Parable of the wedding banquet

Following is a chapter from The Kingdom According to Jesus. You may order the entire study in print format or e-book.

Matt. 22:1-14:

1 Once more Jesus spoke to them in parables:
2 “The kingdom of heaven may be compared to a king who gave a wedding banquet for his son.
3 He sent out his slaves to summon those invited to the banquet, but they didn’t want to come.
4 Again, he sent out other slaves, and said, ‘Tell those who are invited: Look, I’ve prepared my dinner; my oxen and fattened cattle have been slaughtered, and everything is ready. Come to the wedding banquet. ’
5 But they paid no attention and went away, one to his own farm, another to his business.
6 And the others seized his slaves, treated them outrageously and killed them.
7 The king was enraged, so he sent out his troops, destroyed those murderers, and burned down their city.
8 Then he told his slaves, ‘The banquet is ready, but those who were invited were not worthy.
9 Therefore, go to where the roads exit the city and invite everyone you find to the banquet.’
10 So those slaves went out on the roads and gathered everyone they found, both evil and good. The wedding banquet was filled with guests.
11 But when the king came in to view the guests, he saw a man there who was not dressed for a wedding.
12 So he said to him, ‘Friend, how did you get in here without wedding clothes?’ The man was speechless.
13 Then the king told the attendants, ‘Tie him up hand and foot, and throw him into the outer darkness, where there will be weeping and gnashing of teeth.’
14 For many are invited, but few are chosen.”

(A similar parable is found in Luke 14:16-24.)

The context

Jesus has made His triumphant entry into Jerusalem and cleansed the Temple complex, driving out those who are buying and selling. He has received the praise of children and cursed the barren fig tree. He has answered the Pharisees’ challenges to His authority and provided the parables of the two sons and the vineyard owner to illustrate the Jewish leaders’ hardness of heart. Stung by Jesus’ rebuke, they look for a way to arrest Him.

Now, as chapter 22 begins and Jesus’ crucifixion draws near, He remains in the Temple in the presence of the Pharisees and tells the parable of the wedding banquet.
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The personhood of the Holy Spirit

This is the first in a two-part series on the Holy Spirit.

One way the Jehovah’s Witnesses’ New World Translation (NWT) seeks to undermine the Trinity is by consistently rendering the name “Holy Spirit” as the inanimate “holy spirit.”

The unnamed translators of the NWT often omit the article “the,” which results in stilted verses such as:

“That one [Jesus] will baptize you with holy spirit …” (Matt. 3:11).

John the Baptist “will be filled with holy spirit even from before birth” (Luke 1:15).

Mary, the mother of Jesus, “was found to be pregnant by holy spirit …” (Matt. 1:18).

As James White notes in The Forgotten Trinity, “Their intention is clear: the Watchtower society denies that the Holy Spirit is a person, hence, they desire their ‘translation’ of the Bible to communicate the idea that the Holy Spirit is an ‘it,’ a force or power.”

The Watch Tower argues that the phrase “Holy Spirit” in Greek is in the neuter gender, and it is. But Greek genders do not necessarily indicate personality, according to White. Inanimate things can have masculine and feminine genders, and personal things can have the neuter gender.

A better way to determine whether the “Holy Spirit” is personal or inanimate is the same way we seek to understand whether the Father and Son are personal. That is, does the Holy Spirit offer evidence of personhood? Does He speak, use personal pronouns, have a will, and so on?

The answer, of course, is a resounding yes.
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A biblically faithful view of wealth and health

In previous posts, we explored the false teachings of today’s prosperity gospel preachers. Now, let’s ask: What is a biblically faithful attitude toward wealth and health?

We should be content with what we have.

Paul experiences many hardships in his ministry – beatings, shipwreck, hunger, cold, imprisonment, and much more. Yet he writes that he has “learned” to be content (see Phil. 4:11-12). Further, he reminds Timothy that “godliness with contentment is great gain” (1 Tim. 6:6).

We should be indifferent toward wealth.

Prosperity is neither good nor evil. But our attitude toward wealth reveals a great deal about us (see 1 Tim. 6:6-10, 17-19).

Agur’s request of the Lord in Prov. 30:8b-9 expresses a proper attitude toward worldly gain: “Give me neither poverty nor wealth; feed me with the food I need. Otherwise, I might have too much and deny You, saying, ‘Who is the Lord?’ or I might have nothing and steal, profaning the name of my God.”

Jesus specifically warns us against laying up treasures on earth (Matt. 6:19-21) and reminds us that we cannot be slaves to both God and money (Matt. 6:24).

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How prosperity preachers abuse the Bible

Following are a few examples of Scriptures prosperity preachers twist to promote their health-and-wealth gospel. A more complete treatment is available in The Apologist’s Tool Kit, available at mobaptist.org.

Prov. 6:2 – You have been trapped by the words of your lips – ensnared by the words of your mouth.

Word of Faith leaders quote this verse to illustrate that our words have power. If we speak positively, we get positive results. But if we speak “negative confessions,” we get negative results.

In truth, this proverb teaches nothing of the kind. Solomon simply points out that whenever you enter into an agreement with someone, you are honor-bound to fulfill it. Nowhere does Scripture teach that our words create reality.

Matt. 9:29 – Then He touched their eyes, saying, “Let it be done according to your faith!”

Referring to this passage, Joyce Meyer remarks, “The Bible says it will be unto us as we believe. That principle works in the negative as well as the positive. We can receive by fear as well as by faith.”

But a simple reading of Matt. 9:27-31 shows that the two blind men express their faith in Jesus – not faith in their faith or faith in their healing. Jesus asks them point blank: “Do you believe that I can do this?” They reply, “Yes, Lord.”

Mark 11:22-23 – Jesus replied to them, “Have faith in God. I assure you: If anyone says to this mountain, ‘Be lifted up and thrown into the sea,’ and does not doubt in his heart, but believes that what he says will happen, it will be done for him.”

Several Word-Faith leaders insist that a more proper translation of verse 22 is, “Have the God kind of faith,” or, “Have the faith of God.” They twist this verse to support their view that God has faith; further, God used “faith substance” to create the universe. “Cut God open,” says Creflo Dollar, “and you’d see nothing but faith.”

But Greek scholars like A.T. Robertson assure us that the Faith preachers’ interpretation is faulty. “It is not the faith that God has,” he writes, “but the faith of which God is the object.”

Hank Hanegraaff writes, “The Bible makes it clear … that God could never be a faith being. If God had to have faith, He would be dependent upon something outside of Himself for knowledge or power. And that is clearly unthinkable.”

Rom. 4:17 – As it is written: I have made you the father of many nations. He believed in God, who gives life to the dead and calls things into existence that do not exist.

Joel Osteen uses this verse to support the notion that our words have creative power. “Scripture tells us that we are to ‘call the things that are not as if they already were,’” he says. We must conceive them in our minds, believe them, and speak them out. “You’ve got to give life to your faith by speaking it out,” he says.

Is that really what the apostle Paul means in this verse? Of course not. Abraham does not believe in himself, in his faith, or in his own power to create reality. Abraham believes in God. And it is God who gives life to the dead and calls things into existence that do not exist.

2 Peter 1:4 – By these [God’s divine power, knowledge of Him, glory and goodness] He has given us very great and precious promises, so that through them you may share in the divine nature …

Kenneth Copeland explains, “Now, Peter said by exceeding great and precious promises you become partakers of the divine nature. All right, are we gods? We are a class of gods!”

But this is not at all what Peter means, as the context makes clear. Verses 5-11 describe a moral transformation that Jesus produces in Christians, so that they overcome evil desires with goodness, knowledge, self-control, endurance, godliness, brotherly affection, and love.

Prosperity preachers also cite passages such as Ex. 4:16 (Moses serves as “God” to pharaoh); Ex. 21-22 (the Israelite judges are called elohim, or gods); John 10:31-39 (Jesus quotes Psalm 82:6, in which the judges are called gods); and 2 Cor. 4:4 (Satan is the god of this age) to bolster their claim that humans are little gods.

None of these passages ascribes deity to human beings or to Satan. Rather, they describe people or angelic beings that are granted limited authority for a period of time under the sovereign hand of God. Believers are “sons” of the Most High, not by nature but by adoption (Gal. 4:5-8).