I am responding to a book review I saw at, Patheos.com. The book is called I Knew Jesus Before He Was a Christian... And I Like Him Better Then. First off, I have got to hand it to the author, Ruby Shelly. That title grabs the attention, even if it is irreverent. I have not read the book so I offer no response to it. However the two blogs at Patheos do elicit certain observations I would now like to make.
In post number one the blogger quotes the book and holds the quote up as an ideal. He urges us to, "Print that out, paste it on your desk or shelf or mirror and let us all remind ourselves. We have a challenge." The quote?
“People who read the Gospel stories from the life of Jesus are attracted to him. People who know Christ only through his followers often can’t stand him”
I have a challenge. Prove to me that people who read the Gospel stories are attracted to Jesus. I take my thoughts from the Gospels themselves and the fact that Jesus was far from "attractive" in His own time. Sure, He did have a period of popularity as people began to follow Him. But they quickly learned that they followed for the wrong reasons. They thought Jesus would feed them and heal them and do all sorts of miracles that would help them. At the very least they thought He would take over the kingdom of Israel and deliver them from Roman oppression. When Christ confronted their wrong thinking, His attractiveness wore off and the multitude was gone, perhaps joining in the final crowd that surrounded Jesus, calling for His crucifixion. It is an assumption to believe that Christianity is naturally attractive if practiced as Christ would do it. That there are crowds that gather in Jesus' name means little. A Christianity that does not confront the culture, a Christianity that does not draw men and women away from the world is nothing more than a means to exploit the religious nature of man for personal gain.
In post number two the blogger writes, "All of which leads Shelly to the preposterous — and he knows it — claim that for 1700 years (since Constantine) the church has failed miserably." And again I say, "Prove it."
• Prove to me that Christ's church has failed.
• Prove to me that the church that Jesus said He would build and the gates of hell would not prevail against has somehow been prevailed against.
• Prove to me that Christ's own prophecy concerning His church is in error.
I do not see any such failure; only the fulfillment of exactly what Christ said would happen; evil men have waxed worse and worse and faith is waining in the last days.
Besides that, who said the church had to succeed?
I like something my son told me this weekend, "Our problem is not that we have wrongly defined success, but that we define success at all." Ours is not to evualate the success or merit of the work Christ is doing. Ours is only to do the work Christ sets us to do.
Marvin McKenzie
In the fields
In post number one the blogger quotes the book and holds the quote up as an ideal. He urges us to, "Print that out, paste it on your desk or shelf or mirror and let us all remind ourselves. We have a challenge." The quote?
“People who read the Gospel stories from the life of Jesus are attracted to him. People who know Christ only through his followers often can’t stand him”
I have a challenge. Prove to me that people who read the Gospel stories are attracted to Jesus. I take my thoughts from the Gospels themselves and the fact that Jesus was far from "attractive" in His own time. Sure, He did have a period of popularity as people began to follow Him. But they quickly learned that they followed for the wrong reasons. They thought Jesus would feed them and heal them and do all sorts of miracles that would help them. At the very least they thought He would take over the kingdom of Israel and deliver them from Roman oppression. When Christ confronted their wrong thinking, His attractiveness wore off and the multitude was gone, perhaps joining in the final crowd that surrounded Jesus, calling for His crucifixion. It is an assumption to believe that Christianity is naturally attractive if practiced as Christ would do it. That there are crowds that gather in Jesus' name means little. A Christianity that does not confront the culture, a Christianity that does not draw men and women away from the world is nothing more than a means to exploit the religious nature of man for personal gain.
In post number two the blogger writes, "All of which leads Shelly to the preposterous — and he knows it — claim that for 1700 years (since Constantine) the church has failed miserably." And again I say, "Prove it."
• Prove to me that Christ's church has failed.
• Prove to me that the church that Jesus said He would build and the gates of hell would not prevail against has somehow been prevailed against.
• Prove to me that Christ's own prophecy concerning His church is in error.
I do not see any such failure; only the fulfillment of exactly what Christ said would happen; evil men have waxed worse and worse and faith is waining in the last days.
Besides that, who said the church had to succeed?
I like something my son told me this weekend, "Our problem is not that we have wrongly defined success, but that we define success at all." Ours is not to evualate the success or merit of the work Christ is doing. Ours is only to do the work Christ sets us to do.
Marvin McKenzie
In the fields
