When Jews read the Old Testament Jesus isn’t even a morsel of a thought in their mind.
This is probably super obvious to most people, but it that literally blew my mind.
As a Christian I’ve been …
Raised.
Taught.
Trained.
… That the entire Protestant Bible (Genesis through Revelation) is all about Jesus. I remember in seminary I had to read a book called “Christ Centered Preaching” where we were more or less told that if we studied a passage and didn’t come away with the idea that it was 100% about Jesus … then we didn’t study it hard enough.
I mean.
It was almost as if we were expected to read Jesus into texts that originally had absolutely nothing to do with Jesus and if we weren’t able to show how it did have something to do with Jesus then we needed to take another theology class.
BUT.
Jews don’t read the Bible that way. Christians do, Jews don’t. It doesn’t make Christians right and Jews wrong or Jews right and Christians wrong. Rather, it means that we each read the texts of the Bible through a different lens and instead of focusing on whose lens is better or more accurate or whatever, perhaps it’s better to ask some questions …
“Why do you read it that way?”
“If Jesus isn’t the Suffering Servant in Isaiah, then who is?”
“The snake in the Garden of Eden isn’t the Devil? Then what is it there for?”
… Because asking those kinds of questions isn’t going to disprove your ideas or my ideas, but will make them more well-rounded and educated and might even make us better followers of Christ.
And so an exercise I’ve been engaging in lately is reading passages from the Old Testament and extinguishing whatever thoughts about Jesus come to mind as I read it.
Heresy, I know.
But, why? Why would I do this? Not because I don’t like Jesus or don’t want Jesus to be there, but because I want to try and get into the mind of the original writer or early readers who existed well before a man named Jesus arrived on the scene.
How might they have read the story of the Suffering Servant?
How might they have read the story of the Garden of Eden?
God said “let US make man in our image” and so if US isn’t the Father, Jesus, and the Holy Spirit - who is it?
WHY did they feel the need to write this story?
WHY was this story so impactful to the people who first read it?
WHAT has made it last all of these years later?
Doing these kinds of exercises and asking these kinds of questions forces me to peel pack layers of assumptions that I’ve placed upon various Biblical texts and really think about what they might have meant Pre-Jesus and why they have stood the test of times all these years later.
✌️
Glenn
NEW BLOG POST. 📖
My friend December Wells wrote this wonderful reflection on the last day of Black History Month in 2021 and gave me permission to share it with you.
She's a wonderful human doing incredible things in this world. She’s taught me an immense amount concerning all sorts of things regarding race, LGBTQ advocacy, and how to best use your voice to make a difference in this world. She’s been on the podcast before (and will be back later this year), but this time around she steps onto the blog to share her heart and experience with you.
NEW AT THE HERETIC SHOP. 😷
Face Masks are now available at the Heretic Shop!