For a number of years, it’s been common to ask, “What would Jesus do?” Actually, it is an important question and one we would all do well to consider. Of course it is proper to think through these matters, for he is the one we are supposed to be following. But, if he were here in the flesh, where would we be following him? All this is good and fine, but I’m not entirely sure that some evangelicals would be happy with the answer.
If Jesus were walking our streets . . .
He would be more critical of those who are theologically on target than those who are not.
He would attend celebrations and drinking parties.
He would possibly provide the beer.
He would drink with the rest of us.
He would spent a good chunk of time with those whom the religiously “pure” had no time for.
He would interrupt some of our religious services by making unplanned announcements and controversial statements.
He would tell stories that were relevant and attractive but not always immediately clear.
He would spend a lot more time encouraging others to follow him than he would simply providing religious facts about himself.
He would live courageously yet humbling.
He would serve those who crossed his path.
He would rub shoulders with the outcasts of society.
He would demonstrate that theology is intended to be done in public and on the streets.
He would go places deemed objectionable by the moral standard-bearers of society.
He would make people feel both comfortable and uneasy.
He would violate some of the rules of the religious establishment.
He would desire to heal and not to hurt.
He would be compassionate every day.
He would be challenged (and in some cases hated) by the experts of our day.
He would probably cause a lot of us to wonder if he is truly the one he claimed to be.
He would keep his promises.
He would most likely be criticized by a good percentage of the media.
He would . . .
7 comments:
That's a great list. Thanks :-)
Thanks, Mark! :-)
Brilliant! Love it!
Paul,
Yeah, it seems that we always get these things confused. Some want to ask the What Would Jesus Do? question without any reference to the past and the historical Jesus. This amounts to being philanthropic and then placing a Christian label on it. We need to allow the sphere of Scripture to be the place where we engage our culture.
Then again, there are many--in my opinion--who seem content with exegesis and a reading of the ancient text, failing to realize that the text from the past must have its way in the present. As you say, the same Jesus we encounter in the New Testament is alive and well today.
At any rate, thanks for your input, Paul.
I appreciate it! :-)
Thanks, John. You are too kind! :-)
I have a couple of questions about 3-4 of your "He would"'s.
Wouldn't we want to take into account the cultural norms of first century Israel when talking about Jesus providing the beer at drinking parties. I certainly believe that indulging in the activities of a drinking party would be biblicaly wrong and we wouldn't see Jesus indulging in that. I may not be educated enough, but didn't wine have a slightly different purpose back then?
The ideas that Jesus would interrupt church services and spend time in morally objectional places would be first to assume that Christians have got a lot of things wrong. I'm sure we do. But do we have morality wrong?
I think that He would be undermining himself if He did something that is biblicaly wrong.
But I'm not saying that I have an answer.
Yeah, I think we would have to take into account the cultural norms of Jesus’ day, and I would agree that wine was an accepted practice. Thus, we probably could tweak this a bit. That said, I use somewhat provocative language to emphasize that, whatever culture we are discussing, drinking itself is not wrong, and Jesus was not a tea totaler. Understand, however, that this was a wedding feast, and it is very likely that some (many?) of the people there were inebriated/"feeling good." Yet, Jesus had no problems creating even more alcohol at such a function. I am not saying that he was promoting drunkenness, which would be wrong. But, he didn’t seem to worry about it to the extent that some contemporary Christians would. We would hesitate to provide more alcohol for fear that someone might abuse it. Jesus, at least on one occasion, didn’t approach these matters that way. Perhaps, he felt that each individual is accountable for his own behavior; thus, he wasn’t going to fret about such things. Maybe, something else drove him to such an act. What we do know is that he provided alcohol and consumed it (at least on some occasions).
To be honest, I don’t think it is objectionable (unless it hurts an individual personally–“if your hand causes you to stumble, cut it off, etc.”) to be such places. It may be the case–sometimes (though not always)–that it is morally allowable to be a place where certain morally objectionable things are taking place. Indeed, it seems that this is part of what we are to be doing. That is, we take the gospel to people who don’t “have it together.”
Do we have things morally wrong? Well, certainly we have some things right. But, it’s difficult to evaluate these matters. For instance when a Christian congregation attempts to enforce extra-biblical standard (how long your hair should be, whether one can have a tattoo, whether alcohol is inherently wrong, how many church meetings per week are necessary to cause growth, etc.), they are wrong. Though many of them are good people who are well-meaning, they are playing the role of the pharisees, for they think that Scripture itself is not an adequate standard. So, we must “protect” the truth and guard against abuses by coming up with our own standards. The Bible says to “not forsake the assembling together,” but we sometimes subtly determine when and how often. Scripture tells us to avoid drunkenness, but some make this into a ban on alcohol. The Bible says to avoid worldliness, but we sometime confuse our version of the world with the actual intentions of the biblical writers.
Again, I think traditional evangelicals are right about a lot of things. But I also think we need to be wary of being satisfied with our agendas and positions. Sometimes, frankly, I think we have gotten it wrong.
As far as Jesus himself is concerned, he made the alcohol and drank it, but he never allowed it to control him. Thus, he never violated any command of God. It would undermine his ministry if he were to participate in that which God prohibits. The problem, I think, is that we prohibit some things that God never did. Indeed, I think Jesus would be more likely to make many within the church feel uncomfortable than those on the outside.
Jesus hung out with “sinners.” Those most like us objected, and Jesus criticized them most. I agree that we have to look at the social and cultural issues, but I still think that Jesus is more “out of the box” than many of us would like to admit. Of course I, too, don’t pretend to have the answers here.
Thanks so much for your helpful comments!
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