Jesus Course

One of those things that I’m always trying to get across to my children is that being popular doesn’t make you right.

There certainly seems to be an assumption around that if you are the most popular person then somehow that automatically means that you are right. Perhaps this is one of those situations where the press has encouraged us to think this way.

I have always found this to be a worrying trend. It means that right or wrong is decided by a general consensus of popularity. It must be right if it feels good (regardless of the consequences for the rest of humanity) seems to be the order of the day.

Is this really a good way to decide what is right and what is wrong? My good feelings might result in unhappiness for another. My overfilled stomach might be taking food from a starving mouth. My drunken and destructive revelries might be putting someone out of business or breaking a good relationship.

Popularity is a very poor way to make choices.

I don’t think Jesus is as popular today in the U.K. as perhaps he once was. This doesn’t make him wrong it just makes him less popular. Perhaps Jesus’ popularity depends too much on how people perceive his followers. Perhaps how people perceive his followers depends too much on the popular press and popular stars and pop singers and popular comedians?

So what about you? Do you decide what is right or wrong based on popular opinion? Do you just follow the crowd and do what they do? Or perhaps you want to think for yourself and make your own choices.

Whatever you decide make sure you always remember that being popular doesn’t make you right.

Thoughts discipleship, Jesus, jesus christ, popularity

I like walking. Generally this involves walking on Dartmoor but I do sometimes get to visit other places for a walk as well. Unfortunately I don’t live on the edge of Dartmoor as so I have to drive for an hour and a bit to get there. It’s worth it for the reward even though it can be a little tedious early in the morning when you just want to start the walk.

So often we have to go on tedious journeys before we get to what we really want to do. However I think perhaps the people who went on Pilgrimage in the middle ages (and before) could teach us a thing or two. When you have to walk somewhere that is several miles away it takes quite a while. The forced slowness of the journey forces you to take time to think – what else is there to do if you are on a slow journey on your own?

Of course for many Pilgrims there was a time spent with others on the same journey but somehow talking with strangers about your life can also be a good way to think.

Even Jesus had to take his time getting around the Holy Land. It isn’t a big country but on foot there is still plenty of time for reflection. When I read in John’s gospel about how there are many other things that Jesus said and did not written down I sometimes think perhaps John was remembering the times he had spent walking along the road talking with Jesus.

If you have to make a decision then why not take a walk? Sometimes the journey is as important as the destination.

Thoughts Jesus, jesus christ, walking

It seems to me that when you hear about Jesus in a church he is often quite a nice fellow. He is easy to listen to, always says nice things, and never upsets anyone. This last Sunday I listened to another of these sermons where we were encouraged (of course quite rightly) to prize friendship.

Perhaps it’s just me or perhaps it’s the passages we read in the gospels in church but when I read about Jesus he seems to be having the opposite effect on those who hear him.

Yes there are large crowds but by the time he is crucified all the large crowds have dwindled away. The religious leaders come to try and catch him out and he usually sends them away embarassed. We even hear quite early on in the gospels that people were planning to kill him.

Now we might put this down to first century zeal where the easy solution to any problem was to bump off the person causing trouble. But I think this is too simply a view. I think people were still bothered by the thought of killing someone, I don’t think they took this kind of things lightly at all. I think we can even see this in the character of Pilate who condemns Jesus. He can be ruthless but he still understands that taking another’s life is a big deal.

Jesus says things and does things that really upset people. He doesn’t just say do what I do, he says do what I say. Jesus says things that only God has the authority to say and in the end his opponents are very clear in their own minds that Jesus is claiming to be God.

This is uncomfortable for us even today. Most of us would like Jesus to be a little easier to cope with. But if what Jesus said is right then perhaps he should be causing a few upsets.

Perhaps Jesus needs to cause a few upsets even today.

Thoughts Jesus, jesus christ, who is jesus?

For a long time now there has been a desire to discover what the real Jesus is actually like. Some took this to mean that we need to debunk what the gospels say to get to the real Jesus. This is based on the assumption that the gospels are biased and paint a distorted vision of what the real Jesus is actually like. On the surface it seems like a good idea but it ends in disaster. You see what we end up with is a Jesus who is a reflection of the person who does the research. It turns out that none of us can be completely neutral about things. We all bring our assumptions and desires to bear when we try to work out who Jesus is. This results in the kind of nonsense that some scholars have come up with where Jesus ends up a shadow of the Jesus of the gospels. We end up with a Jesus that looks just like the scholar who investigated the historical Jesus and sometimes that scholar is a little wierd and uninteresting.

So then we have to ask certain questions about Jesus and the gospels.

1. Does being biased mean that you cannot be accurate or realistic? The answer has to be no. Just because you think favourably towards someone does not mean that you are blinded to the truth about them. I love my children and my wife but that doesn’t mean that I don’t see their faults – or they mine for that matter. Who is to say that someone who thinks positively towards someone has the wrong view when a sceptic has the right one? We also have to understand that the sources of the gospels (e.g. the apostles) come off very badly in the gospels themselves. This suggests that when they told the stories they most probably told them accuratly because they don’t attempt to cover anything about themselves up, they admit their faults. So the gospel portraits of Jesus, in my opinon, are accurate.

2. If the gospels are accurate what kind of Jesus do we find? Well, Jesus turns out not to be the kind of person we find portrayed in many T.V. programmes. Jesus is disturbing. He claims some pretty amazing things about himself and he tells us things about life that few of us really want to hear. Jesus is often hard to listen to.

I’ve come across lots of people who say that the bible is hard to understand. My feeling is that it is actually quite easy to understand but we just don’t like what we read.

Jesus disturbs me. He challenges me every day to be a better person and often upsets my way of thinking. Every time I read the gospels I find a Jesus who I want to follow but who I’m embrassed by because I do such a bad job of following. If you think that Jesus is just a nice person who tells everyone they are doing a wonderful job then maybe you haven’t really read the gospels.

Thoughts Jesus, jesus christ, who is jesus?

I get to read a great deal of stuff that people debate on the Internet. It often seems to me that people get really caught up on the smallest of details. For instance I read a whole stream of posts the other day on the first few verses of John’s gospel where the question arises of the translation of  “and the word was God”.

At risk of starting the argument up again here is my opionion on the matter (so we can get it out the way to ask the more important questions). You see in the original Greek there is no definate article so some have claimed we should translate it as “and the word was a god” not “was God”. Indeed this is exactly what we find in the bible of the Jehovah’s Witnesses (in my opinion a bad translation). Now whilst it is absolutely true that there is no definate article and whilst it is true that this COULD mean “a god” if you were taking a very literal approach it is also true that this would be a very bad translation of the phrase. Given that the definate article was seldom used anyway for God and that the writer was Jewish and so would never have written “a god” and that this verse mirrors the beginning of Genesis where we have “God” not “a god” it turns out that “and the word was God” is the most accurate translation. To insist on “a god” is the kind of translation you might expect from a first year student of Greek and not a true translation. Anyone who knows anything about translation (or who has ever read something translated by a computer) will know that there is a lot more to translation than just translating each word in turn literally. It should also be noted that this is not by any means the only passage that refers to the divinity of Christ but we are not going there now.

If you have got this far in this post you will realise how people can sometimes get really caught up in the detail and miss the point.

Fun though all this arguing is about the detail it seldom gets you anywhere. The bible has many stories where people who met Jesus got caught up in debating the smaller points and yet missed the bigger point of who they were talking to.

It seems to me that there is amuch bigger more important question to answer about Jesus than the translation of one word here and there.

What if it’s true?

What if the story of Jesus is all true (and I believe it is)? What if the things that Jesus said really are the truth? What if Jesus really did come from heaven? What if Jesus really did rise from the dead?

If it’s true then no moment of anyone’s life can ever be the same.

What if it is all true?

Thoughts Jesus, jesus christ, who is jesus?

This is a question that all of us have to answer at some point. If what Christians say about Jesus is right then no matter what we think about Christians themselves Jesus is the single most important person in anyones life.

If Jesus is indeed God then nothing else you do or think about will be as important as thinking about Jesus.

Suddenly everything that Jesus said is very important to listen to. The stuff he said about heaven is very reasurring and the stuff he said about how we should live is essential to life.

I was once very skeptical about Jesus and what Christians say about him but now I am convinced. Not because I left my brain behind or because I was brain washed but because I discovered enough about Jesus that not believing was no longer an option for me.

I want to encourage you to answer the questions about Jesus for yourself. For me the evidence is impossible to refute and I have become a follower of Christ – but you must make your own choices.

The Jesus Course is one way for you to search for an answer for yourself.

Uncategorized Jesus, jesus christ, who is jesus?

What is love? is a question that all of us has to answer at some point in our life. Am I in love with the person? What does this mean?

Jesus was very keen on love. He encouraged people to love each other and even made love a central part of his greatest commandment: love God and love others as yourself.

Jesus also said that the greatest love you could have would be to willingly lay down your life on behalf of someone else. Many people have done this throughout history, not least Jesus himself who said that he laid down his life willingly for each one of us.

The greeks were so keen on love that they had four words for it and we find these words used in the bible. I’m  not going to bore you with the greek but this is what each one meant.

Affection: fondness through familiarity. This is the kind of love we find in a family and it’s a love that doesn’t need loveable things. It doesn’t matter what you are like someone will still love you in this way. Of course the problem comes when people take this for granted.

Friendship: a strong bond between people who share a common interest or activity.

Eros: love in the sense of ‘being in love’. It’s more than sexual love and tends to see the best in the person who you love.

Agape: is an unconditional love directed towards one’s neighbour which is not dependent on any lovable qualities that the object of love possesses. This is generally the kind of love that Jesus encouraged us to have.

There is an article on wikipedia which explains this much better at: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Four_Loves

Love is not really an emotion although it can bring out a strong emotional reaction in people. To be in love can be the most wonderful feeling in the world but if all you have is a feeling then something is missing.

Some people have tried to make out that love is a weak and useless virtue but this is far from the case. It take a lot of courage and strength to love unconditionally and this is just the kind of strength that Jesus encouraged us to have.

If you want to find out about love then you should read what Jesus has to say about it in the gospels.

Thoughts good friday, Jesus, jesus christ, what is love

It’s so easy when you start to think about Jesus to forget the fact that he was a man, a person. The gospels are full of stuff about Jesus the person and how he felt and what he experienced. I’m not saying this to deny anything else about Jesus but simply that he was a real person. The disciples would have been able to touch Jesus and listen to the tone of his voice. They would have been able to share a joke with Jesus and talked with him as they walked along a road. These are all experiences that are not open to us and so it makes our experience of Jesus that much more distant. We don’t even have a photo of him.

However not being able to see what he looked or like or the tone of his voice does not mean he is not a real person. There are ancestors of mine that I know nothing about save that they must have existed because I do.

The gospels tell us that Jesus felt emotion, that he had friends, that he was sad when his friend died, that he enjoyed to eat and drink, that he knew what it was to be thirsty, that he suffered on the cross.

Don’t ever forget that Jesus was a real person.

Thoughts Jesus, jesus christ

Whew! We made it. We went through Lent (and even possibly gave something up for it), we went through Holy week (from Jesus riding into Jerusalem, through the last supper and crucifixion) and we have finally made it to Easter day.

It was traditional in the church to go through all of this when you were getting ready to be baptised. Baptism is a ceremony where people are acknowledged as Christians and welcomed into the Christian family. It’s a big deal for Christians. But although we might think we have been through a lot and after Easter we can relax a little baptism is a ceremony of beginning.

You see Easter is all about beginning. The resurrection marks the beginning of life – not the end of it. Now life can begin properly. Things cannot be the same after Easter day – this one event in history changes everything.

Today we celebrate a new beginning, a new life, forgiveness and restoration, a new purpose, etc.

Just one thing remains for me to do and that is to say happy Easter, or let’s do it the old fashioned Christian way.

I say: Hallelujah, the Lord has risen

You reply: He had risen indeed, Hallelujah!

Thoughts Easter, Jesus

My youngest son asked me why the day on which Jesus was killed is called good. I guess he has a point. On the surface it looks like a disaster. Jesus is supposed to be winning the battle and yet in many ways it looks like it is the end.

If we stop at the death of Jesus then we shouldn’t call this Friday good. It should be called sad Friday, or bad Friday. But Christians live with the knowledge of what is coming on Sunday.

Easter day is the sign to us that something good is happening through Jesus’ death. We don’t believe that this was a disaster that is overturned on Easter Sunday but that something wonderful and remarkable takes place even as Jesus suffers and dies. God doesn’t leave Jesus on the cross – here is a suffering God.

If you ever have to face suffering try to remember the crucifixion. Remember that on the cross Jesus experiences suffering just like we do. The cross is a sign of victory because Jesus suffers and dies for us. He is the one who pays the penalty for our wrong doing but so much more is also happening as he pays that price. And remember he does it for you.

Good Friday is always a very sad day but we bear it because we have seen Easter day and we know that Jesus’ death is part of Jesus’ victory.

Thoughts crucifixion, good friday, Jesus