Category Archives: Jesus Christ

Paul and Jesus

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Many Bible readers will have wondered why Paul, in his letters, makes so few references to the Jesus of the Gospels.

Does this mean that Paul was the ‘real’ founder of Christianity, with his teaching having very little in common with that of Jesus?

Craig Blomberg writes:

‘An interesting dimension of a number of Paul’s letters, penned in the 50s, especially Romans, 1 Corinthians and 1 Thessalonians are the quotations of and allusions to Jesus’ teachings that Paul could not have gotten simply by consulting a Gospel, since none had yet been written.…

The Ascension of Christ

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Lk 24:50 Then Jesus led them out as far as Bethany, and lifting up his hands, he blessed them. 24:51 Now during the blessing he departed and was taken up into heaven.

The ascension is described just three times in the NT (Mk 16:19; Acts 1:9).  But it is referred to in eleven other books.

It is intimated by our Lord in Jn 6:62; 7:33, and anticipated in Psa 68:18 (cited in Eph 4:8).

1. Its manner

It was not a mere disappearance, as at Emmaus.…

The flowering of the cross

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Jim Gordon quotes Stanley Hauerwas:

‘If forgiveness were forgetting then God would have to suffer the most acute amnesia, but it is God’s unimaginable creativity, which takes what we have done and makes it fruitful. The medieval image of God’s forgiveness was the flpowering of the cross. The cross is the ugly sign of torture. It is the sign of humanity’s ability to refect love and to do what is utterly sterile. But the artists of the middle ages showed this cross flowering on Easter Sunday.

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Luke 2:7 – Jesus was (probably) not born in a stable

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2:6 While they were [in Bethlehem], the time came for [Mary] to deliver her child. 2:7 And she gave birth to her firstborn son and wrapped him in strips of cloth and laid him in a manger, because there was no place for them in the inn.

‘No room in the inn’ (along with a grumpy inn-keeper) is part of the fabric of the nativity story, as popularly told.  But the biblical text makes no mention of a stable, and the word commonly translated ‘inn’ may well mean something else.…

We shall be surprised

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When Christ returns in glory, and ushers in the new Heavens and the new Earth, none of us will be able to say: “That’s exactly as I predicted!”

Richard Bewes writes:

‘In our fallenness, we can all to easily get it wrong, despite the clear signposts!

Few were ready for the birth at Bethlehem.

The disciples were demoralised at the death of Jesus – despite his predictions.

The resurrection, when it happened, was a bombshell among them.…

Phil 2:6 – Christ ‘did not regard equality with God as something to be grasped’

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Phil 2:5 You should have the same attitude toward one another that Christ Jesus had,
2:6  who though he existed in the form of God
did not regard equality with God
as something to be grasped,
2:7 but emptied himself
by taking on the form of a slave,
by looking like other men,
and by sharing in human nature.

This text is relevant to discussions about the Eternal Submission of the Son.

The word ‘regard’ (ἡγησατο) potentially sheds light on the thought processes of the Son in eternity past. …

The centrality of Christ’s ascension

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A case could be made from John’s Gospel for regarding the crucifixion as the climax of Jesus’ ministry.  For it is from the cross that Jesus is recorded as crying, triumphantly, “It is finished!”

More frequently, the resurrection is placarded as marking the completion of Jesus’ work.  The crucified Jesus, preaches Peter, was raised from the dead (Acts 2).  Paul preached ‘Jesus and the resurrection’ (Acts 17:18).  In 1 Cor 15:3f the summary of the gospel is that ‘Christ died for our sins…was buried…and was raised on the third day.’…

Cross Vision 6 – The Heavenly Missionary

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A precis of chapter 6.

A missionary couple are assigned to an area where female genital mutilation is performed.  They realise that the practice is so deeply ingrained that it would be futile to confront it immediately.  So, for the time being, they seek to ameliorate its worst effects by providing anaesthesia and better surgical knives.  Only gradually are they able to convince the people to end the practice.

Is it unreasonable to suggest that God sometimes act like that? …

Cross Vision 5 – Building on tradition

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A precis of chapter 5.

This cruciform approach to interpreting Scripture may seem to be new (because it has not been taught in the church for 1500 years.  But, in fact, it can be traced back to the early church and (most importantly) to Scripture itself.  And in the following ways.

(a) Finding Christ crucified in all of Scripture.  Martin Luther has been rightly characterised as ‘the theologian of the cross’.  For Luther, the cross was the key to interpreting the Bible. …

Cross Vision 4 – Revolting beauty

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Summarising chapter 4:

In a detective novel, the meaning of an event depends on where it is in the story and how it relates to what comes before and after it.

It is just so with the Bible: although many read it as they would a cookbook, where the order of recipes is not particularly important, it does in fact tell a story, and the position of a given event within that story may be very significant.…