Why a series on Jesus?

Outreach tool Answer the deep question people

have Deepen our own reason for belief

Public opinion is warped

All historians accept the Jesus existed

Agree that He was martyred for radical and controversial teachings

Most do not agree on what He taught Interpretations of person and

teachings have evolved to differing

Putting Jesus in His place

Interpretations are fraught with bias. He’s a powerful figure whom people want on their sides – and they’re willing to re-create Him in their image

to enlist His support. Animal rights activists imagine a vegetarian Jesus. New Agers make Him

an example of finding god within. And radical feminists strip Him of divinity so that Christianity

does not appear sexist. Frankly it’s hard to escape the feeling that our culture has taken Jesus’ question, “Who do you say that I am?” and changed it to "Who do you want me to be?”

-Robert Bowman and J Ed Komoszewski

What have others said?

I know men and I tell you that Jesus Christ is no mere man. Between Him and every other person in the world there is no

possible term of comparison. Alexander, Caesar, Charlemagne, and I have founded

empires. But on what did we rest the creation of our genius? Upon force. Jesus Christ founded His empire upon love; and at this hour millions of men would die for

Him. –Napoleon Bonaparte

What have others said?Jesus of Nazareth, without money and arms, conquered

more millions than Alexander the Great, Caesar, Mohammed, and Napoleon; without science and

learning, he shed more light on things human and divine than all philosophers and scholars combined;

without the eloquence of school, he spoke such words of life as were never spoken before or since, and produced effects which lie beyond the reach of orator or poet; without writing a single line, he set

more pens in motion, and furnished themes for more sermons, orations, discussions, learned volumes, works of art, and songs of praise than the whole army of great men of ancient and modern times.

–Philip Schaff

What have others said?

Here is a man who was born in an obscure village, the Child of a peasant woman. He worked in a carpenter shop until He was thirty, and then for three years He was an itinerant preacher. He never wrote a book. He

never held an office. He never owned a home. He never had a family. He never went to college. He never

put His foot inside a big city. He never travelled two hundred miles from the place where He was born. He never did one of the things that usually accompany

greatness. He had no credentials but Himself. He had nothing to do with this world except the naked power of His Divine manhood. While still a young man, the tide of popular opinion turned against Him. He was

turned over to His enemies.

He went through the mockery of a trial. He was nailed to a Cross between two thieves. His executioners gambled for the only piece of property He had on earth while He was dying—and that was His coat. When He was dead He was taken down and laid in a borrowed grave through the pity

of a friend. Such was His human life—He rises from the dead. Nineteen wide centuries have come and gone and today He is the Centrepiece of the human race and the Leader of the column of progress. I am within the mark

when I say that all the armies that ever marched, and all the navies that ever were built, and all the parliaments that ever sat, and all the kings that ever reigned, put together, have not affected the life of man upon this

earth as powerfully as has that One Solitary Life. --James C. Hefley

What have others said?

A man who was merely a man and said the sort of things Jesus said would not be a great moral teacher.

He would either be a lunatic – on a level with the man who says he is a poached egg – or else he would be the Devil of Hell. You must make your

choice. Either this man was, and is, the Son of God; or else a madman or something worse. You can shut Him up for a fool, you can spit at Him and kill him as a demon; or you can fall at His feet and call Him Lord

and God. But let us not come with any patronizing nonsense about His being a great human teacher. He

has not left that open to us. He did not intend to.--C.S. Lewis

What have others said?

Despite our efforts to keep him out, God intrudes. The life of Jesus is

bracketed by two impossibilities: "a virgin's womb and an empty tomb". Jesus entered our world through a

door marked, “No Entrance" and left through a door marked "No Exit."

--Peter Larson

The Long Silence

At the end of time, billions of people were scattered on a great plain before God’s throne. Most shrank back from the brilliant light before them. But some groups near the front talked heatedly - not with cringing shame, but with belligerence.

“Can God judge us? How can he know about suffering?” snapped a pert brunette. She ripped open a sleeve to reveal a tattooed number from a Nazi concentration camp. “We endured terror…beatings…torture..death!”

In another group a Negro lowered his collar. “What about this?” he demanded, showing an ugly rope burn. “Lynched..for no crime but being black!!

In another crowd, a pregnant schoolgirl with sullen eyes. “Why should I suffer?”, she murmured, “It wasn’t my fault.”

Far out across the plain there were hundreds of such groups. Each had a complaint against God for the evil and suffering he permitted in his world. How lucky God was to live in heaven where all was sweetness and light, where there was no weeping or fear, no hunger or hatred. What did God know of all that man had been forced to endure in this world? For God leads a pretty sheltered life, they said.

So each of these groups sent forth their leader, chosen because he had suffered most. A Jew, a Negro, a person form Hiroshima, a horribly deformed arthritic, a thalidomide child. In the centre of the plain they consulted with each other. At last they were ready to present their case. It was rather clever.

Before God could be qualified to be their judge, he must endure what they had endured. Their decision was that God should be sentenced to live one earth - as a man!

“Let him be born a Jew. Let the legitimacy of his birth be doubted. Give him a work so difficult that even his family will think him out of his mind when he tries to do it. Let him be betrayed by his closest friends. Let him face false charges, be tried by a prejudiced jury and convicted by a cowardly judge. Let him be tortured.

“At the last, let him see what it means to be terribly alone. Then let him die. Let him die so that there can be no doubt that he died. Let there be a great host of witnesses to verify it.

“As each leader announced his portion of the sentence, loud murmurs of approval went up from the throng of people assembled.

“And when the last had finished pronouncing sentence, there was a long silence. No one uttered another word. No-one moved. For suddenly all knew that God had already served his sentence.”

Phil 2:5-115 Let this mind be in you which was also in Christ Jesus, 6

who, being in the form of God, did not consider it robbery to be equal with God, 7 but made Himself of no reputation, taking the form of a bondservant, and coming in the likeness of men. 8 And being found in appearance as a man, He humbled Himself and became obedient to the point of death, even the death of the cross. 9 Therefore God also has highly exalted Him and given Him the name which is above every name, 10 that at the name of Jesus every knee should bow, of those in heaven, and of those on earth, and of those under the earth, 11 and that every tongue should confess that Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of God the Father.

NKJV