The Excluded Exorcist & the Sons of Thunder

Jesus Christ employs PARADOX – the weak are strong. The mourners are happy. The poor are rich. The humble/low are the highest/greatest.

The disciples are very slow to see this. Their whole orientation is about power and dominance and getting over other people by means of popularity and competition and status and success.

And THIS is the chapter in which their notions (which are ALSO basically OUR ideas too!) THEIR cherished beliefs about what's wrong with the world and HOW to fix it – their views collide with the basic principles of Jesus and His administration. They don't really know Him and they don't really know themselves.

Today, this comes out in two ways that often afflict religious people and the big words for these two conditions are sectarianism and misplaced zeal or extremism.

1. I want to look at these two unhelpful (to but it lightly) two harmful conditions and who is most susceptible to them.
2. Second, how Jesus cures these impulses (sectarianism/extremism [misplaced zeal])
3. Then, finally how does religion without these ugly traits function – (how is it different?)