(August 31, 2015 at 2:55 pm)robvalue Wrote: He got mad at a fig tree for not bearing fruit out of season. For someone who knows everything, he sure is a dumb fucker.
It pays to remember that all of the Bible stories are interwoven and need to be analyzed as a group. The story about Jesus and the fig tree is related to Jeremiah 8:13
https://www.biblegateway.com/verse/en/Jeremiah%208:13
Jeremiah 8:13 (GNT) = “I wanted to gather my people, as a farmer gathers a harvest; but they are like a vine with no grapes, like a fig tree with no figs; even the leaves have withered. Therefore, I have allowed outsiders to take over the land.”
Hosea 9:10 (ERV) = 10 “At the time I, the Lord, found Israel, they were like fresh grapes in the desert. They were like the first figs on a fig tree at the beginning of the season. But when they came to Baal Peor, they changed. So I had to cut them off like rotten fruit. They became like the terrible things that they loved."
Joel 1:6-7 (ERV) = 6 A powerful nation came to attack my land.
Its soldiers were too many to count.
Its weapons were as sharp as a lion’s teeth
and as powerful as a lion’s jaw.
7 It destroyed my grapevine.
Its good vines withered and died.
It destroyed my fig tree,
stripped off the bark and threw it away.
Habakkuk 3:17-18 (ERV) = 17 Figs might not grow on the fig trees,
and grapes might not grow on the vines.
Olives might not grow on the olive trees,
and food might not grow in the fields.
There might not be any sheep in the pens
or cattle in the barns.
18 But I will still be glad in the Lord
and rejoice in God my Savior.
Haggai 2:19 (CEV) = Although you have not yet harvested any grain, grapes, figs, pomegranates, or olives, I will richly bless you in the days ahead.
Luke 13:60-7 (CEV) = 6 Jesus then told them this story:
A man had a fig tree growing in his vineyard. One day he went out to pick some figs, but he didn’t find any. 7 So he said to the gardener, “For three years I have come looking for figs on this tree, and I haven’t found any yet. Chop it down! Why should it take up space?”
So it should be obvious that the fig tree and figs are used as metaphors in the story in Matthew 21:18-22.
The stories might seem simple but they are very complex.
