QUESTION FOR BIBLE BELIEVERS Mathew 17:27

by fedorE 13 Replies latest watchtower bible

  • fedorE
    fedorE

    Recently to pass the time at the mtg i was dozing thru Mathew( while the speaker..whatever..) at any rate. i found Math 17:27 peculiar of a certain smell, lets call it an unpleasantness.,out of respect for u guys. Why would Jesus have Peter leave, go fishing, and go thru the trouble of finding the 1st fish and a coin to pay the tax inside the mouth of this fish, when all he had to do to hasten the paying of the tax was produce it. Didn't they carry any money? How long was the collector going to wait for the money? DOESNT IT SOUND LIKE A STORY? Below is the answer of 2 online "christian" sources, one of which suggests it didnt even happen!....LOL...anyways what your take?"IN THE One final word needs to be said about the miracle of Mtw 17:27 where Jesus tells Peter to take a (line and) hook, go to the Sea and to catch a fish, inside of which he’ll find a stater (a coin valued at one shekel) and that he is to pay the tax for both of them. It’s plain to the reader that, although this command is given to Peter, the author doesn’t go on to tell us that this actually took place and Matfran comments that ‘...it has been plausibly suggested that Jesus’ words were merely a playful comment on their lack of ready money’but, if this is the case, it’s difficult to see how Jesus could ever have paid the tax that year. Matmor notes that others take the phrase to mean something along the lines that Peter is to be more concerned with fishing and that the tax will look after itself but he concludes, however, that ‘...if this is what Matthew meant, he has recorded it in a very strange way. It is better to understand him [or ‘Him’?] to mean that there would be a real coin in the mouth of a real fish’ and this is the easiest of all the options. Just because the miracle isn’t recorded as happening needn’t imply that Jesus’ words meant anything other than that the incident would occur."

    "Although this sets the precedent that God can supply our needs in a miraculous way, it's important to remember that God doesn't counterfeit money. He didn't create money in the fish but rather had the fish miraculously find and swallow the exact Roman coin that Peter needed. It's a mistake to just pray and then wait on God to rain the money down from heaven. As Luke 6:38 says, God uses men (and sometimes fish) to give finances to us. He can do it in a very unexpected, supernatural way but it will involve people and existing currency. There is a scriptural precedent for God multiplying natural resources (1 Ki. 17:12-16; 2 Ki. 4:2- 7,42-44; Mt. 14:15-21; 15:32-38; Mk. 6:33-44; 8:1-9; Lk. 9:11-17; Jn. 6:5-14"

  • Leolaia
    Leolaia

    Check out this recent blog:

    Certainly some parts of the CA [Christian Apocrypha] are bizarre to modern readers. But the NT texts too are pretty bizarre. The canonical gospels feature a man who is born from a virgin, speaks to voices from heaven, walks on water, multiplies food, heals afflictions, and rises from the grave. How are these things any less “bizarre” than a talking cross (Gospel of Peter) or a cursing Jesus (Infancy Thomas; see the canonical Acts for plenty of examples of cursing holy men)? .... [O]ne of the most memorable experiences I had was of a student who guessed that the coin in the fish's mouth (Matt. 17.24-27) must be a non-canonical text because it was so weird. She was horrified to discover that it was in the Bible.

    http://ntgateway.com/weblog/2007/08/strangeness-of-biblical-and-apocryphal_10.html

  • LtCmd.Lore
    LtCmd.Lore

    Not being a Bible Believer, I don't qualifiy to respond. But it's an interesting question about a rarely used story...

    I don't buy the whole "God wouldn't make a counterfeit." thing. Works for the Fairly Odd-Parents, but not for [The Son Of] God.

    1.) As the Christ, he was under no obligation to obey the Roman laws. And he obviously had no problem breaking the Sabbath, which according to HIS OWN [FATHER'S] law that he made earlier, he should have been killed for that. So breaking laws wasn't a big deal to him.

    2.) I'm not entirely sure there WAS such a thing as a counterfeit back then. The coins where made of REAL silver and bronze, so I believe they would have roughly the same value if the were melted down and made into spoons, the coin form was only used for convenience. As long as it wasn't fake silver, it wouldn't be counterfeit. Silver is silver. But I dunno much about that.

    3.) Even if he HAD to use a REAL stater coin, there would be much easier ways of getting one. He could simply teleport the coin directly into his hand, and save a lot of time and effort. *Poof* Here's a wet slimy coin directly from a fish stomach. Or grab a passerby and, for a limited time only, offer to cure an illness or copy his calf for just two easy payments of one shekel. (The obvious retort would be that he wouldn't use his powers to make money... but that's exactly what he DID with the fish, and nobody got cured in the process.)

    Lore

  • DeusMauzzim
    DeusMauzzim
    How are these things any less “bizarre” than a talking cross (Gospel of Peter)

    This one is priceless! I remember well reading the GoPeter for the first time and still laughing about it a week later

    "And the Cross said: 'Yea!'"

    - Deus Mauzzim

  • Leolaia
    Leolaia

    JD Crossan (in his book The Cross That Spoke) believes that the cross is a cross-shaped aggregation of all the resurrected dead that Jesus brings out of Hades after his time there. Not exactly a convincing argument, but an interesting one.

  • hibiscusfire
    hibiscusfire

    All I have to say about Matthew 17:27 is this:

    The the Temple tax which Peter paid For Jesus and himself did not come out of the pocket of their treasurer.

    If the disciples had money as Faith teachers claim, Jesus would not have had Peter go fish for a coin, they would have already had it. This is just one of the miracles Jesus did.

    Was Jesus rich? Jesus was born in a stable. Jesus gave up all the riches that are his in heaven to become a man and was born to a poor family (not homeless and destitute), his stepfather was carpenter. And Jesus said, "Foxes have holes and birds of the air have nests, but the Son of Man has nowhere to lay His head." Jesus himself he had no place to lay his head, no permanent home, he constantly traveled.

    Do riches prove God's blessings? Nothing could be further from the truth. Their are many who are rich despite their disbelief. Prosperity is not an absolute to show Gods hand in ones life, it might in fact show the opposite.

    Proverbs 16:16: tells those who want to pursue God - it is better to get wisdom instead of gold.

    Matt 6:19-21: "Do not lay up for yourselves treasures on earth, where moth and rust destroy and where thieves break in and steal; "but lay up for yourselves treasures in heaven, where neither moth nor rust destroys and where thieves do not break in and steal "For where your treasure is, there your heart will be also.

    hibiscusfire

  • Leolaia
    Leolaia

    C'mon, Criss Angel does this kind of stuff all the time. Remember the episode where he takes a girl's engagement ring and tells her to select a loaf of bread, asks her to guess a number, and then she will find the ring in the loaf under that slice?

  • fedorE
    fedorE

    (The obvious retort would be that he wouldn't use his powers to make money... but that's exactly what he DID with the fish, and nobody got cured in the process.)-Excellent point....I also thought of Chris Angel when i read this..lol....

  • JCanon
    JCanon

    The obvious retort would be that he wouldn't use his powers to make money... but that's exactly what he DID with the fish, and nobody got cured in the process.)-Excellent point....I also thought of Chris Angel when i read this..lol....

    Money is not always in the best interest. It gives one too much power and too many choices. When you're poor with limited funds it limits you. For instance. I've whimsied how nice it would be if I just mysteriously won the lottery! Why not!!! God could somehow inspire me with the winning numbers and suddenly I'd have $30 million! I would think initially I'd have more time to devote to preaching. Maybe I would be quite charitable. But lots of wealthy people are indeed quite charitable. In the meantime, money sometimes acts as a guilded cage. I mean, if you don't have that much money and say you go on a trip to Hawaii, you find the nicest but least expensive accommodations. They are probably quite nice. A nice clean room with a microwave. You're ecstatic, right? But if you have $30 million, that little room doesn't make sense. It's suddenly not good enough. You want to now stay right on the beach in one of the big hotels, surrounded by other people who can afford and think it's worth it to pay $1000 a night. It's a whole different world. But did you really CHOOSE that? No, your money status did.

    Plus you can't do what you usually would like to do. If everybody knows you have a lot of money they treat you differently. Now some people like that if they want to buy every drinks or have people becoming their friend because of their money. But sometimes you don't really want that. So you can't just be around the everyday poor people any more. You're less accepting of so many things that you would have enjoyed as just a person with a little money. Maybe you don't feel safe walking around any more. You're worried about getting robbed.

    So if God were going to give me "financial independence" I don't think I'd want to be rich. I'd like to maybe just get a monthly income of say $40,000....oops! I mean, say $2000 or $4000 a month. That way I just end up with my time but no real improvement in life's accessories.

    Plus, I've heard some true-life stories about the superrich. I helped a writer who was writing the Loretta Young story and she was great friends with the Del Amos, a superrich family who owned land in the LA Area. But one of the sons, who inherited millions, didn't want to do anything but live the good life. He went to Monte Carlo and gambled and took a large entourage along with him. If you have money, you want people around to have fun with. Apparently, he went through those millions in short order.

    Lots of people rich enough think they want something and find out they really don't. In the end, they sometimes just want the simple life.

    Of course, if you knew that ahead of time. That if you were a prince with all kinds of money that you'd envy the simple life of the average man, and value his real experience in touch with the common people doing everyday things, then it sort of kills your desire to actually have too much money; because it affects too much. Money has it's own high-maintenace issues.

    Now it's not that I don't like fun. But I figure I would enjoy being superrich for about a Week (make that a month!) You know, eat the $100 dinners, stay in that fancy resort hotel. Go on that cruise. Just to see what a lot of money can do for you. But then after that, I'd want my own, simple lifestyle back. Maybe even a job! (YIPPPES!)

    What I've observed about the rich, is they think they own wealth, but wealth owns them. And it's not that some people don't fully understand how to be rich and HAPPY! In fact, they'd be unhappy without a lot of money. But I just don't think I'm one of those people. I enjoy the everyday stuff too much, like riding the bus. Being treated for who I am and not what I have. Going to some local pizza buffet, thrilled to death that it's only $4.99 for all the pizza and pasta and salad you can eat!

    Anyway, sometimes you need a lot of money and sometimes you don't. And sometimes money gets in the way, and sometimes it opens the way.

    JC

  • Uncertain
    Uncertain

    This supports the gospel truth that Jesus was kind enough to grant Peter almost any excuse to go fishing. Also that rendering onto Caesar can be sort of fishy. It also can be explained that neither Jesus nor Peter had pockets, or pocketbooks. Had the queen of England or Tinky Winky been with them, the incident may have happened differently.

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