Esights Archives - Renewed Heart Ministries

The Gospel Jesus Taught

Posted on January 19, 2024 by Herb Montgomery

Finding Jesus Second Edition!

I have some exciting news!

I have just signed an agreement with a new book publisher (Quoir), and we are putting together a launch team for the second edition of Finding Jesus, coming out next month!

If you have been blessed by the first edition, and you would like to see this book have greater exposure to reach an even larger audience, I want to invite you to be a part of the launch team. This second edition will be available in paperback, Kindle and an audio book available on Audible. And great news for those who already have a copy of the first edition, the first 25 people to sign up to be part of our launch team will also receive a FREE Audible copy of the audiobook for Finding Jesus.

To join the Finding Jesus launch team, all you need to do is four things:

1) Go to Amazon and pre-order a copy of the second edition when pre-orders become available.

2) Read the pdf copy of the second edition of Finding Jesus that I will send you after your pre-order the book so that you’re ready on launch day.

3) On launch day go back to Amazon and write a review for Finding Jesus. (You’ll be able to do this on day one since you’ve already read the pdf copy.)

4) Share your review of Finding Jesus on your social media pages that day, also.

It’s pretty simple. That’s all. And if you already have copy of the first edition this is a great opportunity to get the audiobook version on Audible as soon as it is available.

If you would like to join our launch team, you can email me at info@renewedheartministries.com and just put in the subject of your email “Launch Team.”

Thank you in advance for being part of this special second edition publishing and ensuring this edition is a success.

New Episode of JustTalking!

Season 1, Episode 47: Mark 1.14-20. Lectionary B, Epiphany 3

Each week, we’ll be talking about the gospel lectionary reading for the upcoming weekend. We’ll be talking about each reading in the context of love, inclusion, and societal justice. Our hope is that our talking will be just talking (as in justice) and that during our brief conversations each week you’ll be inspired to also do more than just talking.

You can find the latest show on YouTube at

Season 1, Episode 47: Mark 1.14-20. Lectionary B, Epiphany 3

or (@herbandtoddjusttalking)

Please Like, Subscribe, hit the Notification button, and leave us a comment

Thanks in advance for watching!

The Gospel Jesus Taught

Herb Montgomery, January 19, 2024

To listen to this week’s eSight as a podcast episode click here.

“It is much easier to preach a gospel about Jesus that says “God loves us,” than it is to venture to teach the gospel Jesus teaches in the stories calling on us to love each other.”

Our lectionary reading from the gospels for this coming weekend is from the gospel of Mark:

After John was put in prison, Jesus went into Galilee, proclaiming the good news of God. “The time has come,” he said. “The kingdom of God has come near. Repent and believe the good news!”

As Jesus walked beside the Sea of Galilee, he saw Simon and his brother Andrew casting a net into the lake, for they were fishermen. “Come, follow me,” Jesus said, “and I will send you out to fish for people.” At once they left their nets and followed him.

When he had gone a little farther, he saw James son of Zebedee and his brother John in a boat, preparing their nets. Without delay he called them, and they left their father Zebedee in the boat with the hired men and followed him. (Mark 1:14-20)

Every year around this time, I find myself writing on the themes in this passage. Take a look at two of my previous entries on Matthew’s and Luke’s versions of this passage, in 2022 and in 2023.

Before we dive into the fishing metaphor, though, let’s explore how our reading begins.

First, Herod has imprisoned John. Rome and Rome’s extensions are generally tolerant of things we consider today to be religious in nature. What Rome didn’t tolerate was anyone who became a social, political, or economic threat to Rome’s status quo and power structure. John didn’t get arrested because he was handing out tickets to heaven. He was arrested because he came to be seen as a threat the system. (In this December 2023 article, I mention Josephus’ description of how Herod viewed John the Baptist.)

After John is arrested, Jesus sets out preaching his gospel. Try and get inside the headspace of the gospel authors here. They aren’t describing a gospel about Jesus, like we would preach today. Instead they’re talking about the gospel Jesus himself taught. What was that gospel like?

The word “gospel” is not a Jewish term but a Roman one. When Rome would conquer a new territory, it would send out a messenger called an evangelist to go throughout the area announcing the gospel or “good news” that these people had just been conquered by their “savior” Caesar, “savior of the world,” and would now be subject of the Empire of Rome and the Pax Romana. Here are a few examples of how Rome used this term “gospel.”

“Even after the battle at Mantinea, which Thucydides has described, the one who first announced the victory had no other reward for his gospel [euangelion

– singular] than a piece of meat sent by the magistrates from the public mess.” (Plutarch, Agesilaus, p. 33)

“Accordingly, when [Aristodemus] had come near, he stretched out his hand and cried with a loud voice: ‘Hail, King Antigonus, we have conquered Ptolemy in a sea-fight, and now hold Cyprus, with 12,800 soldiers as prisoners of war.’ To this, Antigonus replied: ‘Hail to thee also, by Heaven! But for torturing us in this way, thou shalt undergo punishment; the reward for thy gospels [euangelion] thou shalt be some time in getting.’” (Plutarch, Demetrius, p. 17)

“Why, as we are told, the Spartans merely sent meat from the public commons to the man who brought the gospel [euangelion] of the victory in Mantineia which Thucydides describes! And indeed the compilers of histories are, as it were, reporters of great exploits who are gifted with the faculty of felicitous speech, and achieve success in their writing through the beauty and force of their narration; and to them those who first encountered and recorded the events [euangelion] are indebted for a pleasing retelling of them” (Plutarch, Moralia [Glory of Athens], p. 347)

Unlike the gospel these messengers announced, Jesus’ gospel wasn’t about Rome but about what he referred to as “the kingdom.” In the kingdom or reign of God, there would be enough bread for everyone and all debts would be cancelled, all slaves set free, and land returned to its original owners (Matthew 6:11, Luke 4:18-19, and Matthew 5:45).

Jesus was also not merely announcing that God’s just future was coming. He was announcing that it had arrived, and the response he called for was for his listeners to “repent and believe the good news.”

The phrase “repent and believe” is a difficult one for us Christians not to hear religiously as pertaining to the afterlife, but the Greek phrase is metanoesein kai pistos. Josephus uses this phrase when he tells us a story of visiting a Jewish brigand in prison for rebelling against Rome. Jospheus attempts to convince the rebel to leave that path and take up a more cooperative posture toward the empire. The phrase Josephus uses in his plea is for this brigand to “repent and believe/trust him” (metanoesein kai pistos emoi genesestha), and it’s the same language we read in Mark from Jesus’ gospel preaching (see Thackery’s The Life Of Flavius Josephus, p. 110).

So Jesus is preaching a gospel of the kingdom, not a gospel of Rome. He is not calling his listeners to repent of rebellion against Rome or to accept Rome’s governance, but rather for his listeners to repent (rethink their current path) of complicity with the status quo. He calls them to trust him and enter God’s just future now.

It is in this context that we must understand Mark’s next narrative move of Jesus calling fishermen. We must set aside the Christian evangelism framing this passage has suffered since this story was told, and try to hear this passage as the original Jewish Jesus followers would have heard it.

First, this language of being fishers of people is not a metaphor for evangelism. Proselytizing was not widely practiced in most expressions of Judaism at this time. Though there were occasionally converts , most scholars today agree that Jews did not do much proselytizing in the 1^st Century.

Jesus was not calling to these Jewish fishermen to become proselytizers, then. Instead, the reference to fishing for people was a call to another kind of action in the justice tradition of the Hebrew prophets: joining Jesus in challenging harm being done to people in the here and now, not the hereafter.

In several Hebrew scriptures, fishing for people was about hooking or catching a certain kind of person, a powerful and unjust person, and removing them from the position of power where they were wielding harm.

Speaking of those who do harm within their positions of power, Jeremiah reads:

“But now I will send for many fishermen,” declares the LORD, “and they will catch them. After that I will send for many hunters, and they will hunt them down on every mountain and hill and from the crevices of the rocks. (Jeremiah 16:16)

Speaking of those who “oppress the poor and crush the needy,” Amos reads:

The Sovereign LORD has sworn by his holiness: “The time will surely come when you will be taken away with hooks, the last of you with fishhooks.” (Amos 4:2)

Speaking of the abusive Pharaoh, king of Egypt, Ezekiel reads:

In the tenth year, in the tenth month on the twelfth day, the word of the LORD came to me: “Son of man, set your face against Pharaoh king of Egypt and prophesy against him and against all Egypt. Speak to him and say: ‘This is what the Sovereign LORD says:

‘“I am against you, Pharaoh king of Egypt,

you great monster lying among your streams.

You say, “The Nile belongs to me;

I made it for myself.”

But I will put hooks in your jaws

and make the fish of your streams stick to your scales.

I will pull you out from among your streams,

with all the fish sticking to your scales.

I will leave you in the desert,

you and all the fish of your streams.

You will fall on the open field

and not be gathered or picked up.

I will give you as food

to the beasts of the earth and the birds of the sky.

Then all who live in Egypt will know that I am the LORD. (Ezekiel 29:1-6)

Ched Myers, in commentaries written on this week’s passage from Mark, writes:

“In the Hebrew Bible, the metaphor of ‘people like fish’ appears in prophetic censures of apostate Israel and of the rich and powerful: ‘I am now sending for many fishermen, says God, and they shall catch [the people of Israel]…’ (Jeremiah 16:16) ‘The time is surely coming upon you when they shall take you away with fishhooks…’ (Amos 4:2) ‘Thus says God: I am against you, Pharaoh king of Egypt…. I will put hooks in your jaws, and make the fish of your channels stick to your scales…’ (Ezekiel 29:3f) Jesus is, in other words, summoning working folk to join him in overturning the structures of power and privilege in the world!” (Ched Myers, Marie Dennis, Joseph Nangle, Cynthia Moe-Lobeda, Stuart Taylor; Say to This Mountain: Mark’s Story of Discipleship, p. 10)

“There is perhaps no expression more traditionally misunderstood than Jesus’ invitation to these workers to become ‘fishers of men.’ This metaphor, despite the grand old tradition of missionary interpretation, does not refer to the ‘saving of souls,’ as if Jesus were conferring on these men instant evangelist status. Rather the image is carefully chosen from Jeremiah 16:16, where it is used as a symbol of Yahweh’s censure of Israel. Elsewhere the ‘hooking of fish’ is a euphemism for judgment upon the rich (Amos 4:2) and powerful (Ezekiel 29:4). Taking this mandate for his own, Jesus is inviting common folk to join him in the struggle to overturn the existing order of power and privilege.” (Ched Myers, Binding the Strong Man: A Political Reading of Mark’s Story of Jesus, p. 132)

Jesus was calling these fishermen to join him hope, change, and participating in God’s just future. That just future begins with our challenging the existing order of power and privilege, specifically because of the harm that the status quo causes.

Love means caring for people and what they are suffering here and now. That’s why, as Cornel West often says, justice is what love looks like in public. While it is much easier to preach a gospel that says “God loves us,” it is a much more challenging venture to teach a gospel calling on people to love each other. Perhaps that’s why Jesus’ message in the gospels is rarely about God’s love toward us per se. (It is present at times, but is rarely emphasized and doesn’t even show up in the book of Acts, which is supposed to be about the gospel turning the world upside down.)

Instead Jesus’ gospel repeats the call for us to love one another, neighbor, and even enemy. Love is not something we are to simply bask in, assured that we the objects of Divine affection. Love is the ethic that a God of love calls us to live by in our relations to each other. A gospel that is only about God’s unconditional love for us has historically served as guilt alleviation for those in positions of power and privilege. It helps those complicit in harm to rest at night.

It doesn’t matter how much a gospel about Jesus talks about God’s love if it doesn’t include the call for us to love one another. I’m thinking specifically about distributive justice for others being harmed. Without that call, it may be a gospel about Jesus, but it’s not the same gospel that Jesus taught in the early stories. A gospel may include God’s universal and unconditional love, but if that gospel doesn’t result in adherents also loving their neighbors, then that gospel is “a resounding gong or a clanging cymbal” (1 Corinthians 13:1).

HeartGroup Application

1. Share something that spoke to you from this week’s eSight/Podcast episode with your HeartGroup.

2. What would a society shaped by love look like? Share and discuss with your group.

3. What can you do this week, big or small, to continue setting in motion the work of shaping our world into a safe, compassionate, just home for everyone?

Thanks for checking in with us, today.

I want to say a special thank you to all of our supporters out there. And if you would like to join them in supporting Renewed Heart Ministries’ work you can do so by going to renewedheartministries.com and clicking donate.

I have some exciting news! I have just signed an agreement with a new book publisher (Quoir), and we are putting together a launch team for the second edition of Finding Jesus, coming out next month!

To join the Finding Jesus launch team, all you need to do is four things:

Go to Amazon and pre-order a copy of the second edition when pre-orders become available.

2) Read the pdf copy of the second edition of Finding Jesus that I will send you after your pre-order the book so that you’re ready on launch day.

3) On launch day go back to Amazon and write a review for Finding Jesus. (You’ll be able to do this on day one since you’ve already read the pdf copy.)

4) Share your review of Finding Jesus on your social media pages that day, also.

It’s pretty simple. That’s all. And if you already have copy of the first edition this is a great opportunity to get the audiobook version on Audible as soon as it is available.

If you would like to join our launch team, you can email me at info@renewedheartministries.com and just put in the subject of your email “Launch Team.”

Thank you in advance for being part of this special second edition publishing and ensuring this edition is a success.

You can find Renewed Heart Ministries on X (or Twitter), Facebook, Instagram and Meta’s new Threads. If you haven’t done so already, please follow us on your chosen social media platforms for our daily posts. Also, if you enjoy listening to the Jesus for Everyone podcast, please like and subscribe to the JFE podcast through the podcast platform you use and consider taking some time to give us a review. This helps others find our podcast as well.

You can watch our new YouTube show called “Just Talking” each week. Todd Leonard and I take a moment to talk about the gospel lectionary reading for the upcoming weekend. We’ll be talking about each reading in the context of love, inclusion, and societal justice. Our hope is that our talking will be just talking (as in justice) and that during our brief conversations each week you’ll be inspired to also do more than just talking.

If you teach from the lectionary each week, or if you’re just looking for some thoughts on the Jesus story from a more progressive perspective within the context of social justice, check it out, you might like it. You can find JustTalking each week on YouTube at youtube.com/@herbandtoddjusttalking. Please Like, Subscribe, hit the Notification button, and leave us a comment.

And if you’d like to reach us here at Renewed Heart Ministries through email, you can reach us at info@renewedheartministries.com.

Right where you are, keep living in love, choosing compassion, taking action, and working toward justice.

I love each of you dearly,

I’ll see you next week.