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Thursday, December 09, 2004
Since we ended our study on Head to Heart last Sunday, we've got a few days of quotes to get your thoughts moving. Here's today's quote:
"The more I studied Jesus, the more difficult it became to pigeonhole him. He said little about the Roman occupation, the main topic of conversation among his countrymen, and yet he took up a whip to drive petty profiteers from the Jewish temple. He urged obedience to the Mosaic Law while acquiring the reputation as a lawbreaker. H ecould be stabbed by sympathy for a stranger, yet turn on his best friend with the flinty rebuke, 'Get behind me, Satan!' He had uncompromising views on rich men and loose women, yet both typed enoyed his company.
One day miracles seemed to flow out of Jesus; the next day his power was blocked by people's lack of faith. One day he talked about the Second Coming; another, he knew neither the day nor hour. He fled from arrest at one point and marched inexorably toward it at another. He spoke eloquently about peacemaking, then told his disciples to procure swords. His extravagant claims about himself kept him at the center of controversy, but when he did something truly miraculous he tended to hush it up. As Walter Wink has said, if Jesus had never lived, we would not have been able to invent him."
Philip Yancy in The Jesus I Never Knew
What is it about Jesus that draws your interest? What stories about him make your curious about Him? What makes you uncomfortable about Him? If you were a first-century Jew, do you think you would've been accepting of Him or would you have been His enemy? Why or why not?
Brent 5:08 AM
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