Jesus declared people forgiven, free, equal, welcome.
He didn’t attach any rules or conditions. He promoted a lifestyle of non-violence, unconditional inclusion and radical compassion. This is the way to follow Jesus.
During the first centuries of the Church’s existence and beyond, the ruling classes replaced the radical lifestyle modelled by Jesus, with a religious stage show. They brought their own interpretation of the story of Jesus into lavish temples, and separated presenters/performers, who spoke or sang their Jesus story, from the masses who watched and listened. The church at the end of your street is a descendent of that setup. The building itself, its contents, and the stage-show format still reflect those early adjustments.
Uncover the straightforward message of Jesus, which sits patiently beneath the afterthoughts and embellishments of later generations. Learn how to read the Bible with the specific aim of following Jesus.
What does Jesus understand to be our best life? One that is based on non-violence, unconditional inclusion and radical compassion.
When we read the Bible with the aim of following Jesus, we can finally do away with the medieval myths surrounding heaven and hell that, for centuries, have terrified people into joining the church. Let’s read now what Jesus actually said about this.
What we have come to refer to as ‘hell’, Jesus called ‘Gehenna’. This was an actual place located to the south of Jerusalem, where, in former times, sacrifices used to take place and oppressors would leave (and sometimes burn) the bodies of their enemies. Gehenna eventually became a dumping ground for waste, an enormous rubbish heap.
When Jesus spoke about a person ending up in Gehenna, he was using stark imagery to say that this person’s life had gone to waste, they had been wasting their life. He was warning people about their current life-choices – urging them to live their best life.
These were no hollow words. He supported this claim by helping people to turn their lives around, so that when the values of non-violence, inclusion and compassion were lived and shared, in that moment heaven (i.e. the best life) arrived.
Heaven and hell can be thought of in the context of deciding to live our best llfe now – or wasting it.
In order to make radical compassion and unconditional inclusion a reality, Jesus spent much of his time with people who were most in need of these – the outcasts, ‘sinners’, and the underprivileged. He treated them with dignity, standing alongside them against the oppression of the religious and political powers of their day. This was no stage show performed within the walls of a grand building. Jesus was on the move, crossing boundaries (social, gender-related, moral, ethnic). It was here that he helped people regain their strength and dignity, and live their best life.
Reading the Bible to follow Jesus involves breaking the paralyzing habit of associating his story with actionless abstract concepts – the kind that fill sermons, midweek groups and discipleship courses year after year.
In the gospels of Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John, Jesus is actively supporting and representing the outsider, the disadvantaged, the oppressed, the shamed and the bullied. He stands for non-violence, unconditional inclusion and radical compassion, saying ‘Follow me’.
I couldn’t be any more straightforward than that.
Is your local church reading the Bible to follow Jesus? Take the quiz ‘Is this your local church?’ now.