The Christian Bible is a symbolic book, not a literal one. The one Christians know as Jesus was actually a symbol for the sun. Ancient sun worshippers believed the sun died at the end of the winter solstice and then three days later it would be reborn at the start of its cycle – December 25.
Some have said that the power of a Redeemer would depend upon two things: first, upon the richness of the self that was given; and second, upon the depths of the giving. Friend and foe alike are agreed on the question of the character of Jesus Christ.
Jesus teaches us to forgive and I’ve got to trust him on that one.
Jesus made clear that the Kingdom of God is organic and not organizational. It grows like a seed and it works like leaven: secretly, invisibly, surprisingly, and irresistibly.
If the grandfather of the grandfather of Jesus had known what was hidden within him, he would have stood humble and awe-struck before his soul.
I believe God, Jesus, died that we not just go to Heaven but that we excel in this life. I never think you make money your goal… God wants you to excel. Just keep Him in first place, and God will open up doors you never dreamed of.
Personally, I think Jesus would like better bands.
Jesus may have had an immense sense of importance or destiny, but he never claimed to be the Son of God.
I’ve seen inside fans’ houses, and they would have pictures of Jesus on the wall, and next to it would be a picture of The Rock ‘n’ Roll Express. That’s no lie.
The laws given on Mount Sinai for the government of man and woman were equal; the precepts of Jesus make no distinction.
A lot of Christians have been taught a story that begins in chapter 3 of Genesis, instead of chapter 1. If your story doesn’t begin in the beginning, but begins in chapter 3, then it starts with sin, and so the story becomes about dealing with the sin problem. So Jesus is seen as primarily dealing with our sins.
In Judaism, the temple was the most holy site in the world. But if you extend that argument as a metaphor, and you say ‘The world is a holy place,’ and you’re treating this holy place like a money-lending psycho, then Jesus says, ‘This is hypocrisy!’ and he’d point it out and flip it over.
In the Church of Jesus Christ there can and should be no non-theologians.
I reflected much on that vain desire, which had pursued me for so many years, of being in solitude in order to be a Christian. I have now, thought I, solitude enough; but am I therefore the nearer being a Christian? Not if Jesus Christ be the model of Christianity.
When I was growing up, I idolised my father. I thought his ghost followed me around the house. I had been told how he adored me, how I was funny, just like him. Because of our lovely Catholic upbringing, I secretly assumed that he would eventually come back, like our good friend Jesus.
I remember, I was doing ‘Jesus Christ Superstar’ in London in the early ’70s, and friends of mine had come over from Dublin, and they’re knocking on the stage door after the show saying, ‘Colm, come on, let’s go for a drink.’ I knew that if I went with them, I wouldn’t be able to do my job the next day.
True leaders don’t invest in buildings. Jesus never built a building. They invest in people. Why? Because success without a successor is failure. So your legacy should not be in buildings, programs, or projects; your legacy must be in people.
If you could sit down with Jesus, you wouldn’t need anybody else. He could answer all of your questions. Instead of Einstein and Louis Pasteur and Madame Curry, you could just have Jesus and he could answer for all of them.
But with Christ, we have access in a one-to-one relationship, for, as in the Old Testament, it was more one of worship and awe, a vertical relationship. The New Testament, on the other hand, we look across at a Jesus who looks familiar, horizontal. The combination is what makes the Cross.
Conversion is a change of masters. Will we not do as much for our new master, the Lord Jesus, as we did once for our old tyrant lusts?
In my heart, I know that Jesus would never condone the suffering that results when dogs and cats are allowed to breed.
What we need to affirm is that Jesus is neither a Democrat nor a Republican. Whenever we marry Jesus to a political party, we are committing the sin of idolatry. We are making Jesus into the image of our political party.
The great vicarious work for our kindred dead in our temples demonstrates both the justice and the fairness of the gospel of Jesus Christ.
I have so much confidence in the reality of Jesus that I feel no pressure to try to make people act or be a certain way. I’m banking everything on the fact that God actually changes people.
There is no better news, than the fact that Jesus can actually turn a life upside down and save it.
Obama’s not Jesus. He can’t walk on water.
Jesus was a liberal. Jesus was like the original liberal.
The story of Ulysses and Agamemnon and Menelaus, of Jesus, of the Good Knight of Chaucer, lives in every one of us.
The dearest friend on earth is a mere shadow compared to Jesus Christ.
The name of Jesus, like a secret charm, awakened similar emotions in the hearts of all the converts, and called immediately into action every feeling of moral loveliness, and every desire of dutiful obedience, which constitute Christian purity.
The Secret Revelation of John opens, again, in crisis. The disciple John, grieving Jesus’ death, is walking toward the temple when he meets a Pharisee who mocks him for having been deceived by a false messiah. These taunts echoed John’s own fear and doubt.
Our late Leader, Dr. Sun Yat-sen, with his universal sympathy for all oppressed and his profound understanding of Jesus’ revolutionary spirit of love and sacrifice, carried on his revolutionary work for forty years and brought about at last the liberation of the Chinese people.
About Jesus Christ and the Church, I simply know they’re just one thing.
I the chief of sinners am, but Jesus died for me.
You see, you are a spirit, you have a soul, and you live in a body. You have emotions, you have thoughts, you have a will, and you have a conscience. You are a complex being! And Jesus came to heal every single part of you. There’s not one part that He doesn’t want to make completely whole.
One congressman asked ‘I just want to know if you’ve accepted Jesus Christ as your personal savior. The minister looked stunned, and he said ‘no.’ The whole table almost fell on the floor. The congressman was quite serious. That was his litmus test.
For years I thought my assignment or the Church’s assignment was to articulate the Gospel and nothing more. Now I believe that if we don’t support the verbal expression of the Gospel with physical demonstration of compassion, we are not imitating Jesus.
The name ‘Seventh-day Adventist’ carries the true features of our faith in front and will convict the inquiring mind. Like an arrow from the Lord’s quiver, it will wound the transgressors of God’s law, and will lead to repentance toward God, and faith in our Lord Jesus Christ.
Jesus of Nazareth was the most famous human being who ever lived on this planet, and he had no infrastructure, and it’s never been done. He had no government, no PR guy, no money, no structure. He had nothing, yet he became the most famous human being ever.
I am not the Jesus of the official church tolerated by those in power. I am not your superstar.
Take steps each day to be sure your life expresses commitment to Jesus.
I think if you place Jesus firmly in the historical context… you can make very educated hypotheses and guesses about how he lived.
The New Testament doesn’t present Jesus as a single man to cover up his humanity. It presents him as a single man because… he was a single man.
As a follower of Jesus, I am called to work for justice and reconciliation, and to be an advocate for those who cannot speak for themselves. I plan to focus my future work on human rights and religious freedom – both domestic and international – as well as matters of the culture and the American family.
Every merciful act to the needy, the suffering, is as though done to Jesus.
Every spirit that does not confess Jesus is not from God.
Jesus that I know as my Redeemer cannot be less than God.
I did nothing to deserve God’s love; in fact, I was living as an orphan, without hope. Yet God chose to pursue a relationship with me, and through the death of his son Jesus, I was adopted into God’s family.
I believe that Jesus realized his oneness with God and he showed, what he attempted to do was show the way to all of us, how to realize our own onenes with God also, so he’s a precursor.
I have to go on being a priest and bishop, that is, to celebrate God and what God has done in Jesus, and to offer in God’s name whatever I can discern of God’s perspective on the world around – something which involves both challenge and comfort.
Neither Muslims nor anyone else truly worships the true God if they reject Jesus as he really is in the Gospels.
It always helps to have a bit of prayer in your back pocket. At the end of the day, you have to have something, and for me, that is God, Jesus, my Catholic upbringing, my faith.
The simplistic solutions of Deepak Chopra cannot stand against the lofty and deep teachings of Jesus Christ. Only in His answers will we find the ultimate hope for the human heart.
