Why is John's Judas so much harsher?
Boova's carryover hard question: why does John's Gospel feel so much more aggressive toward Judas than the Synoptics — 'son of perdition,' the money-bag thief detail, 'Satan enters him'? The room works through possibilities: John wrote decades later, saw the ripple effects, and may have been personally irritated by a close friend's betrayal (the Paul Simon to Judas's Art Garfunkel). A competing theory — Judas was trying to force Jesus' hand into a Davidic, Solomon-style kingship — is found compatible with John: it is the same temptation Satan offers in Matthew 4 and the one behind 'get behind me, Satan' to Peter, except Judas persisted where Peter backed off. The discussion widens: is Judas exempt from forgiveness? Was he destined to betray? Parallels with Nebuchadnezzar and the hardening of Pharaoh's heart follow, and a host is comfortable with God subverting human free will — 'if I was asking another human to do it, this would be highly suspicious' — because he trusts God is good. The lying-spirit passage (1 Kings 22, though a host guesses Daniel), the Anne Frank thought experiment about lying to the SS, and the resurrection as the anchor for moral ambiguity round out the segment.
More on Forgiveness
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Dear LFTP: the $4,200 loan that never came back
- How do I get past the sadness over the $4,200 loan my friend never repaid — do I just let it go?
The final Dear LFTP letter: a year ago a supposed friend asked to borrow money — her husband had left the country to renew his visa, her car was repossessed, she had no way to get to work.
From No. 603 · Found Out
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Dear LFTP: the stolen college fund and telling the 90-year-olds
- Should I tell my 90-year-old parents that their grandson stole my granddaughter's college fund?
Ben hands to Mike, who reads a grandmother's letter: her son helped himself to the college money the great-grandparents set aside for her granddaughter; she fears telling her parents, in their nineties, could shock them into a stroke.
From No. 586 · Nothing Personal
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Dear LFTP: forty years of a cheating wife and a temptation
- Would it be wrong to rekindle an old friendship for intimacy when my wife has cheated for forty years?
A man approaching his fortieth anniversary writes that his wife has always been a serial cheater, a secret he kept to protect the children's view of her; with retirement and a sexless marriage he asks whether rekindling things with old female friends would be wrong.
From No. 581 · Silly Rabbit | Christianity, Culture, and Navigating Social Expectations
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Dear LFTP: the stalker ex-girlfriend
- How do I get my stalker ex-girlfriend to leave me alone?
Mike reads a letter from a man whose ex-girlfriend keeps trying to get him back, even stalking him, after he blocked her number.