I told you so. Months ago, I told my audience that Christians were making a big mistake when they allowed themselves to be characterized as Christian Right, or Christian Left. There are those who believe that Jesus was a conservative. Others believe he was a liberal. Neither group understands the first thing about Jesus. I warned my audience that getting locked up with one political party, block or movement allows the Christians and their agenda to be dismissed.

Now this sounds like a revolutionary idea, but it is Christianity 101—the basics. We are a people apart, a holy people. We can fight the culture wars, but it has to be fought as individuals, not as a political bloc. We are not really an army in this world, we are infiltrators. We have a message and a witness, and it is that message that is our business.

I want to pose yet another mystery about the four Gospel accounts: Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John. But before I can do that, we need to consider some things. We're allowed, in studying the testimony of these men, to consider their objectives and their circumstances as far as we can determine them. We're assisted in this task by the testimony of a legion of expert witnesses—we call them scholars.

Now, if you're sitting on the jury in a murder trial, the prosecuting attorney is going to put the police detective on the stand, show him a revolver, and ask him questions about it. Here he is going about establishing a chain of evidence. But he is also going to call expert witnesses in ballistics, forensics, and so on. In our little analogy, these are the scholars.

Our legal system assumes that ordinary guys and gals like you and me—with no special training of any kind—can listen to all this, decide who is telling the truth, and come to a decision beyond a reasonable doubt. We actually have to assume, in a way, that something like this goes on in biblical studies—that you and I are able to examine the evidence, hear from the experts, and draw our conclusions. So here we are, sitting on a jury talking about the Book of Matthew—whether it is true, right, and valid. But before we consult our experts, let's establish some ground rules.

I had a friend some time ago who loved to argue the Bible, and whenever we got to a certain point, he would say Well, the Bible says what it means and it means what it says. Of course, he usually fell back on that statement when his point was weak. And he didn’t really believe it—not the way he intended it to be taken—because he was kind of suggesting that when it suited him the Bible was to be taken literally, and when it didn’t suit him then it didn’t necessarily have to be. But in fact we all interpret the Bible as we read it, and that is exactly what God intends for us to do. Now I will admit it is not always that simple, but you are allowed to bring common sense to the table and ask yourself how Jesus intended us to take his meaning? I will give you an example.

I used to teach Bible in college, and I often enjoyed dropping a pop quiz on the students. One of my questions, which was related to the assignment that was to be read that particular day was Cite the scripture from today’s reading that shows Jesus did not always intend us to take him literally. Now, you don’t have the reading assignment they did. But if you have read the New Testament, can you think of something Jesus said that should easily demonstrate that he doesn’t always intend you to take him literally? Well, here’s the answer I was looking for from the class, and you might be surprised how many of them missed it, even though they had just read it, theoretically, in the past few days.

And if your right eye causes you to offend, pluck it out, and cast it from you: for it is better for you that one of your members should perish, and not that your whole body should be cast into hell. And if your right hand causes you to offend, cut it off, and cast it from you: for it is better for you that one of your members should perish, and not that your whole body should be cast into hell.

Now most sound-minded people reading that passage will know immediately that if my right hand does something wrong, it was not at the volition of the hand. My hand does not have its own brain. If you got caught shoplifting there’s no point in blaming your hand. Everybody knows that it was your brain that gave you the instructions and it is your head that should be cut off (but of course not). And here is a useful lesson to take with you: Anytime a passage of scripture seems to turn off into the absurd, it is figurative and not be taken literally. The absurdity illustrates it. Now, did Jesus say what he meant and did he mean what he said? Well, yes, but maybe he didn’t say what you thought he said.