Quotes about Jesus

and the birth of Jesus, two things become clear. First, in the witness to Jesus by the early Christians in the New Testament, they relied heavily on Old Testament "anticipations" of the coming Messiah. But second, Jesus did not fit those "anticipations" very well, such that a good deal of interpretive imagination was required in order to negotiate the connection between the anticipation and the actual bodily, historical reality of Jesus.

First, in the witness to Jesus by the early Christians in the New Testament, they relied heavily on Old Testament "anticipations" of the coming Messiah. But second, Jesus did not fit those "anticipations" very well, such that a good deal of interpretive imagination was required in order to negotiate the connection between the anticipation and the actual bodily, historical reality of Jesus.

The power of King Jesus is intrinsically revolutionary and subversive against every repressive regime.

Thus the teaching of Jesus attests to the possibility of God that the world has long since taken to be impossible. That is what is wonderful about his teaching.

The old limits of the possible have been exposed as fraudulent inventions designed to keep the powerless in their places. Jesus violates such invented limitations and opens the world to the impossible. He ends that defiant declaration with the admonition: "And blessed is anyone who takes no offense at me" (v. 23).

Compassion constitutes a radical form of criticism, for it announces that the hurt is to be taken seriously, that the hurt is not to be accepted as normal and natural but is an abnormal and unacceptable conditions for humanness. In the arrangement of "lawfulness" in Jesus' time, as in the ancient empire of Pharaoh, the one unpermitted quality of relation was compassion. Empires are never built or maintained on the basis of compassion.

The weariness and serenity of the churches just now make it a good time to study the prophets and get rid of tired misconceptions. The dominant conservative misconception, evident in manifold bumper stickers, is that the prophet is a fortune-teller, a predictor of things to come (mostly ominous), usually with specific reference to Jesus.

This is God's holiness and justice revealed in Jesus Christ: that God justifies, accepts, and loves sinners despite their unworthiness.

Are you unhappy? Do you feel lost and lacking in purpose? Focus on the needs of others and serve as Jesus did.

Being a disciple maker is as simple as helping someone else experience the risen Jesus and draw closer to Him—just as happened in our own lives.

But Jesus said to him, "Put your sword in its place, for all who take the sword will perish by the sword. Or do you think that I cannot now pray to My Father, and He will provide Me with more than twelve legions of angels? How then could the Scriptures be fulfilled, that it must happen thus?" Matthew 26:52—54, NKJV

Selfless and obedient. But always and ever a conqueror. This Jesus, our Savior, defeated death and sin. Now, that's true strength!