See my teacher looks like a Jewish priest and dresses like one too but I think he is Protestant preacher. I don't really know for sure but he is funny. To hear him talk about Jesus is awesome. I can't seem to get enough of Jesus. It's like Jesus is my obsession in life. I really just love hearing, talking and learning all I can about this 2000 year old story. I love it; however, my joy for this class isn't really shared among my peers. Actually at any given time during class, you will find one person nodding off to sleep. Then towards the end of class, about half the class is nodding.
Not me, I'm like a kid in a candy store. Yes I know... Christina is showing her nerdy-ness but I just love this class. In all my other classes: English, math, law, accounting... basically everything else... I'm the head nodder. :) I am the one the teacher is scolding with her eyes to stay wake... for the first time in my life, I am the teacher's pet! I've officially earned my brown-nosing badge of honor.
Towards the end of every class, Mr. Dolan decides to finally throw in the towel with lecturing because half the class is asleep. He puts us in small groups to discuss pretty much everything under the sun that has to do with Jesus. My group... An interesting group! Have one guy who shared the first day of class, the only reason he has any knowledge about the bible.... is due to dating preacher's daughters. (SIDE NOTE: Mr. Dolan... he's a preacher... He has a daughter! Awesome moment when that all came together! Priceless). Then there is Bob... totally funny OLD man. I want to say he is in his 60s, and he relives the 70s almost everyday of his life. He's pretty funny and very random with his thoughts. Then we have two other women, one a very timid, shy soccer mom. She has grown up in the church all her life and it shows! The other lady, totally a kick in the pants... very sweet and out spoken, but is very sweet when she insults you. Example... "Well, that's a nice thought but your wrong!" I really like my group a lot and think that we have a good mesh of people from all walks of life.
So last night our group discussions were about our Philip Yancey Papers. Now Philip Yancey wrote this book called, "The Jesus I never Knew!" I love it. Personally I recommend this book but you can't borrow mine... My copy looks like I went to war on this book with a highlighter and post-it notes. Yes... I know... DORKY! Well when we were given time to talk about this book, you know I was just dying to unleash all my crazy ideas on my peers. Funny thing, I wasn't alone on this thought process. Everyone in the group had pages and pages of things they wanted to share and discuss. Now during these little meetings, a person is not suppose to wear their heart on their sleeve because some feelers will be hurt that way.
SO.... my little timid, shy soccer mom... Yeah..... not so timid! She showed a side of her that shocked the group and let us know... she has boundaries and one was crossed! What was it... the question on weather or not Jesus existed. Did he really live? Was he really the only Son of Man? How can we tell the gospels are reliable, since they were written years after Jesus' was died? Those were just some of the questions that brought out the spark in my little timid mom.
Now personally, I believe the bible. I think its a little hard to discredit the Gospel for a couple of reasons.
- First, you have four different guys telling the same stories but different. Now even though it seems like Matthew, Luke and John had Marks to use as a reference point. Each Gospel still has their own uniqueness to the story. Which to me, says... this is what happened but just from four different perspectives. Now had Matthew, Mark, Luke and John, all said the same story with the same details... that's when I might of questioned the reliability of the Gospels being true.
- Second, this was a very oral culture. Their way of sharing past history was telling stories. The had a knack for telling stories and remembering them perfectly. Plus paper was expensive back then, so when people wanted to learn the bible. They had to go to synagogue and read the bible there. Well, they would memorize a part of the bible to study and share at home. So remembering details... not an issue for this culture.
- Third and this is huge!!! My mom always told me. A lie never goes down in history without being uncovered. A lie never lives that long. The truth though... that can live forever and till this day, the bible is still the number one book being sold. It's in almost every language spoken. To me, that's a huge statement in itself.
With all that being said, a couple of people in my group still found the story of Jesus really hard to believe and take to heart. So a boundary was crossed in my group and we were off on a whirl wind of arguing and bullying ideas on each other. Now with each thought being thrown out, the conversation was getting more heated and hostile. Then it occurred to me, right there in front of me.... was the number one reason why people in Israel are fighting. Right there in front were 4 people educated in business and marketing, finding it hard to share thier feelings without stepping on someone else's toe.
Now I'm not big on forcing anyone into believing. I will share with you my thoughts (hense the blog) and I'll answer questions, but you will not get me fighting or screaming about Jesus, God or the Bible. I think that is very conterproductive and won't get any good results. So I found this little fight, a little funny and I took the seat as the watchful on-looker scoring each person on thier debating skills.
As I watch the talk get heavier and more heated. I heard the one thing that always gets me laughing when I hear a Christian say it. "Well, you believe there is air don't you? Then why don't you believe in Jesus?" Okay.... really... at what point in the Christian religion did this become our last resort argument? When did we start comparing Jesus and his existence to a compound of two oxygen molecules? Right when I hear that... I started laughing. Which brought the whole class' attention on me. OOPS! I couldn't help it, I think it's funny how bad we try to prove something that doesn't need to be proven. God is everywhere, if your blinders are shut to that reality. Their shut. To me... Jesus is real and honestly, it's a little hard to ignore him forever. Believe me I tried. I think that when a person is ready. God will call them finally to Him! That's all that matters. I just need to pray and love on them. That's all I am suppose to do. However... I do still get a chuckle at the oxygen comment as I type this. **LAUGHING** Sometimes... I think we try way too hard to make sense of everything.
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