Scott McKnight’s Jesus Creed has been very influential in helping me to understand my calling to ministry. McKnight expounds upon Jesus’ response to the question of the greatest commandment found in Mark 12. He opens the text by discussing the Shema as the first creed or prayer that Jewish children learned and how Jesus’ amendment to the Shema by adding the command from Leviticus 19 to love thy neighbor, changes the connotation of the sacred creed. The “Jesus creed,” McKnight asserts, is this radical meshing of love for God and love for people. A Jewish person living in Jesus’ time would have recognized both as important, but love for God would always have taken priority, being expressed in how well the commandments were kept. Jesus took that thinking and subversively turned it on its head by claiming that love for God and love for people were so closely related that they in fact were inseparable. Throughout the remainder of his book, McKnight shows his readers how Jesus lived out the love for God and love for people that he proclaims as the greatest commandments in Mark 12. Within that framework, McKnight also shows his readers how they too can live into …show more content…
In looking back at the Pentateuch I saw how the commandments in exodus 20 fit into an overarching framework of ‘love God, love people.’ The first 7 commands of exodus 20 are about loving God and what that would look like for the faithful Israelite. The last 7 commands are about loving people. I had never before seen the commandments of Exodus 20 in this way, but as I continued to think about Jesus’ statement in Mark 12 and the commandments in light of that statement, it became clearer to me that it was right there in black and white and I had simply missed it. As I continued to study scripture, I began to see other instances where love of God and love of people were brought to the
In relations to the thesis, chapter 8 “Impious Piety” allows readers to better acquaint themselves with Jesus and his personality. As a vast majority of us know, Jesus died on the cross for our sins. However, his purpose for roaming the earth was to spread the way of the heavenly kingdom and to shape the individuals who followed the Lord, and to hear his word instead of merely listening. Throughout this chapter, a deeper understanding of why Jesus deplored religious rituals, scorned civil laws, and broke the rules of piety by working on the Sabbath is acknowledged which may shock many individual readers. In example, I was personally influenced by the boldness of Jesus’ ways due to the fact of always thinking he was not one to go against laws. However, Jesus needed to spread the message which was prevalent in ancient times, and still relevant today, that we must serve God and only God. This meant breaking the rules such as working on the Sabbath, and going against civil law, for they were not right in the eyes of the
Is God a Christian written by Kirby Godsey is a very powerful book that forces its readers to take an introspective journey into not only one self’s religious beliefs, but also the fundamentals of one 's morals, judgment, and principals. Godsey begins his book by answering the title of his book. He believes that God is not tied to any single religion, like Christianity. That rather, the presence, feelings, and support of God should be perceived through a combination of beliefs, experiences, and perhaps even religions in order to understand the entirety of God.
As we have looked in to the Christian worldview of God, our humanity, the Son of God, and the restoration of our lives back into God’s purpose. Now we have a better understanding of what it means to be a member of the Christian community. God wants believers to dwell in union and in community having the same mind that is in Jesus Christ (Phil 2:1-11). This paper showed how God and Jesus Christ are at the fundamental core of all Christian beliefs regardless of the countless differences many Christians may
In their book Lead Like Jesus Ken Blanchard & Phil Hodges encourage readers to ask themselves three key questions:
The book consists of three parts. The first part has five chapters of which focuses on explaining what the key questions are and why we find them difficult to answer. The second part has nine chapters explaining in detail what N.T. Wright considers Jesus’ public career and the approach he had in first century Palestine. The third part of the book, the last chapter, challenges readers to wrestle with the questions of Jesus’ life and ministry.
Seeing as how we are all God’s children, made in His image, it is important to understand the necessity to love and respect one another while glorifying Him in the process.
"Thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy heart, and with all thy soul, and with all thy might. This is the first and great commandment. And the second is like unto it, Thou shalt love thy neighbour as thyself. On these two commandments hang all the law and the prophets." [Matthew 22:37-40, AV]
When Jesus called His disciples, His invitation was simple. He invited them to follow Him. The same is true today. In Matthew 28, Jesus gave His last charge to His disciples, and the charge was simple. He called his followers to go and make disciples. Much effort has been placed by Christians to fulfill this charge, commonly referred to as the Great Commission. Jesus chose to fulfill the implementation of the New Covenant through 12 men who He called, appointed, and commissioned, and he only had a few short years to prepare them for the task (Willson, 1990). His methods were unconventional and were revolutionary for that time. His disciples were to be trained extensively by Jesus, living with Him for three years prior to His ascension. He taught about servant leadership and its meaning for both the leader and follower Matt. 20:25-28). From the beginning, Jesus put in place a careful plan, and an examination of His actions in the Gospels showed that Jesus left behind the pattern to be replicated. His methods, which included the incorporation of three different levels of discipleship, included His interaction with Peter, His closest three (Peter, James, and John), and finally the group of 12. This paper identified and analyzed the three levels of discipleship Jesus modeled, these discipleship methods were then measured against modern leadership theories, and Jesus’s level of involvement and interaction with his disciples were critiqued in light of these modern theories in an effort to determine the effectiveness of this approach.
Loving people unconditionally was another aspect of Jesus’ worship lifestyle. The Gospels depict countless examples of Jesus interacting with people. Every interaction was filled with love. He met people’s needs when he healed the sick and the blind and the dumb. He met the needs of the hungry thousands. The marginalized of society were always on His mind. From the women to the children, the aliens and the outcasts, He was a...
Lance McClain was a tall Cuban teen with broad shoulders and a big smile. He was one of the many joys in his extra large family and had a heart twice the size of his entire bloodline. He had arms long enough to squeeze some love into you, and he wasn't shy about doing it.
Jesus’ healing ministry constructed a profound theological statement to Israel, similar to his selection of the twelve apostles and his eating with sinners. God’s promise one day to establish his kingdom and renew his people visible and available in preview to any who witnessed his deeds of the teacher from Nazareth.
The story “The Road to Salvation” by Premchand revolves around Jhingur, the farmer and Buddhu, the shepherd who were very full of pride and such pride ruined themselves. Dhanpat Rai Shrivastava who wrote under the pen name “Premchand” was born into the Hindu Kayastha caste. The caste system in India is a system of social classification. In history, it divided communities into hundreds of traditional groups. The Kayastha class is right below the highest class, Brahmana. In the Indian caste system, you are born into your caste and there is no way you can change your caste in your life time. It is believed that if you live a good life, you can be reincarnated into a higher caste. The major religion in India is Hinduism. Hinduism promotes harmony and love for everyone but Jhingur and Buddhu are trapped in the law of Karma. Although the story revolves around Jhingur and Buddhu and the pride they have for themselves, it causes them to manipulate each other constantly causing them to be entrapped in envy.
Mark 12:30-31; You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, with all your soul, with all your mind, and with all your strength. The second is this: You shall love your neighbor as yourself. There is no other commandment greater than these.
Summary The Moment of Truth is a book by Wayne McDill. The book deals with the process of a sermon being delivered. McDill claims in his introduction, that a sermon is not an idea or a manuscript, but instead a sermon is the moment the message is being delivered.
As one can see, God’s two greatest commandments are found in Matthew 22:34-40, and they are very powerful and meaningful. When the lawyer confronted Jesus with the question of the greatest commandment He did not hesitate to tell the lawyer that the greatest commandments revolved around love. Not just regular love, but agape love, which is a type of love that God shows to individuals. This type of love is an unconditional type love that is shown to people even when things are not good. When Jesus was on the earth he expected people to cherish and obey these commandments in hope of one day entering the kingdom of heaven.