Christianity and What Jesus meant.
Had a thought as I was reading Cody's Stoic wisdom piece.
I consider myself a follow of Jesus but not a Christian. I grew up Mormon but eventually left the faith.
The reason I bring this up is because I have been reading the New Testament again in the original Greek and trying to understand what those words would have meant in that context and outside of what we as modern Christians project what we think he meant onto it.
I'll give you an example of what I mean using only one verse.
Matt 5:9 ESV
"Blessed are the peacemakers, for they shall be called sons of God."
Reading this you're like cool, if you're a peacemaker you'll be blessed and God will be happy. Whoopy.
But if you dive into the context it actually means something very different.
In the original Greek context and meaning its more akin to
"Deeply aligned with God’s favor are those who actively make peace with others, because they prove by their actions that they reflect God’s character."
So its not, you'll receive blessings for taking a beating and being submissive as our modern English reading would have understood it. It would be more akin to you should be an active participant for making peace and bringing gods kingdom to the world. Jesus was not a submissive man, and I would strongly argue he was much more dangerous to the empire of his day than any military rebellion could ever have been. He showed people how to truly build their community, that they didnt need to be rich and powerful to be influential and how to start breaking the Empire apart from the inside using love, trust and the ideals that the world should be based on. Not the superiority of the one to subject everyone else, but the service of the one to the many.
2
40 comments
Tj Greer
3
Christianity and What Jesus meant.
powered by
Thunder Brothers
skool.com/thunder-brothers-2975
Skool’s #1 STOICISM focused men's group 🧠🏛️
Weekly IRL's, calls, challenges, accountability and support 🖤⚡️💪🏻
Build your own community
Bring people together around your passion and get paid.
Powered by