The irony is that while Jesus loved his disciples he expected a great deal from them and sought to transform them a great deal before they were qualified to actually fully take on and continue his mission, and the process of change, transformation, and growth would continue after they had begun the work. Peter had to come to grips with his cowardice, egoism, impetuousness, dissembling and denials. Paul had to cease his ethical rigidity [as so did Peter] with regard to the Jewish law and stop his arrests, bogus trials, persecutions, and resultant deaths of early followers of Jesus. Mark had to learn how to deal with fear in face of the real threats other peoples posed if he was to continue in carrying out the apostolic mission after he was sent home by Paul.

Thomas who was skeptical and prone to want empirical evidence and who lacked trust and faith had to learn trust and faith and that all true knowledge does not come only through the empirical senses. Nathaniel had to learn that someone's place of origin and background should not immediately count against them. Matthew had to unlearn the practices and attitudes he had developed as a civil servant and a tax collector and in regard to the latter, given the generally common practice of the day of tax collectors, had to learn to not exploit others for wealth he did not have a right to, for a profit he had no right to realize [just as Zacchaeus had to learn the same].

Timothy had to learn that his relative youth should not be permitted to inhibit the hard work he was called to do which sometimes meant confronting the errors of those older than himself, meant having to call folks back to the truth, and meant have to get them back on track in terms of worship and evangelism, etc. They all had to learn to live in accord with the rather demanding and radical ethic of Judaism and Jesus which ran in direct contradiction and confrontation with the pagan ethics of the Greek and Roman world into which they were sent. They had to be willing to confront idolatry and immorality, to confront evil and harm, and be willing to suffer death. No easy thing to be a first century Christian and follow Jesus' demanding ethic and to live the real love of God given in and through Jesus.

Jesus himself had shown himself to be hard and confrontational with religious leaders of his day who were either self-serving, or who watered down the teaching of Judaism, or added unnecessary burdens to people, especially the poor, the sinful, the unclean, the unwashed, etc. Jesus was willing to confront a Roman official with truth even though the Roman official scoffed. He was willing on one, perhaps two, different occasions to clear the temple of abuses. He was not always Jesus meek and mild.

Jesus in fact talks more about hell than anyone else in the entire Bible and talks considerably more about hell than he does heaven. He speaks of the road to real and eternal life being narrow and wide the road that leads to destruction. He is harsh with those who belief that they are righteous because their sense of righteousness seems to match the sense of righteousness that seems prevalent in their culture and who have essentially accommodated themselves to the zeitgeist of the day. On the way to his death he warns the women of Judea to be prepared to suffer in the days ahead and that they will wish that they had not brought children into a world that is going to know the consequences of its own self-destructive indulgence and rejection of God's revelation and authentic ethic. Earlier he wept over the city and people of Jerusalem for what will befall them as a consequence of their not adhering to the actions of God in and through Jesus on their behalf.

From the cross Jesus hands over responsibility to the young, probably single, and thus far largely without many adult responsibilities, John, of his mother. Now John, who probably had not expected this, is going to have to exercise some form of responsibility for Mary, his Lord's earthly mother. It has to be quite a dramatic change in John's living arrangements despite what was undoubtedly his love for both Jesus and Mary. Imagine yourself having to suddenly acquire such a responsibility. And tradition says Mary accompanied John throughout the rest of his life and was with him in Ephesus where he was bishop and it was there she died and was assumed into heaven. It is not known whether her death occurred before or after his exile for a time to the Isle of Patmos where he was given the revelation, but if it was after does it not seem reasonable John might have shown some concern about Mary's care while he was forced to be away?

After his resurrection Jesus has to ask Peter three times if Peter loves him to underscore the hard realities that are to come with exercising real love. It had to be very painful for Peter as each of the three askings of the question - in parallel to Peter's three painful denials - brought back to the surface things Peter would probably have rather forgotten. The reality of forgiveness for Peter did not come as easy as an "I forgive you, Peter" from Jesus. Peter had to undergo the hard realities that accompany real repentance (metanoia).

Paul had to endure misunderstandings, the imputation of false motives, beatings, shipwrecks, near starvation at times, bitter cold, abuse, isolation, all in order to love Jesus and let the love of God and of Jesus come through him to others. No weak and sappy sentimental love is this and yet Paul writes most eloquently of the nature of love despite its costliness.

Tradition says that all but John gave up their lives in the cause of taking the demanding and life transforming gospel of Jesus and the love of God to the world.

Paul, Peter and Jude are known to have had to confront quite dramatically false teachers and false teachings that sought to distort the teaching of Jesus in one direction or another. They could not merely, out of some kind of weak love, some kind of sentimental love, a love that would say, let's all just try to get along, let's just agree to disagree, take over because they understood the real life changing love of God and the gospel of Jesus would get lost and humankind would be the losers. They understood some realities could not be compromised.

Jesus upheld the core Law's essential teaching on divorce going back to God's intention in creation. He upheld the Law's essential core teaching on adultery and expanded it to include not only an actual act but also even the thoughts of a person which had lust and adultery as their theme. The New Testament also makes clear, as with the case with what was actually taught in the Jewish Decalogue, that the prohibition against adultery was also against fornication, any sexual activity outside of marriage and Saint Paul suggests lust is not even appropriate within the marital relationship of a man and a woman.

It becomes quite obvious that those who would reduce the Christian teaching and ethic to some expressions like what we identified at the beginning of this short reflection cannot do so on the basis of Jesus, the New Testament or the Christian apostolic tradition. Instead, if they want to perpetuate what is a new ethical understanding they should not try to cloak it under the label of "Christian" or "Christianity" but have the courage to admit they are introducing a new innovation, an interpretation unsupported by Jesus or the foundational traditions or texts of Christianity, and give it a new title. They should also cease to pursue their attempted take over of the Christian churches. This they would do if they were people of integrity.

Copyright 2006, Bruce A. Flickinger