Getting it half right

Jews praying in the Synagogue on Yom Kippur. (1878 painting by Maurycy Gottlieb) (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

Jesus said some pretty direct stuff. Right at the beginning of his most famous sermon he said something that came as a bit of a punch in the face to his listeners.

He’d got pretty famous by this stage in his ministry; he’d travelled around teaching and healing, and was being followed by big crowds, most of whom were Jews. Now the Jewish leaders were a bit anxious about all of this, as you can expect. They believed in the God of Israel and didn’t want their people being led astray by some guy who happened to be a good public speaker.

So Jesus clarified things:

Do not think that I have come to abolish the Law or the Prophets.

Oh, phew! This Jesus guy is on our side after all – maybe I ought to invite him to the next Jewish speakers’ conference.

I have not come to abolish them but to fulfil them.

Hang on, wait. Before today I could just tell people that you were a cult leader because I thought you disagreed with me. Then a moment ago I thought you were on my side, and now you’re saying that everything I believe is only right providing it’s all about you?

That made things pretty difficult for Jews in the first century, because Jesus was suddenly claiming to be the leader of the only true Jews.

A little thought. Maybe the best way to talk to people of other faiths that ultimately started in Israel (e.g. Judaism, Islam, Mormonism) is to clarify what we agree with before we bring the kidney punch that the only way to understand it all properly is in Jesus?

The Christ

Image via Wikipedia

Nowadays when we refer to Jesus of Nazareth, the carpenter’s son, as ‘Jesus Christ’ we know exactly who we’re talking about. But I was wondering the other day if we actually realise how significant that title is.

I mean, I know that most Christians recognise the title ‘Christ’ as not being Jesus’ actual name, and that it means the same as the Hebrew title ‘Messiah’, and that it means ‘the Anointed One’, and that Jesus fulfilled all the messianic prophecies, blah blah blah, but just think about it.

The Jews today are still waiting for Messiah to come, much in the same way that the Jews in Jesus’ time were waiting for him. Back then they’d been waiting for a couple of thousand years too. Then this guy showed up, and literally within a generation there were thousands and thousands of people who claimed that this guy from Nazareth was the Messiah. Mental.

If you’re not too sure, just imagine Acts 2 happening today: 3,000 Jews all in one day put their hands up and said, ‘Yep, this Jesus guy is the Messiah we’ve been waiting for!’

All at a time thousands of years before trains, telephones, or Twitter.

Do we actually realise how significant this is? Imagine if tomorrow’s newspapers reported 3,000 Jews all at once saying that they were remaining orthodox Jews but that God had been born a man and had fulfilled all the Messianic prophecies.

Jesus was far more extraordinary than we give him credit for.

Channel 4 Bible documentary

Channel 4 have started a new series called The Bible: A History. The adverts looked quite good, so we thought we’d give it a go, fully expecting the normal Channel 4 cynicism of everything.

It was, but it was actually quite good. A reasonably fair presentation of both sides of the creation/evolution debate, it included little snippets from John Piper, Greg Haslam, and, of course, Richard Dawkins.

The presenter, Howard Jacobson, ripped Dawkins to pieces for his personal ‘scientific method’: count anyone who lived a long time ago as stupid (C.S. Lewis’ called that ‘chronological snobbery’), and judge Christians as fools intolerant of other world views, when that is Dawkins’ own position. I enjoyed that.

My only real problem with the programme was Jacobson’s  presentation. In talking to Greg Haslam, who presented his well-researched view that science fully backs up the Bible, Howard asked, ‘do you not think that you can leave the science to the scientists, and appreciate the creation story as just a nice story?’ Of course, he eventually did find someone who believed that, so concluded that it must be the best way…

I thought his was a good anthropomorphism of the general population’s view: ‘I don’t believe in literal Christianity so would rather take the bits I like out of it and ignore the bits I don’t like.’

Having said that, like I say, it was good. I’ll watch next week’s and see if my opinion changes.