Quote:
Originally Posted by onefaith2
From what he said He never heard about the real Jesus because it was locked into traditions of men. If he really heard Jesus loved him and understood it I believe He may have had a different outlook of faith.
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I think I understand where you're coming from. For most of my teen-to-adult life I thought along the lines of there being a "real Jesus" and a "false Jesus" that were being preached. Every time someone "failed" (like this suicide note represents) I would attribute the failing to a "false Jesus" being preached.
I'm no longer certain that this dichotomy is the best way to look at these things, however. It's nice to have a "Fake Jesus" to pull out of the box and wave around whenever something bad happens. This restores our faith that everything is a-okay with us and our "Real Jesus."
But what happens when things go terribly wrong within a group who obviously possess the "Real Jesus?" I was confronted with this problem for about the first time when the Bible College president was (apparently) hood-winked into taking part in an inter-state auto theft ring. We had lots of the upper classmen traveling around in stolen automobiles boasting about how "God" was blessing them financially.
Now, they had the "Real Jesus," I'm certain of it. But that ended up being a rather embarrassing front page story in the St. Louis Post-Dispatch. Why didn't the "Real Jesus" do anything? The college President was forced to resign and narrowly avoided going to jail because he appeared to have been duped as well.
The board that controlled the school voted to close the school twice in just that one year. Even today (about 30 years later) people still will ask me why I didn't return to Bible school after that first year. My own pastor at the time (who was involved in multi-level marketing with the school's President) still brings this up. All I can say is, "DUH!?!"
My take is, bad things are going to happen. Child rape (as in the Princeton Suicide Note) will happen and it will happen most often in families and communities where it has been going on already for generations. It's not a "Bad Jesus." It's bad people passing along hatred and abuse from generation to generation.
We can have "The Real Jesus" and still see awful crimes in our midst. It really has little to do with "Jesus." It usually involves bad people preying upon the young, the innocent and those who don't have their guard up at all times.
Acts 15:24;
Galatians 2:4;
Ephesians 4:14;
2 Timothy 3:1-7;
Titus 1:15-16;
2 Peter 2:1-3;
Jude 1:4
Ezekiel 22:27-30:
"Her princes (Jerusalem's "princes" or rulers - see
Ezekiel 22:2 and 22:6)
in the midst thereof are like wolves ravening the prey, to shed blood, and to destroy souls, to get dishonest gain.
And her prophets have daubed them with untempered morter, seeing vanity, and divining lies unto them, saying, Thus saith the Lord GOD, when the LORD hath not spoken.
The people of the land have used oppression, and exercised robbery, and have vexed the poor and needy: yea, they have oppressed the stranger wrongfully.
And I sought for a man among them, that should make up the hedge, and stand in the gap before me for the land, that I should not destroy it: but I found
none."
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