Cheryl Schatz

Vance, You have brought up some excellent points to consider. You said: When Luke 7:28 says – – “but he that is least in the kingdom of God is greater than he.” Jesus may have been speaking about His ‘upside down’ Kingdom, wherein the least is the greatest. Thanks for bringing this up! Jesus indeed taught about the ‘upside down’ kingdom, but I do not believe that he used the terms greatest and least. What He said was that if you want to be the greatest, you must be the servant of all. This does not mean that you become the least. Jesus was the servant of all, but He was not the least. What exactly did Jesus mean when He said that the “least” is “greater” than the “greatest” one on earth? First of all I think we need to understand that Jesus taught responsibility with what has been given to us. In the context of judgment, Jesus said: Luke 12:48 (NASB) …From everyone who has been given much, much will be required; and to whom they entrusted much, of him they will ask all the more. John the Baptist was the greatest because he had been given the most of any man here on the earth. He had the Holy Spirit since he was a baby in the womb and He had revelation from the Spirit that was spectacular. But “the much” was not good enough for John as he ended up with doubts about the witness of the Holy Spirit about Jesus. Nothing more would be given John because to whom much is given, much is required from that person. We must use what we have or risk losing it. So John was the greatest, because he was given the most. The least in the kingdom is the most insignificant. Jesus said that John is less than the most insignificant one in the kingdom. How can you have no significance at all unless you are not in the kingdom? Jesus does not call us to be insignificant. Jesus calls us to greatness. He just calls us to greatness through humility. A humble person is not an insignificant person. It is possible that I have missed a teaching of Jesus telling us to be insignificant, but I am unaware of such a teaching. I believe that the upside down system that Jesus taught was about humility, not about insignificance. If I am wrong, I stand to be corrected. Thank you Vance for popping in and having this dialog. I appreciate your words and the apparent balance that you seek to have. It is a good thing!