We are back to very, very boring teachings in a language I cannot understand. Although Luke writes in a fun and more modern way, he happens to cite Jesus a lot and it is pretty unexciting. Since Luke tells about Jesus' life as a teacher, we are shown many of his parables which might be relevant if one actually wanted to interpret it. These messages of the Lord are basically what the next few chapters are all about.
In one of his many teaching sprees Jesus says:
'Whosoever shall confess me before men, him shall the Son of man also confess before the angels of God: 9 But he that denieth me before men shall be denied before the angels of God. 10 And whosoever shall speak a word against the Son of man, it shall be forgiven him: but unto him that blasphemeth against the Holy Ghost it shall not be forgiven.' (Luke 12:8-10)
This troubles me because, as you can see, it is totally contradictory. First Jesus says that if you speak against him you will be denied by the Lord, and then he says that if you speak against him it will all be forgiven. Say what?! However, I begin to notice a change of focus in Jesus' teachings. He now always talks about the importance and the holiness of the Lord God, and that he is His son. I'm not sure what age he is right now, but this sudden interest in the Father maybe has something to do with his moving to heaven is the soon future.
Jesus' mission leads him back to Jerusalem, where he is warned to leave because Herod, the ruler, will kill him, 'O Jerusalem, Jerusalem, which killest the prophets, and stonest them that are sent unto thee' (Luke 13:34) I find this incredible, that even that far back, when the world was supposed to follow God, someone would be thrown out, threatened, and even killed just because they have their own beliefs. Especially when they are banished from their own cities, like in Jesus' case.
It seems that all that touring has paid off, because Jesus is one popular guy. So popular in fact, that he has to be very picky about his disciples, 'If any mancome to me, and hate not his father, and mother, and wife, and children, and brethren, and sisters, yea, and his own life also, he cannot be my disciple.' (Luke 14:26) I understand that a task like Jesus' and that religion is no small matter, but I simply don't understand this condition that Jesus has set for his followers. What I get from what he said is: if you don't hate your family, you may not be y disciple. First of all, hate is a very strong word, and I don't see how this fits into God's message of loving everybody. Furthermore, how will you hating or not hating your family affect Jesus? There are too many things happening in our world every second, yet we are never affected by them. And if Jesus keeps on being so strict and bossy, he is soon going to be found out of people left to boss.
Maybe this is what happened to the Catholic Church. They used to be a tyrant power that controlled every aspect of their followers' lives, and those that didn't follow it, as we saw in the Crusades, paid the price. Nowadays the Church has been forced to lower its standards and increase its flexibility as a response to being countered by technology, government, society, and high school.
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