The Gospel of Luke

Archive - Jesus RSS Feed

The Reason for God

February 18, 2009 in Jesus, Reading with 11 Comments

I just finished Timothy Keller’s book, The Reason for God. It was amazing! I give it a 5 out of 5. I would compare it to a modern day Mere Christianity. In the first half of the book, Keller addresses the most dominant reasons people currently have for not believing in God and explains why they don’t add up. Then, in the second half he gives different reasons why believing in God makes the most sense logically. Too often, people think you must choose faith over logic/reason if you want to believe in God. Keller explains how absurd this notion really is. Faith is involved in atheism and religion alike. This is a well articulated book that explains the Biblical view of Jesus and challenges people to not only doubt, but to push through the doubt and find the truth at the end of it.

“A faith without some doubts is like a human body without any antibodies in it. People who blithely go through life too busy or indifferent to ask hard questions about why they believe as they do will find themselves defenseless against either the experience of tragedy or the probing questions of a smart skeptic. A person’s faith can collapse almost overnight if she has failed over the years to listen patiently to her own doubts, which should only be discarded after long reflection.”

Was Jesus a Pacifist?

November 6, 2008 in Bible, Jesus with 18 Comments

The idea of pacifism has been on my mind lately for two reasons: 1) with the elections I heard a lot of talk about the war in Iraq and how it is hypocritical for believers to support war and yet oppose abortion; 2) I’ve been reading a few authors lately that argue that Jesus was a pacifist and that we must adopt this stance as believers. So I’ve been reading the Bible lately with a filter for pacifism. In my reading this morning I came across three passages where it appears that Jesus is anything but a pacifist. This is not a researched list, this is simply three examples from four chapters that I read today.

Jesus tells a story of a king and his people called the Parable of the Ten Minas (Luke 19:11-27 ). He ends the parable in verse 27: “But those enemies of mine who did not want me to be king over them–bring them here and kill them in front of me.” That sounds pretty harsh. Not just to kill them, but “kill them in front of me.”

Jesus tells a story of a man who owned a vineyard called The Parable of the Tenants (Luke 20:9-16). He ends the parable in verse 16: “What then will the owner of the vineyard do to them? He will come and kill those tenants and give the vineyard to others.” Again, a pacifist could evict the tenants or fine them, but He says to kill them.

Finally, as Jesus prepares Himself and His disciples for His capture, He tells them how to get ready in Luke 22:36. “But now if you have a purse, take it, and also a bag; and if you don’t have a sword, sell your cloak and buy one.” This is an odd verse especially given that He rebukes one of disciples for later using it.

Now I know that there are a handful of verses that could lend support to both sides of the argument (which will probably be quoted back to me). I’m simply arguing that I don’t see this issue as an easy black-and-white answer based off of Jesus’ actions AND teachings. Since I’ve quoted things that I agree with Brian McLaren about, let me add a quote of something that I don’t agree with. He writes about a second coming where God forcefully sifts people and judges them and the seeming contrast from Jesus’ life.

“If we remain charmed by this this kind of eschataology, we will be forced to see the nonviolence of the Jesus of the Gospels as a kind of strategic fake-out, like a feigned retreat in war, to be followed up by a crushing blow of so-called redemptive violence in the end. The gentle Jesus of the first coming becomes a kind of trick Jesus, a fake-me-out Messiah, to be replaced by the true jihadist Jesus of a violent second coming.” – Everything Must Change (144)

I’m still not sure exactly where I land on this issue but I can tell you that I think there is validity in BOTH arguments based off of the Jesus we see in the Gospels.

Wordle

October 14, 2008 in Bible, Jesus, Links with 3 Comments

Thanks to Romi, I found a great website called Wordle. It takes text and represents it as a word cloud. It sizes each word according to how many times it appears in your text. You can customize it any number of ways. Here is what the Gospel of John looks like in one example:

The Secret Message of Jesus

February 26, 2008 in Church, Jesus, Reading, Spirituality with 2 Comments

As many of you reading this will no doubt acknowledge, Brian McLaren is a name that always starts a conversation. Nonetheless, I have read his “A New Kind of Christian” trilogy and recently decided to read another one of his books called The Secret Message of Jesus. I am glad I did.

This book was provocative from the title on and left me with much to think about. I am still digesting it. In a nutshell, it is a great work on the “Kingdom of God.” This idea breathes new life into my view of Jesus and His church and I think is helpful for all of us to revisit and dwell on. I have long since thought that collectively the church preaches too much on “eternity” and rarely about life now. That is why the words, “Your Kingdom come on earth as it is in Heaven” are so powerful.
Here are a few of my favorite quotes to stew on.

“This is the scandal of the message of Jesus. The kingdom of God does fail. It is weak. It is crushed. When its message of love, peace, justice, and truth meets the principalities and powers of government and religion armed with spears and swords and crosses, they unleash their hate, force, manipulation, and propaganda.”

“What if the only way for the kingdom of God to come in its true form – as a kingdom “not of this world” – is through weakness and vulnerability, sacrifice and love? What if it can conquer only by first being conquered? What if being conquered is absolutely necessary to expose the brutal violence and dark oppression of these principalities and powers, these human ideologies and counterkingdoms – so they, having been exposed, can be seen for what they are and freely rejected, making room for the new and better kingdom? What if the kingdom of God must in these ways fail in order to succeed?”

“The Christian religion continues to sing and preach and teach about Jesus, but in too many places (not all!) it has largely forgotten, misunderstood, or become distracted from Jesus’ secret message. When we drifted from understanding and living out his essential secret message of the kingdom, we became like flavorless salt or a blown-out lightbulb – so boring that people just walked away. We may have talked about going to heaven after we die, but not about God’s will being done on earth before we die. We may have pressured people to be moral and good or correct and orthodox to avoid hell after death, but we didn’t inspire them with the possibility of becoming beautiful and fruitful to heal the earth in this life.”

“And here, perhaps, is the most astounding contrast of all: the peace of God’s kingdom comes not through the violent torture and merciless extermination of the king’s enemies, but rather through the suffering death of the king himself. The pax Christi is not the peace of conquest but rather the peace of true reconciliation. The king achieves peace not by shedding the blood of rebels but by – I hope the scandal and wonder of this is not lost because the words may be familiar – shedding his own blood.”

“Faith that counts, then, is not the absence of doubt; it’s the presence of action.”