Updating Jesus – Opening Thoughts

Greetings Dear Reader,

I recently saw a sign on someone’s Face Book wall.   It read “I love Jesus but not the Bible.”   So many questions leapt to mind.   As I read what was said about this it was one of many attempts I have seen to modernize Jesus to fit our cultural bias.

I am going to proceed from a couple of premises that are important to understanding this trend.  The first is that Jesus verified the Old Testament from his own teachings.  The second is that the only record we have of those teachings is the Gospels, which are in the New Testament.  One cannot reject the Bible as a whole and claim to know anything about Jesus.

That is the simple piece of this line of thinking.   The harder part is the thin line between making the Gospels relative to our culture and changing who Jesus is to make him fit into our culture.  The two are vastly different.  One is vital and the other is true heresy.    I use “heresy” very sparingly but in this case it applies.

Making Jesus fit into our culture is perhaps the vilest form of “taking the name of God in vain.”   He is not there for our purposes.  We exist for his purposes.  As I ponder the aspects of this I hope you will be there with me Dear Reader.  It will be hard and expose places where I need to change.  Your support makes that easier.

Playing Marbles with Diamonds – Steve Camp

Waking up to a very different world

We got mud on our flag before it’s even been unfurled

Our heroes have fallen and a leader is heard to find

The clock is running out and we’re casting our pearls before swine

There’s a whole lot more than preaching to the choir

Kneeling at the alter and paying our tithe

We’ve been treating God like he’s happiness for hire

We’ve been playing marbles with diamonds

Isn’t it a sin how his name how his name gets thrown around

We pat God on the back like a buddy from out of town

We thank “the man upstairs” for the things people praise us for

We give God the glory but we’re happy to take the award

There’s a whole lot more than raising lots of money

Building our churches and spreading our faith

If faith is just the dice you roll to get lucky

We’ve been playing marbles with diamonds

There are precious things of God

And we must guard them with our lives

Like an unborn baby’s dreams

Like a husband love his wife

May the hope of his returning

May it glorify our faith

As we hold onto his holy word

May the chaff be blown away

Can we ever live up to the things we say we believe

Because the world is watching looking for some honesty

Are we riding down a freeway instead of narrow road

We turned the passion for the lost into the business of saving souls

There’s a whole lot more than preaching to the choir

Kneeling at the alter and paying our tithe

We’ve been treating God like he’s happiness for hire

We’ve been playing marbles with diamonds

There’s a whole lot more than raising lots of money

Building our churches and spread

If faith is just the dice you roll to get lucky

We’ve been playing marbles with diamonds.

Wishing you joy in the journey,

Aramis Thorn

Mat 13:52 So Jesus said to them, "That is why every writer who has become a disciple of Christ’s rule of the universe is like a home owner. He liberally hands out new and old things from his great treasure store.”

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