Integrative Post!

My understanding of the historical Jesus is what really was deepened in this class. Who he was as far as Jewish culture is concerned, and the day and age which he lived. It was two of the books we read for class that did this. The book Out of Egypt really helped me put life and imagination to ancient Israel. I could picture the temple in my mind and see the crowds of people flowing in and out. It gave my mind’s eye something to focus on. Also the book The Challenge of Jesus presented the historical arguments and the theology that backs it. I loved that book. It helped me see Jesus as truly a part of that culture.

One of Jesus teachings that is SO very significant for me is his teachings on the Beatitudes. It’s reflected throughout the rest of his ministry as he lives out the upside-down kingdom described by these Beatitudes. There are so many teachings of Jesus that mean so much to me, but I want to live in this Kingdom of Heaven that he talks about so desperately and so I give myself to his teachings on the Kingdom.

People that don’t understand Christianity need to understand that Jesus is about abundant love. He came to give us life, and that life in abundance. His love is abundant in that he loves people WHOLLY. He loves their physical situations and their spiritual situations. He is not dualistic at all in ministry or in conversation. He loves people where they’re at, but does not tolerate that they stay there. I think people in general have a good perception of Jesus but they need to know about his abundant love about every aspect of their life and that he sacrificed himself for EVERY part of our life, not just bits and pieces!

The excellent books that we read surprised me. I thought they were priceless and they really added to my knowledge about Jesus and helped me deepen my friendship with him. I was excited to sea the list of books at the beginning of the year, but I really had no idea how much I was going to be encouraged but such wonderful readings. NT Wright is one of my favorite modern day theologians and I was reading his books before school began this semester and will continue to read his books into next year!

If I was going to teach this class I would definitely keep the books that we read. They were so helpful to me and I loved reading them. I would also encourage people to blog like was required of us. It makes us think, reflect and interact with the text. What a wonderful thing! I would change the course by making it much less class interactive. When we are being writing on the board what other people said, and taking notes on it, I don’t feel it really has any legitimacy. It’s just what someone thought of 5 min ago rather than a whole century ago by someone way smarter. More lecture would be preferred, and within those lectures should be DEEP research. Not just surface level facts. Power point slides should be congruent with each other and I would deeply DEEPLY know the information.

Wright Chapter 8

I loved Wright's conclusion to his book. IT was so wonderful to see him bring all this etheral talk about historical Jesus down to earth in such a practical way. Seemingly, the church is headed towards a more culture-changing paradigm rather than a "relevant" one. This is so wonderful for us because we for too long have hidden from culture waiting for messiah to come and change culture.

I believe so strongly that we need more doctors who are people living and loving in the the medical field than we need pastors and other people called to "full-time ministry." We need politicians who are kingdom politicians, and nurses who are kingdom nurses and engineers who are kingdom engineers.

The thing is that for too long that we have allowed culture to change the Gospel and not the Gospel to change the culture. There has been a myth that people who are "in the ministry" are the only ones who are pushing forward the kingdom of God. The problem with that whole mentality is that it makes 95% of our days secular and not spiritual. This is when ALL of life is spiritual! How can we lose most of our lives to the enemy rather than live our WHOLE lives for the Kingdom.

Jesus gave us the perfect example of this life. Of one that was not completely defined by the norms of the day but rather by the laws of the Kingdom. This law, is the law of love. I am so grateful for this gift and I am so stoked to live the rest of life by this regard. We will live for the Kingdom, in whatever we do!

Jesus is ALIVE!

While I was growing up there used to be a cassette tape that I would listen to. There was a singing song -book named Salty who would lead kids groups in songs. There was one song that used to get stuck in my head all the time, and now as I think about it it will probably be with me for the rest of the day! It goes something like this, "Jesus is Alive, Jesus is Alive! Jesus is ALIVE! shout hosanna, HOSANNA!" (repeat until mom gets too annoyed to take it anymore).

What makes me smile about that song is it's simple truth, that our Lord and savior is alive. He came, he was born of the virgin Mary, served and ministered as a Rabbi for 3 years, and then was crucified, only to rise again on the third day!

What a story. What's cool about it is that not only did he rise again, he ascended into heaven and now sits at the right hand of the Father. What a glorious end to an amazing life. There's a verse in scripture about how we are to carry around the crucifixion of Christ around in our bodies. I think we should, I think it's why we celebrate the Lord's supper so often and are commanded by Jesus to do it whenever we gather in remembrance of him.

The real question is, how are we to live by the resurrection and ascension of Jesus? I think the answer lies in living expecting his return. We should live, hoping and expecting Jesus to come back, and be ready for it.

Wright Chapter 7

Wrights chapter was basically the "so now what" chapter of his book. How do we as Jesus followers take all this information about the historical Jesus and apply it to our every day lives? Wright takes on the issue by examining the story of the two people on the road to Emmaus. He does throw a little bit of the historicity of it in, but really focuses on what do we now do today with all the post modernism that's the new wave of thinking about things.

I like how he concludes the chapter by rewriting the story for today but in Dover England. And then, instead o Christ that comes and shares the grand story of it all, it is us, his followers. That's one thing that I love doing, sharing the meta-narrative of what God has been doing in human history. How it all ties together is so beautiful, and I cannot wait to go out and share that with the world around me. It is not just a story, it is, THE story, but more importantly it is OUR story.

We have such exciting news to share and not everyone knows this news. What should I do now that I know that the master has risen? He has revealed himself to me, and I am obliged to share his story. I think it would be super cool to be on a long walk with Jesus and have him explain the whole history of the world to me. THAT would be tale to remember!!

The Crucifixion of the Messiah

The Gospel passages that we were assigned to read were all about the last week of Jesus life before the crucifixion, and they all end on the crucifixion and burial. This is actually a very morbid way to end the story. I mean, I know what happens and that Jesus actually raises from the day and that a whole new story is beginning, but the disciples didn't know that. It really was morbid for that weekend, to know that Jesus who was the full and complete hope for a new Israel was dead.

I can imagine if I was one of the disciples and being with Jesus, seeing the dead be raised, the blind seeing, the lame walking, I'd feel as if I was on the brink of the NEW KINGDOM! Jesus was about to bring about the perfect kingdom of Israel where the Romans would be gone, and the line of David would be re-established but with a GREATER glory than in David's time! Yet, all that was shattered to pieces in a garden late at night. The disciples were so unaware what was about to occur that they fell asleep while Jesus was praying. In that moment in the garden, they begin to see that something was going horribly wrong (or so they thought).

Jesus suprised them out of their socks! Not that they had socks. But they didn't know that at the time. I sure am glad that there was a resurrection. Honestly if there wasn't a resurrection, there's no way that I'd be a Christian. Thanks Lord!!

The Resurrected Messiah (Wright Chapter 6)

This was an interesting chapter to read. I have never dealt with the intellectual side of the resurrection and I'm glad NT Wright brought up the other points of view that people had on the resurrection. I believe that the resurrection is a historical fact, and I like how NT Wright addresses the other views on it. In reality, all the arguments against the resurrection really hold no weight. When you test them and try them against the harsh restrictions of logic and the culture of the time, these alternatives break down. Everything from the words that were used to describe the resurrection of Jesus, to the particular parts of the story that were selected to be recorded all scream that this event actually took place. That is one thing that I love about the Gospels is that they are so real that they couldn't be made up.

On to the resurrection of the Messiah, I love it that Jesus' resurrection is one of the factors that points to his messiahship. It is the reversal of death, but at the same time, it's that he was glorified, not just resurrected, which pointed to his Messiahship. At the same time, there were those who believed he was the Messiah before his death, and then at his death, maybe they no longer believed. I wonder if the fact that he was raised from the dead in solitude without the aid of a prophet or someone else. Scripturally many people had been raised from the dead but Jesus was the only one to do it without the ushering in of the act through one of YHWH's servants.

The Jesus I Never Knew

The Jesus I Never Knew is such a great example of really examining Jesus as to who he was. Yancey took an original approach of instead of explaining who Jesus was in the First Century, and then showing how our perceptions are wrong, Yancey started with our perceptions, and worked his way backwards! The beginning is a great way to invite people into the book, as reader and author both embark on a journey to get to know who this Jesus of Nazareth truly was. Yancey went over Jesus being a Jew, and also what Jesus’ desert temptation reveals about his character.

Another good quality is Yancey’s emphasis on Jesus’ ministry. I feel like he is proportional in his section about why he came with both ministry and death/resurrection. It’s a good balance, whereas I’ve seen in other books too much emphasis on one over the other. In reality, Jesus came for BOTH his earthly ministry AND to die on the cross and rise again. Yancey talks about the Beatitudes in this section on why Jesus came. It’s an interesting section because we sit down and wrestle with what Jesus meant by those famous yet archaic words. Yancey pulls out various levels of meaning from the Beatitudes, which I think could all be true. I have my own take on them, but I cannot wait to talk to Jesus face to face, and find out what his intentions were with the Beatitudes! Yancey concludes the section with two chapters on his death and resurrection, which were so vivid to me, it somehow hit home for me in a special way.

The last section of the book is called “What He Left Behind” and it basically adds application to the whole book. It basically asks the question, “Well, what now?” It’s a powerful conclusion to a fantastic book!

How did this book challenge my thinking? Well, actually this was the third time I’ve read this book. I read it once when I was in high school, and then again the summer before freshman year at Fox. So obviously I’m familiar with the book, and I don’t want to be the guy “oh it didn’t challenge me at all!” with this book, because it did! I just need to explain why I may not talk about some of the larger issues Yancey addresses because he probably challenged me on them a few years ago, but I can’t really remember how currently.

This read through made me really rethink the Beatitudes. The other times that I read the book it was the only literature on the beatitudes that I had ever read so this time I approached it much differently. Last year I looked at several books on the Beatitudes and listened to multiple sermons on the subject, so when Yancey broached the topic my ears perked up as I now had a reference for what he was going to say.

What I really appreciated was a lack of theological acrobatics on Yancey’s part. As soon as theologians spend pages and pages explaining away what scripture says I get uneasy because of course the Bible needs context, and proper context. My issue is when we bend over backwards scripturally to make our thought fit onto scripture. Yancey shies away from this and rather approaches the Beatitudes with a sense of “it could mean this, and it actually could mean this too! In fact, Jesus could have implied several layers to each of these sayings!” It challenged me to not take such a strong stand on what I believe the Beatitudes to mean, and enjoy the mystery offered to us in scripture.

There was one chapter in particular that enriched my understanding of the time after Jesus death, and subsequently a deeper comprehension of the resurrection. “Resurrection: A Morning Beyond Belief” is the title for the chapter, and it really blew me away. I think what was so powerful to me was Yancey’s stories of his own friends dying, thus bringing the reality of Jesus’ death on the cross so much closer to me. I have never been close to death. I’ve never had a member of my family die that I really was going to miss much, or ever had a lot of relationship with. Death has been a part of a dark world “out there” but never close to my heart.

When Yancey depicted his feelings after the death of his friends, I began to think on how the disciples must have felt. And though I’ve heard this a thousand times, it finally made the foot and a half journey from my mind to my heart. This revelation that they watched Jesus DIE. And that’d the end. There was no more Jesus. He was gone. He was gone forever. Death was final. There was no return; it was irrevocable. I can’t even imagine the despair.

Jesus conquered death. Our Lord has vanquished that horrible enemy. What a gift!! Thank you Philip Yancey for pointing that out to me in such a clear way!