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Originally Posted by Thor
...The reply in defense (sort of..) of missionary work.
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Parts of this really frustrate me:
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The first thing that comes to mind is that Jesus was about RELATIONSHIP not RELIGION . . .
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This is a total misunderstanding of what we know about Jesus, and who we think he was based on the available evidence. It is a common sentiment that is the product of a common problem: That the vast majority of people—Christian and otherwise—tend to read the Bible from their own deeply engrained Western perspective, and presume upon the text ideas that are basically foreign to it.
Jesus was a Jewish itinerant preacher, or a self-styled rabbi. He was RELIGIOUS in virtually every sense of the term as it was applied in the first century. Any indication of a dichotomy drawn between "religion" and "relationship" in Jesus' teachings is completely imagined, and most of his own philosophy was comfortably accommodated within Jewish religious practice and thought.
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...however, that doesn't mean He wasn't bold about sharing the thoughts of His Father, often times to the frustration of the Pharisees (religious people) in His day.
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NO. The Pharisees were no more "religious" than anyone else in first century Palestine, insofar as what was understood to have been meant by "religious". I will grant that Jesus held to a different
ethic that was more closely related to religious practice, but this is a different matter. The way that she makes this assertion makes no sense within its natural context.
The Pharisees were actually a populists movement, and they were enormously popular in the first century CE precisely because they catered to the lower and middle classes in their expression of Judaism. The most powerful religious faction were the "Sadducees" or perhaps "Zadokites". This was the ruling aristocracy who formed the priesthood, controlled the Temple, and were responsible for the correct interpretation and application of the Mosaic Law—the Torah. Jesus' confrontations with the Pharisees were more a product of his own social situation, since they were on his level from a socioeconomic perspective.
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He didn't bow to world views and adjust what His Father wants and commands from us. He shared His Father's views with Love.
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Again this whole statement is preposterous. Jesus was no different from most Jews in his demographic. There was an ongoing controversy concerning Hellenisation at the time, but Jesus likely NEVER encountered these sorts of debates because of his social standing.