Monthly Archives: January 2020

The School of Christian Ministries is pleased to regularly share the stories of our alumni and how God is using them in His work around the world.

Name: Kevin Naylor

Degrees Earned: Bachelor of Applied Theology in 2013. Also earned a Master of Divinity from Beeson Divinity School in 2017.

Current Role: Church Planter and Pastor Vision and Teaching. Antioch Community Church is a collegiate church focused on reaching the University of Alabama at Birmingham. 

Years in Current Role: 1 year

Q&A with Pastor Naylor

1. What do you like most about your job?

I love that as a church planter I have the opportunity initiate a distinctively missional culture and watch people begin to live the Great Commission in their everyday life. 

2. What is the biggest challenge with your job?

Planting apostolically. Often church planting in America can be a form of “sheep shuffling.” The challenge, and opportunity, is doing things in such a way that we reach people that aren’t currently being reached. And that we find ways to do this “in the fields” as Luke 10 describes, not just through the Sunday gathering. 

3. How did the School of Christian Ministries prepare you for what God has called you to do (vocationally)?

In the BAT [Bachelor of Applied Theology] program I learned how to be both a pastor that cares about people and a theologian that cares about being theologically and biblically articulate. The secret sauce is the faculty. They modeled humble pastoral leadership to us personally as students. 

4. If you could go back in time and tell yourself one thing in college, what would it be and why?

Chill out.  I put way too much pressure on myself and was a pretty anxious student. In many ways I ended up sacrificing spiritual, physical, emotional, and relational health for school. I was always way more stressed than I needed to be and I ended up not enjoying my college years as much as I could have. 

5. What most excites you about the work that God is doing in your church/community/or around the world?

Seeing people “get it.” In other words: transformation. 

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New Testament Textual Criticism is a science that can make the eyes of even NT scholars go blurry. It’s technical, demanding, and tedious… and sounds like anything but fun or necessary. It involves painstakingly comparing ancient manuscripts to determine the wording of a text of which we have no original copy. But sometimes the results of such detailed analysis yields fascinating results. This is one of the many reasons that we teach our students to engage in this process.

Consider Matthew 27:16-17. It’s Matthew’s version of the Barabbas episode—the famous story in which the Roman governor Pilate offers freedom to either Jesus or Barabbas.

If you read technical commentaries on this passage, you will find that textual scholars debate the wording of these verses. We have some manuscripts that add the name “Jesus” to Barabbas as if his full name was “Jesus Barabbas.” Essentially, the text in these copies reads:

“Now they had then a notorious prisoner, called Jesus Barabbas. Therefore when they had gathered, Pilate said to them, ‘Which of the two do you wish that I should release to you, Jesus Barabbas or Jesus the so-called Christ?’”

Even though the story of Barabbas is mentioned in all four Gospels, only here in Matthew do some manuscripts include the extra name “Jesus” for him. This is a textual issue unique to the Gospel of Matthew… not Mark, Luke, or John.

When there are differences in wording between manuscripts, usually textual scholars lean heavily on the earliest manuscripts, those closest to the time of the writing. Unfortunately, our earliest copies of these verses come from the fourth and fifth centuries, roughly 300 years after it was written. We have no early papyri here.

BUT, we do have an early Christian writer who discussed these very words in his commentary! Origen was the church’s most significant exegete in the third century… and the subject of an amazing dissertation written by a certain CBU professor (spoiler alert—it is the author of this post!)! Origen lived before our earliest tangible copies of these verses had been inked! And Origen describes manuscripts that include the name “Jesus Barabbas” (GCS 38, p. 255). So at one time, there certainly were earlier manuscripts—at least from the third century, or possibly before—that included this reading… which no longer exist for our consideration today. And that reading was significant enough that we find the compounded name “Jesus Barabbas” appearing occasionally in other early versions of Matthew… in Syriac, Armenian, Georgian, and Arabic manuscripts.

Now just because that reading was early does not make it original. In the third century, Origen was aware of Greek manuscripts of Matthew that included such wording… and others that didn’t. And Origen himself actually did not like the compounded name. He thought it rather unthinkable that a name as sacred as “Jesus” should be associated with the name of a convicted criminal. Granted, in first-century Palestine, the Jewish name “Jesus” was a *very* common name. It’s essentially the Hebrew name “Joshua.” Many others at that time had the same name (Col 4:11; Acts 13:6; Josephus Ant. 11.298; War 6.300; inter alia). Or as one of my colleagues often quips: “Every Tom, Dick, and Harry was named Jesus….” 🙂

Whether or not the compounded name “Jesus Barabbas” was in the initial copy of Matthew is much debated… and currently there is no consensus. It’s possible that the name could’ve been added accidentally. But it’s also possible that a scribe intentionally shortened the name to “Barabbas” alone… with the same thinking as Origen’s… and to harmonize with the other Gospels since Mark, Luke, and John never mention Barabbas having such a compounded name. There are good solid scholars who think the compounded name was original to Matthew 27, and good solid scholars who don’t. Therefore, some English translations include the compounded name (NRSV, CEB, NIV), and others do not (RSV, NASB, ESV, HCSB, NJB).

Either way, the manuscripts of Matthew that contain the reading “Jesus Barabbas” represent someone’s Bible—the living text of the Gospels—even if the compounded name was not original to the text. In other words, each manuscript belonged to someone—most likely a church, since most manuscripts were not privately owned for personal reading. So in that church, for those people, reading that manuscript, when they read what we now call Matthew chapter 27, that is how they understood the passage… “Jesus Barabbas” over and against “Jesus the so-called Christ.”

And what a fascinating comparison that is. When worded this way, the Judean crowds prompted by Pilate had to make a decisive decision… which “Jesus” did they want? Jesus Barabbas?… the violent, militant rebel who had committed murder revolting against Rome (see Mark 15:7)?… OR… “Jesus the so-called Christ”?… the Matthean Jesus who had said “love your enemies” (Mt 5:44)… “turn the other cheek” (Mt 5:39)… and “blessed are the peace-makers” (Mt 5:9)?

It’s an interesting contrast. We know nothing about Barabbas or any rebellion which Mark mentions (15:7). We don’t even know from outside sources that the Romans or Pilate had any kind of regular custom releasing a prisoner at Jewish festivals. Maybe this was just a one-time occasion as a nonviolent way for Pilate to squelch a growing disturbance so he wouldn’t lose control and thereby lose his job, as he eventually did.

Barabbas is presented as a violent rebel challenging Roman rule so Judea could be independent of pagan intrusion… to bring back the glory days of David and Solomon. With the zealot mentality, Barabbas would’ve been a kingdom builder—the kingdom of Israel—established with sword and dagger. He would’ve acted in what he thought was obedience to God, fighting for God and God’s people, defending God, God’s house, and God’s honor.

Jesus of Nazareth also was a kingdom builder. And he preached a lot about a kingdom… but a whole different kind of kingdom. (Occasionally some critical scholars have tried to claim that maybe the historical Jesus actually was a zealot and that’s why he got executed by the Romans; there seems to be no good evidence of that. If that were the case, we would expect to find much more anti-Roman sentiment by those associated with the historical Jesus.)

Instead, the kingdom of the Nazarene was a different kind of kingdom, a kingdom of peace, of justice and fairness, of mercy, of humility. It stood against power, materialism, and oppression. It stood for the marginalized, the oppressed, and the castaway. It was inclusive and not exclusive. It was radical and iconoclastic. A kingdom unlike any other. A kingdom without walls or turrets, moats or drawbridges. A kingdom that was almost unthinkable and unimaginable, except on the personal level, through the goodness and grace of its citizens, who were to live by the law of love in selfless submission to their God.

Unfortunately, forty years after this scene with the Roman governor and the Judean crowds, the same city faced a similar decision all over again. A Roman officer had been killed and events escalated quickly. Nero amassed his legions. Jerusalem chose the way of war, not peace. Rebellion, not diplomacy. Militancy, not mediation. Jewish militants—who considered themselves God’s patriots—recklessly thought this was their moment to seize the day and God would vindicate them and their cause. And they could not have been more wrong, or outnumbered.

The destruction that followed was staggering. Roman legions descended from the north and slaughtered village after village as they marched towards Jerusalem. Troops surrounded the city at the worst possible time as pilgrims had congregated for Passover. The Romans besieged the city and crucified any who tried to escape. Inside, food supplies ran out, and people died from hunger, strife, and anarchy. Finally, in August, with Jerusalem crippled by hunger and exhaustion, the Romans tore down the walls, burned the Temple, and utterly conquered the city. The survivors inside were all either slaughtered if they resisted or enslaved if they didn’t.

This past summer, I stood in Rome and observed the Arch of Titus. Titus was the Roman general, and eventual emperor, who led the Roman conquest of Jerusalem. Inside his arch, you can still see the inscription of the plundered artifacts such as a menorah that were paraded through the streets of Rome. And just a few hundred yards from there stands the Colosseum. That world-famous, iconic structure was erected only nine years later in part by the loot and slaves from the Roman conquest of Jerusalem. As famous and impressive as those monuments stand today, they represent conquest, violence, and bloodshed, tens of thousands of lives cut short pursuing short-sighted goals and ill-fated gains.

The question as posed in some manuscripts of Matthew 27 still stands for us today. Which kind of Jesus do we really want? Which one do we really want to follow? Which kind of kingdom do we really seek? And like those from centuries before, the answers are evident in our choices, the way we live our lives. May God help us to seek the right kingdom.

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[Read Matthew 1:18—2:23]

This post reflects Dr. Mobley’s personal interest in the dramatic nature of the Gospels (with a love for mystery!) and a persistent emphasis on seeing vital connections between the biblical story and contemporary life, an interplay that Dr.  Mobley strives to help his students see when they are in his classes.

Christmas can be crowded.  Perhaps rightly so, if appropriately centered, for there is much to celebrate—the Advent of a Saviour, Lamb of God, Prince of Peace.

But frequently overlooked in the busyness of the “holiday season” are the traditional ‘Twelve Days of Christmas’—an “inter-land” of time suspended between two mysteries: the mystery of Christ’s Incarnation and the mystery of a yet untraveled New Year.  Reflecting on the first of those mysteries can help prepare the way into the latter.

More particularly, those ‘Twelve Days’—from Dec. 26^th to Jan. 6^th—culminate in the visit of the magi, commemorated in the church calendar as the Feast of Epiphany (which means appearing; manifestation).  It is reasonable to infer that the “wise men” were late-comers to the occurrence of Jesus’ birth.  Consider the text: 1) the magi enter “the house”—better accommodations than an animal stable; 2) Jesus is referred to as “the child” (paidion) rather than “the infant” (brephos, as in Luke’s account); and 3) the murderous two-year calculation of King Herod, derived from information about the sighting of the star, provided by the magi who serve as unwitting accomplices to Herod’s treacherous scheming.     

Each of the Gospels presents high drama, and uniquely in Matthew’s Infancy Narrative there is intense suspense.¹ If presented theatrically:  Act I—the dream-warning to Joseph; Act II—the worshipful visit of the magi; Act III: downstage—the escape into Egypt, while upstage—the tragic Massacre of the Innocents; then an Epilogue—the return to Nazareth. 

From the storyline of ‘The Flight into Egypt’ what lessons—“take-aways” as we commonly call them—might be drawn from this intriguing gospel story? We will examine five aspects of their journey, and consider how they apply to our own lives today.

1. A pervasive atmosphere of threat

There is ample reason for the Christmas angels’ inevitable opener:  “Fear not!”  The Infancy Narrative, whether as given by Luke or supplemented by Matthew, is threaded with sufficient cause for anxiety: an unwed young maid facing disgrace, her perplexed fiancée seeking to deal with shame in an honorable manner, and the obligation of a strenuous journey which complicates an already precarious personal crisis.    

• Let us consider, do we begin 2020 with any less apprehension, whether on a personal scale (job insecurity, diagnosis of a terminal illness, fractured relationships) or in a wider margin (global terrorism, incessant random incidents of violence).

2. Political hostility

Jesus’ earthly life was bracketed by the maneuvering of two power-players—Herod, the paranoid king, and Pontius Pilate, the vacillating governor—both fearful of losing their grip on privileged positions of authority.

“Why do the nations rage … and the rulers conspire against the Lord and his Anointed One?” asks the Psalmist (2:1-2).  Well, they always have and always will.  It is their modus operandi … that is, until the return of the Lamb of God/Lion of Judah and his establishment of God’s justice and eternal reign of peace.

• Harsh political realities still stalk the face of the earth, opposed—often violently—to the followers of the Christ-child.  May we be diligent in sustaining prayer for the persecuted church worldwide.  Perhaps we might also mourn the counterparts of the slaughtered Bethlehem infants, in the death of innocent babies in our own country.

3. Trusting obedience

The primary mark of character shared by Joseph, Mary, and the magi is their response of faithful obedience to God’s revealed direction for their lives, no matter what the cost and in spite of yet unanswered questions.     

• In the New Year just entered, may we let the figures of faith in Matthew’s Infancy Narrative serve as our mentors, to meet the daily challenges and emergent crises of life with an implicit trust in God’s guidance and purpose.

4. An Immigrant Immanuel

There is plenty of traveling going on in the Infancy Narratives: the mandated trip from Nazareth to Bethlehem (4 to 7 days); the journey of the magi to Jerusalem (600-700 miles depending on point of departure); and the flight to Egypt (500-600 miles depending on point of destination).

Jesus entered his earthly life as the immigrant par excellence, in a family of refugees seeking asylum.  Matthew notes this, in his typical spotting of fulfilment-texts: “Out of Egypt I called my son.” (Hosea 11.1)  And the adult Jesus said, “the Son of Man has nowhere to lay his head.”

• Here is the gospel paradox: divine vulnerability, the Son of God descending from heaven’s majesty to be humbly clothed in fragile human existence, fully identifying with those he came to deliver. May we also be filled with humble compassion towards all those who are image-bearers of God.

5. Divine provision

Strange and seemingly inappropriate were those presents that the magi offered.  (If Jesus actually was born in December, a Hanukkah toy might have been more welcome for a young Jewish child!)  Yes, those extravagant gifts have often been seen as symbolic of the various facets of Jesus’ person and mission (King, Priest, Prophet).  But God who is lavish in his giving is also mindful of the practicalities of life.  How was this immigrant family going to survive, until Joseph found carpentry openings in the job market?  Would he be able to link up with Jews of the Diaspora, perhaps in Alexandria? 

•  May we be open to the surprising ways that God will provide for our needs in 2020.  As Jesus reminded us:  “Your Father knows what you need even before you ask him.”

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The story of the ‘Flight to Egypt’ is an interplay of divine revelation of purpose, and human trust in God’s faithfulness to provide.  The characters in each of the “acts” in this gospel drama intertwine with one another, as they each respond in individual ways to the God of Israel, the Lord of history.

Drama, paradox, mystery, divine providence and exemplars of trusting obedience … they are all there in Matthew’s account of the “Flight into Egypt”.  Before the “Bethlehem starlight” recedes too far from us and becomes dimmed by the “tyranny of the urgent,” may we allow enough sacred space to reflect upon and rejoice in the coming of the One who is, in deepest truth, Immanuel, “God with us!”  This is the Word of the Lord … thanks be to God!   

The Impressionist depiction by Tanner, featured at the beginning of this post, evokes an air of suspense surrounding the arrival of the Holy Family in Egypt.  See a discussion of the life and work of Henry Ossawa Tannner (an African-American artist of the early twentieth century) in: Podles, Mary Elizabeth.  “The Flight into Egypt.”  Touchstone: a Journal of Mere Christianity  (November/December 2019): 54-55.