Fire- Good or Bad?

17 August 2025  Luke 12:49-53

“I came to cast fire upon the earth….” Luke 12:49

Jesus had a complicated relationship with crowds. He loved them and had compassion on them, leading to events like mass healings, and the Feeding of the 5000. But Jesus didn’t enjoy crowds, and He didn’t trust them. He often tried to get away from them, spending long hours away by Himself in prayer.

Jesus knew that many in the crowds were there to get food, or to get well, and had no interest in His teaching. He knew that many others were there for entertainment – they wanted to see the “bread trick” again. He knew that crowds were fickle and disloyal – it was a crowd that shouted “Hosanna!” on Sunday, and were shouting “Crucify him!” by Friday. So, when the crowd had gathered again (Luke 12:1), He warned His disciples about hypocrisy (12:2), and whom to fear (12:4), about rich fools and materialism (12:13-34), about cruel and unfaithful servants (12:35-48). He knew that all those dangers, and more, were abundant in any crowd.

“I have come to cast fire upon the earth,” Jesus said, “and would that it were already blazing!” (12:49). Jesus speaks of Himself hyperbolically as an arsonist and terrorist, waving a Molotov cocktail and threatening destruction and division. People did not speak lightly of arson in those days. Almost every city and village was made entirely of wood, and every home and business used open flames for light, heat and cooking. Fire was a constant necessity, and a constant danger, and arsonists were despised and feared by everyone – it is why arson was a capital offense that could get you crucified. So why would Jesus talk like that? It may be because He wanted the disciples to be clear about the kinds of things crowds would say about them. Maybe He wanted to direct them to the people and places where they would be most effective.

By the time Luke wrote these words, arson was the charge crowds were screaming at Christians. In A.D. 64 the Great Fire of Rome burned for nine days, destroying about two-thirds of the city. Nero blamed the Christians. Why? Because it was easy to hate Christians. Christians avoided celebrations of almost every kind because most of them involved eating meat. Most Romans bought their meat already cooked – they got it from vendors who got it from temples where animals had been sacrificed and cooked over open fires. Christians reasoned that they couldn’t say that they were no longer pagans if they were eating meat that had been through a pagan sacrifice. That meant that they had to stop going to a lot of events given by their friends and neighbors, and ordinary Romans concluded that this new religion had turned their old friends into misanthropes, to say nothing of their being atheists for denying that the Roman gods even existed. Christianity turned believers against their families, friends,neighbors, and their ancestral gods, so it was easy for crowds to believe that they were arsonists and terrorists as well.

Jesus wanted His disciples to know what they were facing with crowds. He still does.

When Christians challenge public policies or cultural trends that crowds like, crowds still scream. Crowds in the virtual world charge believers with being “Christian nationalists” who have “ethnoracial fears” which is just a fancy way of calling Christians fascists with ties to the KKK. It isn’t true, of course, but just like calling Christians misanthropes and atheists, it is enough for many people to stop listening. It isn’t because they think the crowds are right, but it all just sounds like the kind of shouting that never amounts to anything, never goes anywhere, never stops, and they don’t want to have anything to do with it. Crowds have never had to tell the truth, or even know what the truth is, to sway people. They just have to yell. And they are yelling still.

Jesus had a complicated relationship with crowds. He loved them and had compassion on them, leading to events like mass healings, and the Feeding of the 5000. But Jesus didn’t enjoy crowds, and He didn’t trust them. He always had His greatest impact when He was dealing with individuals and small groups, and so will we. Crowds don’t ask us to account for the hope that is in us. Family, friends, colleagues and neighbors do. We need to be ready most of all to talk to them. We need to live so that they will ask us questions. (see I Peter 3:15).