This is an update on my ways of thinking about Jesus and the Bible. They all revolve around the idea that the best life we can live is in service and obedience to the God of Jesus, learning together to live the way that He says to live. A person doesn’t need to understand it in those terms to benefit from it, but in online discussions I’m only discussing it in biblical terms. One example of it might be small group workshops using spiritual growth materials designed to develop qualities and capacities for service in helping to make the community life in a neighborhood or village healthier, happier and more loving for every person in it.
I think that people growing spiritually together that way is at least part of what “kingdom of God” or “kingdom of heaven” means in the New Testament. I think that’s what Jesus wants for people most of all. Everything that He says and does is for that purpose. The reason that He is called “Son of God.” is because that’s what He is in a Jewish context, the king that God said that He would raise up from the line of David. It’s for Jews to know that serving and obeying Him, Jesus, is serving and obeying God.
In order to enter His kingdom, we need to be freed from slavery to our impulses and desires for immediate self-gratification. The way that Jesus died, and His resurrection, serve that purpose in some ways that I don’t fully understand and maybe never will.
We don’t need to know who or what the Holy Spirit is, or how they are related to God, to enter the kingdom and to have the life that Jesus wants for us. What we need to know is only about the *power* of the Holy Spirit, to know that things can happen that are beyond human powers, and to open ourselves to that power in our lives.
We don’t need to have any belief that Jesus is or is not God, to enter His kingdom and have the life that He wants for us. What we need to know is only that all of the authority, power, knowledge and wisdom of God is in Him, so that doing His will is doing God’s will.
That’s my understanding of the gospel of Jesus in the Bible. When a person sees God in Jesus and is moved by that to want to serve and obey God and learn together with others to live the way He says to live, then they are living the best life they can. One way for people to be attracted to that and maybe drawn into it might be to see it happening to other people, and maybe especially to see them washing each other’s feet, figuratively speaking. I’ve had a glimpse of how that might happen, and that’s what I would want to learn to practice and promote if I continued to post in online discussions.
