So there's this really sweet magazine out there that's for Christian readers. It's called Ignite Your Faith (IYF). So I thought I might introduce you to some topics about IYF. From their website www.igniteyourfaith.com
pretty sweet site. If you don't already have it then you should get it! :)
They talk about soo many different topics like the one below. Very hard hitting ones. If you don't get the magazine the website is a good place to look because it has all the entry's from the magazine there. :) Plus other fun stuff. Like games and GodTube videos.
Defending Your Faith:
Who Is Jesus?
He walked the Earth 2,000 years ago, yet Jesus continues to be the most influential person in the world today. Why?
By Mark Galli
"I wanted to show Jesus as a real guy," said Roger Young, the director of the TV mini-series Jesus.
"What's always missing from the films of Jesus is that he was a human
being." Actor Jeremy Sisto, who played Jesus in the mini-series,
agreed: "I tried to see him not as an icon," he said, "but as someone
who was more human."
And so the mini-series showed Jesus in his carpentry
shop talking with his family, on the Sea of Galilee speaking face to
face with Peter, laughing with his friends, and so on. But in trying to
make his point, the director overdid it. One critic described Young's
attempt "to convey a down-to-earth casual Jesus" as "a bit over the
top."
In one key scene, the critic says, "Jesus selects
his apostles … [like] a schoolboy picking teammates for dodge ball."
Another critic adds, "Sisto's Jesus is just one of the boys—a New Age,
sensitive guy."
That's the problem with any one portrayal of Jesus,
no matter how well it's done. A TV series simply cannot do justice to
the Jesus of the Gospels, the Jesus we find in Matthew, Mark, Luke and
John. John, in fact, said that all the books in the world could not
contain the life and teachings of Jesus. If he were writing today, he
might have added, "And neither can any film."
And it's not just films that tend to present a
narrow Jesus. Even some Christians do it. As author and speaker Tony
Campolo put it, "Our society has taken Jesus and recreated him in our
own cultural image."
Campolo goes on to criticize what often is our
American conception of Jesus—a white guy with a politically
conservative agenda. As one popular philosopher put it, "Jesus was no
conservative." True. But neither was he a liberal. He was much more
interesting than either. That's why nearly 2,000 years after he walked
the Earth, people are still fascinated with him. He remains the most
intriguing figure in history. Tough or Forgiving?
You just can't pin Jesus down. When you think you've got him figured out, he goes off and surprises you.
This is the guy, for example, who handed out the toughest demands ever:
"You must be perfect as your Father in heaven is perfect."
"If a man looks at a woman with lust, he commits adultery."
"Take up your cross and follow me."
And so on. He's the most uncompromising and stern religious teacher the world has ever known, right?
And yet he's also the guy who did this:
He was walking along, minding his own business when
a bunch of religious leaders brought out a frightened woman and threw
her down in front of him.
"She's committed adultery," they said. "She should be killed—stoned to death!"
But Jesus just went down on one knee, started drawing in the dirt, and didn't say a thing.
"Well, what do you say? Should we kill her?" they asked.
Jesus just said, "He who has committed no sin can cast the first stone."
Well, this really baffled the crowd, which slowly
dispersed. Jesus turned to the woman. He told her not to sin any more,
but he also said, "I do not condemn you."
So what is it: Is Jesus the stern, uncompromising moral teacher, or the compassionate friend of sinners?
Author Rebecca Manley Pippert writes, "In Jesus we
have … the holiest man who ever lived, and yet it was the prostitutes
and lepers and thieves who adored him." Wimp or What?
Then
there's Jesus the law-abiding citizen. Each Sabbath he attended
synagogue worship. He taught people they should pay their taxes, even
if the government was unjust. He told his disciples that if a Roman
soldier ordered them, "Carry my equipment one mile," they should carry
it two.
But just when you think Jesus is a friend of the
establishment, he goes off and breaks a Sabbath law (plucking grain,
for example). We also find him mocking the local governor for being
dishonest (calling him a "fox"), and, even worse, publicly attacking
religious leaders, calling them hypocrites.
So is Jesus a social conservative or a political radical?
Or both?
How about Jesus the peacemaker? He's the one who
teaches, "If someone strikes you on one cheek, offer him the other" and
"He who lives by the sword, dies by the sword," and "Love your enemies."
But get this: One day he met a Roman centurion, an
army officer who no doubt rose to the rank of centurion because he was
pretty good at mowing down enemies with his sword. After talking with
this military man for a few minutes, what does Jesus do? Does he tell
him to put down his weapons? Does he tell him to retire from the army?
No. He praises the guy, saying he has more faith than anyone he's met.
So is Jesus for or against the military?
Or neither? Human or God?
Here's the best one. Like the director of Jesus
said, Jesus was a man, a flesh-and-blood human being, one of us. We see
this all over the Gospels. After preaching and ministering, he gets
tired. Some times he needs to go off by himself. He gets irritated when
his disciples don't understand him. He tells jokes. He weeps when a
good friend dies. He feels physical pain. In short, he acts like he's
human.
But there's something else going on all the while.
He gives sight to the blind. He calms fierce storms with a mere word.
He feeds 5,000 people with a handful of food. He raises a man from the
dead. Better, he raises himself from the dead! He goes around talking
and acting as if he were God on earth.
So which is it: Is Jesus a man, or God?
He's both.
Mystery writer Dorothy Sayers put it this way: In
Jesus, "God has himself gone through the whole of human experience,
from the trivial irritations of family life and the cramping
restrictions of hard work and lack of money to the worst horrors of
pain and humiliation, defeat, despair, and death." Go to the Gospels
Movies (like Jesus or the older Jesus of Nazareth) and musicals (like Jesus Christ Superstar or Godspell),
not to mention the hundreds of books on Jesus, are good as far as they
go. But they can't go all that far. At their best, they only present a
few aspects of Jesus' character. But that's not enough, especially when
you compare their Jesus to the Jesus that Matthew, Mark, Luke and John
record.
And once you get to know these Gospels, you'll see
how shallow some of the other portraits are. "The more you know about
Christ," said one famous preacher, "the less you will be satisfied with
superficial views of him."
If you're tired or bored with the Jesus you've heard
about, you're probably not hearing about the Jesus in the Bible. If you
want to discover the most fascinating and attractive—and yes,
puzzling!—person ever, someone who's kept the world intrigued for over
2,000 years, someone who could capture not only your imagination but
your heart and your life, then you'll want to crack open your New
Testament and begin reading.
In the Gospels, you'll find a great religious
teacher and a compassionate lover of sinners, a man who strives for
peace and one who's tough on injustice, someone who understands us
better than anyone and one who commands our loyalty—the greatest man
who ever lived, the great God who came to us.
Quotes About Jesus
Jesus said about himself,
"I am the way, the truth and the life" (John 14:6).
But what have others said about him?
"As Man alone, Jesus could not have saved us; as God alone, he would not; Incarnate, he could and did."
—Malcolm Muggeridge
"Christ's message was revolutionizing; his words
simple, yet profound. And his words provoked either happy acceptance or
violent rejection. Men were never the same after listening to him."
— Billy Graham
"A man who was merely a man and said the sort of
things Jesus said wouldn't be a great moral teacher. He'd be either a
lunatic—on a level with a man who says he's a poached egg—or else he'd
be the devil of hell. You must make your choice. Either this man was,
and is, the Son of God, or else a madman or something worse."
—C.S. Lewis
"Not only do we know God through Jesus Christ, we only know ourselves through Jesus Christ."
—Blaise Pascal
"Jesus Christ had a twofold personality: he was the
Son of God revealing what God is like and Son of Man revealing what man
is to be like."
—Oswald Chambers
"We believe that the first time we're born, as
children, it's human life given to us; and when we accept Jesus as our
Savior, it's a new life. That's what 'born again' means."
—Jimmy Carter
"I have a great need for Christ; I have a great Christ for my need."
—Charles Haddon Spurgeon
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