Week 12 Post

This weeks readings consisted of sections from the Common English Bible. Again, I found these readings to be very interesting because the Common English Bible does a good job at organizing the readings and making them clear to read. This section in particular was the readings from the Philippians. This section starts with a greeting, and then continues with a section called Thanksgiving and Prayer. I liked reading this part because, to me, prayer is a big part of faith. I try and pray everyday or every night and I try not to forget to do so. I used to pray before my meals, however I have strayed from doing so recently. This section was good because it inspired me to get back to the routine where I pray before every meal and give thanks to everything I have been given in this life.

As I continued to read, a section called Values and Priorities caught my eye. The initial message is to be glad in the Lord, which I think is key for a every Christian to understand. The next thing to do is to watch out for people who do evil, as they might cause you to stray from your faith. And the final message of this section is to forget about what is behind us, and focus on what is ahead, and how we are going to handle our future endeavors. This message is truly the message of Christianity, spoken here in the Philippians. It is our duty to serve God and our actions must be consistent with whatever level of spirituality we reach. I thoroughly enjoyed these readings because I think they did well at grasping the ideas and goals of Christianity. It is up to us to follow these guidelines, and I think the more that we put into our faith, the more we ultimately will get out of it.

Week 11 Post

This week's readings consisted of John's Gospel in the Common English Bible. I first want to complement the Common English Bible for its simplicity and depth. It is very easy to read and it is organized very well.

As I read on through John's Gospel, a couple stories caught my eye. The first was on page 166, titled: Feeding of the Five Thousand. This passage comes just before the famous passage where Jesus walks on water, and alike many stories in this Gospel, we see Jesus performing miracles and displaying his divinity. There was a large crowd approaching Jesus and he asks, "where will we buy food to feed these people?" Jesus then has the people sit down. He took the bread, gave thanks, and he distributed it to those sitting there. He did the same with fish and all the five thousand were fed, with leftovers. Jesus' changing of five loaves of bread and two fish into a plentiful amount of food, enough to feed 5,000 and have leftovers, shows his true divinity. Because he is able to do such a miraculous act, the people's response is how we could imagine. They say, "this is truly the prophet who is coming into the world." This passage in particular characterizes Jesus in a divine nature. This passage goes well with this course because we have been discussing the characterization of Jesus for weeks.

The next passage that caught my eye was called The Pharisees Test Jesus. Before even reading this passage I thought to myself, what are they going to do? How is he going to respond? These questions were answered after reading further. The Pharisees bring a guilty woman to Jesus in efforts of getting a reason to bring an accusation against him. Jesus flips the situation on end and tells the Pharisees that whoever has not sinned before, can follow through with stoning this woman. Because everyone had indeed committed a sin, of different levels obviously, no one stayed to throw any stones. Jesus then tells the woman to not sin from now on, showing is sympathy for those who get caught in sin either by accident or because they are "lost."

These two passages give us great detail of Jesus' implications. He is characterized in the first one as a divine human, and in the second, as a sympathetic man. These two passages go well with what we have doing with our analysis of Gospel pericopes. The question, is Jesus more divine or human, makes me think, and as I look at these passages from the Gospel, it is evident that Jesus is either divine, human, or both in all of these stories, proving that he has a relationship with God, and is His son.

Week 10 Post

This week I chose to read the Epilogue to Marcus Borg's, Jesus, and although there were multiple interesting parts to this epilogue, one especially caught my eye. The section just before the end called, A Vision of the Christian Life was very interesting. Borg states, "that the central claim of this book is how we see Jesus affects how we see Christianity--it shapes what we think the Christian life is most centrally about" (307). I think this that this is very important because with all the criticisms and other religions present in the world today, it is difficult to come to conclusion on what we believe a life of faith to be about. Borg continues to say, "a Jesus seen within a historical-metaphorical paradigm, and an emerging vision of Christianity, go hand in hand." I agree with this statement and I think that Jesus is seen in a historical and metaphorical paradigm throughout the bible, and these two ideas contribute to a Christian vision that Borg builds in this epilogue.

The next thing Borg speaks on is how beliefs should be secondary, not primary. Importantly, Christianity is a way to be followed more than a set of beliefs to be believed. I also agree with this statement because practice is more important than what's correct. A lot of people question belief and what they have to look at is that beliefs are very important, yet they are not the object of faith. Rather, God is the object of commitment, and for Christians, God is known in Jesus. Borg does a really good job explaining what the vision of the Christian Life is to be. After putting this book down I can honestly say that what Borg has to say is very interesting and enlightening.