The Western Jesus Error

One mistake we western Christians make is assuming that Jesus had western values. By that, I mean that we see him through the lense of our North American norms. What many believers fail to recognize is that Jesus was a Middle Eastern Jew living two-thousand years ago.

For one thing, Christ was circumcised. As Luke 2:22 and 23 (BBE) explains, "And when the necessary days for making them clean by the law of Moses had come to an end, they took him to Jerusalem to give him to the Lord (As it says in the law of the Lord, 'Every mother's first male child is to be holy to the Lord'),"

Jesus also celebrated the Jewish festivals. As we read in Luke 2:42 (BBE), he went with his parents to celebrate Passover. "And when he was twelve years old, they went up, as their way was, to the feast;"

Furthermore, Jesus attended his local synagogue. We read in Luke 4:16 (BBE) about when he read from Isaiah chapter sixty-two in his home town of Nazareth. "And he came to Nazareth, where he had been as a child, and he went, as his way was, into the Synagogue on the Sabbath, and got up to give a reading."

Even during his three-and-a-half-year ministry, he often taught in synagogues. As we can read in John 6:59 (BBE) where, "Jesus said these things in the Synagogue while he was teaching at Capernaum."

Christ also healed people in the synagogues, much to the displeasure of the Pharisees. As Luke 6:6 (BBE) relates, "And it came about, on another Sabbath, that he went into the Synagogue and was teaching there. And a man was there whose right hand was dead."

Jesus knew his Old Testament scriptures well. As he said to the pharisees in John 5:39 (BBE) about his authority from the Father, "You make search in the holy Writings, in the belief that through them you get eternal life; and it is those Writings which give witness about me."

Jesus also outsmarted the Sadducees, who say there's no resurrection, regarding marriage and heaven. Mark 12:26 and 27 (BBE) says, "But as to the dead coming back to life; have you not seen in the book of Moses, about the burning thorn-tree, how God said to him, 'I am the God of Abraham, and the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob?' He is not the God of the dead, but of the living: you are greatly in error."

Even the way Christ prayed and broke bread was unmistakeable to his Jewish disciples. In Luke 24:30 and 31 (BBE), two of Christ's disciples recognized him from how he blessed the bread on the evening of his resurrection. "And when he was seated with them at table, he took the bread, and said words of blessing and, making division of it, he gave it to them. And then their eyes were open, and they had knowledge of him, but he went from their view."

So we can tell from just these verses that Jesus wasn't Anglo-Saxon but a real descendent of Abraham. I'll point this out, providing I remember, in my next book called You Think You're Going to Heaven? People have a flannel board idea of Jesus when they ought to understand the culture and time he walked in Israel.

On Saturday, I'll post about how little kind words can make a huge difference in people's lives.