Understanding Jesus for who he is, or, the problem of ultimate fighter jesus

Who do you love?
Girl I see through, through your love.
Who do you love?
Me or the thought of me?
Me or the thought of me?

- John Mayer, “I don’t trust myself (with loving you)”, Continuum

This lyric caught me when first listening through the album, because it directly addresses our tendency to idealize on some level the people we love, or more generally to see what we want or expect them to be instead of what they are. For that matter, it’s not even limited to the people we love. We do this with a wide variety of pretty much everybody. Our perception of a person is largely based on our own expectations, desires, and feelings regarding that person.

If we do this with people we physically see and interact with daily or weekly or monthly, how much more likely are we to do it with Jesus?

a hodgepodge: or, when anything and everything seems more important than broadcasting yourself …

… that’s probably a good thing.

There’s a lot going on these days. We can look forward to a couple more months of Hillary and Barack beating each other over the head by proxy (or sometimes directly), an indeterminately long period of economic recession and $4 a gallon gasoline, and the continued ascendancy of Hannah Montana/Miley Cyrus/the good girl of pop with a million names over all the world.

Also, lots of good movies out these days: There Will Be Blood, for which Daniel Day-Lewis totally deserved his Oscar; Gone Baby Gone, the well-directed and well-acted movie that kept me in the dark until very very nearly the end (which rarely happens); Atonement, which moves like an incredibly interesting glacier that in the end runs over your grandmother’s house (at least that’s how jolting it is); and Into the Wild, a fascinating story about searching for the meaning of life. Plus of course the ones I want to see but haven’t yet, like No Country for Old Men.

In slightly bigger news, I am very much looking forward to becoming a dad. Becky is starting to show her pregnancy in her ridiculously cute belly, and there’s a small heart pounding like mad in there. I know, because I’ve heard it.

I find myself thinking a lot about theological and ministry issues, like: What is the nature of Biblical inspiration? What did Paul mean when he said scripture is “God-breathed”? Why do I feel like even the best churches I see around me frequently marginalize women?

Trying to take more of a role in helping move in a positive direction at the church. Pushing certain steps to strengthen the ministry. Also starting a small group in my home to help develop relationships.

Did I mention Becky is having a baby? Yeah, that’s cool.

bread alone?

My dear friend beaNie is doing a learning experiment based on Jesus’ statement that “man does not live by bread alone.” Which is to say, he’s eating nothing but bread for two weeks, or until he loses too much weight or gets sick, whichever comes first. Check out his user profile on youtube to see the entire series of daily video updates.

Check it out here.

Hagar in the Wilderness …God sees and takes care of the troubled

As a child, I was told “God is watching you all the time. He sees everything you do.” Unfortunately, this was communicated in a negative sense … ‘God is watching you, so shape up kid!’ So the idea of God watching me became a distinctly uncomfortable concept, because I knew I sinned fairly frequently and that God didn’t like that. My childlike response was just not to think about that.

But a few years ago, I noticed for the first time the story of Hagar. She’s the mother of Abraham’s other son …

what on earth is God thinking?

I am reading through Genesis at the moment, and getting ready to preach about Abraham on Sunday. And I never cease to be amazed at what a goober he is. It is so odd and wondrous to look at the biblical accounts of people like Abram and and realize that all throughout history, God has been putting up with people’s crap.

Hi. My name is Jared, and I’m a recovering professional listener.

I was listening to Alistair Begg on the radio yesterday. They’re running a series of his sessions from his church’s pastors conference on his daily radio broadcast. Speaking to pastors, he said that no one is above needing the work of God in their life. He said that this is a challenge for pastors, because they are used to being professional listeners — so used to critiquing the style, the delivery, the presentation, the theology and interpretation that they can’t hear the truth being spoken from God’s word.

This is so me. It also describes most of my friends, especially those of us who have had the privilege of a somewhat advanced biblical and theological education.

I’ve had to learn to turn this off. And I’ve come a long way. After all, we used to heckle every brilliant (and not-so-brilliant) famous pastor/speaker we had the chance to hear at LU. The turning point for me was when I started dating my wife, and she responded to our heckling with a dirty look and the comment, “There may be someone here who needs to hear this!” So I eventually stopped doing it out loud, mostly because I like her and I didn’t want her to break up with me because I couldn’t hold my arrogant tongue. And gradually, I figured out that she was right. I also discovered that the more I shut up and listened, the more I gained from each speaker. Almost every one of them had something to say that I needed to hear. This was an amazing discovery, as I had previously been convinced that they had all been preselected exclusively for their butchering of the english language, christian theology, and biblical interpretation.

I want to encourage all professional listeners: I have climbed the mountain, and I have seen the other side! And it is good!

Love and peace,
Jared