This first part is not going to be like any of my other chapters because I plan to lay some ground work for the subjects we are going to touch on and that is all. I will let everyone know what the next ten weeks will hold and will try to give brief explanations of what will be talked about and why I feel lead to talk about these subjects. To be completely honest I am very excited to go into this subject matter and have been waiting on this from the start, if you do not already know I have planned out this blog all the way to the end of the year. God has laid on my heart everything from the start and there has been many nights that I have been woken up or not been able to sleep due to what God was telling me He wanted me to talk about. So with out further ado lets look at Jesus.
I will start by covering the idea of the "American Jesus". In that part we will look at how we as Americans have twisted Jesus into our culture. I am not talking about the early founders and their beliefs but instead how American cultural Christianity have made Jesus something he is not to fit our world view. The next part of this series will be "The Lottery Ticket Jesus". I have been promising to talk about the problems with the "prosperity gospel" for a while and now I will finally do it. I do not really have a problem with believing that God wants to take care of his children but when you cross the line into the idea of God being some kind of money pyramid scheme that is when I have to say something. I personally believe that we should want to know the gift giver more than the gifts that can be given and when it comes to this subject we look a lot like the practical son than anything else. The next part, "The Magic Genie Jesus", will tie into the same matter because along with the "prosperity gospel" there is the "name it and claim it" kind of people that make it seem that God is just some kind of magic genie that we can appeal to and then we can get what we want. If we scratch God's back he will have to scratch ours and well plainly that is not really how it works.
After the first three parts we will go back to the normal format of two sides of the same idea, just like all the chapters that have been posted so far. We will look at the "Mean Jesus" and the "Careless Jesus". We will be going over things like the Westboro Baptist and people who try to use Jesus as some kind of person who loves but also hates people if they do not agree with their theology. Then we will look at the idea of the "hyper-grace gospel" and how this teaching makes Jesus look like someone who is okay with sin somehow. The next two parts are going to be the "Non-charismatic Jesus" and the "Charismatic Jesus". We will be looking at a feud inside the church that has been going on since the start of the 1900's. We will look at both sides and see why fighting over this is Making God look bad.
The final two part split up of this series will be a little more controversial because we will be dealing with race. We will be looking at the "White Jesus" and the "Black Jesus". Now some people may think that this is bad but as a follower of Christ I think it is time to air out some of our problems with this. We will be looking at how we as people try to make Jesus fit into our own little personal ideas. We will look at the culture of these two things and how we try to call what we see as our own is right. Just as a side note Jesus was not white nor black but a Jew who was born and raised in the middle east. I am very much against racism. I think that the church being broken up due to race or culture because of race is something that really makes God look bad.
The last part, as I said in the start of this chapter, will be a mash up of everyone who has helped write so far. We will be taking a look at the "Real Jesus". We will be taking a paragraph or two to look at what the Bible says about Jesus. There may be some overlap but that would be great because then you will be able to see that when we focus on what the Bible has to say about Jesus we should be seeing the same things. This miniseries will be a challenging one but also hopefully fun and eye opening to all. Please be praying for all the authors that have agreed to help me and me also that we will seek God for what he wants to say on these matters. We only want to bring truth and not opinions when it comes to the matter of our Lord.
There everything is in a nutshell and I really hope everyone will check it out. Tell others about what is about to happen and give us your feed back. The only reason everyone and myself are doing this is to try to shed some light on the most important matter, Jesus Christ. I am not promising you any great revelation nor some truth that you might not already know but what I am promising is people willing to seek out the truth and bring it to you. I look forward to what is to come and hope you do to. Let me ask you just one thing.
WHO IS THE REAL JESUS OF THE BIBLE?
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