Comments on: “Is Jesus Truly The Point?”

By: Sven

Sven — Wed, 31 Dec 1969 19:00:00 +0000

Excellent post again

Of course Christ is the image of the invisible God (Col 1:15) and so he must be the one that informs all our concepts of God. I’m convinced that people sometimes think that there is another, perhaps more sinister, God hiding behind Jesus. Jesus is kind and compassionate while the Father is angry and wrathful, as though Father and Son were playing ‘good cop, bad cop’ with humanity, but if this were true then Jesus does not reveal the Father – yet Jesus says that anyone who has seen him has seen the Father.

This means that God’s attitude to sin, justice, forgiveness and enemies etc must be understood and interpreted through Christ himself.

As Martin Luther once said ‘I know of know other God other than Jesus Christ’. Amen to that.

By: graham

graham — Wed, 31 Dec 1969 19:00:00 +0000

There’s a quote ringing round my head that I can’t quite remember and I can’t think who said it or where I read it. Part from that it’s great!

“The amazing thing about the incarnation is not that it teaches us that Jesus is like God. But that God is like Jesus.”

Or summint like that!

By: Broken Messenger

Broken Messenger — Wed, 31 Dec 1969 19:00:00 +0000

Awesome stuff, Michael. I plan to send you a trackback on this one very soon, it’s a must read for everyone. Thank you.

Brad

By: Forrest Kaiser

Forrest Kaiser — Wed, 31 Dec 1969 19:00:00 +0000

I was challenged some years ago to read through the bible in a year. It was recommended not to go front to back, but to skip around some NT some OT. At the time, I considered myself saved, but had a difficult time truly understanding the character of God. It was a wonderful year, as reading the words of Christ drew echoes from the voices of the past. I would read about the wrath of God and feel stricken, only to find resolve in the teachings of Christ. It was if each author was at the same table in dialogue. I learned much in that year about my faith, my perspectives and most importantly, my Lord. It was a result of my study that lead my to truly understand grace, and understand that I had been missing out on the salvation that Jesus had for me. I thank Him for pursuing me in this way. Although I no longer give myself a timeframe, I still work through the entire bible in my daily study.

By: Jason S. Kong

Jason S. Kong — Wed, 31 Dec 1969 19:00:00 +0000

Hahah… I was thinking to myself that every sermon I’ve ever listened to said the exact same thing.

Maybe it’s better this way, as opposed to your “On Christless Preaching” examples.

When I mention exact same thing, I don’t mean verbatim, but the subject has to come back to one thing.

Pretty awesome!

By: Jason S. Kong

Jason S. Kong — Wed, 31 Dec 1969 19:00:00 +0000

Oh, and another thing is that all the other points of God’s wrath is pointless without Christ. (Haha, pointless without Christ. Is Christ truly the point? Worthless puns.)

Afterall, what’s the use of learning about God? It doesn’t change a thing about our fate if Christ is not known.

It seems clear that to understand wrath and sovereignty, we must understand Christ.

By: Dinah Clarke

Dinah Clarke — Wed, 31 Dec 1969 19:00:00 +0000

Michael

I came to post my appreciation of your article on “Christless Preaching” – yes I too, have printed it out and plan on sharing it. It is very good, very true …. and it so needed to be said! Thank you!

And then you totally blew me away with this article! You are right (and I must now print out the “Conversation in God’s Kitchen”) …. what I have observed is that either people don’t read their Bible, or the other extreme, they read their Bible to find ammunition.

But the Bible is given to teach us about God …. and with Jesus as our focus, then all the Bible does teach us about God … about His character and what He is like.

But it is a little like walking a tightrope, take your eyes of the goal (Jesus) and we lose our balance.

In my opinion, it is this focus that John Piper speaks of.

joy – Dinah

By: Dan

Dan — Wed, 31 Dec 1969 19:00:00 +0000

Amen, brother– great post.

By: Godchick

Godchick — Wed, 31 Dec 1969 19:00:00 +0000

I love baking. Ever noticed though how it tends to mess the kitchen up while in process? Flour scattered on the bench, egg dripped on the floor [my man tells me I'm a messy cook!]and a pile of dishes to be washed, dried and put away.

But when you’ve made a fresh pot of coffee and sliced off some warm cake – that’s all that matters. Yep, in my mind, it’s all about the cake!

By: Aaron

Aaron — Wed, 31 Dec 1969 19:00:00 +0000

Jesus is very much the point.

I think confusion arises in this kind of discussion because we tend to think, “Okay, if Jesus is the focus, then that means the Gospels represent a canon within the canon. Furthermore, the red letters within the Gospels represent a canon within the canon within the canon.” A lot of people find a way to distort Christian teaching by using this kind of reasoning. (And it’s kind of funny, too, that the distortions are always built upon what the red letters DON’T say, while ignoring quite a bit of what they do say).

But I believe that the Gospels, like the other books of the New Testament, are divinely-inspired interpretations of Jesus (in fact, the books of the Old Testament are too–see Luke 24:44). We should avoid the idea that the Gospels represent the “real” Jesus while the epistles are merely the Pauline tradition, the Petrine tradition, or whatever. Every book of the Bible was written by someone inspired by God to be an authoritative testimony to Jesus Christ. Apart from Scripture, we do not know Christ. I think if these things are kept in mind, then questions like the one that Steve posed are more likely to be unnecessary.