#john j parsons
Some people attempt to share the gospel message by making a “sales pitch” for Jesus. The temptation in evangelism is to make the message seem as attractive as possible, and to minimize the difficulties involved in making a genuine decision to walk with the Messiah. Often the appeal is made along the lines of the ego’s self-interest. Jesus is put forth as a solution to life’s problems, a panacea for the worries of life, a blessing for your love life, etc. “Believe in Jesus – because it works for you! You’ll be amazed by the results! God will bless you and you’ll find happiness and contentment at last!"
Unless we are careful, using an approach like this can make a subtle appeal to the flesh, to the all-too-human desire for personal satisfaction, happiness, and even pride. But Jesus never made a "cheap sale” of His message and mission. He never appealed to the flesh as a reason for following Him. On the contrary, he repeatedly stated the cost of discipleship and warned of being hated for his sake. “For the gate is narrow and the way is hard (i.e., τεθλιμμένη, "oppressive”) that leads to life, and those who find it are few" (Matt. 7:14). Indeed, Jesusoften intentionally offended people when they encountered him. Far from making it easy to believe, Jesus regularly put up stumbling blocks when people approached Him. He never was a “people pleaser” and He never apologized for speaking the truth, just as He never sought the crowd’s approval nor sought a “market” for His mission. Even less did Jesus seek the approval of the status quo, that is, the religious establishment of the Jews or the political establishment of Rome.
In short, Jesus’s life was scandalous to human beings and their various conceits. Encounters with him were always “tests” that evoked one of two responses: offense or faith. For example, Jesus scandalized his family (Matt. 12:48), his community (Matt. 13:54-57, John 6:42), the gawking crowd (John 6:26-30), various religious seekers (Mark 10:17-22), the religious establishment (Matt. 15:12), the political establishment (Luke 13:32), and even His own followers (John 6:61). His question is always, “Who do you say that I am?” People either were offended at Him or accepted Him, but Jesus made it impossible for them to be indifferentabout Who He was.
John J. Parsons
At Sinai the voice of God spoke from the midst of the fire, an event that foreshadowed the great advent of the King and Lawgiver Himself, when the Eternal Word would become flesh and dwell with us. Any theology that regards God as entirely transcendent (i.e., God is beyond any analogy with the finite) will have a problem with divine immanence (i.e., God is inherent within the finite), since the highness, holiness, and perfection of God will make Him seem distant, outside of us, far away, and unknown… Incarnational theology, on the other hand, manifests the nearness of God to disclose the divine empathy. Indeed, the LORD became “Immanuel,” “God with us,” to share our mortal condition, to know our pain, and to experience what it means to be wounded by sin, to be abandoned, alienated, forsaken. The “Eternal made flesh” bridges the gap between the realm of the infinitely transcendent One, and the finite world of people lost within their sinful frailty. We therefore celebrate the giving of the Torah both at Sinai and especially the giving of the “Living Torah” at Bethlehem with the birth of Messiah. We rejoice that God is indeed the King and Ruler over all, but we further affirm that God’s authority and rule extends to all worlds– including the realm of our finitude and need.
John J. Parsons
‘If you ask for bread, your heavenly Father will not give you a stone.’ The sages call this a kal va'chomer inference (i.e., קַל וְחמר, “light and weighty”), namely, that if a light condition is true, then a heavier one is certainly true. Jesus used this kind of reasoning all the time: If God cares for the needs of the birds of the air, how much more (kal va'chomer) will He care for your needs? (Matt. 6:26). If God so clothes the grass of the field, how much more (kal va'chomer) will He clothe you (Matt. 6:30)? If your heavenly Father knows the number of hairs on your head, surely He knows the state of your soul. And if God wants us to walk in righteousness, kal va'chomer does He want us to know His love. Only God can give to us the love for Him that He fully knows we so desperately need; only God can deliver us from our “disordered loves” to take hold of what is truly essential. All we can do is ask, and keep on asking- even as we struggle on, despite ourselves- until we begin to understand what we really need.It’s as if we are constantly being asked, “Is this what you want?” and our choices confess the truthof what we believe. Only God does the miracle of real change within the human heart- only God can give life from the dead!
John J. Parsons
Trusting in God (in Hebrew, bittachon - בִּטָּחוֹן) does not mean that we are obligated to affirm that this is “the best of all possible worlds,” though it does mean we believe that eventually God will wipe away every tear and make all things right. Bittachon is a word for this world, which says, “Though He slay me, I will trust in Him…” Those who call upon the LORD can trust not only in concealed good behind ambiguous appearances (“all things work together for good”), but also in a future, real, substantive good that will one day be clearly manifest for us all. We fight the “good fight” of faith, which is a worthy struggle that eventually is realized for blessing. Meanwhile, may the LORD our God keep us from such depth of sorrow that leads to sickness, darkness and despair.
John J. Parsons
