I take the following as given: Jesus was totally human. Jesus was born a Jew, lived his life as a Jew, and died a Jew. He had nothing to do with Christianity. He was Jewish! The Jewish religious group Jesus started, Followers of the Way, was just one of over twenty Jewish denominations. Jesus spoke … Read more
(This is the second in my series of ten misconceptions in Christianity today. This post suggests that the institutional church thinks it knows who Jesus was. They don’t!) If I were to ask a pastor who Jesus was, I would receive a wide variety of answers. I would be told that he’s God or the … Read more
In 2022, Lent started on Ash Wednesday, March 2, and terminates with the celebration of Easter, April 17. During this time, there will be a great deal of talk about Jesus, a cross, and his crucifixion. The Holy Week story is filled with lots of myths but little reality. The first time one sees a … Read more
According to one early gospel, the boy Jesus does not sound like a very nice person. I’m glad he wasn’t my neighbor or playmate when I was a kid! Let me share a couple of stories about this mean-tempered, foul-mouthed Jesus when he was five. Jesus was out playing by himself when a neighbor boy … Read more
News Alert! Herod the Great massacres Jewish male babies ages two and under in the region of Bethlehem! This massacre is described in Matthew 2:16 -17. Please notice three things: I didn’t say “the Gospel of Matthew,” primarily because the word gospel means “good news,” and this headline isn’t that. This story is only told … Read more
Let me share a story I heard the other day. You might recognize the hero in this tale, a remarkable person who lived some two thousand years ago. As the story goes, his mother had a visitor from above before he was born. This visitor told her that her son wouldn’t be like anyone else. … Read more
Happy Belated Ascension Day. This always happens forty days after Easter and this year was on Thursday May 25. Many Christians don’t know anything about an ascension. Interestingly, neither Paul nor the authors of Mark, Matthew, Peter, or John ever mention it. Only Luke and Acts (written by the same author) allude to such an … Read more
I suspect some of my readers aren’t quite so sure about the word oenologist. How does one say an o and an e together? Is it pronounced o, then enologist? Do folks just forget the o sound and simply say or write enologist? I do the latter. It’s easier! Anyway, an enologist studies and masters … Read more
Many people are surprised by this fact. Perhaps some folks think that Mary, the virgin who gave birth to Jesus, remained a virgin, a perpetual one. If this were the case, how could there be more children? Others think one kid like Jesus is enough. Folklore suggests the siblings were stepchildren. Joseph was their dad. … Read more
Most folks don’t realize that there are many different Jesuses. I’m not talking about south of the border where quite a few men are named Jesus. I am also not including the patients in the psychiatric hospital where I interned in the 1950s who believed they were Jesus. The most popular Jesus is probably the … Read more