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This sort of interpretation tends to strip Jesus' preaching of anything particularly novel or interesting. "Well when he said turn the other cheek he didn't mean you should let your enemies kill you, he just meant, you know, don't go off half-cocked, control your anger," "Well when he said 'it is easier for a camel to pass through the eye...' he didn't mean it's bad to be rich, he just meant don't love money too much." This is all stuff any Greek Pagan would have happily nodded along with. What was so hard or so shocking about the path Jesus offered?
I think Jesus' message probably was radically ascetic and self-denying. The story of Lazarus and the Rich Man is also interesting in this regard. It's from a different author than Matthew's gospel, so it's not necessarily going to agree on everything, but in the story, the rich man never actually appears to do anything wrong. You could kind of argue his sin was not being more charitable to Lazarus, but the text never actually says this. And when the rich man is being tormented in Hades and asks Abraham for a cup of water, Abraham tells him no, because "remember that during your lifetime you received your good things and Lazarus in like manner evil things, but now he is comforted here, and you are in agony." That's it. In other words, the rich man went to Hell just for being rich. It had little to do with his or Lazarus' deeds in life, but with a cosmic imbalance that had to be corrected. The story is kind of a didactic one even if it isn't literally a parable so it doesn't necessarily mean Luke thought every rich person was going to Hell and I'm sure he didn't think every poor person would have a share in the kingdom but the overall view of earthly wealth is very dim.
This is somewhat supported by what is known of the early church, it's self-imposed poverty and the lack of any violent resistance to persecution. People being what they are, this didn't last long and pretty soon theologians and church fathers were spinning all sorts of justification for why you can actually
Absolutely. He did not come to abolish the Law or the Prophets, but to fulfill them. The novelty of Jesus's teaching is entirely in the nature of Grace, not specific ethical teachings.
I was of this opinion once, from most of my childhood as a protestant and most of my adulthood as an atheist, but I've changed my mind — the text of scripture does seem to have fruit beyond the autistic literal definition of the words. A lot of protestants (or atheists who were protestants) are lead astray by things like "Sheathe thy sword, for all who take the sword shall perish with the sword" and don't step back to think: Wait a second, why do twelve disciples have swords three years into Jesus's ministry if Jesus actually teaches unconditional pacifism like the literal words suggest?
The steelman for your views is in the book of Acts, where the early Christians after Pentecost form what appears to be a commune. (There is also an incident right after this where a wealthy couple hold back some of their wealth, lie about it, and the Holy Spirit executes them on the spot.) I would encourage anyone to read these early chapters of Acts, because ostensibly the early Christians invested supernaturally with the Holy Spirit would be authorities on what Jesus actually meant. But again I would say there is a deeper meaning that goes beyond sanewashing cope.
If that's the case, he wasted a lot of time delivering ethical teaching. I tend to think Jesus believed 'works' were a lot more essential to salvation than most Protestants (even most Catholics) would like.
They didn't. Jesus told them to go buy some swords earlier that same week, explicitly so that he could fulfill the prophecy that he would be 'counted among the transgressors,' and then forbids them from using the swords when he's arrested. There's not a single place in the New Testament where violence against one's enemies is encouraged or even sanctioned. Divine violence on the other hand is all over the NT, you might even say it's the whole point, but that's a very different matter.*
*I would say the pacifism of the early Christians is inexplicable without the apparently ubiquitous belief that Jesus was going to come back very soon to establish the kingdom and destroy Rome and the nations; in other words, earthly Christians didn't need to do any killing because God was about to do it for them. When this didn't pan out naturally doctrine had to evolve.
Grace leads to good works because grace remakes men morally. "Grace without good works" is incoherent; if you are not doing good works, you have not accepted grace. The dispute between protestants and catholics lies in the catholic church's offer of a bargain by which a favor from God could be purchased: that you could do a good work to "buy" grace.
As told in Luke, they already had two on hand.
There is no occurrence where violence would be appropriate, save for crucifixion, which was Christ's intention to suffer. A centurion approaches Jesus in Matthew and Jesus praises him and says that he will enter God's kingdom with no stipulation that he give up his army gig.
What is forbidden by Christ is retribution or vengeance. That a Christian cannot take up a sword in hatred or for his own personal ends is beyond question.
It depends on what you mean. The actions of the apostles recorded in scripture are strong evidence for any Christian that believes in biblical inerrancy — which I believe is all of them. They certainly acted as if they could not use violence to defend their own persons against persecution. However, this does not track 1:1 with the question of whether a Christian can be a soldier, police officer, defend their family against a rapist, etc: that is, commit violence not on one's own behalf. The apostles did not address that question or find themselves in that situation.
(EDIT: I see Romans 13 gets cited a lot in defense of Christian police officers, despite the main focus being Christians obeying the police. Looks cut and dry on that one.)
As for the behavior of Christians in the 2nd century, one is perfectly entitled to think individuals from that time period might be wrong about doctrine, same as one might think for the 6th century, 11th century, 15th century, or (now) 21st century.
His ethical teaching falls into the camps "you think you're doing enough, but you're nowhere near adequate by God's standards" or "you're hewing to the letter of the law rather than reaching the spirit of the law, which is what you know is right". Both those points are to a purpose. He avoids giving straightforward list of instructions, and he teaches in questions and riddles, because being a moral person does not mean lawyering your way around a contract of clear-cut rules as the Jews had been trying for several hundred years.
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