Many scholars agree that Sunday's lection contains John's Pentecost. If the Acts' version happened 50 days after Jesus’s resurrection, John's happened on Easter evening.
I would like to share my take on verse 23.
Sin is legislated. Resistance is criminalized. Dissent is demonized. The merger of political and religious power predates Pontius Pilate's and Joseph Caiaphas's conjugal dictatorship. If we read our Bibles and pray everyday, we will grow, grow, grow in this realization: sinners are, more often than not, synonymous with the poor, oppressed, and marginalized in the Gospels. Who can afford the offerings in the temple? Who has the resources to bribe authorities? Who writes the law and for whose benefit?
Over and over in the Gospels, Jesus sins (against the Sabbath) and heals sinners. Over and over in the Gospels, Jesus declares sinners forgiven...to the consternation of the people who legislate sin.
In John 20:23, Jesus commands his disciples to forgive and not to forgive. A better translation, echoing Matthew 16:19 and 18:18, is worded "to set free or to bind."
Jesus' command has not changed. Set free the poor. Bind the powerful who keep them poor.
#IAmWithJesus
#EndTheCultureOfImpunity
#JunkTerrorLawNow
*art, Jesus appears to Thomas (JESUS MAFA) Vanderbilt Divinity Library digital archives
