Jesus Quotes

These antifamily traditions are too widely attested in our sources to be ignored (they are found in Mark, Q, and Thomas, for example), and they show that Jesus did not support what we today might think of as family values. But why not? Evidently because, as I have already emphasized, he was not teaching about the good society and about how to maintain it. The end was coming soon, and the present social order was being called radically into question. What mattered was not ultimately the strong family ties and social institutions of this world. What mattered was the new thing that was coming, the future kingdom. It was impossible to promote this teaching while trying to retain the present social structure. That would be like trying to put new wine into old wineskins or trying to sew a new piece of cloth to an old garment. As any wine master or seamstress can tell you, it just won’t work.

Bart Ehrman
Just as Jesus called out Peter as being of the devil for tempting him to take an easy way out, I believe such thoughts originate from the same place of fear. We can’t imagine how we’ll get through such a painful ordeal, so we want to take the first way out we see. We don’t want to have to suffer, uncertain of when—or if—we will come out the other side.

Brian Houston
- Jesus
- Devil
- Peter