week 3

•  Apples and Oranges and RRW1/EPIC: Forum 1
• Holy Kiss
• Review
• Left Behind
• Church and Culture/TV Kingdom count results
• Popoff
• ---------------------------------
• Greatness and Matthew 18
• Children
• Gaithers on Crack

"EPIC Culture: Are You Immigrant or Native?:

The new issue of Salt Fresno is in the mail, and online...
including my piece on "EPIC Culture: Are You Immigrant or Native?," inspired of course by St. Leonard Sweet:

Often in seminars, I ask people to raise their hands if they are married.

Then I add, "Keep your hands up if you are in a cross-cultural marriage."

Inevitably, hands go down.

Inevitably, I argue that every hand should have stayed up.

My comment at that point is "I didn't say 'cross-racial' marriage; I said 'cross-cultural.’ Culture can defined as a way of viewing the world, and a set of assumptions for behaving.
How many have noticed that no matter how similar you and your spouse are, at some point you say, 'We are from two different worlds?'”

Then laughter erupts and every hand held high.
All marriages are cross-cultural.
Every interaction with another human is cross-cultural.
All of us in this world are from different worlds.

Everyone reading this--especially those born after 1974--know that “the whole world” has changed in our lifetime. Whether you are talking our era’s information explosion, the role of church, expectations of teachers, music styles, or gas prices...it seems almost everything has changed in our culture, some things exponentially, and many things many times over.

One of the most helpful grids through which to understand this change is to grasp that we have moved from what academics call the “modern world" or "modernity" into the "postmodern era" or "postmodernity." Ironically, this can be one of the most confusing grids, too...since everyone seems to mean something different by the same terms!

My favorite, simplified way of explaining this shift we have all somehow sensed, comes from Christian futurist Leonard Sweet. In his book "Postmodern Pilgrims," Sweet offers the acrostic, "EPIC," to capture and summarize the postmodern times we live in:

E stands for Experience, P for Participatory, I for Image-Driven, and C forConnected.

 These are the foundational hungers of people in our postmodern culture and churches, particularly those born after 1974.

As compared to the “modern” world’s preferences, especially among those born into it; that is, prior to 1974:

 Rational (as opposed to Experiential), Representative (as opposed toParticipatory), Word-based (in contrast to Image-Driven), and Individualistic (in contrast to Connected).

Too bad RRWI  doesn't spell anything catchy like EPIC!)

Which brings us to the question behind today's title:

                                           Are you immigrant or native to today’s EPIC culture?

Note that I didn’t ask you how old you were.

 An EPIC-oriented culture is indeed the dominant culture today; but within that broader culture are both those who prefer it and are "naturally" oriented that way, and those who prefer the orientation of the culture that was previously dominant. That culture,  the culture and mindset of the "modern" world, prevailed for hundreds of years (since the printing press, in fact)…until our lifetime. Sweet suggests that those born after 1974 or so, especially people young enough to have never known life without a computer, are "natives” to EPIC culture. People born before 1974 are thus "immigrants" in a new culture.  The world they were native to was rational, representative, word-based and individualistic.

It might sound obvious to conclude that most older people prefer the RRWI approach, and younger folk opt for the EPIC way. But one realizes there are exceptions to the rule. Leonard Sweet himself, for example, is even older than me (imagine that!), so he "should" be an immigrant who is uncomfortable with an EPIC approach. But he says EPIC is his natural wiring. It is likely rarer, but there are also surely some twenty-somethings who function out of an RRWI worldview.

We don't have space to talk about all the implications for church, and being salt and light in our day.  But begin imagining the issues that are raised. Traditional churches very often are Rational (logical arguments in defense of faith), Representative (one or two "professional" clergy to represent “laypeople”).  Traditional churches might fear being Experiential, but an EPICwould suggest that a relationship with Jesus, or a sermon, must be experienced.  Traditional churches tend to operate out of a representative leadership model, but EPICs actually want to participate. Traditional churches focus on Words, but EPICs are ministered to primarily by Images.

We are from two different worlds.

It’s extremely cross-cultural.

One can find Scripture for each culture.  As one example, recall that Jesus is both Word of God (John 1) and Image of God (Col. 1:15).  We preachers, especially those of us from an RRWI world should be thrilled that the culture actually would have us stretch, and become more like  image-makers (not as in worshipping images, but as in telling stories, as Jesus did; and incorporating art into worship gatherings).  Picture that!  We become missionaries in our own culture.

Ecologist Rudolph Bahro writes, "When the forms of an old culture are dying, the new culture is created by a few people who are not afraid to be insecure."

Christian speaker Graham Cooke adapts the saying for Christians, "When the old wineskin is dying, the new wineskin is created by people who are not afraid to be vulnerable.”

Holy insecurity and humble vulnerability enable this old RRWI to become a better missionary in these EPIC times.

Sweet concludes that though there are dangers in accommodating to culture, the postmodern hunger (which we have often condemned as being wishy-washy and far from God) actually positions people to hear, see, and respond to the gospel in beautiful ways not possible in the modern world.   That is, if we truly “get” that:

..in  Millennium Three, Christianity faces the most powerful intellectual and spiritual advance in the history of civilization. Internet technology is amplifying the worldwide flow of new kinds of experiences, interactions, images, and connections. The doors of the future are there for Christianity to open for the glory of God. Our ancestors helped create those doors. Will we their descendants open them? Or will we sit back, entwined like mummies in safety-belt strips of protection, fear and suspicion--all death sentences--and let others open those doors while the future flies by?

There is no door we can't open with EPIC love.

- http://bit.ly/a2fV2s

Gospel and Culture

By Paul Hiebert, from “Anthropological Insights for Missionaries”
This exercise is intended to help you test your own theological consistency on a number of issues that Protestants in various denominations have felt important. As a Christian in a cross-cultural setting, you will need to learn the differences between
those elements essential to the church in every culture, and those elements which are not.


Part One
Separate all the items that follow into two categories, based on these definitions:


Essential: These items (commands, practices, customs) are essential to the church in
every age and place. [Mark these. “E” on the list.]
Negotiable. These items (commands, practices, customs) may or may not be valid
for the church in any given place or time. [Mark these “N” on the list.]


1. Greet each other with a holy kiss.
2. Do not go to court to settle issues between Christians.
3. Do not eat meat used in pagan ceremonies.
4. Women in the assembly should be veiled when praying or speaking.
5. Wash feet at the Lord’s Supper (Eucharist).
6. Lay on hands for ordination.
7. Sing without musical accompaniment.
8. Abstain from eating blood.
9. Abstain from fornication.
10. Share the Lord’s Supper (Eucharist).
11. Use only real wine and unleavened bread for your Eucharist meals.
12. Use only grape juice for Eucharist meals.
13. Anoint with oil for healing.
14. Women are not to teach men.
15. Women are not to wear braided hair, gold, or pearls.
16. Men are not to have long hair.
17. Do not drink wine at all.
18. Slavery is permissible if you treat slaves well.
19. Remain single.
20. Seek the gift of tongues.
21. Seek the gift of healing.
22. Lift your hands when you pray.
23. People who don’t work don’t eat.
24. Have a private “devotional time” every day.
25. Say Amen at the end of prayers.
26. Appoint elders and deacons in every congregation.
27. Elect the leaders.
28. Confess sins one to another.
29. Confess sins privately to God.
30. Give at least ten percent of your income/goods/crops to God.
31. Construct a building for worship.
32. Confess Christ publicly by means of baptism.
33. Be baptized by immersion.
34. Be baptized as an adult.
35. Be baptized as a child/infant.
36. Do not be a polygamist.
37. Do not divorce your spouse for any reason.
38. Do not divorce your spouse except for adultery.

Part Two
Reflect on the process by which you distinguished the “essential” from the
“negotiable” items. What principle or principles governed your decision? Write out the
method you used, in a simple, concise statement. Be completely honest with yourself
and accurately describe how you arrived at your decisions. Your principle(s) should
account for every decision.
Part Three
Review your decisions again, and answer the following questions:
Are your “essential” items so important to you that you could not associate with a
group that did not practice all of them?
Are there some “essential” items that are a little more “essential” than others?
Are there any items that have nothing explicitly to do with Scripture at all?

-By Paul Hiebert, from “Anthropological Insights for Missionaries”

• 
  

Pop quiz:

For 1-5, stand on the correct side of the room, you can use percentages this time.
..Bounded, centered or fuzzy

1)Are you saint or sinner?
2)Onesimus: literal slave or not?
3)Best way to read the Bible:Apple or orange?
4)Children: innocent or depraved?
5) God or the Bible?  (force yourself to pick one).

6-10, write on the board

6)When Jesus was angry at the dovesellers and moneychangers in  the temple, why was he mad?
What were they doing wrong?

7)How many times in the Bible is the word "pastor" used?

8)What is the core message of Jesus/the basic message of Christianity?

9)What was Jesus' death meant to accomplish?  Jesus died on the cross so that _________.

10)The Bible says a certain category of people will be "left behind".  __________________.


-------------------------------------------------------------------

Peter Popoff. Followup to your TV assignment:

    

==

the Holy Kiss for today..on a bridge and in a bucket

"There is the kiss and the counterkiss, and if one wins, we both lose." -Walter Brueggemann -
---------------
We covered the biblical tradition of the "holy kiss" in our gathering last Sunday.
It was a lot of fun. We started with a game of Hangman;
We had "Holy _ _ _ _" on the whiteboard when folks came in!

They has to guess what four letter word filled in the blank to make this a phrase that appears in Scripture. When i said "yes" to the first guess of "S," you should have heard the comments!

That the Bible explicitly mentions this practice five times:

• Romans 16.16a — "Greet one another with a holy kiss" (Greek: ἀσπάσασθε ἀλλήλους ἐν φιλήματι ἁγίῳ).
• I Corinthians 16.20b — "Greet one another with a holy kiss" (Greek: ἀσπάσασθε ἀλλήλους ἐν φιλήματι ἁγίῳ).
• II Corinthians 13.12a — "Greet one another with a holy kiss" (Greek: ἀσπάσασθε ἀλλήλους ἐν ἁγίῳ φιλήματι).
• I Thessalonians 5.26 — "Greet all the brothers with a holy kiss" (Greek: ἀσπάσασθε τοὺς ἀδελφοὺς πάντας ἐν φιλήματι ἁγίῳ).
• I Peter 5.14a — "Greet one another with a kiss of love" (Greek: ἀσπάσασθε ἀλλήλους ἐν φιλήματι ἀγάπης).

...makes it a classic case study in how to apply
any scriptures that we assume need a cultural equivalent to out taking them literally.
(Though some of our folks took the "holy kiss" literally Sunday..no, not on the lips....I wish I had video..someone post the stories!(:...)

On this issue of interpretation:

• Brian Dodd's discussion of the "interpretive bridge" is helpful (p. 19 here)

as is

• Ron Martoia's posts on the "two buckets" (see "The Two Bucket Theory Examined" here).

I really recommend you read both above links, then get back to us.
They helped us when we tackled women in leadership, and homosexuality.

We learned that, counterintuitively to our guesses from this end of the cultural bridge, it seems the early church's holy kissing was almost always... on the lips!
The reason is powerful: that form on kiss implied equality...a kiss on the cheeks implied one person was inferior. Nothing like a Kingdom Kiss as an acted parable and reminder that in Christ we are equal! Of course, today, when we look at cultural equivalents like the "holy hug", "holy handshake," we might not realize that that, too, began as a Kingdom equalizer:

In fact, handshaking, which can seem quite prosaic today, was popularised by Quakers as a sign of equality under God, rather than stratified system of etiquette of seventeenth century England
-link

Ironically, the kiss of inclusion became a kiss of exclusion (from centered to bounded set):

Just as kissing had many different meanings in the wider ancient world, so too early Christians interpreted the kiss in various ways. Because ancient kissing was often seen as a familiar gesture, many early Christians kissed each other to help construct themselves as a new sort of family, a family of Christ. Similarly, in the Greco-Roman world, kissing often was seen as involving a transfer of spirit; when you kissed someone else you literally gave them part of your soul. The early church expanded on this and claimed that, when Christians kissed, they exchanged the Holy Spirit with one another. Christians also emphasized the kiss as an indication of mutual forgiveness (it’s from here that we get the term “kiss of peace”). These different meanings influenced and were influenced by the sorts of rituals kissing became associated with. For example, because the kiss helped exchange spirit, it made perfect sense for it to become part of baptism and ordination, rituals in which you wanted the Holy Spirit to descend and enter the initiate. The flip side of the coin is that before someone was baptized you wouldn’t want to kiss them. Early Christians often believed that previous to exorcism and baptism people were inevitably demon possessed. Given that they also thought that kissing resulted in spiritual exchange, it’s pretty clear why you wouldn’t want to kiss non-Christians. I sometimes think of this as an ancient form of “cooties.” It resulted in early Christian debates over whether one could kiss a pagan relative, if one should kiss a potential heretic, or if Jews even had a kiss.
-Penn, link

We incorporated insights from these and other articles linked below, and quoted the only book on the topic, "Kissing Christians" by Michael Penn. You'll note some of the articles below include interview with him. We particularly enjoyed some of the early fathers and teachers' comments and guidelines on the practice.

One early guideline, for real (wonder if this was in the weekly "bulletin"):

1)No French Kissing!
2)If you come back for seconds, because you liked the first kiss too much, you may be going to hell!!

Clement of Alexandra (c.150 - c. 215):

"There are those who do nothing but make the church resound with the kiss."

Chrysostom (4th C):

“We are the temple of Christ, and when we kiss each other
we are kissing the porch and entrance of the temple.”

Augustine (4th C):

"when your lips draw close to the lips of your brother, let your heart not draw away."

One interview with Michael Penn:

By Rich Barlow

Whoever said ''a kiss is just a kiss" didn't know their theological history. During Christianity's first five centuries, ritual kissing -- on the lips -- was a vital part of worship, says Michael P. Penn, who teaches religion at Mount Holyoke College in South Hadley. In that context, kissing helped Christians define themselves as a family of faith, he writes in his new book, ''Kissing Christians: Ritual and Community in the Late Ancient Church" (University of Pennsylvania Press). Excerpts from a recent interview follow.

Q: Let me start with the basic question: Who kissed whom?

A: In the first two centuries [AD], men may kissmen, women women, but also you would have men and women kissing one another. In future centuries, there continued to be a debate over who should kiss whom. In later years, Christians will no longer have men and women kissing each other, but only men men, women women. [Christians had] debates on whether or not priests could kiss the laity, on whether you should kiss a non-Christian relative in the normal, everyday situation, even debates over whether Jews have a kiss or not.

Q: When in the service was the kiss performed?

A: Our earliest references would be a kiss that would follow a communal prayer. Later on, it gets increasingly associated with the Eucharist and also occurs in part of the rites of baptism and in ordination rites. You have Christians kissing each other as an everyday greeting or also martyrs, before they're killed, kissing one another.

Q: What was the theological significance?

A: In antiquity, a kiss on the lips was seen as transferring a little bit of one's spirit to the other person. You have a lot of early -- I kind of think of them almost as Greco-Roman Harlequin -- novels that speak of the kiss as this transfer of spirit. Christians modify it a bit, to suggest that when Christians kiss each other, they don't just exchange their own spirit, but also share a part of the Holy Spirit with one another. So the kiss is seen as a way to bind the community together.

There's another side, though. There was a concern that kissing an individual who has promised to join the Christian community but isn't yet baptized should be avoided, because the spirit that would be transferred wouldn't be a holy spirit but a demonic spirit. So you have the kiss working as this ritual of exclusion.

Q: Did Christian leaders worry about the erotic overtones?

A: We have only two explicit references to this concern. One says, essentially, to kiss with a closed and chaste mouth, which suggests that a few of these kisses may have been too erotic. The other one warns against those who kiss a second time because they liked the first one so much.

Judas kissing Jesus [to betray him] terrifies them a lot more than eroticism. There's this evil intention behind it. Early Christian writers use the kiss of Judas to warn that it's not just how you practice the kiss, but what you're thinking. If you kiss another Christian while keeping evil in your heart against them, you are repeating Judas' betrayal.

Q: When did kissing fall out of favor?

A: In the third century, men and women are no longer to kiss one another. Early Christians met in what we think of as a house church -- you meet in someone's living room, essentially. Starting in the third century, when Christians [worship] in a public forum, this familial kiss is less appropriate. It's also a time where Christianity becomes concerned with making sure women and men are categorically separated. In the fourth century, that clergy and laity become increasingly distant. You start having prohibitions against clergy and laity kissing one another.

The ritual kiss never entirely died out. We still have it as an exchange of peace [in Christian services]. We see it in the kissing of the pope's ring. In Catholicism, a priest may kiss a ritual object.

Q: What would Christianity have been without the kiss?

A: What I find exciting is to see how what we think of as trivial is so central to early Christian self-understanding. Our earliest Christian writing, Paul's letter to the First Thessalonians, talks about the ritual kiss, albeit briefly. We have hundreds of early Christian references to this ritual. For these authors, it was anything but trivial.

-LINK
----------------------------

Of course, you want to be left behind, it's a good thing (:

This class emphasizes reading the text of the Bible in context.  Sometimes the meaning of a text is not what we have always assumed or been taught.  Have you ever heard that a certain group of people will be "left behind"?  You may have heard this from a sermon or popular books or movies.  The text that the phrase "left behind" comes from is in Matthew.  Before you go any further, post your quick answer on Moodle as to  what category of people you have heard will be left behind.

Now read this below:

Read this text from Matthew.

Read it from scratch, with no preconceived ideas, looking for what it actually says and means.
MATTHEW 12:

But about that day and hour no one knows, neither the angels of heaven, nor the Son,[h] but only the Father. 37 For as the days of Noah were, so will be the coming of the Son of Man. 38 For as in those days before the flood they were eating and drinking, marrying and giving in marriage, until the day Noah entered the ark, 39 and they knew nothing until the flood came andswept them all away, so too will be the coming of the Son of Man. 40 Then two will be in the field; one will be taken and one will be left behind. 41 Two women will be grinding meal together; one will be taken and one will be left behind. 42 Keep awake therefore, for you do not know on what day[i] your Lord is coming. 43 But understand this: if the owner of the house had known in what part of the night the thief was coming, he would have stayed awake and would not have let his house be broken into. 44 Therefore you also must be ready, for the Son of Man is coming at an unexpected hour.

Thoughts:

Who was taken (swept away) in Noah's day?
 People  who were caught off guard, unrighteous and unprepared. Clearly the "good" or "righteous" people; believers if you will. 

 Who was left?  Clearly Noah and family,  the "good" or "righteous" people; believers if you will.  The only righteous family God found on earth,

The text says it will be the same way when Jesus (the Son of Man) comes again.
So...who will be taken then, if it's the same pattern? 
 Clearly  the same: the unprepared and unrighteous.
Who will be left then, if it's the same pattern?
 The righteous believers, just as Noah and his family who were saved.

Hmmm, then why have most of you heard that the unprepared and unbelivers will be left behind??
--
 It astounds people when you tell them that

no one 

reading the famous "one will be taken; the other left behind" 'rapture' passage..

(in context; and without everything you've ever heard that it said influencing what you hear)

will read it as Christians being taken/raptured.

It is the most obvious interpretation in the world that in this Scripture:

the Christians are left behind. And that it's a good thing, not a bad thing.



Try it out! Follow the flow and logic; read text and context prayerfully and carefully.


 Rossing:

Only by combining this passage together with First Thessalonians can a dispensationalist begin to piece together their notion of 'left behind'...But here's the problem with their use of this passage in Matthew: Dispensationalists make the leap of assuming that the person 'taken' in this passage is a born-again Christian who is taken up to heaven, while the person 'left' is an unbeliever who is left behind for judgement. This is a huge leap, since Jesus himself never specifies whether Christians should desire to be taken or left! In the overall context of Matthew's Gospel, the verbs 'taken' and 'left' (Greek paralambano and apheimi) can be either positive or negative.

In the verses immediately preceding this passage, Jesus says that his coming will be like the flood at the time of Noah, when people were 'swept away' in judgement. If being 'taken' is analogous to being 'swept away' in a flood, then it is not a positive fate. That is the argument of New Testament scholar and Anglican bishop N.T. Wright:

'It should be noted that being in this context means being taken in judgement.
There is no hint here of a , a sudden event that would remove individuals from terra firma...It is, rather, a matter of secret police coming in the night, or of enemies sweeping through a village or city and seizing all they can.'
(NT Wright, Jesus and The Victory of God, p. 366

,, this means that 'left behind,' is actually the desired fate of Christians, whereas being 'taken' would mean being carried off by forces of judgement like a death squad. For people living under Roman occupation, being taken away in such a way by secret police would probably be a constant fear....McGuire suggests that the 'Left Behind' books have it 'entirely backward.'. McGuire, like Wright, points out that when analyzed in the overall context of the gospel, the word 'taken' means being taken away in judgement, as in the story of Jesus' being 'taken' prisoner by soldiers in Matt 27:27. 'Taken' is not an image for salvation"

(Rossing, pp 178-179)

HMMM... If you got the point, you can go quit. If you want to read more on this, keep reading here

HMMM:

John Knox (at Univ of Chicago) thought Archippus (not Philemon) was the slave-owner and that Paul publicly shamed Archippus into forgiving Onesimus (see Col 4:17)… link

--

Knox offered a completely different reconstruction of the occasion for the letter identifying the master as Archippus who was the host of the church mentioned in verse one, and Philemon as the one to plead reinstatement of Onesimus. He considers the epistle of Philemon to be the letter from Laodicea in Colossians 4:16, and the exhortation for Archippus to “fulfill his God-given ministry” (Col. 4:17) to be the request of Paul concerning Philemon (see John Knox, “Philemon” in The Interpreter’s Bible, vol. xi [New York, 1955], pp. 555ff; Knox,Philemon among the Letters of Paul: A New View of its Place and Importance; Guthrie, NTI, pp. 635-638; Bruce, Paul: Apostle, p. 401-406; O’Brien, Philemon, pp. 267-268).  link

---

------------
We watched this, which you'll need to know for Forum 5.  See accompanying picture of musical groups mentioned in it,





KINGDOM:






>>How does the Kingdom "come" from the "future"?:

Many Jews of Jesus' day (and actually, the Greeks) thought of the Kingdom of God as largely a  future identity/reality/location.
So when Jesus, in Matthew 4:17 announces that he, as King, is ALREADY bringing in the Kingdom,

this not only subverted expectations, but sounded crazy....and like he was claiming to bring the future into the present.

The Jews talked often about "this age" (earth/now) and "the age to come." (heaven/future).
"Age to come" was used in a way that it was virtually synonymous with "The Kingdom."

Scripture suggests that:

The "age to come"  (the Kingdom) 
has in large part already come (from the future/heaven)

into "this age"
 (in the present/on the earth


by means of the earthy ministry of Jesus: King of the Kingdom.


Thus, Hebrews 6:4-8 offers that disciples ("tamidim") of Jesus have
"already (in this age) tasted the powers of the age to come."

In Jesus, in large part, the age to come has come.
The Future has visited the present,















"The presence of the Kingdom of God was seen as God’s dynamic reign invading the present age without (completely) transforming it into the age to come ” (George Eldon Ladd, p.149, The Presence of the Future.)




Here are some articles that may help:
• Kingdom of God: by George Ladd
• THE KINGDOM'S RETROACTIVE RETROFUTURE
•  The "Lord's Prayer" does NOT say "daily bread". 

• Kingdom Now and Not Yet
KINGDOM/CORE MESSAGE  (we didn't cover all of this in class, so you'll need to watch this for Moodle.








K

Jesus came to serve.
             The last shall be first.
                         That's who is great in the Kingdom  economy:
                                    

Jesus said in it yet another chiasm:

But those who exalt            themselves will be               humbled, 

and those who humble     themselves will be                exalted

(Matt 23:12)


How did you like these two example videos of leaders?
How did you interpret these two texts?
 

ONE GREAT PERSON SURVEYS

( My Dack Rambo story?  Click here  to read all about it, and for the sequel click:
" I Deny the Resurrection and I am not straight."
(uh, better click that title and get the context!) 

 we apply some "Three Worlds" theory to Matthew 18 and the topic of "Who is great?"

As we study, apply as many literary world symbols as you can

A video on that chapter featuring Keltic Ken: 

Related outtakes:

Of LITERARY WORLD note:

• -

Of Historical World note:

• What did you learn about a millstone ? ( notes at 

W

this (click)

vi

NOTE A RECURRENCE OF the phrase "little one."

Watch

this (click)

video, "Weight of the World," and be prepared to discuss what these two items are

• Review: Why did we say the missing was temporarily greater than the rest of us?
• 
  

Page 19 of Syllabus,Matthew 18 Outline

(by Greg Camp/Laura Roberts):

1 Question #1: Who is Greatest?

2-17 Responses (each are counter proposals):

2-10 Response #1: Children

2-4 Counter Proposal: Accept children

5-9 Threat: If cause scandal

10 Show of force: Angels protect

12-14 Response #2: Sheep

(Who is temporarily greater?)

12-14 Counter Proposal: Search for the 1 of 100 who is lost

15-17 Response #3: Brother who sins (counter proposal)

15a Hypothetical situation: If sin

15-17 Answer: Attempt to get brother to be reconciled

17b If fail: Put him out and start over

18-20 Statement: What you bind or loose

21-22 Question #2: How far do we go in forgiveness?

23-35 Response #1: Parable of the forgiving king/unforgiving servant

----------------Read verses 15-17 and then ask yourself:
"What did it mean in their historical world to treat  people like
"tax collectors and sinners?"

Two answers

1)Don't allow them in your bounded set.

2)How did Jesus treat  tax collectors and sinners? In a centered set way. Tony Jones writes: 

but because anyone, including Trucker Frank, can speak freely in this  church, my seminary-trained eyes were opened to find a truth in the Bible that had previously eluded me.”...That truth emerged in a discussion of Matthew 18's "treat the unrepentant brother like a tax collector or sinner.":

"And how did Jesus treat tax collectors and pagans?" Frank asked aloud, pausing, "as of for a punchline he'd been waiting all his life to deliver,"....., "He welcomed them!""

-Tony Jones, The New Christians, p.92

Cli

We might see the whole unit as a chiasm with inclusio.  See below (copied from here):

Jesus foretells His death: Matthew 17:22-23

A. Jesus speaks of giving freely/sacrificing self: Matthew 17:24-27

B. Little children are the essence of the kingdom: Matthew 18:1-7

C. Sacrifice the body for the sake of the kingdom: Matthew 18:8-9

D. Do not despise what God values: Matthew 18:10-14

E. Entreating a brother about sin or offense: Matthew 18:15-17

F.Agreement between Heaven and Earth: Matthew 18:18-20

E. Entreating a brother about sin or offense: Matthew 18:21-35

D. Do not despise what God values: Matthew 19:1-9

C. Sacrifice the body for the sake of the kingdom: Matthew 19:10-12

B. Little children are the essence of the kingdom: Matthew 19:13-15

A. Jesus speaks of giving freely/sacrificing self: Matthew 19:16-20:16

Jesus foretells His death: Matthew 20:17-19