The Content of the Christian Good News

Jesus traveled around in his nation with a good news (gospel), and his messengers (apostles) traveled to the ends of the world as known to them to spread this news farther. What exactly was this news? Is this news still good and relevant in the modern world?

Jesus proclaimed the good news of the Kingdom of God. Comparing his own world with the ideal world of the Kingdom of God, Jesus found it wanting. People were in slavery in their own land. The fruit of their hard labor was squeezed out of them by the foreign rulers as well as by their local political and religious authorities. They were even brainwashed to believe that they were worthless sinners. Human beings as such were not of any value. Transforming such a world of oppression to a world of freedom was the task that Jesus undertook. The first step was to clear the minds of the oppressed people from centuries of brainwashing, for where the mind is in slavery, there can’t be any freedom. That is why he traveled around the nation and sent his messengers around with the good news of freedom. Finally, Jesus inaugurated a nonviolent struggle on behalf of the oppressed majority in his land by materializing in himself the mythical figure of the nonviolent messiah, on whom people had pinned all hopes of freedom. As predicted by Jesus in the parable of the mustard seed and yeast, the powerful movement he began spread throughout the empire. Although Jesus proclaimed a good news of freedom, he clothed it within the heart-capturing myth of the Kingdom of God; where God rules, people would be free from all oppression, and they would have the freedom to live and grow to their maximum potential.

Jesus’ apostles continued to proclaim the good news of the Kingdom of God with a special emphasis on what was accomplished by Jesus. Jesus represented the best of their tradition, and he did what the best and the most responsible person would do in that historical context. His personality and his action shook the conscience and the imagination of a civilization. Their philosophers, storytellers, and poets sought to interpret his life in diverse ways to find meaning to their existence. As a result, the good news of freedom they proclaimed to their generation was about Jesus. The very fact that such a human being existed became the good news for some, for he could be made a role model for a civilization. Jesus became the very personification of freedom for them.

In Jesus’ world, most of the people have been robbed off of their self esteem by the few people who claimed to be righteous. This majority were called unrighteous or sinners by the minority who called themselves righteous. The few who claimed to be righteous claimed so based on their strict observance of rituals; they didn’t care much for the ethical rules, which dealt with relationships. This could be rightly called a religious oppression. Jesus emphasized ethical rules and marginalized rituals by creating the category of God’s righteousness. Accordingly, those who care to keep the relationship with God and with fellow beings are righteous in God’s eyes. Paul expounded this idea further in his letter to Romans, where the good news is about God’s righteousness. The good news of God’s righteousness proclaimed freedom from religious oppression to the so-called sinners and unrighteous.

As Christianity slowly emerged as a new community independent of Judaism, Paul called it the new Israel with Jesus as the new Moses. A covenant (agreement) was made between God and Israel at Mount Sinai with the mediation of Moses. If the people are fully obedient to God, they will be righteous in God’s eyes-- that was the covenant. The contract was signed in blood by sprinkling the blood of oxen on the altar and on the people, which implies that neither party would break the terms of the agreement even if they had to shed their own blood (Ex. 19-24). Israel originated with this historic event. Paul relates this to the origin of the Christian Church, the new Israel. A new covenant was signed between God and the people with Jesus as the mediator. Jesus was not only the mediator but also the sacrificial lamb. Thus the new covenant was signed and the new Israel was born at Jesus’ crucifixion. If people have faith in God, they will be righteous in God’s eyes—that is the new covenant.

In the same way, after supper he took the cup, saying, "This cup is the new covenant in my blood; do this, whenever you drink it, in remembrance of me." I Cor 11:25

For this reason Christ is the mediator of a new covenant. Heb 9:15

The old covenant asked people to be obedient to God, but the new one asked to have faith in God. Despite the apparent contradiction, the new covenant does not negate the old one; it merely offers a means to that end. Faith is a friendly trust, and it leads someone to surrender one’s will just as the prodigal son does. Although he is a son, he surrenders himself to his father willing to be a slave.

But now the righteousness of God has been manifested apart from the law…… through faith in Jesus Christ for all who believe. Rom 3:21-22. Paul further says: Do we then make void the law through faith? God forbid: yea, we establish the law. Rom 3:31.

With such a meaning attached to Jesus’ crucifixion, the good news was named the message of the cross.

For the message of the cross is to them that perish foolishness; but unto us who are saved it is the power of God….. But we preach Christ crucified, unto the Jews a stumbling block, and unto the Greeks foolishness. I Cor 1:18, 23.

Under the old covenant, people felt like slaves to God because they were forced to obey God against their will. The new covenant cleared this misunderstanding so that people don’t need to feel like slaves anymore, but children. Their obedience to God comes willingly out of their love.

Conclusion

The real content of the Christian good news is freedom. Humanity needs to live and grow in freedom, and nothing should hinder the natural growth of humanity to its full potential. Based on a specific historical context, the form of this good news may vary, but its content has to remain the same. This news remains good and relevant to anyone or any people who are in need of freedom. Our world is very much in need of this good news because humanity is oppressed today in the name of race, color, class, and gender. Humanity is also oppressed by corrupt political and religious structures. Wherever there is a call for freedom from anything that oppresses humanity, it is a proclamation of this good news. The freedom movement lead by Mahatma Gandhi, the struggle against apartheid led by Nelson Mandela, and the civil rights movement led by Martin Luther King were movements inspired by this good news in our own time.

This offers us a dependable scale to measure all the beliefs that pass around under the label of Christian. A proclamation of freedom to humanity, whatever myth or metaphor it is covered in, is authentic Christian good news. All people in the world need to know that he/she is a child of God, and that the right to live and grow to his/her full potential is his/her God-given birthright. Nobody or nothing has the right to prevent human beings and societies from existing and growing to their maximum potential!

Why don’t People Read Anymore?

Why don’t people read anymore? This question was the primary focus of the annual convention of LANA held in Houston last weekend. The Literary Association of North America (LANA) is an association of writers who write in Malayalam, the language of Kerala, the state with 100% literacy in India. This association has been able to bring together the prominent Malayalam writers in North America for more than a decade. The presence of Zachariah, the well-known writer from Kerala, provided the participants with a challenging role model. Dr. M.V Pillai, the professor of Oncology, remained the pivotal point of the convention with his crystal clear thoughts and insights.
Reading used to be an essential part of the daily life of most of the people in Kerala. The day started for most with hot news from a newspaper along with a cup of hot tea or coffee. Today the situation is not the same. The number of readers is on decline. Television has replaced newspaper for many. Very few people read books on a regular basis. If this trend continues, what would be our future? This was the major problem that the conference discussed in depth and in detail.

This situation is not limited to Kerala; it is worldwide. According to The New York Times, in 2007 over 40 percent of Americans had not picked up a book the entire year. Dr. M. V. Pillai explained this situation comparing it to a business transaction. A successful business transaction requires a minimum of three factors: a producer, a consumer and a product. In the world of literature, there are a lot of producers and products, but there are not enough consumers. If the demand for products goes down, eventually the production also will go down.

Why does this happen? Why are there fewer and fewer readers? As soon as we hear the question, most of us tend to point our fingers at the visual media. It is true that visual media has replaced much of print media. But we have only gained by having the visual media in addition to the print media. The two media can work together hand in hand rather than as rivals to create a better life on the planet. Movies and TV serials are an extension of what appears in print, and they let us see with our eyes what we could only see with our mind’s eye.

The writers need to focus on what they can do rather than on what they have no control on. What can they do? They have to make sure that what they produce have quality. They should not worry about how many people read their work, but should focus solely on quality. When the quality improves, quantity will follow.

How can a writer produce quality work?
A writer must be a seer, someone with the ability to see life deeper and wider than most of the people do. If someone does not see life differently from the people around, he/she does not qualify to produce a literary work. He/she wouldn’t want to waste the precious time of the readers in addition to his/her own time.

The literary work produced must be authentic. Neither its content nor its form should be copied from anywhere. One should read widely to acquire the experiences of others and to view life from the perspective of others, but a work produced must be one’s own. A writer is often tempted to imitate a master writer, but by doing so a work becomes inauthentic.

A writer must have the courage and the honesty to translate his vision of life as it is to the readers. Often a writer wouldn't want to project a real picture of oneself for fear of losing his/her image among the readers.

A writer must communicate in a language that is fully comprehensible, and in a form that is appealing to the readers. The primary reason for the decline of readership for poetry in our time is its incomprehensibility of language and its unappealing form. The content must be primary in any literary work, but its language must be comprehensible, and its form must be appealing.

The Messiah: Origin and Evolution

The Jewish people have always hoped for a messiah. A messiah is someone who brings help from God and sets things right. The Hebrew word messiah means someone who is anointed, and Christos was its Greek equivalent. Anointing with fragrant oil was the ritual for appointing people to important offices in their nation. Oil represented the spirit of God, and a person anointed was supposed to be guided by the spirit of God. Jewish people were under foreign dominion for long periods of time. Each time they were in slavery or captivity, they hoped and prayed for a special messiah who would come specifically to free them.

During the time of Jesus, when the Jewish people were under the yoke of the Roman Empire, the hope for a messiah was at its peak. They hoped for a messiah who would combine Moses and David. Moses was the one who liberated them from their slavery in Egypt, and David was the one who created a powerful Jewish nation for the first time. They wanted the messiah to liberate them from the dominion of Rome like Moses, and establish a powerful Jewish empire like David. Some of them had a fancy idea that the messiah would descend right from the heaven with a large military force of angels, and overthrow the empire. But most were more realistic to expect the messiah to be born as a child.

There was another distinction that was very significant about the messiah. Most of the people expected a messiah who would overthrow the existing empire with violent means, but a few people expected a messiah who would employ nonviolent means. A violent messiah was easy to imagine, and that is how most of the people imagined messiah. But the power of nonviolent resistance was less comprehensible to the majority, and so only a few people were aware of it. The one who pictured the messiah as the servant of Yahweh in the later part of the Book of Isaiah was among those few. The picture of the violent messiah was materialized by people like Judas of Galilee who led a violent resistance against Romans in around AD 6. The revolt was crushed brutally by the Romans. Jesus, however, materialized the picture of the non-violent messiah.

The nonviolent revolt of Jesus against the empire that resulted in his crucifixion slowly began to gain wider attention, and more and more people joined the nonviolent movement, willing to die. This movement, which would eventually fill the Roman Empire, saw Jesus as the messiah their ancestors had been hoping for. Such an identification of a historical person as the mythical figure caused further expansion of the myth with more details.

Even in the Lord’s Prayer we see this myth budding. It begins as: “Our father who art in heaven, hallowed be thy name. Thy kingdom come. Thy will be done on earth as it is in heaven.”
It presents a world-view with a world above and a world below—heaven and earth. God is a king, and Heaven is God’s kingdom. God’s rule doesn’t extend to the earth. So God’s will is done only in heaven, not on earth. However, the human beings on the earth are the children of God. Those human beings who realize this pray to their father, God, for his kingdom to extend down to the earth.

Its fully developed version may be as follows:
Once upon a time the earth was a part of the mighty Kingdom of Heaven. In those days earth was a place of love, joy, and peace. All the inhabitants of the earth lived like a family caring for one another. Poverty and sickness were unheard of, and the earth was a blessed place of plenty and prosperity. However, this state of affairs didn’t last long. There arose among the earthlings the walls of prejudice and hatred in the names of race, color, caste, gender, and class. The problems caused by such walls were all blamed upon the king of Heaven, and thus a huge wall of enmity rose between heaven and earth. Thus the earth, which was once a part of Heaven, became a hell. The King of Heaven would not let the earth perish in this way. He would send the Prince, his son, to the earth to bring Heaven on earth. The Prince of Heaven grew up among the earthlings as one among them, learning their culture and their language. As he grew up, he told them the truth about the King of Heaven that he had had no enmity toward them. But their deep-rooted misunderstanding wouldn’t budge so easily. They misunderstood the Prince too. Soon they made false accusations on him and murdered him. However, the Prince returned to Heaven, and has been seated at the right hand of the King.

Jesus is called the Son of God in all the gospels. The Son of God, the prince of Heaven, proclaimed the good news: the Kingdom of God is at hand; repent. He further explained the good news to them as follows: God is good, wishing our well-being, and all we need to do is to turn to God and live a God-centered life for the earth to be a part of the Kingdom of God.

In a matter of two or three decades this myth got sharpened further in the eastern Roman Empire aided with the Greek world-view. This is what we see in John’s gospel. The world is clearly marked into the world above and below. The world below is the earth, where there is humanity, darkness, fleshiness, and sin, and the world above is heaven, where there is God, light, spirit, and holiness. Jesus, the logos or the son of God, comes from the world above, testifies to the truth from above, and then gets “lifted up” in order to return to his home above. He offers the chance for those who believe this to become animated by the life of the world above, and, ultimately, to abide in the world above with Jesus. As the One from Above, Jesus discloses to the ignorant world below the things of the world above. In particular, he reveals the Father so thoroughly that those who have seen Jesus have seen the Father. Jesus and the Father are in each other. The love which the Father has for Jesus comes into believers. The Father and the Son and the Spirit come to dwell in believers. Thus, believers live according to Jesus’ only commandment in this Gospel, “Love one another”. This is what John means by eternal life. It is a sharing in the love-relationship between the Father and the Son in the Spirit.

As years passed, this myth further developed in two different directions. One was more philosophically oriented, from which developed the doctrines of trinity and incarnation. The other was less philosophical and more poetical, from which developed the Gnostic varieties of Christianity.

Paul’s Life, Thought, and Work

A superficial familiarity with the movement of Jesus made Paul suspicious of it, and he set out to get rid of it. But eventually he developed an in-depth understanding of Jesus and his life, which made him a follower of Jesus. He thus set out to spread the good news of Jesus all over the Roman Empire. There were not many people even among Jesus’ companion-disciples who had such an in-depth understanding of Jesus, which made Paul suspicious in their eyes.

Paul shared the world-view of Jesus –God as father, the world as a family, and all human beings as brothers and sisters. He didn’t recognize any difference among human beings based on race, gender, or class. Nor did he differentiate people into righteous and sinners.

Hence he continued the religious reformation which Jesus started. He focused upon the ethical rules and disregarded the ritualistic rules. Although the one ritual Jesus focused on was Sabbath, the one ritual Paul focused on most was circumcision, the ritual of initiation in Judaism. “What matters is becoming a new creation”, he declared, “not whether someone gets circumcised or not!”

Paul also continued the freedom struggle that Jesus started against the Roman imperialism. He spread the good news of the Kingdom of God. The Caesar was called the son of God in those days, but Paul claimed that it was not Caesar, but Christ who was the Son of God.

Paul was misunderstood by the fellow followers of Jesus, and by the fellow Jews. In fact he has been misunderstood for the last two millennia. However, he succeeded in taking the good news of Jesus all over the Roman Empire. Finally he sacrificed his life for the cause of God’s Kingdom, following the footsteps of Jesus.

The one gravest misunderstanding against Paul was about his view of faith. Paul affirmed that it is faith in God that places people in right relationship with God. Without seeing the depth of this affirmation, many took it in a very narrow and superficial sense, and set out to fight against Paul. This is what made James write in his letter that faith without works is dead. What Paul believed was that faith or trust in God is the one thing that places us in right relationship with God and not the works we do to please God. Paul wouldn’t disagree with James when he says that good works are a natural outcome of our faith or trust in God. Paul is fully in agreement with Jesus, who taught that it was the tax collector and not the Pharisee who was found right in God’s sight. Centuries later, Martin Luther rediscovered the importance of faith as Paul understood it; however, it was misunderstood again and became a bone of contention between the Catholic Church and the protestant churches.

The word justification was also misunderstood, and mountains of doctrines were built upon this misunderstanding. The words just and righteous are synonyms for Paul. Paul contrasts between God’s righteousness and self-righteousness. The Pharisee projected himself as a righteous person, which makes him self-righteous. But the tax-collector did not present himself as righteous, and so he was seen as righteous by God. He had God’s righteousness; or in other words, he was justified by God. If I am self-righteous, I won’t be righteous in God’s sight. In other words, if I justify myself, God won’t justify me. If I want God’s justification, I need to approach God like the tax-collector without any self-justification. This is what Paul meant by the expression “justification by faith”. Rolling down the centuries, this expression has acquired certain meanings that Paul couldn’t have imagined even in his wildest dreams.

A lot of people see Paul as the creator of the doctrine of original sin. Often quoted is his sentence, “just as through the disobedience of the one man the many were made sinners, so also through the obedience of the one man the many will be made righteous”. Rom. 5:19. The doctrine of original sin claims that Adam was originally not a sinner, but became a sinner due to his disobedience. Because he was the first human being, all human beings born after him are born sinners. This doctrine also claims that the only person who was born sinless after that was Jesus. I think that a literal reading of Paul has contributed to the formulation of this doctrine. Paul compared Jesus to Adam to claim that a new humanity has born in Jesus. Paul pointed out that as Adam disobeyed God, he began a destructive trend, but as Jesus fully surrendered to God’s will unto his death, he began a positive and constructive trend. Paul believed along with Jesus that all people are sinners. Both are in agreement with their religious tradition which affirms “there is no one who does good, not even one” ps. 14: 3. Once when someone addressed Jesus “Good Lord”, immediately he responded, “Why do you call me good? God alone is good.” Thus Jesus placed God on one side, and all humans including himself on the other side. Paul’s understanding was similar. This idea of sin is radically different from that of the original sin.

A lot of people blame Paul for the idea of Jesus’ death as a sacrifice to satisfy the “justice” of God. It is true that Paul related Jesus’ death to a sacrifice. But he had no idea that the later generations would take it literally and build up a mountain of wrong-headed doctrines on top of it.

Last, but not least, Paul has been criticized strongly for his attitude toward women and slavery. Many present-day scholars think that the letters in Paul’s name have been written by at least three people.

1. The Radical Paul (Romans, Corinthians, 1 Thessalonians, Galatians, Philippians and Philemon).
2. The Conservative Paul (Ephesians, Colossians, and 2 Thessalonians.)
3. The Reactionary Paul (letters written by others--basically the Pastorals).

As Greg Carey writes: “The socially conservative Paul, who tells women and slaves to submit to their masters and who seems to focus on a heavenly future more than the transformation of this present age, is found only in the disputed and pastoral letters. Crossan and Borg call these the conservative Paul and the reactionary Paul, respectively. But we find the radical Paul in the authentic letters. This Paul regards women as equals in ministry, promotes the freedom of slaves, and proclaims a gospel that confronts the present order with a community of equals empowered by the Spirit of the risen Christ.”

In conclusion, according to my present understanding, Paul was someone who truly understood Jesus. He was sincere to what he believed to be true. Earlier, his misunderstanding of Jesus’ movement made him stand against it, though later, when he understood its truth, he was willing to live and die for it. He was misunderstood just like Jesus was misunderstood, and he was killed for the same reason Jesus was crucified.

Jesus as a Religious Reformer

A view of life slowly leads a people to a way of life. The view of life becomes the foundation upon which they build up their way of life. When a group of people develop such a way of life based on a view of life, we call it a religion. The way of life developed by any community anywhere is guided by certain rules, which may be broadly classified into two: ethical and ritualistic.

Ethical rules are about relationships— with oneself, with fellow beings, with God (the ultimate reality), and with nature. Healthy relationship is essential for existence. A break or tension in any one of these relationships can make existence miserable or even impossible. Ethical rules are universal and are fundamental in all religions as well as in all forms of existence.

Ritualistic rules support the existence of the way of life of a specific religious community. They vary from religion to religion, and are secondary to ethical rules in importance. Ritualistic rules exist to support the ethical rules, and not the other way round. Jews have their weekly meeting on Saturday, Christians have it on Sunday, and Muslims have it on Friday. This is an example of a ritualistic rule, and it exists for the smooth functioning of the way of life of a community.

A healthy religion will have its focus on the ethical rules. Though they will have certain ritualistic rules that support the existence of the community, they will always be subordinate to the ethical rules. Whenever the focus of a religious community shifts to make their ritualistic rules primary and ethical rules secondary, we may most assuredly state that their religion has corrupted. A religion that focuses upon the ritualistic rules and ignores the ethical rules orients a community in a destructive path.

Whenever a religious community thus shifts its focus, a religious reformer arises to bring the community back on track. All religious reformers, whichever the religion is, do the same thing – they help their community to shift their focus back to the ethical rules. Most often, a new religious community forms around the religious reformer.

Jesus was a reformer within Judaism. He asked people to have their focus back on the ethical rules rather than on the ritualistic rules. “Sabbath is for man,” he declared, “not man for Sabbath.” Jesus looked for opportunities to break the rules of Sabbath to make them understand that those rules were neither essential nor important. To those who complained that he was breaking the law of their religion, he asserted that he was not breaking them but truly following them. According to him, the primary law was to love God and the fellow beings. The rules of Sabbath were good as long as they remained subordinate and supportive to the primary law. Jesus did not claim that he taught anything new. He only invited his people to shift their focus to the ethical rules.

Jesus knew clearly well that ethical rules won’t be followed unless they are supported by a view of life or a worldview. In Jesus’ worldview, God, the ultimate reality, is a role model to human beings. God is like a father who loves all people as his own children unconditionally, which makes the world one huge family. With such a view of the world, people will be able to maintain a healthy relationship with God, with fellow beings, and with the nature, willingly and without much effort.

Jesus’ reformation movement was of such quality and power that it crossed the borders of his community and nation, and spread throughout the Roman Empire and beyond. It encouraged people everywhere to adopt a worldview that would revolutionize their life. It encouraged them to focus upon the ethical rules and disregard the ritualistic rules. It later made Paul declare that what matters is to be a new creation and not whether someone is circumcised or not, a ritual performed in Judaism.

Eventually as this movement spread further as a new religion, and got a very large number of followers, the empire had no other option but to make it the imperial religion. From being a movement for the welfare of humankind, it slowly turned out to be the most powerful religion in the known world. Its focus shifted from ethical rules to ritualistic rules; its primary concern shifted from the existence of humanity to its own existence. That is why reformations were needed in Christianity down through the history.

No wonder people all over the world today get disappointed at the Christian churches, which are based on ritualistic rules, and make mass exodus. At the same time there are individuals such as Mahatma Gandhi, Martin Luther King, and Nelson Mandela, who follow the way of Jesus, attracted by his view of life and focus on the ethical rules, and bring about immense progress and success to the quality of human life on this planet.

Early Christianity

After the crucifixion and burial, Jesus’ tomb was found empty, and several people claimed that they saw Jesus alive. The most widespread belief was that Jesus really died on the cross, but came back to life with a spiritual body, and rose to heaven. But some people believed that Jesus had not really died on the cross but only had fainted, and that after waking up from the tomb, he got out of the Roman Empire and went to the East to live there the rest of his life. He had played a crucial role as the messiah, but now after the resurrection, he couldn’t play any more active role. He could stay behind the scene, and give some guidance and directions, though. If the Roman authorities had heard that Jesus was alive, many people, including those who crucified him, would have been in big trouble.

Thus immediately after Jesus, there was a period of confusion. Those who followed Jesus were not sure if Jesus was alive or not. If alive, it was not sure if he had a spiritual body or a natural body. They were not sure if Jesus was messiah or not. If he was messiah, they were not sure why he gave himself to be crucified? They were not sure if he would come back to overthrow the Roman Empire and establish God’s Kingdom. There were a lot of stories and opinions floating around, and they didn’t know what to believe and what not to believe.

In the Book of the Acts of the Apostles we read the story of how they all gathered in a home in Jerusalem, and prayed together for several days. At the end of the tenth day, they experienced the spirit of God descending upon them. As a result, they gained the courage to speak up what they believed to be true about Jesus—that he was the true messiah.

But they also proclaimed that Jesus, the messiah, was soon going to come back to Jerusalem to establish his kingdom. Such a proclamation seems to have been the result of a misunderstanding. It seems that they hadn’t fully understood that Jesus was the non-violent messiah. They probably took literally what Jesus tried to say metaphorically about the establishment of the Kingdom of God. We also know that it was a misunderstanding because even after two millennia, that expectation remains unfulfilled.

This message that Jesus was going to come back and establish a kingdom was received with caution by the Jewish leaders. They knew that such a claim could put the nation in danger, for that would encourage the Romans to come in at any time and wipe out their nation. They consoled themselves believing that this movement would soon die out of its own.

This belief of the imminent arrival of Jesus to establish the kingdom made a lot of people to settle down in Jerusalem. They sold their properties and lived together in Jerusalem sharing what they had with each other earnestly expecting the Kingdom. James, the brother of Jesus, headed this group, while the apostles travelled to other places to proclaim the good news of the Kingdom. As this group continued in Jerusalem year after year, they didn’t have the resources to support themselves, and so they became the “poor” as mentioned in Paul’s letters.

The people of Israel were using mainly two languages in those days—Aramaic and Greek. Aramaic was the local language of Palestine, and Greek was the lingua franca used all over the Roman Empire. The educated Jews in Palestine could probably read and write Greek though they all used Aramaic for their oral communication. The Jews born outside Palestine used Greek as their first language, and they rarely used Aramaic. Some of the Jews in Jerusalem could speak Greek, probably because they were born out of Palestine but later settled in Palestine. There existed a division based on language among the community of Jews that believed in the Christhood of Jesus as well -- Aramaic-speaking and Greek-speaking. The twelve apostles were all Aramaic-speaking, but the seven deacons appointed later, as mentioned in the Acts of the Apostles, were Greek-speaking. Stephen and Philip were well-known among the seven. Slowly the gospel of the Kingdom spread to all parts of the Roman Empire where Jews lived. It seems that there existed a synagogue in the capital of every Roman province.

As this movement continued to grow and failed to die out, the Jewish leaders were really worried. They began to actively oppose this movement rather than remaining passive. The Acts of the Apostles says how Stephen was stoned to death for claiming that Jesus was messiah. He was accused of blasphemy, and he died as the first martyr for the cause.

Paul, an educated Pharisee from out of Palestine, began persecuting the followers of Jesus. He thought that they were a group of people who would bring disaster upon the nation by claiming that Jesus would soon become the king of Jews. He was among those who cast stones at Stephen and killed him. Stephen died with a vision of Jesus standing at the right hand of God. So far the followers of Jesus were probably hoping to convert all the people of their nation to their faith, but with this event, their hopes were shattered, and the rift became wider and wider. Later Paul received a vision of Jesus, which made him a follower of Jesus. Eventually he became the leader and spokesperson of the Greek-speaking wing of the community.

Meanwhile there emerged a rift within the community of Jesus – between the Aramaic-speaking and the Greek-speaking wings. The Aramaic-speaking wing wanted to stay strictly Jewish, following its laws and rituals; the Greek-speaking wing chose to be liberal. James, the brother of Jesus, headed the Aramaic wing, and Paul headed the Greek wing. They even had a round-table conference in Jerusalem to make some kind of compromise.

The Jewish wing could not survive and keep up with the other wing due to several reasons, the major one being the destruction of Jerusalem by the Romans. The small groups that survived were later branded heretics by the other wing that grew to become the official church. However, their worldview and faith partially survived through Islam, as Mohammed, the prophet, was influenced by them.

An in-depth study of the early Christianity can bring the three major Semitic religions-- Judaism, Christianity, and Islam-- closer together, for this study will reveal that the early Christianity was not much different from either Judaism or Islam. They agreed in the fundamentals and differed only in certain superficial aspects.

Jesus' World- 3

The Freedom Struggle of Jesus

The world of Jesus, which consisted of the land of Palestine and the people inhabited there, was in pain. They were under the yoke of the Roman Empire, and their only hope was that God almighty would miraculously intervene and free them. This hope, though fanciful, had the power to keep them united and moving on each day. Hopes of such a possibility gave rise to the myth of a God-appointed king, messiah or Christ, who would liberate them and rule the land.

Occasionally there arose leaders, raising some hope among the people. But their hope turned into despair when the Romans easily captured them and mercilessly crucified them publicly as a warning to anyone who might ponder such uprising against the empire. Thus they all turned out to be false messiahs.

Growing up in this context, Jesus understood the power of the myth of messiah, which held a nation together, but he was also aware of the failed attempts to save the nation. His own personal experiences and the collective experience of his nation provided him with the training, the will, and the commitment to take over a mighty responsibility-- the responsibility of becoming the true messiah and save his nation.

It was John, the Baptist, who was the immediate reason that brought Jesus out of his domestic responsibilities to shoulder the responsibility of leading his nation in a struggle for freedom. What John said and stood for made sense to Jesus, and he went out to accept the baptism John offered. Coming out of water, Jesus saw a vision—of God anointing him as the messiah, the king who would liberate his people. Straight from there he went to a deserted area to have some quite time with God. At the end of fierce internal struggle that lasted several weeks, he emerged with a clear goal and a clear plan of action to accomplish the goal.

The ultimate goal was the establishment of God’s Kingdom upon the earth, but what could be done by him, a short term goal, was its inauguration. He could initiate a movement, which, although as insignificant as a mustard seed, would eventually grow to become a mighty and powerful movement that would overthrow the Roman tyranny and establish God’s Kingdom. As a small quantity of yeast eventually ferments the whole dough, his movement, though small in quantity, would have the quality and power to eventually spread everywhere. He took time alone with God to make sure that his movement would be one of quality and power.

Earlier attempts to save his nation failed miserably and their leaders turned out to be false messiahs because they were not oriented in the right direction nor did they have a strong basis. Although they had the noble end of librating the nation, the means they adopted was violent. Jesus planned for a nonviolent struggle. There were two different pictures of messiah popular among the people—a violent one and a non-violent one. The earlier attempts for freedom followed the model of the violent messiah, and they tried to overthrow the alien rule by violent means. Jesus, one the other hand, adopted the model of the non-violent messiah. He developed a plan of action for a struggle against the Roman tyranny in which he would die rather than kill anyone.

But first, an elaborate ground work needed to be done. Most of the people of his nation had the model of a violent God and a violent messiah in their mind. Jesus had to break this destructive model first, and establish the model of a nonviolent messiah. Thus he started his teaching mission. He travelled around the nation teaching the people that God is nonviolent and his messiah would be nonviolent too. “Love your enemies” he advised them, for God loves his enemies. God gives rain and sunlight to both the righteous and the wicked. He presented God as father, and the world as a family. The essence of the Law, according to him, was to love God wholeheartedly and to love our fellow beings. He did not approve of any discrimination between human beings such as adult and child, male and female, Judean and Samaritan, rich and poor, and righteous and sinner. All people, for him, had equal status before the heavenly father. He advised the adults to become like children, Judeans to become like Samaritans, the rich to become like the poor, and the righteous to become like sinners. The people who gathered around him and listened to him were the common masses, and he was one among them. The rich and the powerful were alarmed at his mass support, and they eyed him with suspicion. Those who listened to him from the upper classes were very few, such as Nicodemus and Joseph of Arimathea.

Although he was playing the role of the messiah, he was very careful not to reveal this identity publicly. He didn’t reveal his plans even to his closest disciples. Had he not been careful, the Roman authorities could have jeopardized his plan right away. Finally when it was time, he made a trip to Jerusalem, the religio-political capital of his nation, where he staged his non-violent revolt. He carefully planned every step of his action. He wanted to make sure that his actions would conform to what the prophets had prophesied in the past about the messiah as much as possible. He arranged his entry to the city like the messiah on a donkey. He entered the temple and cast out the sellers and money-changers—an expression of his god-given authority representing God and the poor exploited masses. He arranged a person, Judas, to identify him to the authorities. He arranged all people in the drama – he played the part of the main actor as well as that of the director. He planned to resurrect as well. He even directed others of what to do after his crucifixion and resurrection.

Jesus saw his crucifixion as his own enthronement as the messiah. Thus with this event, God’s Kingdom was officially established upon the earth. All that was needed was for people to acknowledge this and be in the Kingdom of God. After his resurrection, Jesus handed over his mission of spreading the good news of the Kingdom to able hands such as Paul, Thomas, and others. Slowly people began to believe the good news, and joined them. As the number of people who believed increased, Jesus and his crucifixion gained more and more importance throughout the Roman Empire.

As Jesus presented a world-view as a family with God as father, he could be seen as a son who fully and completely surrendered to the will of God. Thus Jesus was contrasted with Adam, who disobeyed God. Adam could not see a father in God; therefore, he disobeyed God and then hid from God’s sight fearing him. Jesus, on the other hand, saw a father in God, and submitted himself to God’s will. Without blaming anyone else like Adam did, he took all the blame upon himself. Thus Jesus became a model for a new humanity. As Jesus walked willingly to his own crucifixion, it was seen as self-sacrifice.

Jesus' World -2

Jesus’ Enters the Scene
Jesus’ world was in pain, and the people longed for a miracle—a heaven on earth. However, they were worried if they would be in that new world, for they believed that it would be a world of righteous people. What makes someone righteous was a debatable question. According to the religious leaders, the strict observance of religious rituals and rules such as Sabbath makes someone righteous, but according to John, the Baptist, doing good to one’s fellow beings makes one righteous. This is the context in which Jesus enters the scene.

Jesus entered the scene joining the side of John, the Baptist, by accepting the baptism he offered. He proclaimed the same message of John—the Kingdom of God is at hand; therefore, repent. There was no difference of opinion between Jesus and others about the first part of the message; Jesus shared the same belief that the Kingdom of God was at hand. So what do we do? That is what the second part of the message said. Along with John, the Baptist, Jesus asserted that what we need to do is to repent. This was in stark contrast to what the religious leadership believed, according to whom what we need to do is to make God repent. Jesus explained why the religious leadership was wrong, and why John, the Baptist, was right. His arguments were all based on the religious tradition he grew up with. He used the same religious scriptures that his community used, but his inner eyes were sharp enough to cut through and discover the essence of the scriptures.

No one is righteous!

It was commonly believed that the Kingdom of God would be a kingdom of righteous people, but Jesus challenged the very classification of people into righteous and unrighteous. Jesus argued that God alone is righteous, which places all human beings in the camp of the unrighteous. This goes along with the commonsense saying that it is human to err. Thus God is the only being who can exist without erring even for a moment. This is what Jesus had in mind when he said, "Why do you call me good? No one is good—except God alone.” When a woman was brought before Jesus to be stoned to death, Jesus said, "If any one of you is without sin, let him be the first to throw a stone at her." And there was no one to cast a stone because there is no one without sin. Although some people appear to be righteous, they are really unrighteous in the eyes of God. Jesus said, “On the outside you appear to people as righteous but on the inside you are full of hypocrisy and wickedness.” Mt. 23:28. This idea is well-rooted in the Jewish tradition. No one living is righteous before you. Psalm 143: 2.

This was a bombshell in the thought-world of Jesus. If God alone is righteous, how can any human being ever become righteous, and who is going to be in the Kingdom of God? Jesus offered a solution.

A kingdom of honest people
Although Jesus put all people in the camp of the unrighteous, he classified people into two groups based on another criterion: honest and dishonest. The honest ones admit that they are unrighteous, whereas the dishonest ones cover up their unrighteousness, and present themselves as righteous. All people are welcome and free to enter God’s Kingdom if they are honest to admit that they are unrighteous. But all those people who claim to be righteous are dishonest, and they stay out of the kingdom. Those who claim to be righteous are self-righteous, whereas those who honestly admit to be unrighteous will gain entrance to the Kingdom clothed by God’s righteousness. Jesus challenged people to seek God’s Kingdom and God’s righteousness.

Jesus explained these ideas as clearly as he could with the help of stories and parables. In the story of the prodigal son, the younger son represents the honest people who would enter the Kingdom, whereas the older one represents the dishonest people who claim to be righteous and stay out of the kingdom. In the story of the Pharisee and the tax collector praying, the tax collector represents the honest people and the Pharisee represents the dishonest ones.

How can we be Honest?
Jesus further explained how we can be honest. In order for us to approach God and admit our unrighteousness, we need to have an altered understanding of God and of ourselves. We live in enmity with God because of our misunderstanding of God and of ourselves. We believe that God is unrighteous and we are righteous, and we try our best by our righteous deeds to please God and make God repent. The prodigal son could return to his father only when he had a new vision of his father. Jesus presented a new vision of God that helps people to turn to God with a heart of repentance. Jesus’ God is a father who loves all people as his children unconditionally and impartially. God is righteous, and he loves us although we are unrighteous. Jesus challenged people to accept God as a role model and to love their enemies.

Jesus also presented a new understanding of God’s Law. The religious leadership of his time gave primacy to the observance of the Law of God as they found in their scriptures. According to them, if we have to choose between obeying God’s law and helping a fellow being in a certain situation, we should choose the former even if the fellow being is at the threat of death. There is such a situation in the story of the Good Samaritan, and the priest and the Levite choose to obey God’s Law rather than saving someone in their own community from death. Jesus pointed out that obeying God’s law and helping fellow beings are not opposed to each other—they are two sides of the same coin; one can’t exist without the other. Love God and fellow beings is the essence and summary of the law, and they are not opposed to each other.

The world exists upon the law of God. Unlike the other beings, the law is not forced upon us, the human beings, for we are God’s children. We are supposed to understand the law and obey it willingly. Such willing submission comes only when we realize that God loves us unconditionally. This is demonstrated in the story of the prodigal son.

The law upon which a human community exists, such as that found in the Jewish scriptures, is a part of the law of God upon which the whole world exists. However, the laws should be understood rightly according to the context. God’s laws for his community as understood by Moses were written down for the succeeding generations, which became the Law (Torah) of the Jewish community. At Jesus’ time, after about 1500 years, those laws were forced upon people as such without adapting to the new context. Thus the rules such as Sabbath observance became a heavy burden to people. That is why Jesus proclaimed that Sabbath is for man, and not man for Sabbath.

Teaching thus, Jesus did not claim that he was teaching anything new. He was merely teaching the sum total or the essence of the Holy Scriptures of his community. He said:
Do not think I have come to get rid of what is written in the Law or in the Prophets. I have not come to do that. Instead, I have come to give full meaning to what is written. Matthew 5: 17

Jesus challenged people, as Prophet Jeremiah did, to have the Law of God within their hearts and obey God willingly. People need to surrender their will to the will of God. God’s Kingdom will come when God’s will is done here.

Jesus' World-1

Sunday school classes have given us the picture of a Jesus who toured in a peaceful countryside preaching and healing. However, this picture is far from the truth. Jesus' world was in pain.

A world in pain
The people of Jesus' world were under foreign dominion, and they were oppressed in every possible way. Many patriotic people were made outlaws and were forced to live by highway robbery. We read about the Galileans whose blood Pilate had mixed with their sacrifices. How cruel it was on the part of that foreign governor to slaughter the Galileans while they were doing a religious ritual in their temple! Jesus sent out the twelve with a warning that they might be arrested or killed. The government authorities were always in fear of mass riots. There were spies among the people, which is probably the reason why Jesus talked to the people in parables, but in plain language to his disciples.

In the absence of political freedom, the land’s economy deteriorated day after day. The people were heavily taxed by the government as well as by the temple. The gap between the rich and the poor was getting wider. We read in a parable of Jesus that there was a rich man who was dressed in purple and fine linen and lived in luxury every day, and at his gate was laid a beggar named Lazarus, covered with sores and longing to eat what fell from the rich man's table. In another parable we see a man who could not pay his dues liable to be sold into slavery along with his wife and children to clear the debt. What a frightening situation! In another parable Jesus speaks about a judge who neither feared God nor cared about men. From the story of Good Samaritan we assume that burglary must have been very common. Jesus advised not to store up treasures on earth, where thieves break in and steal.

Due to the political oppression and economic deterioration, the people were suffering from starvation, sickness, and mental illness. We read about a pool in Jerusalem where a great number of people-- the blind, the lame, the paralyzed-- waited for a movement in the water to jump and to be healed. We also read about mentally ill people living in tombs. How hopeless they were!
The religious leadership of the land was in oblivion of what was happening. Instead of leading the nation out of its misery, they led them to even more misery. Instead of working for the well-being of the nation, they strived for their own well-being. Preserving their religions rituals had priority over the lives of the human beings who were struggling for survival. Instead of standing with the exploited masses, the religious leadership stood with the exploiters. The temple in Jerusalem, the center of the religious leadership, thus became a den of robbers.

A heaven on earth!
In the midst of such pain and suffering, the world of Jesus eagerly hoped and wished for a miracle—a heaven on earth. Someone who starves may dream for a feast. Someone who is bedridden may dream flying in the air like a bird. In Jesus’ world, a people in a hell dreamed for a heaven. Actually such dreams had been among them for a few centuries. Apocalyptic visions of a glorious future like the ones presented in the prophecy of Daniel were known among them. But at Jesus’ time, the entire land with one mind and heart wished and prayed for a heaven to be on earth.

They looked at their golden past – to the time when they were a free nation under the kingship of David, and eagerly wished for a new David sent by God to establish a Kingdom of God on earth.

A kingdom of the righteous people
The imagination of their poets and storytellers got fire. They began to describe how the kingdom of God would be like and they also described the various steps that would lead to the establishment of the Kingdom. The Kingdom of God would be a perfect world in which there would be only righteous people living a righteous life. Any unrighteous person or any unrighteous deed would be unheard of in that world. Therefore, a process of selection must precede the establishment of the Kingdom. The God-appointed king would assemble all people before him, and divide them into righteous and unrighteous. The unrighteous would be thrown into a huge furnace, and the righteous would be allowed to be the citizens of the Kingdom.

The coming of the Kingdom presented both hope and apprehension to the common people. It was good to have a kingdom of peace and justice on earth. But asking the simple question of “Will I be there?” created a lot of anxiety in each and every person.

The religious and cultural leaders and teachers of that time suggested various answers. Some of them asserted that Jews were a privileged people because of their great forefather, Abraham. According to them, just by being a Jew, one could be in God’s Kingdom. Thus Jews had nothing to worry about, whereas, non-Jews had the option to accept circumcision and become Jews.

Some other teachers were not happy with this view. They asserted that it was not enough to be a Jew because they saw both righteous and unrighteous people among the Jews. They claimed that one had to be a righteous Jew in order to be in the Kingdom. This view sounded more sensible than the first one to many, and it gained popularity. However, it led to more questions about what makes someone righteous.

The religious leadership of that time, which consisted mostly of the priestly class, argued that the righteous people are those who strictly followed the religious rules, which prescribed the ways to be holy by staying away from unholy people and unholy things. The most important rule for them was the observance of Sabbath.

However a few people dared to challenge the religious leadership of the time, and argued that the observance of religious rules and rituals wouldn’t make anyone righteous. What matters was how we live our everyday life by maintaining right relationship with God and our fellow beings. Also it is not enough to appear to be righteous. One has to become really righteous inside out. John the Baptist was one such teacher who gained wide acceptance and popularity. He challenged people to turn to a new life. As a mark of the change, John invited them to accept a ceremonial bath in the river Jordan. People were excited at the new prophet who was offering God’s forgiveness freely – as free as the water in the river. No more did they have to go to the temple, pay the priests and do the expensive rituals to please God.

A lot of people accepted John’s invitation to be baptized and change their lives. Among them was a young man called Jesus. Growing up in that cultural context, Jesus was well aware of the pain of his people, and their dreams of a golden future. He was also aware of the various approaches of the religious teachers of his time. Being a sensible and honest young man, there is no wonder he was attracted to the views of John.

However the genius of Jesus did not let him stay as a follower of John; he went far beyond John.

Double Standards

Susan Eapen, Bangalore, a very good friend of mine, is exposing in this article the double standards in the traditional Christian communities.

From the time I married, I have found the double standards that the Malayalee Orthodox Christian Community maintain about sex extremely disgusting. It is my experience that sometimes some of us exhibit double standards. Why does the Church consider physical relationship between a husband and wife unclean? Or is it some people's subjective idea? Is purification staying away from ones husband/wife?

I have lived for over 30 years with my husband, and I have two sons. I have never found that our relationship with each other dirty and we needed to stay apart to purify ourselves. I have found from observation that staying away is what often leads to temptations and extramarital relationships. A solid physical relationship is necessary for a solid marriage.

Sex was also created by God and every nerve and sensation is formed from by His hands. What makes something dirty or impure is one's own subjective perceptions. Some hesitate to keep a picture of God or a Saint in their bedrooms where they perform these 'dirty' acts. I believe that such acts (with a dirty mind) dishonor the spouse. Sex must be an act of honor-- as said in the marriage wow: with my body, I thee worship.

If sex is dirty, then why is it described in detail in the Bible, often to describe the relationship between God & His People and Soul & Her Lord? Why does Proverbs 5:19 so explicitly permit a man to delight in his wife and not just procreate? (I am not talking about the sterilized and antiseptic versions, but the New King James version which I do not quote for fear of offending the sensibilities of the 'pure'). I can anticipate some answers such as God is your Lord and when you go to receive Himyou must keep away from any other spouse (husband/wife). I think that this stand is totally inauthentic because when you marry, the wedding prayers ask you to relate to each other in the same way as God relates to His people and the people's expected response.

This topic does not really matter any more in my life, but I would like the ambiguity to be removed, with reasons as to why the body, its natural secretions and its legitimate relations are considered dirty so that one is required to stay away from each other on certain days of the week to be acceptable in the sight of our Lord.

Program your relationship for certain days, deny each other with excuses that the Lord would not like it on other days, remove all spontaneity from your relationship-- Is this what the church must teach young married couples? Then why should I think that all days are blessed days which the Lord has made? On some days if I can perform 'dirty ' acts, then those cannot be blessed days.

I really wish we would grow out of our horror of the three letter word 'sex'. What one should learn to fear is not sex, but the lack of discipline in handling one of the most powerful basic instincts, lack of moral values, lack of respect for others etc.

Restraint as a matter of training and discipline, to strengthen oneself and sacrifice of the ascetic in response to his love for God-- all this I can understand and sympathize with. Discipline is OK but considering abstinence as 'purification' is wrong.

Purification for 3 days after one had relations with one's husband/wife for a lay person is the extreme. Young men coming home once in a year or two years to meet their family in India would then curse the Church as their wives would ask them to keep away almost half the time they are on leave. It is ludicrous!

I know from observation that minds that are free are better than minds that try to tame suppressed desires. Acts such as fasts (including fasts from sex) are voluntary sacrifices when one sets oneself apart for prayer and communion with God above all else. In this course, one's mind may become more pure towards God, -just as gold is pure when it is not mixed with other metals.

The whole concept of relating sex and purity is abhorrent. This gives rise to unhealthy attitudes in the young especially young women and certain mental blocks develop which often make marriage a bed of thorns for both partners.