Comments (7)

By Richard Hamilton, October 31, 2008 1:20 pm

Where does our understanding of Jesus (his life and mission) come from?

The answers to this question (if we were somehow able to draw out an honest answer from within ourselves) would probably be as varied as the number of respondents. So many factors effect how we interpret Jesus. Texts. Traditions. Perspective. Limitations.

Maybe, the real question I have in my mind is, do the gospel texts serve as the primary interpretive framework for our understanding of Jesus or do other christian texts? More specifically, does Paul shape our understanding of Jesus, or Jesus understand our understanding of Paul?

Before we even get into that, I am well aware that all the christian texts this brings into play are said to bring equal weight. It’s hard to claim that is actually the case though. Let me sight a few examples.

Example 1. The kingdom vs. the church. Jesus seems vaguely (at best) interested in discussing the church. Apart from Matthew, (and only twice there) Jesus doesn’t talk about the church. Jesus’ rhetoric centers around the kingdom. Paul, on the other hand, talks of kingdom twelve times, but church sixty. Which language dominates today’s Christianity? (I am well aware that kingdom talk/theology has come back into vogue. For that matter, Jesus scholarship in general is much more popular today than it was 100 years ago. But, I tend to write in broad strokes misrepresenting and offending the general evangelical community. You know this. I think my point remains the same)

Example 2. What is our example for christian living? The gospels or Acts? I can speak specifically for my faith tradition. We have always made an appeal to Acts as our guide for practice. (I know this deviates slightly from my question about Paul and Jesus, but I think we rely more heavily on the Pauline model from the latter half of Acts than we do on the beginning of Acts)

Christians frequently teach that “difficult” texts of the Bible are to be interpreted based on what is “known” from “simple” passages. (Let it be known, I think this hermeneutic is faulty on many levels.) Interestingly, we often turn to Paul to understand other texts. The problem is, Paul’s writings “contain some things that are hard to understand.”

Is it possible, we have started with Paul and therefore misunderstood Jesus? Or at very least changed Jesus’ emphasis?

Maybe the academic trending toward Jesus scholarship will benefit Christianity after all, if, by nothing else, drawing attention back to Jesus.