In this chapter I really liked how the author attempted to define the real meaning behind the miracles Jesus did and some of the issues than is commonly associated with them. I remember one time during the men’s bible study I was going to a heated debate erupted about whether God will always heal people when they pray for Him to. You also have doctrines such as the faith movement where people will consider your faith lacking if you don’t get healed from your physical ailments when you pray for it.
I am currently reading the book of Luke for my personal Bible reading and noticing that there were times that people flocked to Jesus for healing and He turned them down to be with God. One of the things that stuck to me but never really got my head around was why Jesus often told people to not say anything when he healed them. When it comes to stuff like this we tend to think about trying to get as much publicity as possible. Also how the Gospel actually down play them and that Jesus makes it very clear that while miracles may have a dramatic impact with people at first, those who do not believe will simply remain skeptical.
My favorite quotes from this chapter is how signs are not used to convince skeptics, but markers for people who already are looking in the right direction and faith produces miracles but miracles do not produce faith.
Some of the things that stuck out in this chapter was when the author talked about one of the Russian novelists Leo Tolstoy that changed the way he looked at the Sermon at the Mount. At first, when I looked at his futile attempt to fulfill the Beatitudes and seen how miserable he was I thought “Man, is this guy nuts or what?!”. I just felt pretty angry about how he was hurting himself and others around him. However, though, I really liked the way he answered his critics. The part that really stuck was that he told his critics to not judge God based on his imperfections and then humbly asks them to help him for their help. It reminds me of how I feel when people criticize my faith when I make mistakes. Particularly when people tell me “Aren’t you suppose to be nice (kind, caring, etc)?”, it’s like “Yeah, and I appreciate it if you didn’t make it so damn hard for me!”.
Another part I liked a lot was when Yancey mentions that we simply can’t live up to God’s standards and we don’t have to because of Christ within us. It’s a nice reminder of His Grace and mercy for us.
Also another lesson too was about how Yancey spiritual perspective was change not by theologians, but from an unexpected source of Russian novelists. Sometimes, I get the feeling that Christians often pressure one another to feed themselves more “Christian” material such as music, books, etc, as if those things are the only source for legitimate insights. For myself, although the most important insights did come from believers and books written by them, some of the most important ones came from very unexpected places and weren’t always from thing and people that wore a big “Christian” label on them.
Leave it to the Japanese to take an idea and make it better. This makes me wonder what the american Ronald is doing? Not much PR these days… I mean why would he? With the F-O-F getting smaller while his profits increase..its called Donald Economics. He’s probably in the hospital getting liposucked after years of eating his own products. Ironically, stem cells can now be extracted from the lipo-fat…another reason to love it …I guess…
I’m really enjoying this book. The first part of the chapter focused on two important facets of Jesus’ humanity: His name and ethnicity. It’s hard for me to believe that the name “Jesus” was as common as “Bob” is today in our American mindset. It helps underscore this aspect of Jesus being fully human and an unassuming one at that. Most pictures in the Middle Ages depict him with a halo around his head and while that would be true to emphasize who he is/was as divine, it sometimes takes away the notion that he was a regular person back then.
And like a person then as now, he had an ethnic background, a cultural identity while he was here on earth. He was Jewish. Just like I am Japanese he probably had his favorite ethnic foods and such.
Some classes in my grad school study spoke of “de-mythologizing Jesus” in that they wanted to really focus on his humanness. I think this notion has helped drive a lot of this notion of having a personal relationship with Jesus. we can because he was just like us. Its neat to rediscover and revisit that. Bring it on Phil
In this chapter he was talking a little about Christmas cards and how they portray the birth of Jesus. Usually, its a very peaceful scene with halos around the heads of the important figures. But the actual circumstance was a tense one. This is the stuff I already knew, but it is good to be reminded of because the matrix keeps on erasing that fact. The situation of Jesus’ birth was less than perfect…and his departure humiliating. When my life gets frustrating and seems like the walls are caving in, I’m reminded by the haunting voice of a fellow christian, “It could be worse!”. Not very empathizing but true. And to know that Jesus left the perfection of heaven to step into some serious crap down here brings out the mashochist in me and suddenly my problems become smaller.
Who is Jesus? The author proceeds with his journey of discovering who Jesus was starting in the 1950’s and going forward. Growing up I guess I kinda scrunched Jesus and God together. Then in the ’80’s when I started to read the bible more, began to examine his life a little closer. But I don’t ever remember being confused or seeing any contradiction in His actions. His actions seemed to always point to His deep understanding of the human condition and to clarify how we needed to change our thinking in order to see things right.
I was watching television the other week and noticed one of our local fast food establishments had an ad for their new double fish sandwich. Ah, right…makes sense. The single fish sandwich is so tiny, why not double it? It’ll make folks think they are getting more I guess. I know I haven’t grown that much in the past 20 ot years but is it just me or is this thing really getting smaller. I couldv’e sworn the sandwich was bigger just 2-3 years ago. Is this place trying to pull the scales over our eyes or what. So I decided to go in and buy my last fish sandwich from this place just so I could take a picture of it…you make the call.
by my calculations: less than 3″ square by 10mm…a little bigger than a credit card.
I don’t usually eat this sandwich
anymore and if I do I usually scrape off that huge glob of mayo. But this is for those
of you who still go there regularly.
Well, I did it again. Nearly gave a person a heart attack because they weren’t expecting to see anyone there
when the elevator doors opened. Being a quiet sort of person, I get that sometimes. I blame it on my asian ancestry…ninjas and the like. I like to think of it as a sort of superpower. Maybe the government could use a guy like me to take out the bad guys. Think about it, bad guy no. 1 goes to the stream to brush his teeth in the
morning, he looks up and there I am. The next thing he sees is that blinding white light everyone talks about. You could also use such powers for other more mundane purposes. Changing peoples tires , Slipping badly needed cash into their wallet or washing their dog…all without their knowing…hmmm. Come to think of it, its the next best thing to being invisible. Oh well, add that to the resume of frivolous talents.
Lately I’ve been wondering about bumper stickers with christian themes printed on them. When I was going to this one big church awhile back, I slapped their sticker on the bumper of my car. Why? In part I was trying to advertise my church in the hopes that someone might see it and decide to come out and hopefully pray the prayer of salvation. And another lesser reason was to identify with Jesus. I say lesser because even though I try to be a good driver, theres always something that comes up to prove to all the world that I’m not as good as I think I am..even though I keep trying. The message then becomes - “I’m just as imperfect as you - maybe something worse” but try to make it out to church anyway? Somehow that doesn’t rub me right.
I know I need to be wearing Jesus on the inside and thats whats most important. Needless to say I don’t have any of those bumperstickers on my car anymore.
In this chapter he was talking a little about Christmas cards and how they portray the birth of Jesus. Usually, its a very peaceful scene with halos around the heads of the important figures. But the actual circumstance was a tense one. This is the stuff I already knew, but it is good to be reminded of because the matrix keeps on erasing that fact. The situation of Jesus’ birth was less than perfect…and his departure humiliating. When my life gets frustrating and seems like the walls are caving in, I’m reminded by the haunting voice of a fellow christian, “It could be worse!”. Not very empathizing but true. And to know that Jesus left the perfection of heaven to step into some serious crap down here brings out the mashochist in me and suddenly my problems become smaller.
