Re: Biblical Interpretation Reconsidered

Joshua

At the risk of restating what you may have already read, I would say
one answer to your question is found in C. S. Lewis' book "Mere
Christianity":
A man who was merely a man and said the sort of things Jesus said would
not be a great moral teacher. He would either be a lunatic-on a level
with the man who says he is a poached egg-or else he would be the Devil
of Hell. You must make your choice. Either this man was, and is, the
Son of God; or else a madman or something worse. You can shut Him up
for a fool, you can spit at Him and kill Him as a demon; or you can
fall at his feet and call Him Lord and God. But let us not come with
any patronizing nonsense about His being a great human teacher. He has
not left that open to us. He did not intend to.

I'm glad you have read the New Testament and find value in the sayings
of Jesus. However, Christianity is about a relationship with Jesus.
Try praying to him. Ask him to make himself known to you and to guide
you into a relationship with him. Some Christians will chastize me if
I fail to say something about confessing your sins in the prayer I'm
asking you to say. From personal experience I believe the confession
of sins is necessary to have a strong, ongoing relationship with Jesus.
  But for some people the relationship needs to be established before
the need to confess sins is recognized. Jesus takes you as you are.
Try him.

On Friday, December 19, 2003, at 01:11 PM, Gough, Joshua wrote:

> Hello, I've been lurking on this list for some time, but follow some of
> the threads with interest. I've gathered that there is no shortage of
> controversy on just about every possible subject discussed! This
> comment
> below confuses me. If Jesus were God as well as human, then why would
> he
> believe something that is not true, regardless of what was written in
> scripture? And if he didn't believe it, why would he perpetuate it?
>
> I've been in conversations lately with people who say the Christ story
> is all just that, a story that builds upon previous stories, like Lord
> of the Rings and The Matrix are stories that in fact use messianic
> elements of the Christ story, but are themselves admittedly stories. I
> don't really have the type of knowledge to refute that. Then, I see all
> the controversies about literalism, authorship, doctrines, tithing,
> abuses, etc...It's all very complex. While I cannot deny that reading
> the words of scripture and Jesus have had a profound affect on me, what
> is there that differentiates this from the affects that reading and
> following other sound advice would bring? I think his words are the
> soundest advice and wisest I've ever read, but how am I to know whether
> he was real, was God, etc, and not just as others say a fantasy
> creation. If people call into question authorship of verses, literalism
> of accounts, etc, how am I to defend a supposedly now outmoded belief
> in
> a literal resurrection, upon which the entire faith truly rests?
> Lunatic, Liar, Lord, or well-written mythical hero?
>
> Still seeking,
> Josh
>
>>> 3d, Jesus' citations of OT texts in general have to be seen in
> light
>>> of the
>>> kenotic aspect of the Incarnation. If he was fully human in the
> context
>>> of 1st century
>>> Judaism then it is not surprising that he would have had beliefs
>>> about
> the
>>> authorship &
>>> nature of the Hebrew scriptures typical of that culture. But
> Mk.12:36,
>>> e.g., shouldn't
>>> be taken as proof that David actually wrote Ps.110.
>>>
>>> Shalom,
>>> George
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>> George L. Murphy
>>> gmurphy@raex.com
>>> http://web.raex.com/~gmurphy/
>
>
Bill Hamilton Rochester, MI 248 652 4148
Received on Fri Dec 19 14:54:18 2003