B. U. G. S.

A couple of commenters have used the usual lengthy Biblical quotes to prove that when Jesus spoke of God, he meant Jehovah.

I have a very simple, one-two-three kind of mind.

When I was in the hospital in my youth, the preacher visiting me made the same point twice: the Old Testament gave him a despairing view of God. It was only when he got to Jesus that the weight lifted and the judgmental, cruel and immature view of God was taken away.

The only reason I have the slightest use for Christianity is because of Jesus. I rejected it because of Jehovah.

If Jesus’s only concept of God was the titanic bully of the Old Testament, then I wouldn’t have the slightest interest in him or the slightest respect for him.

So how did I reconcile this?

First of all, I repeat for literally the fortieth time, a) Jesus was speaking in a PARTICULAR society and b) it was not a FREE society.

If Jesus had not concentrated on Jehovah and Moses, how long would he have stayed ALIVE, much less been listened to?

Jesus fulfilled ALL testaments. That is MY interpretation.

You may be a Jehovist if you wish. As I say, MY choice is simply between accepting the realities I know about a person speaking in a particular society and my long experience in dealing with vicious restraints on free speech, or simply rejecting Christ entirely.

Every word you quote sounds like a man staying alive and proving he was the fulfillmentof the PARTICULAR testament of that society.

He did NOT say, “I am the fulfillment of that one, TOO.” They would have stoned him or at least silenced him.

The words Jesus used to deliver his message in the society he was in have been used to take attention away from him and to spend time concentrating on the Old Testament.

That is choice I have. I would take Odinism, the faith of MY fathers, over the Old Testament in a split second if it were a choice between two old concepts of God.

What justifies the “Christian” obsession with the Old Testament — the Book of those who crucified Jesus — are the word he HAD to say: that he came not to destroy it but to fulfill it.

He also said Caesar’s property was sacred. But comehow nobody gets obsessed with THAT idea, though that is a direct quote, too.

Jesus could not say, “I come to supplant the old ideas.” He had to say “I come to fulfill it, totally and completely.”

Just try to imagine what would have happened if Jesus had said, “I come to supplant the old ideas.”

Please, just try to imagine it.

Jesus also said, “Render unto Caesar what is Caesar’s.”

That was used by many a secular authority to prove that Jesus demanded obedience to any tyranny.
Do you REALLY think Jesus said that in defense of Caesar’s property?

Jesus didn’t care about Caesar’s property, but he was NOT in a free society.

Jesus was not in a free society.

Jesus was not in a free society.

Jesus was in a PARTICULAR society. He spoke the language of that society. He spoke in the TERMS of that society.

Once again, please try to imagine what would have happened if he said EXACTLY what he meant.

When you do that, his words look ENTIRELY different to you. It gets your nose out of the Old Testament and makes you look to Jesus.

Or you can believe that the bully Jehovah was the Father Jesus was actually describing. I sure can’t do that. But I also can’t believe that Jesus was saying that he was just as interested in protecting Caesar’s property as he was in God’s property, our souls.

You have to decide one or the other. If every word Jesus spoke was exactly what he meant and his objective view in a free society, then all state property is holy and the Old Testament is holy.

You are free to believe that, and I’ll fight for your right to believe it.

You are also free to worship trees.

What I am saying is my opinion, nothing more. But don’t assume I haven’t READ all the words you quote.