Seven-Storied World: The Stories that Compose Literature

Posted on March 28, 2026 by salooper57
Photo by Kampus Production on Pexels.com

The English journalist Christopher Booker published The Seven Basic Plots: Why We Tell Stories in 2004. He argues – some would say unsuccessfully – that all the stories we know belong to one of seven plot types. These types can be classified as follows: “Overcoming the Monster” (think Beowulf); “The Quest” (Lord of the Rings); “Voyage and Return” (The Time Machine); “Rebirth” (A Christmas Carol); “Rags to Riches” (Jane Eyre); “Comedy” (A Midsummer Night’s Dream); “Tragedy” (Macbeth).

Critics argue that Booker’s categories exclude works by Kafka, for example, and Joyce. I’m not sure the Kafka I’ve read could not be folded into one or more of these categories, and I have never known what to do with Joyce. But for the sake of argument, let us assume that Booker was right: there are only seven basic stories.

If every human life could be told as a story, which of the seven basic plot lines would best fit your life? I, for my part, have certainly been on a quest. I have had to overcome the monster—most often the monster within me. I have experienced rebirth and been different because of it. The one category that does not fit my life is tragedy. Don’t get me wrong: I have known sorrow, as have all of us, but my life will not end in calamity, meaninglessness, or regret. No, my life is a comedy: everything will come out right in the end.

The Bible itself tells a long, often complicated story, which can (following Booker’s “Rule of Three”) be told in three acts: Creation, Fall, and Redemption. (It could also be told in more than three acts, depending on how finely one wants to divide it.) The Bible contains monsters (Goliath), rebirths (Zaccheus), takes us on a voyage and return journey (Nebuchadnezzar), a quest (Jesus) and celebrates rags to riches (Esther). It certainly contains tragedies (King Saul), but the Bible as a whole is not a tragedy; it is a comedy, as Revelation 21 and 22 make clear. If someone were writing a book review of the Bible, they could summarize it in the words the Lord Jesus spoke to the Lady Julian: “All shall be well, and all shall be well, and all manner of thing shall be well.”

I have previously tried to think of a plot structure that does not fit into Booker’s seven. One might go to Proust, but to my mind, the reason Proust does not fit into the plot structure categories is because he is unstructured. (I realize that serious scholars of his work would take me to task.) But for arguments sake, let’s imagine that Booker’s seven categories cover all narrative works, even Proust’s. When the world we know comes to an end, and an almost endless variety of stories have been told, they will all fit into the seven basic plots.

Humans know themselves and understand the reality around them in terms of story. Story is essential not only to art but to science. Copernicus made up a story that explained why the sun rises in the east and sets in the west. Einstein told himself a story that explained the apparent contradictions between Maxwell’s electromagnetism (as it touches on the speed of light) and Newton’s mechanics. That story is the basis for the Theory of Special Relativity and might be classified as “Overcoming the Monster” or as “Voyage and Return” (those familiar with Einstein will see the connection).

We know ourselves through the stories we tell, but we are more than we know. If we are ever to understand ourselves, much less understand God (to the degree our finite minds make possible), we need new stories, new plots, that fit under entirely new categories.

St. John says that “what we will be has not yet been made known” (I John 3:2) We will need new stories, new categories of stories to understand a glorified humanity in the presence of the glorious God. For someone who loves story, the prospect of a new story plot, one that comes from beyond the horizon of our understanding, is exhilarating.

What stories shall we tell? What story shall we be? The answers to those questions lies beyond us, but one thing we know: It will not be a tragedy.

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My wife, who proofreads and edits my articles, called this one “a stream of consciousness” piece. And I call Proust unstructured?

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Kingdom Come (Mark 1:14-15)

Posted on March 27, 2026 by salooper57

In Mark 1:14-15, Jesus announces the nearness of the kingdom for which people had so long waited.

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Is This How Christians Can Reach the World?

Posted on March 21, 2026 by salooper57

Yes, you have seen this before, but it is worth a second look.

Jesus calls his followers to think of themselves as servants and even as slaves. For example: “… whoever wants to become great among you must be your servant, and whoever wants to be first must be slave of all” (Mark 10:44-45). Or this, after the disciples argued about who was greatest among them: “Jesus called the Twelve and said, ‘If anyone wants to be first, he must be the very last, and the servant of all.’”

Jesus lived the servant life himself: “For who is greater, the one who is at the table or the one who serves? Is it not the one who is at the table? But I am among you as one who serves.” St. Paul summed up Jesus’s life of service succinctly when he wrote: he “made himself nothing, taking the very nature of a slave…”

In the early church, it was understood that to be Jesus’s disciple, one must enter the life of service. Paul, for example, made himself “a slave to everyone, to win as many as possible.” He frequently referred to himself as the “slave of Jesus Christ” or of God (see Romans 1:1; Philippians 1:1; Titus 1:1). Peter, James, and Jude also refer to themselves as slaves. The apostles urged fellow Christians to follow Jesus’s example and live as servants (Galatians 5:13; Ephesians 6:7; 1 Peter 4:10) and exhorted them to put others interests ahead of their own (Philippians 2:4; Romans 15:1-2; 1 Corinthians 10:24).

We know all this. We’ve heard and read it hundreds of times. Were someone to ask if we believed it (that we are to be slaves of Christ and servants of one another), we would say we did, though I suspect we have not given much thought to what that might entail. Does God really intend for us to act as if other believers are more important than we are? And what about unbelievers? Do we have to serve them too?

That last question captures how we feel about this. Do we have to? Serving (or slaving, Jesus uses both terms) is not the kind of thing American Christians do. We certainly don’t want people to think they are in charge. We can’t let people push us around like that. It would be a nightmare.

We want to keep our dignity in place and our options open—and dignity and options are not characteristic of slaves and servants. (Or so people think who have never been slaves and servants.) We know that Jesus said these things, but we assume that he just meant for us to be nice and do good when we can. But to act like you are the boss and I am the servant is to invite trouble or, at the least, inconvenience.

But what if we assume that (1) Jesus meant what he said and (2) that he knows more than we do? Perhaps Jesus knows that trouble and inconvenience play an indispensable role in advancing the gospel. Perhaps he knows that the church can only reach the world by doing something the world would never dream of doing: becoming servants.

When, during the Alexandrian plague of 261 AD, Christians buried the dead and cared for the sick that society had abandoned, their courageous service led others to faith in Jesus. It was the Christians who rescued and raised unwanted babies as their own. They practiced sacrificial generosity. They cared for the mentally ill. They were servants.

Christian groups were recognized by the way their members served one other. In St. Paul’s words, they took “the lead in honoring one another.” While they did good to all people, they especially did so “to those who belong to the family of believers.”

Christian servanthood, in the church and in the world, paved the way for the gospel to reach millions. But when we think of effective ways to reach people with the gospel, servanthood is not even on the list. We think instead about providing first-class programming and stirring music. We overhaul our webpage and rebrand our churches on social media. We depend on programs (some of them excellent, some not), and technologies, but we do not follow Jesus (Paul, Peter, and the early church) and live as servants.

It is time for an overhaul. The world will not come to Jesus because we have a talented band or because we updated the color palettes on our website. If they come to Jesus, it will be because we have come to look like Jesus, which among other things, means we will be servants.

Is that a price we are willing to pay?

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Put It Where It Belongs: Where the Incarnation Fits in God’s Big Story

Posted on March 18, 2026 by salooper57

This is the first time I’ve ever preached a Christmas text during Lent, and some hearers may have wondered if they had stepped out of time. But it is a mistake to isolate the great incarnation texts to a few weeks around Christmas. A big mistake.

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War in Iran: Déjà Vu All Over Again

Posted on March 14, 2026 by salooper57

In October 2002, as Congress debated H.J. Resolution 114, the “Authorization for Use of Military Force Against Iraq,” I was writing a newspaper article delineating the reasons an invasion of Iraq would fail to meet the criteria for a just war, as set out by Christian thinkers like Augustine, Aquinas, Grotius, and others. Sadly, the joint resolution passed both houses with overwhelming bipartisan support.

Here I am, more than twenty years later, writing the same kind of article about a conflict in the same part of the world. In 2002, I was trying to persuade readers that a war against Iraq was a mistake, even while acknowledging that President Saddam Hussein was the source of much evil. Today, I am trying to persuade readers that a war against Iran is unjustified, even though her leaders have had thousands of innocent people killed in their own country and abroad.

I despised Saddam’s brutal leadership in Iraq and had no sympathy for the previous Supreme Leader of Iran. But that is not the point. Sixteen hundred years of Christian thought have gone into shaping an understanding of what constitutes a just war. Some of the church’s greatest minds and most saintly leaders have contributed to it. And by its standards, the war against Iran does not qualify as a just war.

Just War Theory is supported by three pillars: Jus ad bellum (justice prior to war); Jus in bello (justice in the conduct of war); and Jus post bellum (justice in the aftermath of war). For a war to be just, all three of these pillars, and the criteria they embody, must be in place.

Jus ad bellum criteria include the following. The war must be a response to certain, momentous, and enduring harm. It can only be entered into by the decision of properly constituted authorities. It must be a last resort, when other options have been exhausted. And it must have the intention of securing a just peace, not to exact revenge or to gain financial benefit.

Jus in bello criteria include the following. The use of force must be proportionate to the military objective. Non-combatants cannot be targeted and must be spared if possible. Rape, torture, and other evils must be completely banned.

Jus post bellum requires that a fair and stable peace follow military operations. This peace must be more stable than the peace that preceded the war. Reprisals or vengeance are disallowed. The injustices that led to the war must be addressed, so that another war does not follow.

I did not think that the Iraq War satisfied these terms. That is the case once again with the war in Iran. As far as we know, there was not a certain, momentous, and lasting harm hanging over the world if we did not take immediate action against Iran. Even more clearly, not all other options had been exhausted. (We were currently in negotiation with Iran when the first missiles struck Tehran.) There is not any certainty that going to war against Iran will secure a just and lasting peace. The administration has not even suggested that is possible.

As to sparing non-combatants from death and suffering, the U.S. apparently bombed a legitimate military target that was next door to a girls’ school. Did authorities know the school was next door? Was any effort made to avoid collateral damage or to adjust the time of the bombing to limit such damage? The deaths of 170 young girls scream that this is not a just war.

Regarding the stipulation that the peace be more stable following the war than prior to it, there does not even seem to be a plan for peace. No exit strategy has been articulated. It looks like we have stumbled into an Iraq-like morass.

Didn’t we learn anything? Are we destined to make the same mistake over and over? Has nothing changed?

One thing has changed, but not for the better. Prior to going to war in Iraq, Congress debated H.J. Resolution 114 for more than a week. The country watched and listened to the debate. Though I believe Congress came to the wrong conclusion, they at least talked about it. This time, there was no national discussion and no congressional vote prior to engagement.

I know that this kind of article will not change many minds. It did not in 2002, and it will not now. Nevertheless, I write because most Americans are completely unaware of the rich history of Christian thinking regarding what constitutes a just war. And that nearly guarantees that we will keep finding ourselves back in the same unhappy place.

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This Is Your Brain on Jingles

Posted on March 7, 2026 by salooper57

(Plus: Don’t Trust Your AI)

See if you can finish these advertisement jingles and slogans and identify what they were intended to sell. (Hint: If you have difficulty, say the jingle aloud. For example: “Fly the friend blank blank blank,” holding out the blanks shorter or longer, depending on the length of the underline.)

 1. “You’ve come a long way, baby, to get where you got to today. You’ve got your own _____________ now baby. You’ve come a long, long way.”

 2. “Fly the friendly ___ __ ______.”

 3. “___… ___… Good! ___… ___… Good! That’s what _________  ____ are: “___… ___… Good!”

 4. “I can’t believe __ ___ ___ _____ thing!”

 5. “Thing go _______ with ____ _____, things go better with ____.”

 6. “In the valley of the ______ – ‘ho-ho-ho!’ – ______ ______.”

 7. “____a____, the San Francisco _____.”

 8. “Plop, Plop, Fizz, Fizz __ ____ __ _______ __ is.”

 9. “Hold the ________, hold the _______, special _____ ____ _____ __.”

10. “Oh, I wish I were an _____ ______ _______, that is what I’d truly __ __ be.”

(Answers can be found at the end of this article.)

If you were able to fill in most or all the blanks, I know two things about you: 1) Even though you’re old (the jingles and slogans I chose are from fifty or sixty years ago), you’ve got a good memory; and 2) What you have watched and listened to on television and radio (and laptops, tablets, and phones) has had an impact on you.

Perhaps the impact of individual advertisements was greater fifty or sixty years ago because there were not as many of them. Today, we are overwhelmed with messaging. We pull up to a gas pump and find 25 separate messages competing for our attention. Some regard safety (“Shut Off Engine”; “No Smoking), others are about purchase points (“Pay Inside/Pre-Pay”; “Credit Card/Debit Card”) or are product and price related (Unleaded/Premium/Diesel/ E-85). Then there are the products being sold and services offered: a car wash, coffee, pizza, donuts, etc. Our brain can hardly handle all the input.

If you successfully filled in the blanks above, your good brain has been carrying around a lot of worthless stuff for the past 50 plus years. (If you didn’t know my generation’s worthless stuff, your brain is probably being filled with your generation’s worthless stuff, which it will carry around for the next 30, 40, or 50 years.) Whether it is something our brains actively take in (say a book we read or a movie we watch with friends) or something that we passively receive (a “Shut Off Engine” warning or an “I wish I were an Oscar Mayer wiener” jingle), the information we take into our brains is the food that feeds our minds.

It used to be – or I felt at the time – that viewers could watch the evening news and receive accurate reporting, which everyone knew would be interrupted by advertisements at set times. These days, the reporting itself is a kind of advertisement, meant to persuade viewers to buy into a political brand or take a particular side on a contemporary social or moral issue. Does this stuff stick in our brains the same way the Oscar Mayer jingle did?

What our minds take in has an impact on our mental and spiritual wellbeing. I am not saying that we cannot watch the evening news or a movie with friends, but we must keep a kind of antivirus program always running so that distortions can be quarantined and attacks be deflected. The gold standard antivirus for our minds is a full download of the Bible.

I’m not talking about a few encouraging verses here and there. We need to have the Bible’s big story, its metanarrative, as the scholars call it, running in the background of our minds. Then, when some movie scene or news report clashes with the Bible’s story, alarms will sound. We will be able to quarantine the possible infection until we have had a chance to examine it for inaccuracies and distortions.

I’ve already made clear that watching the news or enjoying a movie with friends is something we can do—if our antivirus program is running. But we must be careful not to input more data from movies and news programs than we do from trusted Christian sources (principally the Scriptures, but also good preaching, and conversations with fellow disciples). If we are spending more time with Sean Hannity or Rachel Maddow than with Jesus and Paul, it won’t be long before our thinking is out of kilter.

If you are already spending more time with Hannity and Maddow than with Jesus and Paul, decide to change that and begin taking steps to implement your decision. The renewal of the mind is not accomplished with commercial jingles and newscast jingoism, but with the Holy Spirit and God’s word.

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Answers:

1. “You’ve come a long way, baby, to get where you got to today. You’ve got your own cigarette now baby. You’ve come a long, long way.” (Virginia Slims)

 2. “Fly the friendly skies of United.”

 3. “Umm… Umm … Good! Umm… Umm … Good! That’s what Campbells soups are: Umm… Umm … Good!” (Campbells Soups)

 4. “I can’t believe I at the whole thing!” (Alka Seltzer)

 5. “Thing go better with Coca Cola, things go better with Coke!” (Coca Cola)

 6. “In the valley of the jolly – ho-ho-ho! – Green Giant.” (Green Giant canned veggies)

 7. “Rice-a-Roni, the San Francisco treat.” (Rice-a-Roni)

 8. “Plop, Plop, Fizz, Fizz—oh, what a relief it is.” (Alka Seltzer)

 9. “Hold the pickles, hold the lettuce, special orders don’t upset us.” (Burger King)

10. “Oh, I wish I were an Oscar Mayer wiener, that is what I’d truly love to be!” (Oscar Mayer Wieners)

One More Thing: Don’t Trust Your AI

I turned to AI last week for an illustration. I was looking for a story about someone who failed in a particular arena but, when given a second chance, succeeded. The AI produced the story of Stephen Elop, who was CEO at Nokia during its market collapse. AI went on to describe how Nokia was bought up by Microsoft and took Elop on as an executive officer. But Elop did not have good working relationships at Microsoft, and his leadership was blamed for creating instability in his department. Microsoft let him go but, according to AI, Microsoft’s CEO Satya Nadella eventually rehired him to serve as a consultant.

That was the kind of illustration I was looking for to promote my sermon The God of Second Chances, but I needed a few more details. So, I asked AI what year Elop was fired by Microsoft and what year he was rehired. The answer surprised me: AI reported that Elop was never rehired by Microsoft. So, I copied and pasted its previous answer and wrote, “This is the answer you gave me a few moments ago.” AI responded simply: “I was wrong.”

No apology that I remember. No embarrassment about getting caught in a lie. I asked the AI if it had no shame. It answered that it was not programmed to feel shame.

I might trust it more if it was.

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Don’t Give Up on God (2 Samuel 7)

Posted on March 4, 2026 by salooper57

It’s always too soon to give up on God. This encouraging message follows God’s promise of a king through troubles and exile. (Video length: 26 minutes (approximate.)

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All Things Are Yours: A Compelling Vision of the Christian Life

Posted on February 28, 2026 by salooper57

You are reading an open letter from a prominent preacher. He is not without his critics, of course, but you find him profoundly interesting. It is a long letter, and part-way down on the second page, you come across this startling line: “For everything belongs to you … Everything belongs to you.”

“Uh-oh,” you think, “he must be one of those prosperity gospel preachers. Health and wealth. Name it, claim it! These guys are all the same.”

But this guy is not a prosperity gospel preacher. He comes from a much older generation of Bible teachers. You could even say that he comes from the original generation of Bible teachers, for the words I’ve quoted above come from the pen of the Apostle Paul (1 Cor. 3:21, 22).

Those words, “Everything belongs to you,” are among the most surprising Paul ever wrote. They occur in the context of his plea for unity among the status-hungry Corinthian Christians. He urged them to stop carving up the church of Jesus Christ into Paul and Apollos and Cephas (Peter) factions. The Corinthians were acting as if these teachers owned them. Paul saw it the other way round: “All things are yours,whether Paul or Apollos or Cephas…” (1 Cor. 3:21, 22).

To Paul, the divisions in the Corinthian church were a shame. I use the word intentionally. It brought shame on these people to whom everything belonged to act as if they were minions and toadies. Paul was theirs, and so was eloquent Apollos and brave Cephas. They should make use of them.

Paul had a soaring vision of the freedom and authority of ordinary Christians. Whatever might happen to them, they have the power to make it their own. The world was theirs; they owned it. So, why carry the weight of the world on their shoulders, as if they were its servants? They could make the world serve them.

Life was theirs. How would they employ it? Would they complain about life, as a worker complains about an imperious boss? Would they be a cog in the wheel of life, forced to do what they could not help doing, or would they take control, forcing life to serve their purpose?

Not only did life belong to the Corinthians, so did death (Paul has in mind their own deaths, not someone else’s). Since Jesus wrested death from the service of the evil one (Hebrews 2:14-15) and made it a slave in his Father’s house, death cannot hurt God’s children. It is, admittedly, an ugly and ill-mannered slave, but Christians needn’t fear it. When death comes for them, they can use it to help them fulfill their purpose.

The Corinthians could also own the present. Too many people are enslaved by the past and incapable of taking ownership of the present. Things that happen around them or happen to them resist their control. They are powerless before them.

For some people, the future is a greater tyrant than the past. Everything they do and say must satisfy the future’s demands. They dare not spend money; the future may require it. They dare not put their thoughts in writing; it may come back to haunt them in the future. They dare not have children—who knows what harm the future might cause?

In Paul’s glorious vision of the Christian life, Jesus’s people have the power to force the world, life, death, things present, and things to come to serve their purpose. But Christians can only do this if they know their purpose and where they fit in the divine scheme of things.

Where they fit becomes clear in Paul’s next line: “All are yours, and you are Christ’s…” All things are the Christians when the Christian is Christ’s. I think that the house with my name on the deed belongs to me, but that house will have me as its slave if I am not careful. I will spend my time serving it, thinking about its needs, trying to make it look good, and spending my hard-earned money and valuable time to provide for it. But when I belong to Christ, I can take ownership of the house, giving it its due (maintenance, insurance payments, even landscaping and a fresh paint job), but using it to serve my needs, not the other way around.

It is similar with all the things on Paul’s list. For example, as a pastor and former Hospice chaplain, I have seen how death could own people, order their every thought and action—and not just those on death’s doorstep. Some people pass their days (I won’t say they live) in fear of death. But I’ve also seen people own death, take control of it, and make it serve them.

But this is only possible for those who know where they fit and who know their purpose. What is their purpose? Put briefly, it is to glorify God by becoming like Jesus. Once someone has adopted that as their one great purpose in life, everything is bound to serve them. Life will help them become like Jesus, even its daily irritations and setbacks. Death will help them become like Jesus, and they will not fear it. Things present (the overbearing parent, the unexpected interruption, the beautiful sunset) will serve them in reaching their goal. Things future (the job interview, the debt payment, the midterm elections) will line up to help them.

Everything must serve the person whose overarching goal is to glorify God by becoming like Jesus. When that is not a person’s goal, he or she will end up enslaved to life, death, the world, the present, and the future. To such people, Paul’s compelling vision of the free and strong Christian can only seem like a fantasy.

In Paul’s glorious vision of the Christian life, Jesus’s people have the power to force the world, life, death, things present, and things to come to serve their purpose.

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The God of Second Chances (Joshua 3-4)

Posted on February 25, 2026 by salooper57

Once you’ve failed, are you out of the game for good, or is there such a thing as a second chance? This is not an academic question. We need to know. The Bible’s answer, given in various ways, is clear: The God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob – the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ – is the God of Second Chances!

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Friends in Unexpected Places: Jesus and the Pharisees

Posted on February 21, 2026 by salooper57

For years, I thought that the New Testament picture of support for and opposition against Jesus was painted in black and white. I don’t know why I thought that – I doubt I ever heard pastors or professors put it that way. Nevertheless, I assumed that the Sadducees, Pharisees, and Herodians – the people who constituted Israel’s Jewish leadership – were unified in their opposition to Jesus, while the “common people heard him gladly” (Mark 12:37). But there is more to the story than that.

I was never quite sure what to do with Nicodemus and Joseph of Arimathea. They were Pharisees, and of course the Pharisees were Jesus’s earliest and most vocal adversaries. But Joseph was explicitly said to be a secret disciple of Jesus, and Nicodemus was, at the very least, helpful to Jesus. (But I think he joined Jesus’s camp in the end.)

It is true that Jesus had many enemies, but he also found friends in unexpected places, even among the members of groups that publicly opposed him. The New Testament hints that there were cracks in the anti-Jesus bloc and portrays the Jewish leadership as anything but monolithic.

The group that was most vehement in its antipathy toward Jesus was the Pharisees. Yet one of Jesus’s early personal (and positive) encounters was with “a man of the Pharisees” named Nicodemus. He was influential: John refers to him as a “member of the Jewish ruling council (the Sanhedrin), and Jesus calls him “the teacher of Israel” (John 3:10). At their first meeting, Nicodemus spoke candidly: “Rabbi, we know that you are a teacher come from God.” Notice the “we” in that sentence. Nicodemus was apparently not the only Pharisee who held Jesus in high regard.

We meet Nicodemus again in chapter 7. He is on the floor of the Sanhedrin, attempting to deter the council from arresting Jesus. He argues that Jewish law prohibits an arrest without cause. His argument is airtight: what Jewish council member is going to flout the Jewish law? But this is where we see a rift open among the Jewish authorities. Having no answer, one of Nicodemus’s fellow-Pharisees turns on him instead. “Are you from Galilee too?” he snarls.

Nicodemus was not the only council member, still less the only Jewish leader, who thought that Jesus might be a good man. Most notably, there was wealthy Joseph of Arimathea, another council member, who was a secret disciple during the time of Jesus’s ministry. When Jesus was executed, Joseph came out of the discipleship closet. He boldly went to the Roman prefect and requested that Jesus’s body be given into his care. Then, with Nicodemus’s help, Joseph buried Jesus in his own tomb.

There were other people in Jewish leadership who thought Jesus was the Messiah, or at least that he was an honorable person. In John 12, we read that “…many even among the leaders believed in him. But because of the Pharisees they would not confess their faith for fear they would be put out of the synagogue…” It is doubtful that all these believers came from the Pharisees, for after the resurrection there was a Jesus movement among the Sadducees, specifically among the priests (Acts 6:7)!

If one reads the gospels closely, one discovers that Pharisees are with Jesus on various occasions. What were they doing there, especially when they had already decided to put out of the synagogue anyone who confessed that Jesus was the Messiah? Perhaps they were there collecting evidence to use against Jesus, but nothing in the text suggests that. It is more likely that they were trying to decide if Jesus was the Messiah. As late as John 9, it is evident that the Pharisees were not unified in their opposition to Jesus (John 9:16).

In Luke 13:31, it was Pharisees who warned Jesus that Herod was looking to kill him. It is possible, as some scholars think, that the Pharisees’ real motive was to frighten Jesus into leaving. But seeing the divisions that existed among the Jewish leadership regarding Jesus, it is also possible that their warning was in earnest and came from good intentions.

What can we learn from this? I think we can learn that the biblical story is more complex than we are sometimes led to believe. Those of us who teach must be careful not to oversimplify the story in our rush to improve people’s feelings or adjust their behaviors.

We can also learn this: Jesus may have friends where one least expects them. If he could have friends on the Sanhedrin and among his fiercest critics, he might have friends in Congress—on what we think of as the wrong side of the aisle. He might have friends in Tehran in the Majlis, or in the drug-infested housing development on your city’s south side, or on the faculty of that famously progressive/conservative university that you despise. I cannot assume that Jesus has no friends over there; I can only make sure that I am being his friend right here.

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