New Translation

The other night, I read about half of the gospel of Matthew in a new translation of the new testament, The Message, and I was beginning to understand why the Bible is favorite reading for some folks--if you can understand them (thanks, in my case, to the translation, rather than long and careful study) the stories are really pretty good.

Anyway, reading a big chunk like that also brought out a particular conflict or tension I see in the gospel. On the one hand, Jesus talks about how easy this new life is, and on the other hand he talks about difficult it is.

Actually, though, now that I think about it, what's difficult is actually how much you have to give up for it--selling everything you own for one beautiful pearl, or selling all your land for one field with treasure in it. I guess what he's saying is: this is a good life--living in the kingdom of God--but you have to put everything into it. The putting everything into it part is what makes it so difficult, to my mind. Is it worth it?

Which brings us to another story I've been thinking about lately. Jesus says, (paraphrase here): "If someone were going to build a tower, first he would decide whether or not he had the money and materials to do it. Otherwise, he could get halfway through and run out of financing and have to just leave the empty foundation there in the ground. At that point, everybody's going to laugh at him. So make sure you tally up the cost before you jump in.