Here's an odd question. Why is that Jesus is accepted by so many people? I phrased that is a round-a-bout way on purpose. I know that the Holy Spirit prepares the heart of those that God has called to him. But so many people opposed to Christianity in general still accept the life and/or teachings of Jesus of Nazareth.
Some deny the existance of God. Even those that accept that creation had a Creator deny His power, or benevolance, or presence. As for the Holy Spirit, He is largely ignored. The supernatural gifts of the Spirit; healing, speaking in tongues, prophecy; are typically dismissed as the lunatic fringe even by many professing faith in Jesus.
So why do I keep encountering people, online or in writings, that accept Jesus but reject Christ? They argue that He was a great teacher, but misunderstood, and only human. Why do these critic raise their existential cross-hairs on the Father and the Spirit, and not the third member of the Trinity?
Mark chapter 1 makes reference to the fact that the demons knew Jesus. Makes me wonder...
3 comments:
A little devil's advocate here (and starting with another round-a-bout question):
Why would someone who questions the Christness of Jesus spend any time even considering the apparently intangible Holy Spirit or the Father?
I mean, welcome to the world, people who think he was a good man, great teacher, etc... but not Christ have no reason to explore beyond the natural (His being a man) into His being a part of the Trinity.
A fair point. I think my question comes from so many sources that accept the "you shall love your neighbor as yourself", but forget about what came right before that; "you shall love the Lord your God with all your heart and all your soul and all your mind and all your strength." Or the miracles ascribed to Jesus. Or the "I am the way and the truth and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me."
People accept the moral teaching of Jesus, but not the religious or spiritual, and I'm wondering why. If Jesus was simply a man, why are His moral teaching still remembered nearly 2000 years after His death. How can He be a great moral teacher if He had such "crazy" ideas about God and sin and His importance? If the miracles and the religious proclaimations were added after the fact, how do we know that the moral teachings were not also added?
I know that this is far afield from the original subject. It's just frustrating to see time after time people say "Oh, yeah, that Jesus-guy was pretty smart" and then espouse some cosmology that is completeky at odds with what Jesus said.
I agree with anon. Many people take bits and pieces of teachings and believe what they want to believe. Not only with the Bible. Even Jesus' "moral teachings" are taken in pieces. "Thou shall not murder" okay, no problem, but "Do not gossip"? "That isn't so bad..."
It is part of human nature to want to be comfortable. The divinity of Jesus would mean that we have to follow all of his prescripts. It is just easier to accept parts of his teachings and say he was a looney than to agree that he was God's son.
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