Andy Crouch commands respect: he is “editorial director for The Christian Vision Project at Christianity Today International . . . a member of the editorial board of Books & Culture, and a senior fellow of the International Justice Mission’s IJM Institute.” As for training, he “studied classics at Cornell University and received an M.Div. summa cum laude from Boston University School of Theology.” When Crouch speaks, people listen.

Not quite one year ago, Crouch published his views in an article entitled “Learning from Fools,” (Christianity Today, February 2006, vol. 50, no. 2, p. 92); it was recently republished at Culture Makers. In this article he attempts to present his novel understanding of a pair of parables that he believes are “two of Jesus’ most misinterpreted parables.” (HT: Milton Stanley, Transforming Sermons).

I will not attempt to single-handedly refute Crouch on this matter: he has the approval of people on his side (understandably) and I am not a person who carries much weight; nevertheless, I will indulge in an observation or two. I will allow others, however, to provide the rebuttal: Brad H. Young, Norval Geldenhuys, Darrell Bock, and Walter L. Liefeld.1 Crouch’s interpetation can be compared and contrasted with these biblical scholars.

These parables, of a man considering the construction of a tower and a king assessing a possible war, are found in Luke 14.28-33; three preceding verses are included since they provide the context for the stories.

25 Now large crowds were going along with Him; and He turned and said to them,
26 ‘If anyone comes to Me, and does not hate his own father and mother and wife and children and brothers and sisters, yes, and even his own life, he cannot be My disciple.
27 ‘Whoever does not carry his own cross and come after Me cannot be My disciple.
28 ‘For which one of you, when he wants to build a tower, does not first sit down and calculate the cost to see if he has enough to complete it?
29 ‘Otherwise, when he has laid a foundation and is not able to finish, all who observe it begin to ridicule him,
30 ’saying, “This man began to build and was not able to finish.”
31 ‘Or what king, when he sets out to meet another king in battle, will not first sit down and consider whether he is strong enough with ten thousand men to encounter the one coming against him with twenty thousand?
32 ‘Or else, while the other is still far away, he sends a delegation and asks for terms of peace.
33 ‘So then, none of you can be My disciple who does not give up all his own possessions.’” - (NASB)

This passage has historically been understood to be a challenge by Jesus to his followers to consider carefully what they are about to do and the price that one must pay to be a disciple. Crouch, in parting with previous interpretations, sees it as a message about the opposite: “these stories are not about disciples, but fools”; Jesus is telling his followers that they need to “count the cost—not of discipleship, but of non-discipleship.”

Young writes,

The twin parables of the Tower Builder and the King Going to War (Luke 14.28-33) focus on the self-examination necessary to make a decision for surrendering to the call of Jesus . . .

“Jesus stresses the similarities between the word-picture of a king planning for war and the reality of an individual deciding to follow Jesus’ teachings. Would-be followers must enter the kingdom with open eyes, being fully aware of the demands.

“The focus of these two parables is the cost of discipleship. No one who begins the job and quits is worthy.”

Geldenhuys agrees while putting the parables in context:

The Saviour’s activities and words in Trans-Jordan had made Him amazingly popular with the masses, and great multitudes who had begun to look upon Him as the possible Messiah followed Him while He was on His way to Jerusalem. However, He desires to check this light-hearted manner of following Him, and so He turns to the multitudes and in a determined tone lays down His absolute demands for everyone who wishes to be His disciple and follower.”

Bock adds,

Jesus’ attention turns here to his followers, asking them to assess what discipleship requires. He wants them to be aware of what is required to walk the full route with him. His main point is that successful discipleship requires Jesus to be a priority in life. We must therefore count the cost of following him if we are going to finish the walk.”

Liefeld:

Jesus uses two different circumstances to illustrate his basic point: discipleship requires a conscious advance commitment, made with a realistic estimate of the ultimate personal cost. The practical nature of the circumstances Jesus so vividly pictures underlines the fact that Christian discipleship is not some theoretical abstract ideal but hard reality.”

Regarding the point of the parables being about the cost of discipleship, Crouch maintains that “Jesus’ first hearers would have known that label was exactly backwards.” He continues:

Make no mistake. The tower builder and the king are not models of discipleship. When does Jesus ever speak of discipleship as if it were a construction project, carefully calculated and accounted for, or a war, in which we marshal our own forces and find them adequate for the battle?

Jesus speaks of discipleship in building terms at the end of the Sermon on Mount, where he likens his followers to two men who construct houses, one on rock and one on sand. Even if he did not use a building metaphor elsewhere, this does not rule out his use of it here. After all, Jesus only once likened himself to light, water, the way, or a vine. Young says,

In the parable of the Wise and Foolish Builders, the first man constructed his home on the rock and the second used sand as a foundation . . . Mark, Matthew, and the church fathers attest to the tradition that by trade Jesus was a τεκτων, which is usually translated ‘carpenter’ . . .

“A rabbinic parable attributed to R. Jose the Galilean also uses the motif of the construction of a tower in an orchard. Clearly the building of a tower in a field was common.”

Jesus’ parable of a king considering war was particularly timely. The crowds wanted to make him king by force and Jesus may have been calling them to consider who it was that they would be up against: the full force of the Roman Empire.

Young also disagrees with Crouch’s dismissal of the builder and king as illustrations of disciples, saying,

One must carefully weigh the demands of discipleship in the same way that one plans a construction project based on a realistic estimation of the cost of labor and materials.”

Bock echoes Young’s words, arguing that Jesus uses these two parables to make his point about the cost of discipleship.

One is of a man who builds a watchtower over his land or over a city. Such an undertaking is expensive, and he must be sure such a project is affordable. Thus, it is best to estimate the cost before starting to build. How sad to start construction and not have the money to finish. All of us probably know building projects that started but did not get finished for lack of funds. What a waste to have half a building! Jesus drives the point home by picturing passers-by ridiculing the lack of closure on the project. In other words, moving toward successful discipleship takes reflection; it is not an automatic exercise. There is no positive testimony in a walk with God that is abandoned because the cost has not been properly assessed. Rather, it is tragic.”

Crouch’s perhaps views the passage in this manner in order to make a point that is seemingly important to him:

Biblical faith is the abandonment of our tower building, the surrender of our ambitions to foolishly fight our way to security.

“So Jesus invites the crowds following him to sit down and count the cost - not of discipleship, but of non-discipleship. Non-discipleship means believing that we will be able to complete our insane Babel of self-provision; non-discipleship means blindly rushing into battle as enemies of God, having vastly overestimated our ability to prevail. All this makes sense of the devastating words that immediately follow: ‘Any of you who does not give up everything he has cannot be my disciple.’”

The problem is not that this exhortation is untrue or unnecessary; the problem is that these two parables do not teach this and if we impose a different understanding upon them we lose what they actually teach. To make this point Crouch might have turned to the twin parables of The Treasure Hidden in a Field and The Pearl of Great Price: both teach the meassage of abandonment and forfeiture that he imposes on these two parables in Luke. It is, as I said, a biblical message: right message, wrong passage.

But the message Jesus sought to convey here in Luke was clearly understood by those who heard such demands on other occasions (cf. John 6.60-66, when the multitudes walked away from his demands) and understood him to be saying the same here. The conclusions of Young, Geldenhuys, Bock, and Liefeld are convincing:

They teach human responsibility. For Jesus, the disciples must consider the all-encompassing demands of his call . . .” (Young)

“It means that [a disciple] must give Christ full control over his whole life with everything that he is and all that he possesses, and that under His guidance and in His service he should deal with his possessions in the manner that is best. . . . The important thing is that whosoever desires to follow Him must be inwardly free from worldly-mindedness, covetousness and selfishness and wholly devoted to Him.” (Geldenhuys)

“Jesus’ attention turns here to his followers, asking them to assess what discipleship requires. He wants them to be aware of what is required to walk the full route with him. His main point is that successful discipleship requires Jesus to be a priority in life. We must therefore count the cost of following him if we are going to finish the walk. His will and the direction he leads are the lodestones of our lives. We must present our lives to him and reflect values that honor God.” (Bock)

“The practical nature of the circumstances Jesus so vividly pictures underlines the fact that Christian discipleship is not some theoretical abstract ideal but hard reality.” (Liefeld)


2 Cor 1.13