Oh man, this is so good and so hard. As someone who grew up in the pews, in an extremely conservative denomination, I was taught to revere the Bible. But after seminary and some grad schools….well… translation and scripture aren’t as simple as they were. I love your rationale for looking at Jesus’ words. And I love that you’re calling out the difference between following Jesus and Christianity…that’s a distinction that will freak people out but it’s vitally important. Thank you!
It's not hard any longer...and in the scheme of things, no big deal. I do follow Jesus and struggle with what is currently seen as "American christian." Like many things of this nature, when we humans get busy building and organizing, we screw it up.
I am a new follower and believer of God and I am very happy you are delineating what is likely true from not likely true about Jesus. I am suspicious of the motives of people of the past and present. Things were revealed to me last year that proved I was wrong for 40 years, and was of the supernatural variety, inexplicable by science, including multiple miracles not mathematically likely...
I am reading "Practicing the Way" and I am learning what I have suspected - that most Christians are Christian in name only and not devoted followers or disciples of Christ and his teachings. If Jesus were alive today I believe he would be appalled had all of the hatred against today's disenfranchised people, such as immigrants and the LGBT community
Thank you for sharing your powerful spiritual journey. Your openness to examining both faith and evidence, while maintaining compassion for marginalized people, exemplifies what thoughtful Christianity can be. You're absolutely right that many who claim Christianity don't follow Jesus's actual teachings about love and inclusion. The historical Jesus consistently stood with society's outcasts and challenged religious authorities who used doctrine to exclude people. I will keep you in my prayers!
Re "The classic example of this is Jesus’s relationship with John the Baptist. Typically, the baptizer is more holy or more authoritative than the person getting baptized. This remains true today. Scholars believe the story of Jesus being baptized by John must have been well-known enough to need an explanation because all four Gospels go out of their way to explain this (embarrassing) detail."
This is because of a modern assumption that baptism has something to do with the cleansing of sins and the believe that Jesus was free of sins. To the contrary, baptism was merely a cleansing ritual, having nothing to do with sins but everything to do with preparing to live one's life. The Essenes at Qumran had extensive bathing facilities and would bathe daily or even more that that. How many sins could be committed between baths that would need cleansing?
Jesus's basic message was to get baptized (sort of getting cleaned up for a date), repent your sins, and then follow Yahweh's commandments. So, prepare for a righteous life by cleansing your body, repent your sins, which is to cleans your mind/soul, and then "sin no more," that is follow God's commandments. If all of the Jews in the vicinity were to do this a new entity, the Kingdom of Heaven/God, would be created, even if it were incased in the Roman Empire.
No, this has nothing to do with sin. In Second Temple Judaism, ritual purity was about status and authority, not moral cleansing. The one performing ritual purification needed to be of higher ritual status than the recipient - this remains reflected in most Christian traditions today where only ordained clergy can perform baptisms.
John's baptism was explicitly about preparing people for the coming Kingdom through ritual purification. The Gospel writers had to address Jesus's baptism by John because it appeared to suggest John had higher spiritual/ritual authority than Jesus, which conflicted with their understanding of Jesus as messiah. This was the "embarrassing" detail that needed explanation, not any issue around sin.
The Qumran community's ritual baths demonstrate this focus on ritual status and purity rather than moral cleansing. Their frequent bathing was about maintaining proper ritual status, not repeatedly washing away sins.
Further, we can see this embarrassment in the Gospel text themselves. Matthew explicitly shows John trying to prevent Jesus's baptism, saying "I need to be baptized by you" (Matt 3:14). Mark and Luke add dramatic divine affirmations immediately after the baptism. John's Gospel notably never shows the baptism itself, only its aftermath. These literary moves demonstrate early Christians struggling with the "criterion of embarrassment."
And by the way, this is a view that's affirmed by theologically conservative scholars as well, including John P. Meier, in his seminal A Marginal Jew: Rethinking the Historical Jesus, Volume Two (Yale University Press, 1994), and Dale C. Allison Jr.'s The Historical Christ and the Theological Jesus (Eerdmans, 2009).
I find it strange that if Psalm 139:8, Isaiah 26:19, Ecclesiastes 3:11, Daniel 12:2, and Revelation 14:11 are all true and mention or allude to eternity, that Jesus would never have mentioned, discussed, or taught on that topic (or are we to discard those passages?).
You are telling us to ignore and discard these passages:
Matthew 7:13, 13:40-43, 16:18
Luke 16:19-31, 23:43
John 3:14-16, 5:24, 11:2-2, 14:6,13
Ephesians 2:8-9
As I read your essay here, I get the impression that you are deciding on what you believe, and then are merely and arbitrarily discarding those portions of the Bible that counter your belief …
… as opposed to reading the Bible and accepting what it says –– all of what it says –– and accepting what it says even if it disagrees with what you (or I) believe.
The key issue here is distinguishing between what the historical Jesus likely taught and what later Christian writers attributed to him. This isn't about "arbitrarily discarding" passages but about understanding their historical context and development.
The Old Testament/Hebrew Bible passages (Psalms, Isaiah, Ecclesiastes, Daniel) you cite reflect evolving Jewish thought about the afterlife over centuries. The concept of individual eternal life only developed in Judaism around 200-100 BCE. Revelation was written decades after Jesus's death and reflects late first-century Christian theology, not Jesus's teachings.
The Gospel passages fall into two categories: Synoptic passages (Matthew, Luke) that use apocalyptic language common to first-century Judaism about the coming Kingdom of God
Johannine passages that reflect later Christian theological development about eternal life.
Paul's letters (including Ephesians, though scholars doubt Paul wrote it) show how early Christian theology developed after Jesus's death.
The historical Jesus, like other first-century Jewish apocalyptic prophets, likely spoke about a coming Kingdom of God that would transform this world, not about individual eternal life in heaven. His message focused on how people should live now to participate in this coming kingdom.
When we look at our earliest sources (Mark and Q), we find Jesus talking about the Kingdom of God primarily in present and near-future terms. The more developed theology of eternal life found in John's Gospel reflects later Christian thinking about Jesus rather than his own teachings.
This isn't about discarding scripture but understanding it in its historical context. Later Christian interpretations of Jesus may be important to you but shouldn't be confused with the message of the historical Jesus himself.
In my initial comment / reply, I started by saying, “You say that Jesus never spoke of eternity.” I was wrong. You stated that, “Jesus was not concerned about where you would spend eternity.”
Eternity, and Eternal Life, deals with things beyond this earthly life, the Bible unequivocally teaches that Jesus was concerned about this subject, and also that when we die we are not merely extinguished and cease to exist, but rather, we either 1) enter first into Heaven and then into God’s Kingdom on Earth, or, 2) exist forever in a state of eternal, never-ending suffering.
In your comment here you write, “The historical Jesus … likely spoke about a coming Kingdom of God that would transform this world, not about individual eternal life in heaven. His message focused on how people should live now to participate in this coming kingdom.”
You are mistaken, as shown by these passages that you accept as legitimate: in Matthew 13, Jesus mentions “the Kingdom of Heaven” eight times, and in Matthew 5:3,10,19-20, 7:21, 8:11, 11:12, 13:24, 16:9, 19:14, and more. Further, Jesus teaches that we continue on, in conscious awareness after our physical death, in Luke 16:19-31.
And in passages that you do not accept as legitimate we see this: 2 Peter 3:1-18, Revelation 20:11-21:8 ... Galatians 2:16, Ephesians 2:8-10, Titus 3:5-7 ... John 3:14-18, 5:28-29, 11:25-26 ... Revelation 20:11-21:5, 14:9-11.
The Bible teaches, whether or not we are willing to accept it, that each one of us is an eternal being, and we will all continue on forever, no matter what we do or how we live. The question is, where will we continue on?
To be clear, these are not "my standards," they are the standards of some of the world's best Biblical scholars, including many theologically conservative ones with whom you'd probably agree with on many things. As such, you would be hard pressed to find a Biblical scholar who says the Bible "unequivocally teaches" any one specific thing. Parts of the Bible may teach something, while other parts disagree. It's important to remember these are separate writings that have been collected together. You can make an argument, but it would still just be your opinion.
You are also confusing the modern notion with heaven with what heaven would have meant to the Gospel writer of Matthew. Scholars generally agree that "kingdom of Heaven" and "Kingdom of God" mean the same thing between the writers of Mark, Luke/Acts, and Matthew. This is from the Anchor Bible Dictionary, vol. 6 (1992: Yale University Press): "The variant preferred by Matthew, 'the Kingdom of Heaven,' or literally, 'the Kingdom of the Heavens' (Gk hē basileia tōn ouranōn), corresponds to Heb malkût šāmayîm or Aram malkûtā dišmayāʾ. The conventional argument is that the plural 'heavens' in this variant does not refer simply to the transcendent realm, but is a 'circumlocution,' an expression which avoids uttering or writing the Divine Name (YHWH); if so, 'the Kingdom of (the) Heaven(s)' is equivalent to 'the Kingdom of God' (Dalman)."
Further, you are misinterpreting Luke 16:19-31 - as conservative, Protestant Christians do, trying to force the Bible into their own narrow understanding. The point of that parable - and the key word here is PARABLE - not that "Jesus teaches that we continue on," but that the wealthy man is so intractably resistant to the needs of the poor, and that there is a coming major reversal. This is a theme that is central to Luke's gospel (i.e., Luke 6:24-26). And - if we read Luke ALONE - and not with the theology of the Gospel of John or Paul - to the writer of Luke, salvation is only offered to one who gives up all their wealth (Luke 10:25-28). But, again there is debate among scholars over whether any of three passages I just cited are authentically Jesus.
The real question is: do you want to follow the Protestant church and its interpretation of the Bible - which is the product of men - or do you want to follow Jesus, and what he ACTUALLY preached? I know what my answer is.
This response is for the person who may have read through this article and the discussion between Andrew and myself that followed, and who is not sure what to believe about the topic at hand.
The question here is — Is the Bible telling us the truth in what it claims, and in what it specifically claims about Jesus Christ and what He said and what He taught? Andrew says no, and cites scholars who say no. I say yes, and have no one to cite … I can only say that I believe the Bible is telling the truth.
Our discussion, Andrew’s and mine, touches on perhaps the most important question that anyone can ever ask … What happens to me after I die?
If the Bible is not true, if we can’t trust it to give us the answer to this question, it really doesn’t matter what you or I or Andrew believe. Any answer is as good as any other.
But if the Bible is true, then these statements and claims are true: a) “Jesus said to her, ‘I am the resurrection and the life. He who believes in Me, though he may die, he shall live. And whoever lives and believes in Me shall never die. Do you believe this?’” (John 11:25-26). b) At John 14:6 we read, “Jesus said to him, ‘I am the way, the truth, and the life. No one comes to the Father except through Me,’” and c) at John 3:16-17 Jesus stated, “For God so loved the world that He gave His only begotten Son, that whoever believes in Him should not perish but have everlasting life. For God did not send His Son into the world to condemn the world, but that the world through Him might be saved.”
In John 5:28-29 Jesus claims, “… all who are in the graves will hear His voice and come forth — those who have done good, to the resurrection of life, and those who have done evil, to the resurrection of condemnation (and see Revelation 20:15).
So, as apparently Andrew believes, do we enter Heaven or God’s earthy kingdom by doing good works?
The Bible says no, especially a) at Ephesians 2:8, "For by grace you have been saved through faith. And this is not of your own doing; it is the gift of God, not a result of works, so that no one may boast," and b) at Galatians 2:16, “Yet we know that a person is not justified by works of the law but through faith in Jesus Christ, so we also have believed in Christ Jesus, in order to be justified by faith in Christ and not by works of the law, because by the works of the law no one will be justified.”
Again, the question here is — Is the Bible telling us the truth?
And you, dear reader, only you can decide what to believe the answer is.
The problem with your reply here is that the Bible doesn't as clearly say what you're saying it says. And what you're presenting isn't "what the Bible says," what you're presenting is a certain interpretation of what Paul, Augustine, Luther, and others thought about "what the Bible says." First and foremost, the argument against this belief—that humans are saved by faith alone—is specifically refuted by James 2:24.
But this not my argument—it's the argument of both the Roman Catholic Church and the Orthodox—which collectively make up anywhere from half to two thirds of the world's two billion Christians. If the Bible is so clear as you (and Luther and other Protestants) insist, why then do at least a BILLION people disagree with you?
Never the less, I don't really care what the Bible says. I care about what JESUS says. One is the product of man, one is the product of God. One - when interpreted through the eyes of Martin Luther - is about the next left. One is about this life. One is the religion ABOUT Jesus, one is the religion OF Jesus.
Andrew, you write, “Never the less, I don't really care what the Bible says. I care about what JESUS says.”
How interesting.
Could you please share something that Jesus said, that you heard with your own ears, that you wrote down so you wouldn’t forget … could you share what events you attended where Jesus spoke, or what encounters you had where you had a conversation with Him?
Because if you can’t do this, then you are dependent, as we all are, on someone else’s account of His words, whether they’re recorded in the Bible, or in The Gospel of Thomas, or in The Gospel of Mary, or somewhere else.
Unless you were actually, physically present when Jesus spoke, you cannot know, at all, what Jesus said. You are, as am I and everybody else, dependent on someone else’s account of what Jesus said, and how do you know that they got it right, that they didn’t mis-hear, that they didn’t change what Jesus said to meet their own agenda, that they, like Judas, were not paid to write falsehoods about Jesus’ words, that what they recorded wasn’t changed in the intervening time between when Jesus supposedly said it and the writer heard it for the first time?
How do you know that every single account of Jesus was NOT like 10 people standing in a circle playing a game of “Telephone”?
Unless you were physically there some 2,000 years ago you are totally dependent on what others say Jesus said, and how do you — how do any of us — know, how can you or anyone else prove, what Jesus actually said?
If you “don't really care what the Bible says,” and if you weren’t there, on what exactly are you basing your beliefs about what Jesus said?
Are you aware of Romans 3:23, and the first half of Romans 6:23?
Have you ever committed one sin, fallen short one time, not measured up to the requirement of Matthew 5:48?
I don't know about you, but I don't want God to judge me fairly.
Rather, I want Him to have mercy on me, to forgive me and accept me, based on the fact that Jesus died on my behalf, died to pay the penalty for my sins, and to fulfill the promise that if I believe in Jesus and place my faith and trust in Him I will be forgiven and live with God forever.
Hi Floyd - I greatly admire the work of the Jesus Seminar and Marcus Borg is a personal hero of mine. Their method of voting for the authenticity of particular statements using colored balls has come under fire from the academy in recent years, but their methodology for questioning remains strong.
Oh man, this is so good and so hard. As someone who grew up in the pews, in an extremely conservative denomination, I was taught to revere the Bible. But after seminary and some grad schools….well… translation and scripture aren’t as simple as they were. I love your rationale for looking at Jesus’ words. And I love that you’re calling out the difference between following Jesus and Christianity…that’s a distinction that will freak people out but it’s vitally important. Thank you!
Steve, I’m sorry your journey has been so hard. Mine was similar. I’m glad you’re here!
It's not hard any longer...and in the scheme of things, no big deal. I do follow Jesus and struggle with what is currently seen as "American christian." Like many things of this nature, when we humans get busy building and organizing, we screw it up.
st
This is so great. Thank you.
Thank you Timothy for the kind words! Glad you enjoyed it.
I am a new follower and believer of God and I am very happy you are delineating what is likely true from not likely true about Jesus. I am suspicious of the motives of people of the past and present. Things were revealed to me last year that proved I was wrong for 40 years, and was of the supernatural variety, inexplicable by science, including multiple miracles not mathematically likely...
I am reading "Practicing the Way" and I am learning what I have suspected - that most Christians are Christian in name only and not devoted followers or disciples of Christ and his teachings. If Jesus were alive today I believe he would be appalled had all of the hatred against today's disenfranchised people, such as immigrants and the LGBT community
Thank you for sharing your powerful spiritual journey. Your openness to examining both faith and evidence, while maintaining compassion for marginalized people, exemplifies what thoughtful Christianity can be. You're absolutely right that many who claim Christianity don't follow Jesus's actual teachings about love and inclusion. The historical Jesus consistently stood with society's outcasts and challenged religious authorities who used doctrine to exclude people. I will keep you in my prayers!
WELL DONE!
Thank you :)
Re "The classic example of this is Jesus’s relationship with John the Baptist. Typically, the baptizer is more holy or more authoritative than the person getting baptized. This remains true today. Scholars believe the story of Jesus being baptized by John must have been well-known enough to need an explanation because all four Gospels go out of their way to explain this (embarrassing) detail."
This is because of a modern assumption that baptism has something to do with the cleansing of sins and the believe that Jesus was free of sins. To the contrary, baptism was merely a cleansing ritual, having nothing to do with sins but everything to do with preparing to live one's life. The Essenes at Qumran had extensive bathing facilities and would bathe daily or even more that that. How many sins could be committed between baths that would need cleansing?
Jesus's basic message was to get baptized (sort of getting cleaned up for a date), repent your sins, and then follow Yahweh's commandments. So, prepare for a righteous life by cleansing your body, repent your sins, which is to cleans your mind/soul, and then "sin no more," that is follow God's commandments. If all of the Jews in the vicinity were to do this a new entity, the Kingdom of Heaven/God, would be created, even if it were incased in the Roman Empire.
No, this has nothing to do with sin. In Second Temple Judaism, ritual purity was about status and authority, not moral cleansing. The one performing ritual purification needed to be of higher ritual status than the recipient - this remains reflected in most Christian traditions today where only ordained clergy can perform baptisms.
John's baptism was explicitly about preparing people for the coming Kingdom through ritual purification. The Gospel writers had to address Jesus's baptism by John because it appeared to suggest John had higher spiritual/ritual authority than Jesus, which conflicted with their understanding of Jesus as messiah. This was the "embarrassing" detail that needed explanation, not any issue around sin.
The Qumran community's ritual baths demonstrate this focus on ritual status and purity rather than moral cleansing. Their frequent bathing was about maintaining proper ritual status, not repeatedly washing away sins.
Further, we can see this embarrassment in the Gospel text themselves. Matthew explicitly shows John trying to prevent Jesus's baptism, saying "I need to be baptized by you" (Matt 3:14). Mark and Luke add dramatic divine affirmations immediately after the baptism. John's Gospel notably never shows the baptism itself, only its aftermath. These literary moves demonstrate early Christians struggling with the "criterion of embarrassment."
And by the way, this is a view that's affirmed by theologically conservative scholars as well, including John P. Meier, in his seminal A Marginal Jew: Rethinking the Historical Jesus, Volume Two (Yale University Press, 1994), and Dale C. Allison Jr.'s The Historical Christ and the Theological Jesus (Eerdmans, 2009).
You say that Jesus never spoke of eternity.
I find it strange that if Psalm 139:8, Isaiah 26:19, Ecclesiastes 3:11, Daniel 12:2, and Revelation 14:11 are all true and mention or allude to eternity, that Jesus would never have mentioned, discussed, or taught on that topic (or are we to discard those passages?).
You are telling us to ignore and discard these passages:
Matthew 7:13, 13:40-43, 16:18
Luke 16:19-31, 23:43
John 3:14-16, 5:24, 11:2-2, 14:6,13
Ephesians 2:8-9
As I read your essay here, I get the impression that you are deciding on what you believe, and then are merely and arbitrarily discarding those portions of the Bible that counter your belief …
… as opposed to reading the Bible and accepting what it says –– all of what it says –– and accepting what it says even if it disagrees with what you (or I) believe.
The key issue here is distinguishing between what the historical Jesus likely taught and what later Christian writers attributed to him. This isn't about "arbitrarily discarding" passages but about understanding their historical context and development.
The Old Testament/Hebrew Bible passages (Psalms, Isaiah, Ecclesiastes, Daniel) you cite reflect evolving Jewish thought about the afterlife over centuries. The concept of individual eternal life only developed in Judaism around 200-100 BCE. Revelation was written decades after Jesus's death and reflects late first-century Christian theology, not Jesus's teachings.
The Gospel passages fall into two categories: Synoptic passages (Matthew, Luke) that use apocalyptic language common to first-century Judaism about the coming Kingdom of God
Johannine passages that reflect later Christian theological development about eternal life.
Paul's letters (including Ephesians, though scholars doubt Paul wrote it) show how early Christian theology developed after Jesus's death.
The historical Jesus, like other first-century Jewish apocalyptic prophets, likely spoke about a coming Kingdom of God that would transform this world, not about individual eternal life in heaven. His message focused on how people should live now to participate in this coming kingdom.
When we look at our earliest sources (Mark and Q), we find Jesus talking about the Kingdom of God primarily in present and near-future terms. The more developed theology of eternal life found in John's Gospel reflects later Christian thinking about Jesus rather than his own teachings.
This isn't about discarding scripture but understanding it in its historical context. Later Christian interpretations of Jesus may be important to you but shouldn't be confused with the message of the historical Jesus himself.
In my initial comment / reply, I started by saying, “You say that Jesus never spoke of eternity.” I was wrong. You stated that, “Jesus was not concerned about where you would spend eternity.”
Eternity, and Eternal Life, deals with things beyond this earthly life, the Bible unequivocally teaches that Jesus was concerned about this subject, and also that when we die we are not merely extinguished and cease to exist, but rather, we either 1) enter first into Heaven and then into God’s Kingdom on Earth, or, 2) exist forever in a state of eternal, never-ending suffering.
In your comment here you write, “The historical Jesus … likely spoke about a coming Kingdom of God that would transform this world, not about individual eternal life in heaven. His message focused on how people should live now to participate in this coming kingdom.”
You are mistaken, as shown by these passages that you accept as legitimate: in Matthew 13, Jesus mentions “the Kingdom of Heaven” eight times, and in Matthew 5:3,10,19-20, 7:21, 8:11, 11:12, 13:24, 16:9, 19:14, and more. Further, Jesus teaches that we continue on, in conscious awareness after our physical death, in Luke 16:19-31.
And in passages that you do not accept as legitimate we see this: 2 Peter 3:1-18, Revelation 20:11-21:8 ... Galatians 2:16, Ephesians 2:8-10, Titus 3:5-7 ... John 3:14-18, 5:28-29, 11:25-26 ... Revelation 20:11-21:5, 14:9-11.
The Bible teaches, whether or not we are willing to accept it, that each one of us is an eternal being, and we will all continue on forever, no matter what we do or how we live. The question is, where will we continue on?
To be clear, these are not "my standards," they are the standards of some of the world's best Biblical scholars, including many theologically conservative ones with whom you'd probably agree with on many things. As such, you would be hard pressed to find a Biblical scholar who says the Bible "unequivocally teaches" any one specific thing. Parts of the Bible may teach something, while other parts disagree. It's important to remember these are separate writings that have been collected together. You can make an argument, but it would still just be your opinion.
You are also confusing the modern notion with heaven with what heaven would have meant to the Gospel writer of Matthew. Scholars generally agree that "kingdom of Heaven" and "Kingdom of God" mean the same thing between the writers of Mark, Luke/Acts, and Matthew. This is from the Anchor Bible Dictionary, vol. 6 (1992: Yale University Press): "The variant preferred by Matthew, 'the Kingdom of Heaven,' or literally, 'the Kingdom of the Heavens' (Gk hē basileia tōn ouranōn), corresponds to Heb malkût šāmayîm or Aram malkûtā dišmayāʾ. The conventional argument is that the plural 'heavens' in this variant does not refer simply to the transcendent realm, but is a 'circumlocution,' an expression which avoids uttering or writing the Divine Name (YHWH); if so, 'the Kingdom of (the) Heaven(s)' is equivalent to 'the Kingdom of God' (Dalman)."
Further, you are misinterpreting Luke 16:19-31 - as conservative, Protestant Christians do, trying to force the Bible into their own narrow understanding. The point of that parable - and the key word here is PARABLE - not that "Jesus teaches that we continue on," but that the wealthy man is so intractably resistant to the needs of the poor, and that there is a coming major reversal. This is a theme that is central to Luke's gospel (i.e., Luke 6:24-26). And - if we read Luke ALONE - and not with the theology of the Gospel of John or Paul - to the writer of Luke, salvation is only offered to one who gives up all their wealth (Luke 10:25-28). But, again there is debate among scholars over whether any of three passages I just cited are authentically Jesus.
The real question is: do you want to follow the Protestant church and its interpretation of the Bible - which is the product of men - or do you want to follow Jesus, and what he ACTUALLY preached? I know what my answer is.
This response is for the person who may have read through this article and the discussion between Andrew and myself that followed, and who is not sure what to believe about the topic at hand.
The question here is — Is the Bible telling us the truth in what it claims, and in what it specifically claims about Jesus Christ and what He said and what He taught? Andrew says no, and cites scholars who say no. I say yes, and have no one to cite … I can only say that I believe the Bible is telling the truth.
Our discussion, Andrew’s and mine, touches on perhaps the most important question that anyone can ever ask … What happens to me after I die?
If the Bible is not true, if we can’t trust it to give us the answer to this question, it really doesn’t matter what you or I or Andrew believe. Any answer is as good as any other.
But if the Bible is true, then these statements and claims are true: a) “Jesus said to her, ‘I am the resurrection and the life. He who believes in Me, though he may die, he shall live. And whoever lives and believes in Me shall never die. Do you believe this?’” (John 11:25-26). b) At John 14:6 we read, “Jesus said to him, ‘I am the way, the truth, and the life. No one comes to the Father except through Me,’” and c) at John 3:16-17 Jesus stated, “For God so loved the world that He gave His only begotten Son, that whoever believes in Him should not perish but have everlasting life. For God did not send His Son into the world to condemn the world, but that the world through Him might be saved.”
In John 5:28-29 Jesus claims, “… all who are in the graves will hear His voice and come forth — those who have done good, to the resurrection of life, and those who have done evil, to the resurrection of condemnation (and see Revelation 20:15).
So, as apparently Andrew believes, do we enter Heaven or God’s earthy kingdom by doing good works?
The Bible says no, especially a) at Ephesians 2:8, "For by grace you have been saved through faith. And this is not of your own doing; it is the gift of God, not a result of works, so that no one may boast," and b) at Galatians 2:16, “Yet we know that a person is not justified by works of the law but through faith in Jesus Christ, so we also have believed in Christ Jesus, in order to be justified by faith in Christ and not by works of the law, because by the works of the law no one will be justified.”
Again, the question here is — Is the Bible telling us the truth?
And you, dear reader, only you can decide what to believe the answer is.
The problem with your reply here is that the Bible doesn't as clearly say what you're saying it says. And what you're presenting isn't "what the Bible says," what you're presenting is a certain interpretation of what Paul, Augustine, Luther, and others thought about "what the Bible says." First and foremost, the argument against this belief—that humans are saved by faith alone—is specifically refuted by James 2:24.
But this not my argument—it's the argument of both the Roman Catholic Church and the Orthodox—which collectively make up anywhere from half to two thirds of the world's two billion Christians. If the Bible is so clear as you (and Luther and other Protestants) insist, why then do at least a BILLION people disagree with you?
Never the less, I don't really care what the Bible says. I care about what JESUS says. One is the product of man, one is the product of God. One - when interpreted through the eyes of Martin Luther - is about the next left. One is about this life. One is the religion ABOUT Jesus, one is the religion OF Jesus.
Andrew, you write, “Never the less, I don't really care what the Bible says. I care about what JESUS says.”
How interesting.
Could you please share something that Jesus said, that you heard with your own ears, that you wrote down so you wouldn’t forget … could you share what events you attended where Jesus spoke, or what encounters you had where you had a conversation with Him?
Because if you can’t do this, then you are dependent, as we all are, on someone else’s account of His words, whether they’re recorded in the Bible, or in The Gospel of Thomas, or in The Gospel of Mary, or somewhere else.
Unless you were actually, physically present when Jesus spoke, you cannot know, at all, what Jesus said. You are, as am I and everybody else, dependent on someone else’s account of what Jesus said, and how do you know that they got it right, that they didn’t mis-hear, that they didn’t change what Jesus said to meet their own agenda, that they, like Judas, were not paid to write falsehoods about Jesus’ words, that what they recorded wasn’t changed in the intervening time between when Jesus supposedly said it and the writer heard it for the first time?
How do you know that every single account of Jesus was NOT like 10 people standing in a circle playing a game of “Telephone”?
Unless you were physically there some 2,000 years ago you are totally dependent on what others say Jesus said, and how do you — how do any of us — know, how can you or anyone else prove, what Jesus actually said?
If you “don't really care what the Bible says,” and if you weren’t there, on what exactly are you basing your beliefs about what Jesus said?
In the above, the third passage in John should read 11:25-26
Makes you wonder why ‘give away all you own’ — which meets all five criteria — is nowhere near the center of current Christian practice.
Hi again.
Are you sure you want God to judge you fairly?
Are you aware of Romans 3:23, and the first half of Romans 6:23?
Have you ever committed one sin, fallen short one time, not measured up to the requirement of Matthew 5:48?
I don't know about you, but I don't want God to judge me fairly.
Rather, I want Him to have mercy on me, to forgive me and accept me, based on the fact that Jesus died on my behalf, died to pay the penalty for my sins, and to fulfill the promise that if I believe in Jesus and place my faith and trust in Him I will be forgiven and live with God forever.
Good article it got me thinking. Interesting thing you said that I have question about:
"There’s no conclusive evidence Jesus could read or write either, and plenty of reason to believe he didn’t. "
I am not asking this in a snarky manner, what are some of reasons are there to believe that Jesus couldn't read or write?
Thanks!
I have read about the Jesus Seminar and I have the Gospels as produced by that group. Can you comment on that work, please? Thanks.
Hi Floyd - I greatly admire the work of the Jesus Seminar and Marcus Borg is a personal hero of mine. Their method of voting for the authenticity of particular statements using colored balls has come under fire from the academy in recent years, but their methodology for questioning remains strong.