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?