Integrative Post.

Reexamining your faith, beliefs, and religious practices is an overlooked and important part of being a Christian. Growth only happens when you are first made aware to what it is that needs to grow. I think this is why I’ve enjoyed so much this semester-long examination of the life of Christ. Jesus’ story is like an all-in one package deal of what we need to examine the priorities and practices in our own lives. He provided the ultimate example of blamelessness, but it wasn’t only in his resistance of sin. I have learned this semester that there are decisions that Jesus made while here that are often understated, yet are just as important as his adherence from sin. Jesus ministers to and comforts the poor. He heals relatively few, but those who he heals, he heals of blindness and hunger and death. He “follows the rules”, but he’s undeniably anti-legalistic and counter-culturally controversial among those who keep track of the rules. These points seem subtle to some, but I think they’re of utmost importance, and they’re areas in which I’ve felt convicted this semester. Jesus subtly, almost silently, calls us to ministry for the poor, the hungry, and those who don’t believe. Through his actions and rarely his teachings, he calls us to comfort them and teaches us that he comforts them as well, and that we are among them.
It is so important to our society to uphold our sense of morals. Yet I believe that it was nearly a second priority to Christ throughout his ministry. The Sermon on the Mount wasn’t constructed to be “the next hundred commandments”, but rather to remind us of our God’s unfailing grace. Jesus didn’t heal or befriend to remind us to repent our sins, but to show us how to love better. And whether it truly is more of a priority to Jesus than upholding morals, I think it needs to be to us. I feel like it’s the one of these two concepts that we least understand, as well as the one that draws people away from the church more quickly. People understand that they sin, and that they’ve fallen short of God’s glory, and it makes them start coming to church and praying and disciplining their spirits. But people misunderstand God’s message of love, which includes so much more than just being kind and nice to people. God loves us so much that he teaches us, transforms us, and waits for us to come to him. If we could portray these qualities as loving and caring, then maybe the world would start to see how God is working in their lives.

The Jesus I Never Knew, by Philip Yancey.

This entry is going to be about a book by Philip Yancey, entitled The Jesus I Never Knew.

I’ve always believed that the best introduction to an essay or speech is telling your audience what you’re about to do.
So here you go: first, I’m going to recap the book the way I remember it. This sort of serves a double-function of proving that I read the book so I can get credit, and reflecting on the particular ideas that I latched onto the most throughout the text. I’m probably not going to remember everything, and I’ll probably forget to mention the stuff that I found obvious or non-engaging. The new, radical, Christ-like, important ideas are the ones I’ll stress the most.

EDIT: most of this entry turned out to be recapping, because I took it one chapter at a time. So this is actually where you’ll find MOST of my ideas on what I learned about the nature of Christ.



The Jesus I Never Knew begins by talking about his previous misconceptions of Jesus, from Sunday school all the way through bible college. In this book, Yancey establishes that he plans to dig down to the roots of Jesus’ identity past any other conceptions that might get in the way. Jesus is the most popular person ever to walk on this earth, and his story and teaching extend to everybody on the planet, in every religious and secular environment. But what exactly was the message Jesus was sending by coming here in the first place?
He then talks about the ways in which Jesus’ true identity has been revealed to him, first through movies about Jesus’ life, but later exclusively through readingthe gospels over and over. Yancey prefers to read the gospels in order to really understand Christ’s message.
In chapter 3, Yancey starts to imagine himself in ancient Jewish shoes, as he will continue to do for the rest of the book. He speculates for the first time that it would be very difficult for him to have believed Jesus’ divinity in the context of the culture of the time. He also touches on one of the book’s most continuous themes: the face of Judaism and why Jews continue to reject Jesus as the Messiah they’ve been waiting for.
In Chapter 4, Yancey touches on a subject that I find very interesting: the idea of the
separation of the church and the life of Christ. He uses the specific example of the concept of “soul-winning” in the Southern Fundamentalist church he grew up in. Members of the congregation, Yancey included, were taught to manipulate and even deceive people in order to get them within church doors. This is an obvious example of one of the many ways the modern church claims all authority to Jesus and yet redefines his sentiments that it’s uncomfortable with. And the text even takes this idea one step forward by relating it to the topic of the chapter: the temptation of Jesus. Christ was tempted, and resisted the temptation, to deceive people through misrepresentation. He also resisted the temptation to resort to violence, the temptation of selfishness, and the corrupting temptation of power, and many other temptations that the church falls prone to continuously. He suffered just as we do, yet without ever falling prone. If we are to claim to follow Jesus then we have to examine the sources of temptations not only in our personal lives but in our church as well.
In the following chapter, Yancey comments on the apostles and their understanding (or, more frequently, misunderstanding) of his teachings and commandments. He expresses that the only one thing that truly draws the unlikely crowd together is their dense misunderstanding of Jesus and “gnomic faith” (99). Yet Jesus confides in them again and again. Why? Yancey puts a lot of emphasis on the idea that it was to send them out and start expanding the church. This ties into the idea that Jesus does want us to go out into the world, by HIS side, and spread HIS news.

Which brings Yancey to part 2: Why He Came.

In chapter 6 he talks about the beatitudes, and most interestingly, God’s reversal attitude toward the poor. One of my favorite sections of the book is the list on page 115 that Yancey received from a writer named Monika Hellwig, listing the 10 “advantages” to being poor. It would be an understatement to merely say that God has time for the outcasts, or that he loves them when the rest of the world doesn’t. He actually values them and sets them apart to the point that he calls all of us to be poor in order to be closer to him. God’s love is a free gift, but that’s hard to appreciate when you already have everything else you’ve ever wished for. God believes in this so firmly, in fact, that he sent his only son to this world to live in a life of poverty, and continuously surrounded himself while on this earth with people who were in less than fortunate situations.
Yancey then examines the Sermon on the Mount, and redefines the way he looks at it. He states that he used to just see this sermon as a list of rules that God has for us, that we can never achieve, and he got down on himself for not being able to follow them. But actually, their point isn’t legalistic; it’s anti-legalistic. It isn’t how we should act; it’s how God acts. And he claims that the sermon’s most important lesson isn’t any of the specific things that Jesus condones or condemns, but rather that we are not perfect like God. Though Jesus believed that the virtues of holiness are important, the main point of this sermon is that we all need grace.
Yancey then comments on the nature of Jesus’ miracles, including a very interesting thought: that Jesus didn’t perform his miracles to correct all the problems that were wrong with this world; if he had then he would have needed to heal more than a few dozen blind and sick people. Rather, Jesus’ healings are a glimpse into what God plans to do to restore this broken world to him. The blind will see again, the sick will be healed, the dead will be raised, and the hungry will be fed. Just because Jesus lived on this earth 2000 years ago doesn’t mean that his healing is over. He is still at work in all the same ways.

The end of the second section on to the end of the book covers Jesus’ death, triumph, ascension, and finally the kingdom he left behind. Yancey claims that Jesus came and died to declare love, which has a supernatural power to absorb the effects of corruption in this world.
His triumph over death is the most hope-inspiring event in history, and it serves to reframe our entire perspective on the world. Human history, he claims, “becomes the contradiction and Easter a preview of ultimate reality” (220).
Yancey wraps up the book with some comments about how we can live our lives out through the life of Christ and be the kingdom on Earth. We are all living, he concludes, in the in-between Saturday that would have occurred after Jesus’ death and before his resurrection. We’re living in the light of his good news, which will be understood to the fullest extent as good when Sunday comes and the glory of the Lord can be seen fully. It’s important to remember that we’re here waiting, and that’s one of our most important roles in the kingdom.



This is one of the most invigorating retelling of the gospel stories I’ve ever read; it’s filled with passion while at the same time examining every detail of where that passion comes from. In fact, one of the things I admire most about this text is Yancey’s bold questioning. He is unafraid to get at the root of every single thing he believes and reexamine it. I think this is the only way we can truly understand our faith, and understanding our faith is a great reason to look at the life of Christ with such detail.
However, hands-down, my favorite theme of this book is Yancey’s continuous readdressing of the values of the church and how they compare to the life Jesus led. He uses scriptural evidence and cultural clues throughout the book to retell the story of Jesus, not just so he can better understand the things Jesus did, but more importantly so he can really dig through to the behaviors Jesus asks from the church. Historically, the church has done a miserable job of upholding many values that Jesus treasures. Of course, many great things come out of such a community of believers, but I believe the church could be doing much more to pinpoint its focus on Christ. Especially in a world where image means more than ever, the church needs to back off from its false conceptions of ways to “improve on the way of Christ” (81) and focus more on who should already be its center. This is why I appreciate Yancey’s focus throughout the book on the life of Christ and the gospel story rather than the ideas of theologians and the history of the church.
Then again, this point can only fully be understood in the context of grace. Yancey addresses grace over and over throughout the text, and he has some really interesting ideas of what it means to us. My favorite is when he points how important it is to remember that human pride and corruption will always get in our way. Yancey quotes novelist Flannery O’Connor as saying, “The Church is founded on Peter who denied Christ three times and who couldn’t walk on the water by himself. [You can’t expect] his successors to walk on the water. All human nature vigorously resists grace because grace changes us and the change is painful”. God offers us the option of choosing him, but it isn’t because he’s frustrated with the sinful lives we live. It isn’t because of his wrath and fury to separate us from the glory of heaven. It’s because he loves us. This option to choose him and his way of life is a very easy decision for us, but I imagine it would have been a very painful decision for him. That’s one of the greatest beauties of the message of the gospel: that Christ chooses not to consistently correct our mistakes when he believes with such passion that it is dangerous, but instead he gives us such an obvious way out of our suffering as grace.

The Kingdom of Heaven.

Okay, I’m going to be frank with y’all. I was super excited for this whole Jesus Blog thing at the beginning. And I still love the idea; I just for some reason have had difficulty keeping up. Like, a lot of difficulty.
I promise I’m not saying this just to eat up word count for our requirement.
Anyway, yeah. I have been having trouble staying focused enough to write a good blog at all. And it’s been following me around, causing a significant amount of stress and even guilt. Like I’m not a good enough student to finish my assignments on time, or like I’m not a good enough Christian to think of something worthwhile to say about Jesus, or some nonsense like that.
So right now I just decided to let all that go and just write what’s been on my mind. As it relates to the scripture, obviously. But yeah.

So here it goes.

Our reading this week from scripture was:
Luke 14-18. Jesus talks about the kingdom, including the “lost” parables, our role in the kingdom, and the coming of the kingdom.
Matthew 13. “Blessed are your eyes because they see, and your ears because they hear”. Parable interaction with the disciples, teaching them about the nature of the kingdom and their role in it.
Mark 2-4. Jesus heals, hangs out with the broken, and tells people about the kingdom.
Luke 8-10. “Whoever has ears to hear, let them hear.” The same parables from the Matthew section plus healings and the calming of the storm.
Matthew 28. Jesus is risen, and he commissions his disciples to live out the kingdom on Earth.

What do these verses have in common? Well, for one, they all center on Jesus interacting very personally with his disciples and followers. He tells them parables, explains them, heals people, and even visits his disciples after rising from the dead.
But even more importantly, I think, is the fact that he centers his teachings about how to live in the kingdom even in this life. He explains the nature of the kingdom of heaven with a focus on our role in it.
So I’ve been listening to this song a lot this week. It’s called Dogs Like Vultures by Haste the Day. Yeah, I know, I know… this isn’t the bible… but just stick with me. The lyrics seem to relate:

I will protect you
From these dogs like vultures
I know they’re small
But their teeth are sharp

We’ve been sent with eyes to see them
And ears to hear their steps
Our hearts are softer than the sheep
We’ve been known to calm the storm
And silence the ocean
With the strength to spare you from their teeth

The dogs, it would seem, are those temptations that we’re so used to hearing about. But the message of the song, to me at least, came as a surprise. Yes, their teeth are sharp, and they’re dangerous, and yes, they’re small, and they’re hard to see, but I’m used to hearing this sort of talk about my demons. What comes off to me as a challenge and a surprise is that, though our hearts are softer than the sheep, we have the strength to overcome. The eyes and ears mentioned in this song are the very eyes and ears Jesus talked about while on Earth.
And so this is the message about the nature of the kingdom on Earth that I walk away with. It isn’t a constant struggle to stay pure, as many portray it to be. It isn’t that we are weak and our role here is just to fall down and be helped back up. God gives us what we need to overcome and to lead. We are not only called to purity, we are made with the strength to calm the storm and silence the ocean. Being a part of the kingdom doesn’t give you any special privileges over other people, but rather being a human being ensures you the power to overcome what you never knew you could. We are constructed in the image of God, and there is hope for us to triumph over evil just as he does unfailingly.
And being a part of the kingdom means you have the obligation to acknowledge and uphold this human right. Sure, we all make mistakes and we need God’s grace and guidance. But we don’t need him to do everything for us – it’s through his mercy and goodwill that we have the ability to overcome whatever might be ahead of us. Not only by him, but with him.

Mark 5-10, Luke 5-9, Matthew 8-9, John 9-11.

There’s a lot of diversity in the gospels. Stories that are told one way in Matthew are probably way different in Luke and just left out of John.
One thing that this has always seemed to suggest to me is that the author of the gospel that is different has different intentions. In Luke, Jesus’ sermon “on the mount” is greatly different than the way we’re probably more used to it in Matthew. Did Jesus actually give two different sermons about similar things? I don’t think so. I think it’s more likely that Luke is more interested in the literal while Matthew is more interested in the transformational and renewal aspects of Jesus’ message.
Of course, the stories of Jesus’ miracles are not entirely an exception. There are subtle differences between accounts that probably relate to the motive of the author. Mark recalls Jesus telling those who he heals to stay quiet about his miracles, because Mark is more interested in the “messianic secret” of Jesus, for instance.
However, throughout nearly all the gospels, Jesus is described as healing the blind and the sick. He multiplies fish, calms a storm, and walks on water. Why would these events have been recorded the same way, regardless of the author’s motivation? To me, this seems like a proof that Jesus’ miracle-working is truth, and not a storytelling device.
As I think I’ve mentioned before, I have struggled a lot to understand the magnitude of validity of the gospel stories. For one, there seems to be a lot of inconsistency in what is portrayed as fact and what is portrayed as parable or literary device. And secondly, I already believe in the saving power and love of Jesus Christ without having to accept these stories of logic-defying occurrences. It’s difficult to believe that a being who is fully human although fully divine, who probably made mistakes and who had to learn of his own identity and who got scared sometimes, would be able to transcend not only our spiritual conceptions but also our physical ones.
There’s another roadblock in this thinking that really throws everything off track for me, and that’s the fact that Jesus rose from the dead. While this account is equally difficult to understand and believe in, we have to accept it in order to fully embrace what Christianity teaches us about Jesus’ purpose on Earth.
And so now I find myself really muddled up about how to sort out what Jesus actually did when he was here.
Luckily, I find comfort in these passages of miracles. Through all the diversity in the gospels, these seem to be the passages where each author is equally convinced of the literal miracles they witnessed.
And between all of these stories, there’s one element that really sticks out to me as most often consciously repeated: faith. Those who believe and trust are healed, and in fact in some accounts those who do not believe are scolded, called out, and made the subject of woes. Peter confesses Christ, the centurion declares Jesus’ authority, and the sick woman believes in Jesus’ full power.
What an encouraging thing, don’t you think? Breaking through all the differences in intention of the human writers of the gospels is the truth of Christ. His message is clear: His supernatural power to heal is authentic, and it’s among us. All we have to do is believe, trust, and have faith.

Christ the Lord: Out of Egypt

Alright, I read a book called Christ the Lord: Out of Egypt, by Anne Rice. This post will mostly consist of my thoughts about the book and how they relate to my widening understanding of the person of Jesus Christ.
But before I get into that, I have a quick note:

If you’re Sarah, I’m sorry this one is so late. I hope I can still get some credit for it… And I promise these are my own feelings about the reading; I’m trying my hardest to block out what we talked about in class and retrace back to the ways I was actually shaped by the text.

If you’re not Sarah, you probably couldn’t care less when I posted this entry.

Anyhow.

It’s hard to read this book and not feel uncomfortable, I think. I’m just going to go ahead and say that upfront. Out of Egypt is a historical fiction piece about the way Jesus’ 7^th year on the Earth might have gone. It’s filled with adults hiding information from Jesus about the secret of his birth, surprising and unexplainable magic-trick “miracles”, and a frightened little boy struggling with his identity and getting very scared of the world around him.

Now I know this doesn’t exactly sound like the story of Jesus that you’re accustomed to in the gospels. However. It may be uncomfortable to read about a Jesus who thinks hard about the weather and makes it stop raining, but it is important for us as Christians to realize that Jesus was human. That’s the main message that I feel like Rice was trying to communicate, and there’s no point in reading this piece with any other motives in mind. I do feel like some of the scenes and characters portrayed in this story could have been pushing the boundaries of “blameless Jesus” and crossing over into “human Jesus who sins” (in the first 2 pages, Jesus kills somebody). However, this very fact, I think, gets us thinking harder about the box that we put Jesus in as a figurehead who can’t relate to our suffering, doesn’t understand our pain, and expects us to be perfect like him. The truth is that Jesus had all the same desires we did, and though he overcame them in the end, he probably still did get scared, confused about his identity, and yes – even make mistakes.

This brings me to one of the main thoughts that ran through my head as I dove into Rice’s interpretation of Jesus’ story: I think this depiction of Jesus has a tendency to make us uncomfortable because we’re always more skeptical about the side that we’re not familiar with. This is just a part of our nature, and as such it can be a gift that God gives us just as well as an obstacle to overcome.

For example, let’s take a look (yeah, once again…) at my own testimony. And this is a part of the testimony of every Christian, really… it’s just particularly important to my story. But when someone is brought to Christ, it’s through his power and intrigue that we’re drawn in. He relates to those who don’t know anything about him with that aspect of his being that we don’t understand. If we weren’t skeptical about the nature of God, there would be no reason to choose his story over others’. Now, that’s not to say that we have to be complete nonbelievers before we come to know God. But short of living directly in the Garden with him, we have no way of being able to believe in him with 100% confidence. And so when we are in that state of question, Jesus draws us in with his intrigue.

However, on the other end of the spectrum is the issue that this book is really addressing. Remember that we are always more skeptical about the side that we’re not familiar with. Now, the early church and writers of the gospels would have been a lot more familiar with the idea of Jesus as a human being… and it’s his divinity that would have been a struggle. Especially because of the way Christ’s teaching rocked their religious habits, it would be difficult for them to come to terms with Jesus’ divinity in much the same way that it’s tough for us. This is why the gospels (particularly John’s) focus so much on the identity and divinity of Jesus. His character, all things considered, is a difficult thing to understand. His divine purpose, his blameless nature, his place in the holy trinity… all of these identities transcend our full understanding. And so the early witnesses of Jesus probably would have been a skeptical bunch, and those who believed would have found it infinitely more important to make an account of his unfamiliar character so that the church could have a better understanding of it. This is why I think we don’t find a more complete narrative of Jesus’ life as a human being anywhere in the Bible.

But in our current society, of course, where stories of the triumph and passion of Jesus are told to children from birth, and his divine being is the center of countless sermons every Sunday morning, we might find it easier and easier to believe in his divinity. In fact, Jesus appears to us as God the Father: an un-seeable, all-powerful, perfect being who lives in heaven and has little to do with the Earth and our physical selves. I think this framework is only partially true, and Out of Egypt addresses exactly the remaining part of Jesus’ character that we are much less familiar with than our gospel-writing ancestors.

Of course, Jesus heals in physical ways, and he understands our struggles and confusions and temptations in the fullest extent possible. It’s important to see him like this, if not only to feel like we know him better, then to be able to live our lives in closer relationship with him.

Like I mentioned earlier, I thought Rice’s story could have been more careful about who it makes Jesus out to be – this is especially true for his miracles, which he performs without intention and which make him feel weak, and for the role models in his life, who teach him a lot about the law and the nature of God, but little about what he will need to know to fulfill the covenants he’s set to fulfill – but then it wouldn’t have been a very engaging novel. What this book does do for the Christ-following reader is give us more perspective on the world Jesus lived in. The book is very well researched and written in a very sensory voice. All aspects of ancient Jewish culture are present, from the way people talked about and lived for God, to their religious practices, to everything that led up to the appearance of and foreshadowed the need for a Messiah.

And all of these are very important lessons to apply to our faith.

So in conclusion, you don’t necessarily have to read this work of fiction in order to get an idea of the human life of Jesus and his struggles with his identity, but just remember that they are integral to living our lives in a physical and human relationship with Christ.

The Challenge of Jesus, An Introduction.

Dear non-Life of Christ readers:
In addition to reading the gospels, I have also been reading from a book by N.T. Wright entitled The Challenge of Jesus. This entry is the beginning of my emersion into understanding its purpose. If you like what I explain the purpose to be, then pick up the book and read chapter 1!

Ahem.

N.T. Wright seems to really have the right idea about the interplay of history and faith. That’s what really stuck out to me the most in Chapter 1 of The Challenge of Jesus.

Since this blog is about the way the message of Jesus relates to my life, let’s take a look back at what I’ve said about myself so far.

1) I’m into facts, and truth.

Sometimes I just need evidence in order to want to believe in something. And I don’t like accepting a new fact about something without proof of its validity.

2) I’m very practical.

I like to know how something is going to relate to my life. If I come across a high-level theological idea that makes sense, it won’t mean very much to me until I also can find its implications.

3) I believe that love and relationship surpasses these needs.

And that’s why I love what Wright has to say about this dichotomy. He says that both historical knowledge of the person of Jesus and faithful understanding of his passion for us are equally important in knowing his character.

This is sort of tough for me to come to terms with, however. Consider my history of wrestling with the validity of God. I understand that I can never fully comprehend the nature of God, because he surpasses our understanding. However, relinquishing control of fully understanding God is very different from accepting to never understand more about him. These two get muddled in my head sometimes, and I find myself not caring about the details of Jesus’ life because following him WORKS.

Wright suggests that this is a mistake.

In order to understand God’s intention for us we need to examine the life of Jesus.

And not just in any way. It is particularly important for us to understand why he came in the first place. It isn’t enough to just know we are redeemed and live like it seems we should. What does it mean to be redeemed? And what does Jesus REALLY want for my life?

I’ve struggled a lot recently with what it means to be a Christian. How is this different from just following the teaching of Jesus? And why is it worth labeling myself as such?
Now, as I’ve discovered, it is seldom ever worth labeling myself as a Christian. The only thing it tends to do in conversation is dredge up connotations.

But what I really mean is: Why is it worth it to be a member of a church, beyond the community? That is, what can we learn about Christ through religion that we cannot through faith alone?

And I’m excited to submerge myself further into these questions as we read through The Challenge of Jesus. It seems that Wright has the same intentions when it comes to a historical examination of Jesus, as I believe anybody ought to.

Understanding the works that God has for us through understanding the significance of the life of Christ is what I believe Christianity to be all about. It’s what makes it worth being a member of the church. And it’s what I pray can be my focus through the rest of my walk with Christ and Christianity.

John.

Through studying the gospels in this new way, reading them front to back and looking for a purpose or theme to present itself, I’ve found a lot of intention in the three synoptic gospels that had never really occurred to me. Their differences are subtle but important.

I noticed the disbelief of the apostles and the perfect faith of God portrayed in Mark. In Matthew God renews his covenants and fulfills his promises through Jesus. And in Luke, Jesus’ love permeates through to everyone in the world and the details of his ministry are revealed.

But John is entirely different.

In each of the synoptic gospels, we see something new about the person of Jesus and the nature of God. And each week I’ve pointed out some way to relate the ministry of Jesus on Earth to my own life.

But John just doesn’t seem quite as concerned with letting us know what Jesus was like when he was here. I don’t get a very clear picture of what kind of a guy he was or what he taught people from reading this gospel. There are hardly any of his parables represented here. But in what is represented, there’s a whole lot of meaning.

In fact, I want to focus on a set of stories in John that seem to hold a particular amount of meaning: his miracles.
Personally, I have always struggled with the meaning of Jesus’ miracles. I’ve questioned why they’re significant, whom they affected, and even how they’re possible. For a while I never even considered accounts of Jesus’ miracles to be literal or possible even accurate.

In the other three gospels in particular, they’re represented in groups that make it difficult for the reader to understand the answers to these questions. It seems like Jesus just goes around healing people when they ask him to, and he heals a lot of people but not everyone. It’s always made me ask questions.

Like, “What’s the point?”

If Jesus really did have the ability to heal anyone he wants to, then why didn’t he heal everybody?
Why would God have allowed disease into the world if he were just going to come down and rid us of it as much as he can?

What’s the point of allowing us to have free will if Jesus is going to heal all with ailments?

And, most prevalently: How is it possible for a human being to be literally healed from blindness in a matter of seconds? Why hasn’t this happened since then? How can a basket of fish feed 5000? Jesus’ miracles make no sense.

And in the three synoptic gospels, I don’t feel like these questions are answered to the extent that they are in John’s gospel. John isn’t concerned with what kind of a person Jesus was, he’s concerned with what kind of a Christ he is. What does it mean to be messiah? What does it mean for a human being to be fully divine? These are questions John would have been interested in exploring through his gospel.

And in the context of John’s recollection of miracles, I think he is a lot more intentional about portraying them. There are far fewer, and an additional story accompanies each one.

I’m not going to go all the way into each explanation and all the significances John presents through miracles, but I will say that it’s helped me to understand more fully why and how Jesus would perform these amazing acts. John comprehends that being the Christ means being fully human and fully divine. It means that he heals broken people when they profess their brokenness. He understood the ways of this world and his ministry reflects that.

And the image of Jesus as Christ and Messiah is humbling.

In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God.

He was in the beginning with God.

Luke.

Dear readers:
This week I read Luke.
It's no secret that this gospel has particularly special meaning to me. Go back and read my first post about my background, and I think you'll probably pick up on why.
In fact, I've really been looking forward to this week. I've always wanted to read straight through Luke, and now that I have I think it's safe to say that it's my favorite gospel.
The thing is, the more I learn about Luke’s presentation, the more I appreciate about it. And every time I examine this gospel, I try and imagine what Luke’s story might have been like. And I like to think that Luke’s story isn’t all too different from mine, cultural differences aside.
Hear me out now.
One of the things I always point out as an important difference in the gospels is the difference in their genealogies. I know you probably just skip over that part every time you read one. But it’s a pretty important part of the setup for each gospel.
Okay, well. First, I want to point out something I never technically noticed about Luke before. In the very beginning he says, “Many have undertaken to draw up an account of the things that have been fulfilled among us… since I myself have carefully investigated everything from the beginning, it seemed good also to me to write an orderly account for you… so that you may know the certainty of the things you have been taught.” Right off the bat, he’s setting the tone for a historical, eyewitness account. And he upholds this promise throughout the whole narrative. There are many details of Jesus’ healing stories, his actions, and the way that he relates to people.
Now, before I get too carried away, remember what I said about myself in the first post here? I used to be a total nonbeliever. I used to be so skeptical that I was positive there was no possibility for God to be real. And now, here’s Luke, telling me he’s drawn up an “orderly account” of “everything from the beginning”, so that I may “know the certainty of the things” I have been taught. And like I said, he upholds this promise. For example, Luke really focuses on Jesus’ passage to Jerusalem, and the events that took place during it. It highlights his interactions with his disciples, including some pretty incredible parables (But that’s an entirely different blog entry in itself). Luke seems to be the gospel with the most detail, and the most faithful retelling of Jesus’ narrative. And the moral of this realization is that Jesus’ story speaks for itself. In particular, the story of his flight to Jerusalem, persecution, and passion truly throw a lot at the reader’s emotions all at once. It’s so easy to connect with Jesus the way that Luke presents these events, especially for somebody like me who needs more than just that mental connection of “knowing” his story in order to want to pursue a relationship with Christ.
Anyway, the genealogy. I always loved how Luke is the only gospel author to trace Jesus’ heritage all the way back to Adam. It’s been tough for me to feel accepted into the kingdom of God that’s set up in this life. And that’s not because of anything God has done in my life, obviously. I think it’s just because people seem to love to feel like they’re an exclusive part of something. Christianity can sometimes feel less like a religion and more like a class of people – or a club, even – to somebody looking in longingly. And it took me a long time to feel accepted even though I didn’t read C.S. Lewis and go to church every Sunday while growing up.
Now, in hindsight, this is a pretty silly concern. My relationship with God is just as strong and probably stronger than it would be if I had grown up the son of a pastor. I know that it’s just my nature to need to be drawn into something, and I’m so grateful that I was able to first experience God in the way that I did. So I’m not saying I blame my parents or anything, and in fact I love them and I’m extraordinarily blessed to have grown up in their household. What I am saying is that Luke explicitly traces his genealogy all the way back to Adam. And what I noticed this time through is that there aren’t all this big Jewish names included like there are in Matthew.
Like I mentioned last week, Matthew creates a gateway for Jesus’ new covenant to mesh with the way the Jews already knew to live. But what’s even more incredible (for me, at least) is that Luke opens it up to everyone, Jew or Gentile.
“Christian club” or not.
Whether we grew up in the church or came to God later in life.
Remember when I said I like to imagine the story of Luke? Well, it seems to me that he was very concerned for the gentiles (and I even like to think he was one).
He’s very historical, methodical, and relational with his retelling of Jesus’ story, which means a lot to me having come from a background where I made it hard for myself to believe.
Most importantly, he lets the narrative speak for itself. And I find it easier and easier to connect with Christ the more I read from it.

Matthew, Part 2.

For those of you who didn’t know, this is my second entry about the book of Matthew. I read the whole thing front to back and I’m reflecting on the things I noticed about Matthew’s style and composition, as well as the events of Jesus’ life portrayed in his gospel.

Anyhow.

I love all the things that Jesus had to say from the top of the mountain he preaches from.

I’m sure a lot of you do too, obviously.

But seriously.

The last entry I wrote is about how Jesus is truly the interpreter of the law, not its destroyer.

Another thing that I think Matthew paid close attention to about Jesus is the poetry and beauty of his message that he had to share.

Yes, his whole life was perfect, he was powerful, and he performed miracles and healed the broken and sacrificed himself for our sins… These are all true, and they’re all important things about the nature of Christ, but I think that what Matthew must have been truly bewildered by about Jesus, as is especially evident in chapters 5, 6, and 7, is the perfect and beautiful nature of what he has to share with us.

Usually when I think about Jesus’ teaching, I admit, I think of RULES. I think of things Jesus wants us to do because we’re Christians and he expects it out of us. Listen to your parents. Respect other people. Smile when you go to church and give your money to the homeless and volunteer at your local Goodwill. But go ahead and read Matthew chapters 5-7. That’s what Jesus really did come here to say. That’s what he continues to say to us. And that’s how he lived.

“If you love those who love you, what reward will you get?” – 5:46

“If you forgive men when they sin against you, your heavenly Father will also forgive you” – 6:14

“Why do you look at the speck of sawdust in your brother’s eye and pay no attention to the plank in your own eye?” – 7:3

Jesus didn’t present his message like a list of rules. He didn’t present a threatening message. He’s presenting a divine and beautiful way of life, the true way to prosper. No more live sacrifices, no more making your own path to heaven. This is not only a window into how we should live; it’s the very walk of the holy and blameless Son of Man.

And even later in his ministry, Jesus continues the same approach.

“Woe to you, teachers of the law and Pharisees, you hypocrites! You are like whitewashed tombs, which look beautiful on the outside but on the inside are full of dead men’s bones and everything unclean.”
Jesus’ message is a divine challenge. The reward for cooperating isn’t that he’ll love you, it isn’t that he’ll forgive your sins, and it isn’t even that you’ll get into heaven.

When Jesus confronts people, he challenges them. He doesn’t command them. And I don’t know about you, but I feel like I want to respond to the challenge. Not for the reward on the other end, but because I know his message is blameless.

Matthew, Part 1.

Hello again.

As you may know, I’m sitting down to read each of the gospels front to back. Last week, it was Mark, and this week, it’s Matthew. Why would I do this, you might ask? Well, the main reason is because it’s a class assignment. But you probably already knew that, because you’re probably in my class if you’re reading this. But for those of you who aren’t, I would actually really recommend doing the same. After my reading this week and last, I feel like I really do have a clearer portrait of who Jesus was and is, as well as just of the portrait that the writers of the gospels were trying to convey in their style.

Anyway.

I’m going to talk about the first thing I noticed about Matthew’s style and the story of Jesus found in his book now.
Then later I’ll think of something else I noticed to write another entry about.

The very first thing that stuck out to me when I sat down to read the gospel of Matthew yesterday was all the prophesies that were being fulfilled in, like, the first two pages.

Does anybody else get that impression?

Try reading through the first few chapters of Matthew. There are tons of footnotes with references to the Old Testament! From the naming of Jesus to the city where he’s born to the place where Mary and Joseph run to escape Herod, it seems like Jesus just can’t do anything without fulfilling some prophecy somewhere in Hosea or Jeremiah or Isaiah or something. And it doesn’t just stop in chapter 3. Jesus himself seems to quote the OT a lot more in this gospel than any other. Here he is giving his sermon on the mount: “You have heard that it was said, ‘Love your neighbor and hate your enemy.’ But I tell you: Love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you”. “You have heard that it was said, ‘Eye for eye, and tooth for tooth’. But I tell you, Do not resist an evil person”. “You have heard that it was said, you have heard that it was said…” It’s all over.

Now, I’ve always known that Jesus was a kind of counter-cultural guy. He didn’t like to do what people expected him to, but rather he showed people what they should be expected to do. But what I didn’t really realize until this reading is that he didn’t just come to the earth, wipe away everything that everybody was doing, yell at a bunch of people and create a new way to live. Jesus doesn’t quote the OT to point out what people are doing wrong. He does it to INCORPORATE the things people already know about God into what he preaches. It’s kind of a wild concept, but Jesus was in fact sent here to FULFILL prophecies, to REALIZE God’s covenant with his people, and in the end to ESTABLISH a new covenant. A new covenant that we don’t have to work our way towards, we just have to accept him. That would have been pretty tough for the God-fearing Jews at the time to hear, and it’s still really tough for us to hear today. So I don’t think that Jesus gets up on top of that mountain and yells at people for how they’re living, telling them that they’re wrong to follow the law of God set out in the torah. I think he’s conveying a very loving message: “I know you’re afraid to follow me, but I promise my teaching is compatible with your way of life. Everyone has the same chance to turn their life around and enter the kingdom.”

This is Jesus’ new covenant.

“You are welcome into the kingdom.”

“I am not a stranger.”

“I come from the Father God who you worship and I am here to accept you.”

And so I think that’s the heart of Matthew’s gospel, and that’s what I’ve been reflecting on this week. I know I’m not a Jew, but Jesus comes the same way nonetheless. To tell me that I am welcome, and that his teachings may be a rigorous way of life but they aren’t incompatible with my heart. And leaving all you own to follow him doesn’t mean leaving all you are.
Jesus came to realize a covenant and to fulfill prophecies. He’s here for us, not to destroy who we are but to love and accept.

Mark.

It’s a well-known fact that the gospel according to Mark isn’t the most exciting gospel to read. The author leaves out plenty of popular stories of Jesus’ life, including the Christmas story and many of Jesus’ parables.

However, two things stuck out to me while reading through it. It’s amazing how well you can get the tone of the author of a bible story by reading all the way through the book like a narrative, instead of reading and comparing tiny passages.
The first is the tone of urgency. Throughout the text, the author constantly describes the kingdom of God as imminent, Jesus’ return as near, and our work on this earth as urgent and vital. Now, I find it difficult to believe that Mark would have put such an emphasis on the practical just because he was afraid Jesus would come soon and we’d run out of time. I think what’s more important to note is that our time to be servants of Christ is now, and that while our gift awaits us in heaven, that doesn’t mean we should await it without action.

An important detail to note about Mark’s authorship is that while he describes the day of the Lord as imminent, he also calls us to prepare ourselves for it at all times. I think that this proves that the author wasn’t concerned about the actual date of Jesus’ return, that it doesn’t matter whether it happens in our lifetime or the next, but that we should LIVE like that time is coming tomorrow. Wouldn’t you like to appear blameless before the Lord? Wouldn’t you like him to be pleased by your humble servitude? Well, what if I told you he was returning to the earth next week? I know I would get my act together. But the beauty of Mark’s urgent message is that we don’t know which week he will return. We always need to have our act together.

The second thing that stuck out to me about the tone of this gospel (and, indeed, simply the events of Jesus’ life represented in it) is the failing faith of his disciples. Jesus hand-selects each of them, he sticks by them, he is faithful to them and he provides for them throughout his life. Yet we see image after image in this gospel of their imperfect faith returned. Just one such story comes from Mark 4:38-40: “…The disciples woke [Jesus] and said to him, ‘Teacher, don’t you care if we drown?’ He got up, rebuked the wind and said to the waves, ‘Quiet! Be still!’ Then the wind died down and it was completely calm. He said to his disciples, ‘Why are you so afraid? Do you still have no faith?’” But there are countless more, from a relentless group of teachers of the law testing Jesus again and again, to the betrayal of Judas. And in the last chapter, Mark recalls Jesus’ feeling of disappointment: “Later Jesus appeared to the Eleven as they were eating; he rebuked them for their lack of faith and their stubborn refusal to believe those who had seen him after he had risen.”

I am humbled and amazed that, though I am like the 12 disciples and I doubt and I’m skeptical and sometimes I fail to believe, Jesus is faithful. From the start of his ministry until after his death, Jesus was with the same group and was more faithful to them than they ever were to him.

The same goes for us, we are loved past our disobedience.
But the tone of this gospel comes full circle.
Look past the fact that we are forgiven and explore how we can respond to God’s love. This gospel presents us with a great response. Live your life urgently.

Some Background About Me.

My name is Austin.
I'm a student at George Fox University, although I almost wasn't. I love it here, and I'm glad I went. I love the people, the academics, and I love seeing God's works in my life and those of others. I think it's such a blessing to be in a community where I can observe praise flowing back to God for those things he does.
I grew up a nonbeliever, surrounded mostly by nonbelievers. In fact, I was a self-proclaimed science-centered skeptic and stark atheist. Around the summer before my senior year of high school, nothing in particular convinced me that God must exist and that I ought to believe in him. However, I'm proud to say that since then I've been trying to faithfully live my life for him. I'm still clearing my way through the 16 years of misconceptions about Christianity and strong arguments against theology, but those concerns fade into the background in the face of my newly formed conceptions of grace, peace, mercy, faith, and love.
In fact, that draws me to a quick note about the name of this blog. I don't think it's more important to know how God made us, how long it took him, what he looked like, or any of the other things people concern themselves about. God’s love is what brings people to him, it’s what makes people seek him, and it’s what holds people to him.
I love to learn about Jesus because I consider myself a follower of his teachings far higher than I consider myself a "Pentecostal", a "Quaker", a "pacifist", a "liberal", or any other label that people seem to identify me with when I say I love Jesus. (In fact, I would be far quicker to label myself a Christ follower than a Christian, but perhaps I'll talk more about that in a later entry.) There’s no way you can honestly be doing what Jesus instructs us to do and be doing the wrong thing. Even if your friends or your society tell you so, the teachings of Jesus and the will of God break those boundaries and cross into perfection.
I have a few political ideals that I hold to. I don’t believe in the concept of a just war. I don’t think extreme poverty is an economic necessity, I think it’s a preventable tragedy. I think marriage was intended for man and woman, but I don’t think homosexuality is a “greater” sin than any of the bad things I do. Above all, I think that hate, opposition, conflict, corruption, and brokenness can all be overcome in surprising ways by the power of love. As such, I don’t think Christ calls us to flaunt our political ideals in the faces of those who challenge them. I don’t think we’re supposed to conform to an agenda and fight for our party whether we agree with it or not. I’m not an anarchist, but I believe that loving and accepting is the ultimate “greater good”. In the words of Greg Boyd, “Jesus is pro-everybody. He’s not pro-everything. But he never lets the things he’s against get in the way of the people that he loves.”

So if there’s one thing I know about Jesus, it’s that he loves above all. And if I had to pick a story from the gospels to demonstrate it, I would choose the story from Matthew 22:37-38: “Jesus replied: ‘Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind.’ This is the first and greatest commandment.”
And so I feel challenged to go out and do the same, to try to love all others above all else. It can be difficult sometimes, especially coming from a nonbeliever family with a very different agenda than mine, to look past the politics and focus on the people. But it's what Jesus did when he walked on the earth, and it's what he continues to do. For this reason, I'm very excited to learn more about Jesus' ministry and how I can show people love in more of everything I do.