Chapters 3 & 4

Chapter 3

My main encouragement here is to have you go to the Follow the Rabbi website http://www.followtherabbi.com/ and look around. I have been visiting this site for a couple of years and it has helped me become acquainted with Jesus in a new way and to understand discipleship in a new way. There are some great audio files on Jewish discipleship…type audio into the search box and it will give you some files on Jesus, talmidim, etc.

I wonder: Why has Christianity (through the years) been seemingly so afraid of Jesus’ Jewishness? Why is Christian history so spotted with anti-semitism?

Yancey really helps us to understand and imagine more truthfully the situation and context of Jesus’ life and teachings. Many times Christians have a wealth of information regarding Jesus’ and the Gospels, but lack an understanding of the historical and cultural situation and context. But learning the context and developing our imagination help us make connections and cause us to grow in our understanding…helping it to all make sense and for us to see Jesus’ more clearly and ourselves more clearly.

There are a lot of similarities between the context and situation of 1st century Jewish culture in Palestine and current Christian culture in America. I see a lot of “fence building” and trying to protect ourselves, our families and our values. Is this the only way to really live holy lives and to pursue God? I ask myself, “what am I supposed to learn from 1st century Judaism?” What is the balance between protecting ourselves, protecting our kids, from the influences of the world but also really engaging our culture and reaching out to people who need Jesus desperately?

Regarding Jesus’ Jewishness: His teachings, His training as a rabbi, His calling of his disciples, etc. only makes sense in light of his being a devout Jew. I think this also helps us understand Paul in a new way. It all makes much more sense.

Chapter 4

Pg. 72 second paragraph…Isn’t it amazing how we want to construct our own God or our own version of Jesus? Our flesh (aka-sinful nature) is always fighting to create a world of pleasure with no pain, a life of gain with no loss, a religion of blessing with no curse, a lunch that is free with no cost. A crown but no cross.

I have never thought about how much “restraint” God shows. It’s remarkable what Jesus chooses to do with the power (from the Holy Spirit) that he has. He chooses to serve, to love, to sacrifice, to teach, to heal, to endure, to cast out demons, to resist temptation…to demonstrate God’s love to us.

It seems to me that so much of “Christianity” in our culture teaches and preaches a “crown-without-a-cross” version of following Christ and being filled with the Holy Spirit. We hear so much (especially by televangelists) about how true faith in God is always “rewarded.” To be filled with the Holy Spirit means that you felt really good about yourself that day or that you did well on a test or a presentation. It’s as if to be full of the Holy Spirit means that you were empowered to succeed rather than serve. It’s not that I don’t believe in blessing or success, for God has blessed me in more ways than I can recount, it’s just that it seems so much of Christianity, including the Church, really teaches the crown and rarely teaches the cross. Our culture is all about fast and easy, but it seems to me that microwave-Christianity is a false doctrine, an empty and hollow philosophy as Paul would put it.

As I read this book, I am reminded of just how amazing Jesus is. He is so paradoxical and brilliant and humble. In Him there is a total absence of Pride; the very thing that feeds our flesh. The Wisdom and Word of God (both of which are names for Jesus) is fantastic. There is nothing like it. It is precisely these characteristics that make Jesus so compelling to me, it makes me want to follow him and be like him.