We run our website the way we wished the whole internet worked: we provide high quality original content with no ads. We are funded solely by your direct support. Please consider supporting this project.

5637201084_dd32d04fab

The Missing Jesus

Jonathan Martin wrote this compelling blog on the missing Jesus last month. It’s a thoughtful reflection on how easy it is to put Jesus in a box that conforms to our political, religious or social agenda. But the real Jesus is not an idea; he’s a person. And he’s a person who is constantly breaking out of boxes and disrupting our notions of God.

From the blog post:

Today I’d like to file a missing person’s report for Jesus of Nazareth.  Has anybody seen Him lately?

Not a sentimental Jesus–not a liberal Jesus who serves as little more than a symbol of bland tolerance or a conservative Jesus who serves as little more than a mascot for culture wars.  But the surprising, bewildering, befuddling Jesus of the gospels who alternately captures and breaks my heart–the Jesus who is never easily fit into the rigid alternatives offered to us by the world.  Have you seen Him?

 Image by Vinoth Chandar. Used in accordance with Creative Commons. Sourced via Flickr

Category:
Tags: ,

Related Reading

The Cross Reveals God’s Love

The central way Christ functions as the perfect image and exact representation of God is by dying on the cross. While Christ’s entire life manifests the true God, Christ came primarily to die. It was his death that defeated the devil and freed us from bondage. The one who does what is sinful is of…

Is there Archeological Support for the Reliability of the Gospels?

One of the many tests historians typically submit documents to in accessing their historical reliability concerns the extent to which archeology supports or undermines the historic claims the document makes. So we need to investigate the extent to which archeology confirms, or refutes, aspects of the Gospels. Before we address this question, however, a preliminary…

The Jesus Seminar and the Reliability of the Gospels

The Jesus Seminar The primary driving force behind the popular media’s present preoccupation with liberal views of Jesus has been the Jesus Seminar. This Seminar, first convened in 1985 by Robert Funk, is a gathering of 100 or so mostly liberal New Testament scholars who meet on a regular basis. They have determined, by a…

Why Bart Ehrman Doesn’t Have to Ruin Your Christmas (Or Your Faith) Part 2

This is the second of several videos Greg put together to refute Bart Ehrman’s claims published in the article What Do We Really Know About Jesus? If you missed it, you can catch the first installment here.

Twenty Arguments Against Cameron’s “The Lost Tomb of Jesus”

On March 4th, 2007, the Discovery Channel aired James Cameron’s much celebrated documentary, “The Lost Tomb of Jesus.” The documentary basically gives a new spin on an old discovery. In 1980, a first century tomb was discovered in Talpoit (a southern suburb of Jerusalem) that contained 10 ossuaries (that is, boxes that contain the remains…

Was Jesus Fully Human and Fully God?

The New Testament is very clear that Jesus was a full human being. He had to grow in wisdom (Lk 2:52) and learn obedience by going through trials, just like every other human being (Heb. 5:8). He grew hungry and tired, like the rest of us. He experienced the same range of emotions as the…