome.







Assyria

wiped the northern kingdom of Israel off the map in 722 BC, as Babylon did to

the southern kingdom of Judah almost 150 years later.