Angličtina
Getting to Know Jesus is a study guide of the four gospels. It is a weekly reading guide with commentary and questions developed for the purpose of getting to know the person of Jesus Christ. I have benefited greatly in my understanding of Jesus's story by integrating the books of Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John into a uniform timeline. My prayer is that as you study Jesus in this way your faith will grow and that your knowledge of Jesus will grow with the renewed faith.
Why should anyone today bother to read about the experiences of people in Palestine in the first century? Even assuming God spoke to them and taught them many life truths, how would that benefit people in my culture? Those people knew so little about the world, nothing about germs or the internet or the universe and certainly nothing about modern industrial democracy. Can insights from people whose understanding of life was so different from ours teach us anything we couldn't learn more directly today? Clearly, I believe the answer is yes! Yes on a cultural level, yes on the level of the scripture themselves being God's spoken word, and yes on the level of opening our heart, mind, and soul up to being influenced by the All-Powerful God of the Universe through the Holy Spirit.
On a Cultural Level - Despite the vast differences in culture and sophistication, human beings have been the same at the deepest level around the world for many millennia. All of us humans experience joy and love, shame and pain. We exhibit avarice and altruism, cowardice and courage, insights and confusion just as humans always have done.
God's Spoken Word - As a child, I watched as the translated Gospels transformed the lives of many of the people in a remote village in the Jungle of Papua New Guinea. The Bible is the most impactful book in human history and Jesus' teachings change the hearts and minds of anyone who has the courage to take them seriously. This is true in any cultural context. If Jesus of Nazareth is unique in human history as a God-man, his words are the most important words ever written.
The Holy Spirit lives inside all Christians and influences us toward Christ-likeness. So why don't we see that influence more profoundly in Christians today? This question has been asked and answered by each generation of Christian writers including people like Augustine, Luther, Kierkegaard, CS Lewis, and more recently Dallas Willard. The answer is a simple one; free will. The Holy Spirit is gentle, and will not bully us into compliance with his guidance. He is a gentle suggester, a still small voice, a whisper. This is precisely because he values our sovereignty and seeks relationship based on mutual desire. That means we have to want him, we have to seek him, we have to submit to the process of Christlikeness, or we will remain stuck in our old ways of thinking and being. But there is another way! We can study the master and seek to emulate him. We can learn his ways, obey his teachings, and he will guide us to Christlikeness. Studying his life on earth is a way to speed up the process. Sadly, too few Christians listen and obey. Paul describes this renewal process this way:
"Don't be conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind, so that you may prove what is the good, well-pleasing, and perfect will of God." Romans 12:2 WEB
This book was written to aid in the study of Jesus' divine words and partner with the Holy Spirit inside us, giving him permission through prayer to change us into Christ-like people who can love our neighbors.
People who will: ". . . become blameless and harmless, children of God without defect in the middle of a crooked and perverse generation, among whom you are seen as lights in the world, holding up the word of life;" Philippians 2:15b WEB
