Those of you who have reading this blog for longer than 18 months will know this, others of you won't - but I have another blog. Very much a work in progress. Its called "Red Letter Systematic".
I wonder, do you have a red letter bible? One of those where the words that Jesus spoke are in red rather than black? I do. By accident, its my favourite ESV, with a sort of elephant colour cover. I like it. Anyway, I'm not a huge fan of Red Letter Bibles - it implies that what Jesus said is more important than the rest of scripture, which isn't entirely true. But it is very important to stress that what Jesus said is incredibly important. For many, its what attracts them to Jesus - and the rest of the Bible, or the rest of Christianity, puts them off.
Systematic theology is one of my favourite things. Simply put, I understand it as clever people who love Jesus working out that the whole Bible speaks about him, and about everything, but that its not necessarily that obvious what is being said and where. So they systematize it. Put texts with Doctrines. That sort of thing.
But who wants one of those? (Other than nerds like me, who love that sort of thing, and infuriate our better halves with tedious observations about footnotes
Jesus is the centre, and often attraction - but Doctrine is crucial. How can we overcome the dissonance between the bookish professors with their overtly thick books, the new Christian with a genuine and real love for Jesus, and what Jesus said?
What if we thought bigger?
Sometimes, Christians are challenged from within and without their fold that the religion we believe in is actually biblicism. Or Paulinism. Or Augustinianism. Or Catholicism. Or Calvinism. Or Anglicanism.
And very often, those charges are not ill-founded. Very often, we are influenced by whichever part of the Christian tree we sit on.
So I want to go right back, through the Gospels, to what Jesus said. What he taught. The radical, the rude, the real, the mad, the mental, the majestic. Jesus said lots of things. I'm going to try and work out whats going on. Whether we as modern Christians have totally lost sight of what Jesus was all about. What Jesus taught. And to see if any, all, some or none of the Doctrines that make up Christianity have any basis in what Jesus said.
If this brief set of ill-written thoughts has whet your appetite, then head over to the other blog. I posted the first lengthy observation, on the little that Jesus said in Matthew 4, earlier this week. Read it, if you have the time. I'll continue blundering through the Gospels over the next 'period of time', probably posting a substantial something every Sunday, is the plan.
Thanks for reading!
EDIT - 9/9/12 - I just finished the first major chunk of Matthew 5, though I must admit there's been a hiatus! If you've ever wondered what Jesus taught about how his followers should relate to the Law, then consider my latest post, looking at what Jesus said about just that!
I wonder, do you have a red letter bible? One of those where the words that Jesus spoke are in red rather than black? I do. By accident, its my favourite ESV, with a sort of elephant colour cover. I like it. Anyway, I'm not a huge fan of Red Letter Bibles - it implies that what Jesus said is more important than the rest of scripture, which isn't entirely true. But it is very important to stress that what Jesus said is incredibly important. For many, its what attracts them to Jesus - and the rest of the Bible, or the rest of Christianity, puts them off.
Systematic theology is one of my favourite things. Simply put, I understand it as clever people who love Jesus working out that the whole Bible speaks about him, and about everything, but that its not necessarily that obvious what is being said and where. So they systematize it. Put texts with Doctrines. That sort of thing.
But who wants one of those? (Other than nerds like me, who love that sort of thing, and infuriate our better halves with tedious observations about footnotes
Jesus is the centre, and often attraction - but Doctrine is crucial. How can we overcome the dissonance between the bookish professors with their overtly thick books, the new Christian with a genuine and real love for Jesus, and what Jesus said?
What if we thought bigger?
Sometimes, Christians are challenged from within and without their fold that the religion we believe in is actually biblicism. Or Paulinism. Or Augustinianism. Or Catholicism. Or Calvinism. Or Anglicanism.
And very often, those charges are not ill-founded. Very often, we are influenced by whichever part of the Christian tree we sit on.
So I want to go right back, through the Gospels, to what Jesus said. What he taught. The radical, the rude, the real, the mad, the mental, the majestic. Jesus said lots of things. I'm going to try and work out whats going on. Whether we as modern Christians have totally lost sight of what Jesus was all about. What Jesus taught. And to see if any, all, some or none of the Doctrines that make up Christianity have any basis in what Jesus said.
If this brief set of ill-written thoughts has whet your appetite, then head over to the other blog. I posted the first lengthy observation, on the little that Jesus said in Matthew 4, earlier this week. Read it, if you have the time. I'll continue blundering through the Gospels over the next 'period of time', probably posting a substantial something every Sunday, is the plan.
Thanks for reading!
EDIT - 9/9/12 - I just finished the first major chunk of Matthew 5, though I must admit there's been a hiatus! If you've ever wondered what Jesus taught about how his followers should relate to the Law, then consider my latest post, looking at what Jesus said about just that!
I do like red-letter Bibles, but I see the possible danger.
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