As the Christians tell the story, Jesus Christ could walk on water, calm storms, drive out demons with a word. It must have made for a comfortable life: Starvation a problem? Xerox some bread. Don’t like a tree? Curse it. Romans a problem? Sic your Dad on them.
In fairness to Christianity, I feel like I ought to point out that according to the Gospels, Jesus didn’t use those powers to make his life more comfortable. Not only do we not see any instances of him doing this (at least, I don’t recall any, and it doesn’t fit with my understanding of the New Testament; if anyone does have a counterexample, then that would be welcome), the Temptations show him actively refusing to use his supernatural abilities for selfish purposes, even harmless ones like feeding himself.
(To clarify, I don’t believe he had any supernatural abilities to begin with, but I feel like it’s worth mentioning).
According to that article, there seem to be two commonly used explanations for why he did that. One of them is that he was showing that he could, and the other is that he was warning his listeners to be like that tree. I’m definitely not the most qualified person to say which is right, but I would lean towards the second because in addition to it fitting better with the rest of what I remember the New Testament saying about him, he also apparently told a parable that was almost exactly the same and pretty much always interpreted interpreted that way, so he seemed to like that metaphor.
In fairness to Christianity, I feel like I ought to point out that according to the Gospels, Jesus didn’t use those powers to make his life more comfortable. Not only do we not see any instances of him doing this (at least, I don’t recall any, and it doesn’t fit with my understanding of the New Testament; if anyone does have a counterexample, then that would be welcome), the Temptations show him actively refusing to use his supernatural abilities for selfish purposes, even harmless ones like feeding himself. (To clarify, I don’t believe he had any supernatural abilities to begin with, but I feel like it’s worth mentioning).
How about harmful purposes, like cursing the fig tree?
According to that article, there seem to be two commonly used explanations for why he did that. One of them is that he was showing that he could, and the other is that he was warning his listeners to be like that tree. I’m definitely not the most qualified person to say which is right, but I would lean towards the second because in addition to it fitting better with the rest of what I remember the New Testament saying about him, he also apparently told a parable that was almost exactly the same and pretty much always interpreted interpreted that way, so he seemed to like that metaphor.
The second one makes no sense: the cursed fig tree had no opportunity to ‘repent’ before being ‘damned’.