Help - Question on Jesus
March 21, 2008 by Jonathan Brink
I was reading the winner of the Good Atonement contest and some thoughts came up that I wanted your help on.
One of the things Steve Sherwood brings up is the nature of the Jewish community. The parables of the Prodigal Son shares the story of a culture that will not allow shame on the father. It’s essentially a very strict, legalistic community. And then I began to think about how Jesus shows up and essentially turns everything on its ear. The people just don’t get it. So much so that they crucify him.
The second thought was something a former professor of languages taught me. He said, “Human beings learn best in contrast.” In other words, the distinction of an object or word is always best known in light of its opposite or contrast.
And my question is this. Could God have established such a strict culture so that Jesus would stick out so much we wouldn’t miss it? In other words, love was so profound because of the culture Jesus arrived in.
Love your thoughts on this.
I had a similar thought once (though not quite the same) and my views have changed since then.
My thought came from the perspective that God did not have anything to do with the establishment of the Jewish religion (iow - that God is not Yahweh), but that He chose to send Jesus into the Jewish religion and culture because it provided such a stark contrast to what He is really like.
I hadn’t considered it from the view you make above, which makes more sense considering that Jesus himself affirmed that the God of the OT is his God. (Although I had thought that maybe Jesus just didn’t remember that YHWH isn’t really God.)
Very interesting hypothesis.