Nothing Before Jesus Was Like Jesus

I came across a book called, “What if the Church Were Christian?”

I haven’t read it, but the title speaks to me.

Much of the church is not Christian.

This makes me sad, but I guess it is not surprising. Real Christianity does not come naturally.

In fact, it makes no sense to most people: Love your enemies. Pray for those who persecute you.

Give to those who ask something of you and expect nothing in return.

Turn the other cheek. Go the extra mile.

Forgive—always.

Be merciful—always.

What does God want?

Perfection?

Yes, actually. Jesus said, “Be perfect, as your Father in heaven is perfect.”

He knows we can’t be perfect. But he sets perfect love for God and for the neighbor as our standard.

Unconditional love is the Christian moral code.

And this moral code was new. There is nothing like it in any other of the ancient religions.

There is nothing like it in any ancient literature.

It came from Jesus.

And Jesus alone.

And it did not sit well with most of those who first heard it. Jesus was too loving. Too forgiving.

Furthermore, he lived what he preached. He ate and worked with people who were outside the salvation system.

Tax collectors (for example) were not even candidates for heaven.

Jesus was a danger to the whole social and religious system of his day.

That’s why the religious leaders of his day made sure he died an ugly death.

And many Christian leaders would make sure he met the same fate today.

I’ll talk more about this Sunday—11:00 a.m.

10 on the “Big Ten” List

Some legislators want The Ten Commandments posted on walls in Texas schoolrooms.

I have a concern about #10. It lists a man’s wife as one of his possessions.

Thou shalt not covet your neighbor’s house, or your neighbor’s wife, or male or female slave, or ox, or donkey, or anything else that belongs to your neighbor.

Note that the wife is not first on the list. The house comes first.

But she is (we give thanks) above the ox and the donkey. And just above the slaves. Still, the wife is owned, just like the slaves and the ox and the donkey.

This old attitude remains enshrined in the traditional marriage vow. The father says, “I give this woman to be married to this man.”

Dad passed ownership to the husband, usually with a little money or a few sacks of grain to sweeten the deal.

I’m not sure we want to solidify this image of marriage in the minds of our children. There are too many boys and men who think this way already.

The “Big Ten” are a great and ancient moral code, but they don’t belong on classroom walls.

Nor do the teachings of Jesus, for that matter. Keep church and state separate.

But it is interesting that the legislators pushing The Ten Commandments never suggest posting words from The Sermon on the Mount.

And why not?

They don’t believe them.

Jesus told us to seek no revenge, to love our enemies, and to be kind to those who are unkind to us. The Jesus way is not on the Christian Nationalist agenda. +++

Sermon Sunday: The Double-Minded Christian.

Tune in. I may be talking about you. 11:00 a.m.

Just One Savior

You know, there is something seriously wrong with much of the church.

Not with its Founder.

Jesus was right about God. He preached a unique message of God’s love for all people.

He told us to love even our enemies, because God loves “the ungrateful and the wicked.”

He renounced revenge of all sorts.

Jesus got it right.

So why has the church, almost from the start, gotten so much wrong?

How could someone who claimed to follow Jesus write a revenge epic like the Book of Revelation?

And why did a council of Christians not see that this work teaches the opposite of everything Jesus said?

They put it in the Bible!

And now, along with the God we call Father who loves us all, we have that rough God who sends plagues and dumps bowls of wrath upon us.

And we pay the price.

For 2,000 years many in the church have sponsored inquisitions, crusades, and slavery—in God’s name.

John Calvin had a man killed over doctrine.

My great, great, great grandfather, a Baptist preacher, owned slaves.

When I was growing up, nearly all of the folks in the pews on Sundays were loudly and proudly racist.

And now, it is mostly Christians who follow that man who is morally and spiritually bankrupt.

Why?

How could this be?

Here’s the answer:

Many Christians read the Bible as if all of it reflects Jesus.

It doesn’t.

Revelation and a number of passages in the Old Testament give us the very opposite of Jesus.

I just did a quick count. We have only one Savior.

It’s time for the church to listen to him.