The Real Jesus...

[russ]

I've been thinking about the last couple of new topics on T&F. One was the "marriage protection" deal posted by Jodi, and the other was the "conservative bible" deal posted by msh. It got me thinking about how hard it can be to cut through all of the c*@p, and get in touch with who Jesus really is and what he was, AND IS, all about.

On one side you have the Jesus Seminar types, reducing Jesus to a simple, earthly, historical figure, and Christianity to a historical movement, purely human.

Then you have folks like the "Conservative Bible" people, who are quite certain about their very different version of Jesus.

The temptation is to assume that the 'real' Jesus is somewhere in between these two views, but I think that misses it.

I think Jesus is above and beneath, beyond and through, inside and all around these views and any others we may attach ourselves to until we see Jesus face to face. I don't think I really see the 'real' Jesus yet. And I don't think Dominic Crossan or John MacArthur do either. ("Unleashing God's Truth one verse at a time... gag me.)

Now you might say, but Russ, can't we get the 'real' Jesus from the bible? Don't you trust the scripture to deliver us the 'real' Jesus?

The best way I can answer that is to say that yes, I do trust the scriptures. I just don't trust us.

So. There you have it.

I guess this has been on my mind because I think about friends like Jodi, and I know she is trying to navigate all of the chaos and see Jesus for who he really is.

Gracious Lord,
expressed to us in your miraculous incarnation
and in your written revelation.
Help us to be true to you,
even as you have been true to us.
Forgive us as we fail to fully embrace and purely express
your righteousness, justice, love, forgiveness, mercy and grace.
We pray this in the name of the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit.
Amen.

[msh]

Only one thing to say: "Amen!"

And you only touched the tip of the iceberg.

There are inner-life people (and they still exist) who see Jesus as the one who makes the inner life possible. It is true, but it too often ignores the outer life.

There are the charismatics that see Jesus as the one who unlocked access to the Holy Spirit so they could get miraculous experiences.

There are the fundamentalists that see Jesus as the one who paid our penalty and commanded us to evangelize. They also think we should know a lot about Him, so there are the studies of scripture "one verse at a time" (too often extracting "truth" from contextless verses that bear little resemblance to what is being taught — at least in context).

It goes on. And we can all see some of those inside whatever our present assembly is. And we probably like our version and dislike the others. But as ridiculous as they all may look when laid out in this manner, there is some truth in virtually all of them. And none of them is the "whole gospel" but if we put them all together (assuming that would not reach critical mass and merely explode) it still might not be the "whole gospel."

One of the suggestions by Phyllis Tickle a few weeks ago was to look at the gospels without the story and commentary. Just read the red letters (Jesus' words). I see a different Jesus than I was raised up believing, and different from the one I changed to believe in my early 20s, and even somewhat different than the one I have been following (or think I have been following) the past 22 years at IBC. But I am becoming comfortable with what I see. And what I see is not that certain. I've reached an age where you think you should have it figured out and become static. But I find that to be impossible.

Scripture is part of the process. But Russ is right. It is the grey matter within all of us that makes scripture unreliable. Still, somehow it remains profitable for teaching, a light to my path, and a lamp to my feet.

Great topic. More questions than answers. I'm beginning to be OK with that.

[ciphertext]

Scripture is part of the process. But Russ is right. It is the grey matter within all of us that makes scripture unreliable. Still, somehow it remains profitable for teaching, a light to my path, and a lamp to my feet.

I don't think scripture is unreliable.

[russ]

ciphertext...

I would probably not make such a statement myself for fear of misunderstanding.

Nevertheless, context is the key. I think the question is to what extent we can rely on the text of scripture alone to fully inform us and "get us all on the same age" on various subjects. And there are a couple of general areas where I think we get in trouble by overstating the concept of our reliance on scripture.

One issue would be the tendency in fundamentalism to look to (rely on) the scripture to be a textbook of sorts on certain subjects that would seem to be outside of scripture's intent. I would argue, for instance, that the first chapters of Genesis are not intended to inform us on the details of the creation of the cosmos from a scientific standpoint. However, I believe those chapters to be completely reliable related to the their intent. In this sense, I would say that the scripture should not be relied upon to provide us with the scientific/historical details of this event because it never intends to provide us such in the first place. I might suggest that the scripture should not be relied upon as a scientific textbook at all. Not because the scripture fails, or is in error in this matter, but rather because it never intends to function in this way in the first place. I cannot, for instance, be relied upon to behave like my wife. I would be a very unreliable Amanda! This is not, however, a flaw in my behavior, it is simply an acknowledgment of God's intent related to who he designed me to be.

Another matter, and the one that I think is more in play in this context, is the idea that the truth of scripture is automatically going to crystallize the truth in all matters for each of us as we are exposed to it. Or, that we are going to all come to the same conclusions and/or interpretations based on our reading of it. This is clearly not the case. In this sense I might say that the text of scripture cannot be relied upon to draw us to the same conclusions related to how we should think, behave, vote, etc... in all matters. Of course, in any case where two of us interpret the scriptures differently or come to a different conclusion related to its message, there are only two possibilities. One of us is wrong in our interpretation/conclusion, or we both are! History and our current denominational, sectarian landscape demonstrate to us that this is true. Clearly God did not intend to infuse his written Word with the power to automatically constrain us to a perfect understanding of all of the truths found therein.

In neither example is the scripture failing, or proving to be in error. The fundamental issue is not the scripture's unreliability, but ours. Nevertheless, practically speaking, I think msh's statement can be made... if you understand the context.

That's my two cents... but I may not be a reliable source of the proper interpretation of msh's intent.

[msh]

I'm not sure that Russ got exactly what I was saying, but what he said was good enough that I can only agree.

While not exactly on topic (but I will make it so) I periodically engage in a forum that deals with marginal to extreme cults (according to the forum owners' definition). Because I have some family involved in one of these, I occasionally spend time there. Recently someone posted something that was talking about whether any particular group was a “practical expression of the church.” It is a common phrase thrown around by this particular group a lot. In this case, someone who is no longer a member was suggesting something different as the “proper” criteria.

Suddenly it hit me that if there is no disagreement that any of the groups mentioned, from run of the mill denominations, to this particular semi-cult, to whatever free group, to the criteria that this person was suggesting is a church, then they are, by simply application of the English language “practical expressions of the church.” So here we were, a bunch of educated people arguing over whether this semi-cult is “The Church” or just “a church” and someone decides to suggest that there is another criteria and that it might be that someone else is “The Church” (and everyone else is not).

And all of this, from the original premise to this particular new idea, is springing from scripture — or at least claiming to be so.

I suddenly stopped, reread the post, and asked whether “practical expression of the church” and “the church” are not an identity, and that since most, if not all of us actually believed that all of the groups mentioned were churches, that they were, by definition, practical expressions of the church. Alternately, the groups that are practical expressions of the church are actually church and those that are not practical expressions of the church are simply not church.

I find that too often garbage is raised up from a cauldron into which scripture is added through the application of several external principles (often of dubious origin). We seem to need scripture to say so much more than it does. We get to reading Revelation and get caught up in whether we will be able to fly around. Why? I can’t figure it out. It makes no difference in my present walk (or lack thereof). I read a Bible footnote that suggested that because Matthew used the term Kingdom of heaven instead of Kingdom of God that it meant something different from the kingdom of God (despite the fact that almost all of the same references were stated as “kingdom of God” in the other gospels). What was the basis? None was given. It just said something like “it indicates that ...” And it was so. (And there was much rejoicing --- “Yea!!”)

I’m beginning to think that the biggest problem with reading scripture is that if we are left to our own devices, we tend to get lost. It is only together that we get the ridiculous thrown out, and bring the reasonably possible together with prayer and contemplation to arrive at something reasonably resembling God’s Word. And it tends to look a lot like the raw scripture on which it is based rather than some of the contortions that applying metaphor and type after metaphor and type to it creates.

But then, at a different level, I think that scripture IS a lot like a textbook. But in a different way than most would think. I believe that it accurately portrays what it was designed to portray. But it does not portray it all. I often point to my 7th grade science book. It taught that it takes light a little over 8 minutes to travel from the sun to the earth. It also taught enough to figure out that in that time the earth would rotate about 2 degrees eastward. But it did not teach what the teacher gleaned from that — that it meant that the sun was not where it appeared to be. That would have been true if the sun were rotating around the earth. But it is not. We simply were not where the light was aimed when it started 8 minutes ago. But now that we are there, its reverse trajectory is a straight line to the sun. (Don’t spend too much time on this, it is correct even though almost everyone argues against it at first.)

But that is in a world in which gravity and other factors do not alter the otherwise straight path of light — facts that are beyond the scope of a 7th grade textbook. And if quantum physics might play a part, that is not included either. But the 7th grade science textbook is correct in what it says. You simply have to know its limitations. Scripture also has limitations. It is not the owner’s manual (which is incomplete) or even the full encyclopedia for any particular topic. It is what it is, and not what it is not. (Profound yet naggingly unable to show which is which on which topic.)

BTW. I would be completely comfortable with discovering that God put evolution in motion and at some point selected one (two?) that had come to the point that He desired and then put His breath within to create what we now know as man. And I go to church with a fair number of people that will have a cow if they discover that the whole thing wasn’t created from scratch 6,000 years ago. My faith is solid either way. Obviously God didn’t intend to dwell on those details. So I won’t either.