THE LIFE AND TEACHING OF JESUS - JESUS AND THE WEAK.pptx

We can see here, who are the people they called weak peoples during the time of Jesus.

1. JESUS AND THE WEAK Group of Weak people in the NT Life and Teaching of Jesus

2. 1 Corinthians 1:27-28 (NIV) But God chose the foolish things of the world to shame the wise; God chose the weak things of the world to shame the strong. God chose the lowly things of this world and the despised things—and the things that are not—to nullify the things that are.

3. Jesus and the Weak Every society in every era has individuals and groups who are forced to exist on the fringes-first-century Jerusalem was no exception. Jewish culture edged certain groups into the periphery of social acceptance, and prevailing religious beliefs often helped keep them there.

4. WOMEN Jesus & the Weak

5. Women In first-century Palestine, a woman’s social sphere was only as large as her family. Jewish writings made it clear that “It is the way of a woman to stay at home and it is the way of a man to go out into the marketplace.” (Bereshit Rabbah) Social Literacy Weaker vessel While literacy was an important element in teaching young men to study the Bible, it was a luxury for women. Because the Old Testament was explicit about teaching Scripture to “sons” (Deuteronomy 4:9, NASB), women were excluded from instruction in the Torah. To be a woman means, with a few exceptions, to be weaker than men. It’s not a fluke of nature. It’s not a random effect of natural selection or evolution. It’s the way God designed it to be. (1 Peter 3:7) (Titus 2:3-5) (1 Corinthians 14:16-40)

6. Women It wasn’t normal for men to speak directly to women (John. 4:27). Not only do the gospels show Jesus speaking to women, it depicts Him doing so with an element of tenderness. He doesn’t simply heal the woman with the bleeding disorder, He calls her “daughter.” (Luke 8:48) When He addresses the woman doubled over from spiritual oppression, He calls her a “daughter of Abraham” (Luke 13:16)-conferring on her a spiritual status equal to her male counterparts.

7. (Luke 24:1-11) (Luke 8:1-3) Bible Verse Jesus and women Not only did Jesus allow His ministry to be largely supported by the financial offerings of women, but it was to women that He made his first post-resurrection appearance. In an era of gender segregation, you’d be hard pressed to find an example where Jesus treated men and women differently.

8. THE POOR Jesus & the Weak

9. Who is Poor? The Greek language has two terms for poor: penes and ptochos . Penes refers to a person who does manual labor, At stake is the social status or honor rating of a worker. The penetes were all those people who needed to work in shops or in the fields and consequently without the leisure characteristic of the rich gentry, who were free to give their time to politics, education and war. This too represents an elite perspective which implies that the leisured class were of another species than the masses of working people. .

10. Who is Poor? A ptochos , however, refers to a person reduced to begging, that is, someone who is destitute of all resources, especially farm and family. One gives alms to a ptochos . A penes , who has little wealth yet has sufficiency, is not called poor in the same sense of the term. The ptochos was someone who had lost many or all of his family and social ties. He often was a wanderer, therefore a foreigner for others, unable to tax for any length of time the resources of a group to which he could contribute very little or nothing at all. Thus the begging poor person is bereft of all social support as well as all means of support

11. The Poor The general attitude toward the poor seemed strange in a world where the vast majority of people weren’t particularly well off. By and large, the typical Jewish citizen in Roman-occupied Israel didn’t own much wealth. Perhaps that’s why it was so important for people to consider themselves better than the impoverished.

12. What This Looks Like in the Gospels Poor. Jesus response to the imprisoned Baptizer indicates both his power and generosity to the least in the land, to the blind, the lame, the lepers and the dead, whom we consider begging poor. And so the last item in the Jesus list (the poor have the good news preached to them, Matt 11:5/Luke 7:22), also belongs to this category of begging poor. The poor you have always with you (Matt 26:11/Mark 14:7; John 12:8) refers likewise to the begging poor.

13. The Scriptures The Spirit of the Lord is on me, because he has anointed me to proclaim good news to the poor (Luke 4:18, NIV) Looking at his disciples, he said: “Blessed are you who are poor, for yours is the kingdom of God” But when you give a banquet, invite the poor, the crippled, the lame, the blind, and you will be blessed. Although they cannot repay you, you will be repaid at the resurrection of the righteous (Luke 14:13-14, NIV) (Luke 6:20, NIV).

14. THE UNCLEAN Jesus & the Weak

15. THE UNCLEAN Much of the Old Testament was concerned with purity. One could become unclean through exposure to potentially contagious diseases (or body fluids that could carry disease) or from eating unclean foods. Once someone was unclean, they had to avoid sacred spaces and duties until they could be purified. To be unclean was to be socially ostracized.

16. THE UNCLEAN-LEPERS Lepers were one of the largest-and most stigmatized-unclean groups. It didn’t help that leprosy was a horribly disfiguring disease. They were cursed with a terrible disease . . . and the loneliness of exclusion.

17. Jesus and the Unclean Jesus is approached by a leper who wants to be healed of his affliction. The shock in this passage comes in Jesus’s response to this man’s request for healing. Jesus doesn’t just heal the man, He touches him! Holy people avoided lepers entirely lest they become unclean themselves. Jesus’ response toward this man-who probably hadn’t known physical touch in a long time-displayed a humanizing kindness. Mark 1:40-45 Bible Verse

18. Jesus heals the Unclean (Luke 8:48). We see the same kind of gentleness in the way Jesus responds to the woman who had been bleeding for 12 years. This bleeding would have made her unclean; yet she takes it upon herself to touch Him. His response isn’t to berate her for making Him unclean, but to complement her faith

19. The Inverted Ways of Jesus Jesus spent much of his time with the losers and the outcast. He talked about the last becoming first and the first becoming last. He embraced the meek and the broken—the humble ones who felt swamped with heavy burdens. He died alone, bitterly forsaken by all. Matthew 20:16 Bible Verse

20. The Inverted Ways of Jesus This is Jesus’ upside-down approach to our world. It is the way of his grace. We live in a world where the biggest, best, and brightest succeed , while the littlest, last, and least get trampled . But Jesus disrupts and interrupts our quest for power and our lust for significance. The ways of our world are rebuked by the inverted way of Jesus. Because of this, Christianity has from its beginning prized weakness and rebuffed strength.

21. Despair is Good This should leave us in despair. But it can be “gospel despair” if it leads to trusting in Christ and not in ourselves. As Martin Luther wrote, “It is certain that man must utterly despair of his own ability before he is prepared to receive the grace of Christ.” This means that we are not operating out of self-sufficiency, but out of total dependency on Christ and in need of being empowered by the Spirit. So, let’s boast in our weakness instead of displaying our self-righteousness and strength. This obviously looks like foolishness and nonsense to the world, but to those who are being saved, it is the power of God.

22. Matthew 25:40 ( NIV) The King will reply, “truly I tell you, Whatever you did for one of the least of these brothers and sisters of mine, YOU DID IT FOR ME.