Please give 30 mins to learn what the Bible, Jesus and Christianity are actually all about.

So

what

I want to focus on is one particular misunderstanding or one particular distortion about Jesus that I have found to be extremely common. I'm just thinking about, you know, my neighbors who are on my street in Portland. and the people who work at porquino and not only did I talk to them about

what

they think about Jesus and um and the number one thing is what I want to focus on during our time here today because I think One of the greatest gifts we can offer people is clarify who Jesus really is by asking questions that invite that conversation and then offering our story and our conviction about who Jesus is.

This is if you start looking for people's view of Jesus and what you think you believe, chances are a story like this will come to mind and it's a story that's really worth clearing up. What if this is really someone who really thinks and the story is going to be something like this? Maybe they don't believe it. that but they think that this is what you believe or something so here we are all here on planet earth uh it's a beautiful place and also tragic and uh here we are you and I and so on and so here we are uh we We are living our lives and, you know, sometimes great, sometimes very sad, and your friends think that you believe that, you know that you are trying to do pretty well, sometimes you fail, sometimes you do very badly, you kind of hope to achieve it. more on this side of the line than that side of the line, but we're all kind of a mixed bag, but at the end of the game, God will close the curtains of the story on you and based on how good you've been. or how bad you have been or whether or not you have correct ideas and beliefs about who Jesus is.

Your destination is one of two places, so one of those places will be heaven and the other place will be the bad place. sustained and, uh, heaven, if you take this out of people in the popular cultural imagination, you know that both are perhaps disembodied and non-physical places, this has to do with clouds and harps and songs in the presence of God and this has to see with an underground torture chamber or something right where God is sadistically hurting people, I mean, you with me, this is what people think that followers of Jesus believe, the vast majority of people in the West think that This is what they believe. and some of you in the room might be thinking, yeah, God is what I believe, so, um, I just love you and I care about you, and this is, um, this is wrong, this is wrong, the main problem of this story.

It's the

bible

and the other main problem with this story is the real life and teachings of Jesus. This story is riddled with so many half-truths or quarter-truths that it is simply not helpful, we should think we should read our Bibles again. a new set of eyes, so here I invite you to grab a

bible

and just talk to me about the gospel according to mark chapter 1. and the way I want to frame this is very briefly, you know, for the next 20 25 minutes just think in a simple way of reframing the gospel story in a way that is faithful to the real Jesus and in a way that I think once we understand it and once we communicate it is compelling, it is a compelling gospel story according to to mark the page one, the beginning of the good news about

jesus

the messiah, the son of god, now let's stop right there, what if there was a page in the bible that you could go to and say, um, what is this book about? good news about

jesus

the messiah the son of god who is a great candidate? where should you go in the bible?

I mean, what do you want? the beginning of the good news about Jesus and then we're thinking well, so heaven, earth, heaven and hell, right, that's right Verse two right and it's like oh no, that's not verse two, what is verse two like that? How was it written in the prophet Isaiah? I will send my messenger before you, who prepares your way, a voice that cries in the wilderness, prepares the way for the lord and makes straight paths for him why does the bible say what it is supposed to say right now you are with me here? apparently according to the bible the good news about jesus the messiah the son of god links you to a story that you already know, it is like jumping into a mighty river, we are jumping into a story that you already know, halfway and that already has all this momentum, so apparently the good news about Jesus involves something the prophet Isaiah said the story of Israel after they were redeemed from slavery in Egypt and then taken to the promised land and they did a very bad job at that and then they were driven out of the land into exile and into Babylon and the prophet Isaiah tells of the other side of their exile in Babylon. god is going to personally return to his people he's going to come down this road in the desert and he's going to send a messenger ahead of him that's the good news about jesus the son of god it's that simple it's not simple in a certain sense the bible It's not simple, once you understand the basic plot, it's

actually

not that difficult to understand, but the Bible simply refuses to be tamed and our attempts to reduce it to half-truths and summaries, and this is one of those places where we have to humble ourselves and I say: maybe maybe we were wrong and maybe I need to go back and rediscover what the Bible is really trying to tell me and is trying to tell me that Jesus comes as the culmination of the story of Israel and as the fulfillment of a promise that the god of israel said he would come to visit and rescue his people go to verse 14 of mark chapter 1 verse 14. after john was imprisoned um john who john the baptist straightened out the crazy guy in the wilderness who ate beehives and insects and stuff that guy john the baptist was imprisoned so jesus went to galilee proclaiming the good news of god here it is good here we go if you ever want to hear what the gospel is from the mouth of jesus this is a great candidate right here verse 15 and what is the time has come jesus said the kingdom of god is at hand repent and believe the good news now just stop and look at verse 15. so what is the good news jesus says repent and believe? the good news so apparently the good news is something he just said and what is it? verse 15 what is the good news? the time has come the time has come and something is here and that something that comes here is the good news and what is that something that has come here the kingdom of god the kingdom of god so apparently in the mind of Jesus the story of the Bible and who he is and what he is here to do and the gospel is not about us going somewhere, it is about God coming here, you with me here.

It is something that God is doing here and that according to Jesus is the good news. There are several things that are wrong with this story. First of all, this is a story focused on me. It's about me and what I'm doing, right or wrong, and then just God. is the one that assigns me a role right here at the end of the story, that is not the gospel, it is certainly not the story of the bible, the story of the bible is about god and what god is doing in our world, this is a story that focuses on me and my behavior and whether I'm good enough or bad enough or I know or don't know the right information about Jesus or something that's not the gospel and that's certainly not the story of the bible, the story of the bible It is not about my behavior as the focus is on God's activity and God's purposes and what God is doing in our world through Jesus, that is good news for our world, you are with me here and What is that and is that the kingdom of God, the reign of God and his government. upon our world has come in the person of Jesus, which means that Jesus is here to address some type of problem and he is going to solve this problem through what he does in the next pages that you are going to read in the gospel of Mark and that's the good news and it's a different story than this one here, so the kingdom of God, um, you can read about Jesus, he talks all the time about the kingdom of God if you read the gospel according to Matthew right before that. mark that jesus will call it the kingdom of god or also sometimes what the kingdom of heaven kingdom of god the kingdom of heaven jesus used both terms and the kingdom of god and the kingdom of heaven is not a place you go after dying is something that has come to Jesus now I'm going to draw something a little bit more but first there's just a simpler way to do this.

A friend, a friend and I in Portland made a video to try to help explore and unpack this. Want? To see it great, so let's look at that, in the Bible the ideas of heaven and earth are ways of talking about God, space and our space, so I understand our space very well, we live here, there are trees, rivers, mountains, but my understanding of God, space, gets a little confusing and what we find in the Bible are images that try to help us understand God's space, which is basically inconceivable to us, so these are two very different types of spaces Yes, they are different in nature, but this is what is really interesting. is that in the Bible these are not always separate spaces, so think of heaven and earth as different dimensions that can overlap in exactly the same space, which is why we talk a lot about going to heaven after you die, but this idea of that heaven and earth overlap Don't talk too much about that, which is a little crazy because the union of heaven and earth is what the Bible story is about about how they were once completely united and then separated and about how God is putting them back together once.

Again, so let's go back to the beginning where heaven and earth completely overlap. Yes, this is what the biblical description of the Garden of Eden is about. It is a place where God and humanity dwelt together perfectly, without separation, and humans then partner with God in the construction. a beautiful and flourishing world etc. but as humans we wanted to do things differently, we wanted God to be and we wanted to create a world apart from him, yes, so now we have these two spaces and the Bible

actually

uses many different types of words and phrases to refer to these two spaces to make a clear distinction, then you have said that these spaces can overlap, so explain how it works.

Yes, this is where we have to start talking about temples because in the biblical world you experience the presence of God. when going to a temple which is where heaven and earth overlap now there are two types of temples described in the bible one is a tabernacle basically a tent that was built by Moses and the other was a huge building made by Solomon and These temples were decorated with fruit trees and flowers and images of angels and all kinds of gold and jewels and so on and they are designed to make you feel like you were returning to the garden and in the center of the temple there was a place called the holy of holies which was like the hot spot of God's presence, now we can go and be with God again, but not so fast because the temple also creates a problem, then God's space is full of his presence, goodness, justice and beauty, but the space human is full of sin. and the injustice and ugliness that results so how do these spaces overlap if they are so different and in conflict with each other?

This was resolved by animal sacrifice, yeah that's a bit strange, what do animal sacrifices have to do with this? The idea is that these animal sacrifices somehow absorb the sin when the animal dies in your place and create a clean space, so to speak, where you are now free to enter the temple and be in the presence of God, okay, Yes I am an Israelite. and i live in jerusalem, maybe i can be in the presence of god, but you said that the story of the bible is the meeting of heaven and earth, so we have to continue with the story where we come to jesus in the new testament and in in the gospel of john we hear this statement that god became human in jesus and made his dwelling among us now this word dwelling is really curious, it literally means that he established a tabernacle among us and so what john is stating here is that jesus is a temple, now it is the place where heaven and earth overlap.

The interesting thing about Jesus is that he doesn't stay in this clean, safe space, but he runs around with sinners, healing people of their illnesses and forgiving people of their sins, he's basically creating. little corners of heaven where people can be in the presence of God, but he is doing it in the middle of the world of sin and death and he keeps telling everyone that the kingdom of heaven is near and he even told his followers that They pray regularly for the kingdom of God to come and for his will to be done here on earth as it is in heaven, but many people are threatened by Jesus and they kill him, which seems to ruin this whole plan of reuniting heaven and earth. , but we have to go back. to an earlier scene in the story of jesus where john the baptist saw jesus and said, behold, this is the lamb of god that takes away the sin of the world, so not only is jesus spoken of as a temple, but It is also spoken of as the temple sacrifice, yes, so the cross is now the place where Jesus absorbs sinto create a clean space that is not limited like animal sacrifices.

Jesus' sacrifice has the power to keep spreading, spreading and gathering more and more heaven and earth, and this is it. Really cool, but it leaves a big question in my mind: what will happen when he dies? Can't I just fly to God's space to be with Jesus? Yes, sometimes in the New Testament we

learn

that Christians will be with Jesus in heaven after his death, but that is not the focus of the biblical story, the focus is on how heaven and earth are reunited through Jesus. and they will come together completely one day when he returns so in the book of Revelation we get this beautiful image of the garden of Eden now in the form of a city that comes to end the age of sin and death by redeeming all of human history in a renewed creation and the space of God and the human space completely.

They overlap once again, like this, like this, what I'm saying is that the story of the Bible is the story of how heaven and earth were torn apart and that was not God's will. That's something that happened in history that went wrong, so God, God. wants to associate and rule his good world together with these worthy image-bearing human beings and as you know, you saw in the funny scene that that goes wrong, not because something was wrong with the way God set up the deal, it's because something went wrong. evil within human beings right, there is this impulse, this impulse to not trust God's definition of good and evil and to take autonomy and independence and define good and evil as I see fit and define it for ourselves and This is what is crucially important and this is a very simple way to think about communicating this and why this story is wrong if you look at the first sentence of the Bible that says that in the beginning God made the heavens and what he did not it says, it doesn't say it in the beginning god made heaven and earth and hell god didn't make whatever hell is god didn't make it it's nowhere to be found on page one of your bible right what god did it's heaven and earth and what god thinks about it is very good, it's very good, so whatever hell is, it appears in the story later and if you're familiar with the story, how it works, hell, evil or sin, the various names

give

n to it in the Bible is something that humans have created by our decision to take advantage of God's autonomy now, how do I know that hell is an appropriate word to speak of this brother of Jesus?

The brother of Jesus wrote a letter that is in our Bible, right, it is called the letter of James, it is very interesting and the brother of Jesus who he dated. Jesus a lot. I am forced to trust the man when he says that he is representing the teachings of Jesus. James talks about the pat in chapter three, he talks about the power of the tongue and how the human tongue has the power to bless and praise god the creator but at the same time the human tongue has the ability to gossip about people and bring them down their character and speaking bad and bad about them and James says this is amazing, he says when humans do that with their tongues he says their tongues are on fire with hell, are you with me now?

What are the implications of that? The implications that hell isn't just an endgame thing. Hell is a reality that is present now. It is a reality that humans. unleashing each other and God's good world to ruin and destroy relationships and destroy people. Hell is something we have created on earth and God hates hell and him. The story of the Bible is a story about God who wants to heal the world and get rid of devils, are you with me? that's the story of the bible is god hates hell because hell is about unleashing selfishness and evil and the collapse and degradation of worthy image-bearing human beings, that's what hell is and just the The book Genesis tells the story of Genesis chapters 3 through 11, known as the story of the fall, but that is what is happening: it is humans who are unleashing hell on earth and God hates it because he loves his good. world and loves human beings who are made in his image. that is the story of the bible and jesus enters the scene announcing good news, the time has come and heaven is here to invade the earth and confront evil and just start reading the gospel of mark and what will you see jesus do?

See him confronting hell and its disastrous effects on human beings and it takes the form of him expelling personal spiritual evil from people. He has to do with Jesus confronting the breakdown of human relationships. Go to the gospel of Matthew and listen to how Jesus speaks. about hell and here is the context in which Jesus mentions hell. Jesus hates hell and he hates what hell does to human beings and he hates where it takes human beings down a path, so Jesus, here's something we can all agree on and Jesus would agree with. agreement. We can all agree that sexual abuse of children for money is wrong and it is a plague, it is a far greater plague in our world.

We

give

it a more comfortable name called sex trafficking so we don't think about what the reality is. we hate it, we want it gone from our world god also hates sex trafficking Jesus hates sex trafficking but he actually takes it more seriously than we do because look, we want to get rid of sex trafficking Jesus wants to get rid of lust from his world right, talk from the root, the root of the desire to use another human being for my personal gratification. Jesus is more serious than we are about the evil in our world. We look at our world and we see the ravages of racism and genocide that have resulted in recent history, we want that to disappear from our world, Jesus also wants that to disappear from his world, but he takes it even more seriously than we do, because he doesn't just want to get rid of the racism and genocide he wants to eliminate. get rid of the pride, contempt and anger of the human heart, are you with me?

So what are genocide and sex trafficking? They are raging with hellfires destroying our world, but they are lit by these tiny sparks of these distortions deeply rooted in the human heart and mind. Jesus wants to get out of his world and he wants to get out of you and that's good news, it's good news, it's good news, but it's a double-edged sword, because it's like okay, I want God to do it. He takes evil out of this world, but I want him to do it without having to get rid of me. You know, what I'm saying is this is the hard truth about Jesus, it's like we've met the enemy and he's not the greatest.

It's news to hear, but at the same time it depends on who tells you. If someone who intends to take you down with m16 thinks you are the enemy, that's bad news, but if a surgeon comes, the best from a surgeon. with a knife and he needs to cut you open to take out something that endangers your life and is poisoning your body it is good news, it is going to be painful it is the story of the bible it is the story of the bible jesus is more serious about this than what who we are and then, how does Jesus, the great doctor, come to heal us and take us out of hell?

He does. It is this. This is what Marcos tells us. He simply finishes reading the gospel of Mark. Jesus lives in this hell. existence, he shows us what a human life is like when God becomes human to truly be the kind of human being that we are all made and called to be, but perpetually fail to be, it is this life free from hell that only gives and who only loves and who are only others. centered and his act is so offensive and so scandalous and so repulsive to those around Jesus and what he calls the people and how he calls the people for their religious hypocrisy and their pride and their anger at his anger, is the paradox of gospel. is that god so loves and is committed to his broken world ruined by the hell we have created here, he actually allows the hell we have created to overwhelm him and destroy him, right?, he allows the hell we have created to overwhelm him and destroy it. exhausts its power over him and we call this the moment of the cross and the moment of the cross is the healing is the paradoxical death and resurrection of Jesus and the death and resurrection of our of our world you are with me in Jesus everything The disaster of the human history and its consequences of evil and sin exhaust their power in the death of Jesus, but because this god is so in love with his world and these compromised, fractured, image-bearing human beings, he will not allow hell to have the last word. and the resurrection of jesus is this moment of new life it is a moment that speaks of the love of god and the eternal commitment to our good world and the resurrection of jesus is represents this offer in this life opportunity of a hell-free existence in the present and continue into the future, you, with me, here, repent and believe in the good news, God wants to bring it out of you and that is the best news, right?

It is the best news you can imagine and it is also difficult news to listen, so what is the story like? from the end of the Bible, you know, I had that image there in the video of heaven and earth coming together, but what I didn't mention was this, where does this have to go? You have to get out of here somehow, so go look at the last page of the bible where and what is hell on the last page of the bible hell is the monument to god as c.s lewis says to human dignity and choice if someone refuses to be healed by the great doctor God will honor that decision but what God will do what he should not do is allow hell to continue ruining his good world and that is why the image used on the last page of the Bible is from the great new garden city of heaven and earth married again and hell is outside the city is outside the city god is the mercy of god to contain human evil and not allow it to eternally destroy his good world and his good image that he carries to humans and for those who refuse to participate in God's recreation of heaven and earth, he honors that decision, they stay out of the city now that there are all kinds of details that we want to know that the bible does not tell us gives about this what he does is give us good news about the person of Jesus he tells us that Jesus is so committed to leaving your world and leaving you that he lived for you that he died for you and that he rose again for you turn to him and believe the good news how you do this is the story the Bible tells and it is at the same time a challenging story that will continue to be challenging, offensive and difficult to talk about, but I tell you it is a compelling story because your friend who does not believe in Jesus does too.

He wants this, are you with me? Your neighbor wants the same thing that God wants you to be with me right now. That's going to involve a lot of talking, but I thought this is a compelling story if we can, if we can help each other understand it, and you won't be forced to share the story personally unless you. Really experiencing the loving healing power of Jesus begins to remove hell from you and give you new life and