What would Jesus look like if he were living on earth today? One artist, Stephen Sawyer, thinks he'd be more macho than wimp. Click here to read all about it.
No doubt our image of Jesus is important. It's so easy to create a God who is what we want him to be and something we are comfortable with. The philosopher Rousseau once said, "God created us in his own image then we returned the favour."
Today we have images of a spooky Jesus, a plain Galilean Jesus, a hippy Jesus, a revolutionary Jesus and now a macho Jesus.
We believe that Jesus is fully human and fully divine – the God man. As a man, he was a carpenter who would have helped run Joseph's business in Nazareth until he turned 30. In his ministry, he spent time with everyone from fishermen to government officials. No doubt, he was strong physically as well as in personality and character. At the same time he demonstrated softer qualities such as kindness, empathy and gentleness.
Today Jesus is the risen Saviour and Lord of all. His best friend and closest disciple, John, had a vision of Him in His risen glory and fell at his feet as a dead man, overwhelmed by the majesty of Jesus (see Rev.1).
Check out the book reJesus for an excellent discussion of how important influential our picture of Jesus is on our personal lives and on the church.
How do you see Jesus?
Hi Mark,
The picture of this macho Jesus is misleading … Jesus kept the Law perfectly then he would not have had a tattoo 🙂
“Do not cut your bodies for the dead or put tattoo marks on yourselves. I am the LORD”. Leviticus 19:28
Yeah, I think they guy is trying to draw a picture of what Jesus might look like today – in his opinion.
Hi Mark,
I am currently reading a book titled ,”the supernatural power of a transformed mind” by author bill Johnson. It is certainly raises a bunch of questions in my mind with regards to our present day perception of Christ and how we as his people should be interacting with the world around us. In the book Bill, who is a pastor, purports that in fact we have the same power to heal, cast out demons, perform all the miracles that Jesus did when he was here on earth. From my own experience and reading of the bible it appears that this is sound doctrine. Through recent experience at some city life meetings and Alpha I believe that we are moving in a good direction but as a body of his people have not fully embraced all these concepts. I believe we are at a very critical time and very interesting that as a church leadership you are looking closely at what bringing god’s love into the world really means in our practical day to day living.
Bill in his book details incidents of Christians walking up to people in supermarkets and speaking/praying healing into their lives and also people being saved through the experience. My first reaction was a feeling of inadequacy which then quickly turned to one of questioning whether we should be doing that sort of thing straight up without first some rapport/relationship building. As a leader/helper now on the past 4 alpha courses we are certainly challenged and in fact directed to pray for people which includes specifically for healing as part of the course. I personally find this very tough at mostly out of my depth as I have had very little training in this area. Tina has recently started some training in this area and I hope that this is quickly ramped up before the next course. So are we to expect the type of miracles witnessed in Jesus day at alpha or in fact anywhere? Are we properly trained/prepared ? Is bills’s book and what he purports completely sound and true for us today?
Mark Battersby
Nice to hear from you, Mark.
I had the opportunity to listen to and meet Bill Johnson recently at a conference. I really liked his heart and spirit, and his desire to equip people to minister to others.
Obviously, Jesus’ miracles were unique in that they validated him as the Son of God, as well as being expressions of his compassion for people. He calls us as his followers to ‘greater works’, which of course include things such as preaching the gospel. A person coming to Christ is still the greatest miracle and lasts for eternity.
We believe that God still heals today and encourage prayer for that, while trusting in God for the outcome. We live in the tension between the kingdom having already arrived and yet not being fully here. ‘Now’ we see Jesus having already conquered sin, sickness, Satan and death but ‘not yet’ do we see all those things eradicated or void of their power.
Glad to hear all that God is doing in ALPHA. Thanks for your involvement. God has good things ahead fo us all.
Jesus to me is the Ultimate buddy. He listens and hears what I have to say and you know that at any minute he can just appear, walk on water and turn liquids into what ever you want!
The best part is that he’s always around.
Even if your down and out, I have a feeling that he picks me up and keeps me close to him, looks after me, just when I need it.
He’s probably much more than this but this is how I see him. And to tell you the truth, I haven’t thought about it too much.