The Top Five Lessons I Have Learned About Who Jesus Was
This concludes our series, Five Reasons Jesus. . . . To see them all, click here. -AC
The Top Five Lessons I Have Learned About Who Jesus Was
- It’s anachronistic to classify Jesus according to our current philosophical, ideological, and denominational categories. If we must classify him, we should do it according to the time and place he lived. In that case, Jesus was a Jew.
- There is often a strong correspondence between the Jesus of the gospels and the tenants of major belief systems today. And, the Jesus of the gospels is often similar to groups that are in conflict with each other.
- There is something followers of Jesus can learn from groups that emphasize different aspects of his message.
- The fact that Jesus is similar to certain belief systems means he is not similar to others. For example, if Jesus was much like a Charismatic then we can’t understand him as a theological liberal with naturalistic presuppositions who doesn’t believe God intervenes when we pray.
- I’m so glad God gave us the Old and the rest of the New Testament to help us understand Jesus. The gospels are critically important but much more rich when read in the full context of Scripture.
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David Hamstra is a Divinity student at Andrews University. He has a BA from Canadian University College and was a pastor in Grande Prairie, Alberta for nearly four years. He blogs at apokalupto.
