The Gospel is the Opposite of the Hippocratic Oath

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We’re resuming our Adventures in Barth group this evening at 7:00 EST. You can join us here. We will be discussing pages 145-150 of the PDF:

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One option for the Old Testament lectionary passage this Sunday is 1 Kings 19:4-8:

But he himself went a day's journey into the wilderness and came and sat down under a solitary broom tree. He asked that he might die, "It is enough; now, O LORD, take away my life, for I am no better than my ancestors." Then he lay down under the broom tree and fell asleep. Suddenly an angel touched him and said to him, "Get up and eat." He looked, and there at his head was a cake baked on hot stones and a jar of water. He ate and drank and lay down again. The angel of the LORD came a second time, touched him, and said, "Get up and eat, or the journey will be too much for you." He got up and ate and drank; then he went in the strength of that food forty days and forty nights to Horeb the mount of God.

For a brief moment in 1 Kings, it appears God’s wayward Israel is back on track. The word that struck like a fever into the heart of the earth has broken and the judgment that had parched the promised land for three years is over. The barren deity Baal has been disgraced and his false prophets have been dispatched. Ahab has departed from Mt. Carmel, with the Man of God running out ahead of him as a herald of Israel’s king and the Lord’s covenant with Israel renewed. Alas, the very same word of the Lord that had induced faith in Israel, “Yahweh indeed is God; Yahweh indeed is God,” arouses opposition from Israel’s queen.

Like Pharaoh before Moses, when she learns what Yahweh has done, Jezebel’s heart hardens. Realizing she’s on the wrong side of the true and living God’s work in the world, Jezebel neither repents nor relents. She resorts to wrath. Whether or not the Lord is responsible for the slaughter of the four hundred and fifty prophets false prophets, Jezebel clearly believes she has been addressed by Yahweh in the killing of her prophets.

The Lord’s word to her is the piece of news that propels her act.

And Jezebel vows to make Elijah one of the corpses floating in the wadi, a brook flowing red with blood. No sooner has success come to the Man of God than God’s enemies pick a fight with him.

Commenting on this passage and comparing it the similarly hostile reactions to the ministries of Jesus of Nazareth and the apostle Paul, the theologian Peter Leithart asks, “Why do the church’s enemies have to pick a fight just when things get rolling?”

“The answer,” Leithart insists, “is they don’t. The church does.”

The church’s enemies need not pick a fight.But the church must always pick a fight.

Peter Leithart writes:

“Jesus does not come to bring peace but a sword, to set brother against brother, mother against daughter. Following its master, the church likewise provokes the hostility, hatred, and resentment of the world at every turn. This is not the result of some flaw in the church’s ministry, but the opposite.

When the church is faithful, it announces judgment of this world (John 12:31), the universal corruption and disorder of humanity (Rom. 1:18–32), and the overthrow of the prince of this world (John 16.11).

We do not need Nietzsche to tell us that we are dominated by lies and violence, motivated by pride, envy, lust, wrath, and vengefulness. We do not need Foucault to teach us that the world languishes under the dominion of the dark powers, principalities, and wickedness in high places. We do not need Critical Theory to teach us that our systems and institutions are not immune from the contagion of original sin.

We proclaim Christ and him crucified. Inherent in the gospel is the condemnation of this world, and when we preach such a gospel, we cannot help but pick a fight.”

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