“Blessed are you when people insult you, and persecute you, and say all kinds of evil lies about you because of me.” Matthew 5:11. The Westar scholars decided that while Jesus probably said something like this, the form is most likely from a later period when groups of Jesus people actuallywere vilified – by other groups who claimed their way of following Jesus was the only correct way. For example, in the First Letter to Timothy (not a letter by Paul, but from a leader of a more organized church a generation or two later,) the writer states: “But the spirit distinctly says that in later times there will be some who renounce the faith and devote their attention to deceitful spirits, and to the teachings of demons, who will make use of the hypocrisy of lying teachers. These people’s conscience is seared, and they forbid marriage and enjoin abstinence from certain kinds of food which God created to be received with thanksgiving . . .” 1 Timothy 4:1-3a. A message of Christian love? These were words of a vicious feud among different groups of Christ followers, and it continued unto the Fourth Century until the Emperor Constantine forced the bishops to settle on one version of Jesus’ story. Anyone who disagreed was ostracized, marginalized, or worse. I wish these words were not in our Bible! Today the rhetoric between political groups and even between religious groups reminds me of the vituperation of those early church leaders. I pray that our generations can find common ground before the damage is so great that it cannot be healed.

Lyn Pickhover, Peace Lover