Friday, April 24, 2009

What are you doing, Jesus?

I wonder what would have happened if someone were to walk up to Jesus during his lifetime and ask him what he thought he was doing. I can imagine a number of answers, but "founding a religion" is not one of them.

6 comments:

Anonymous said...

I would never put words in Jesus' mouth, but, "If you want to know what I'm doing, follow me (layers of meaning here)" seems like a reasonable conjecture.

Following Jesus may not be identified with 'founding a religion,' but it seems to me that it is minimally identified with disparaging some ways of approaching or practicing 'religion' (broadly construed).

Anonymous said...

Really? What about his comment that Peter was the rock upon which he would build his church? That sound very much like a movement to me. Assuming of course you think that passage is authentic.

Anonymous said...

The answer would probably a parable.

Anonymous said...

a parable? How so? He specifically tells Peter that "on this petros (rock) I will build my ecclesia (church). It is pretty clear that Jesus at least saw his group as the beginning of a new eschatological community of God growing out of the Israel that rejected him. I am not sure how you argue that it is a parable.

Unknown said...

My guess:
"Announcing and showing that the Kingdom of God is near".

Ben said...

Church was never supposed to be a religion as you see it... James 1:27

27Religion that God our Father accepts as pure and faultless is this: to look after orphans and widows in their distress and to keep oneself from being polluted by the world