1. Did he ever actually give his own money to the poor, or does he just tell other people to give money to the poor?
2. Does he ever forgive people who haven't asked him for forgiveness?
The first comes from a claim I read that I'd like verified, the second because I claimed it myself in an argument with my mother and I'd like to know if I was just making up stuff, right, or both.
CC
3 comments:
1. Can't think of an account of him giving his own money offhand. (Can't think of an account of him having any to give, either.)
2. Remember, in ancient Judaism you could forgive others who sinned against you, but not others who sinned against others or against God. The Pharisees were always trying to catch him forgiving on God's behalf rather than his own so they could accuse him of blasphemy, but he was wily and they were never able to make it stick. When he said to people "your sins are forgiven", was he speaking as God, or merely as a good pastor teaching about the attitude of a benevolent God? The Gospels are equivocal. He did refuse to condemn the woman caught in adultery who had not sought him out, and he shamed her accusers into dropping their charges against her, which perhaps amounts to forgiveness.
The image of the defiant adulteress refusing to ask even Jesus himself for forgiveness, to say nothing of anyone else, well suits my sense of drama.
CC
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