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    Jesus Was Not a Nice Guy
    Jesus Was Not a Nice Guy
    Jesus Was Not a Nice Guy
    Ebook64 pages1 hour

    Jesus Was Not a Nice Guy

    By Rev. Kory Wilcoxson

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    About this ebook

    Jesus Christ was a savior, prophet, healer...nice guy? We may want to have a friend in Jesus, but some of the things he says in the Bible make him sound like - there's no other way to say it - a jerk. "Jesus Was NOT a Nice Guy" explores those passages in depth, and provides practical ways we can relate to Jesus when he acts less than Messiah-like.
    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherBookBaby
    Release dateOct 15, 2014
    ISBN9781483540665
    Jesus Was Not a Nice Guy

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      Book preview

      Jesus Was Not a Nice Guy - Rev. Kory Wilcoxson

      together.

      CHAPTER ONE

      Pushing Jesus’ Buttons

      When they came to the disciples, they saw a great crowd around them, and some scribes arguing with them. When the whole crowd saw him, they were immediately overcome with awe, and they ran forward to greet him. He asked them, What are you arguing about with them? Someone from the crowd answered him, Teacher, I brought you my son; he has a spirit that makes him unable to speak; and whenever it seizes him, it dashes him down; and he foams and grinds his teeth and becomes rigid; and I asked your disciples to cast it out, but they could not do so. He answered them, You faithless generation, how much longer must I be among you? How much longer must I put up with you? Bring him to me. And they brought the boy to him. When the spirit saw him, immediately it convulsed the boy, and he fell on the ground and rolled about, foaming at the mouth. Jesus asked the father, How long has this been happening to him? And he said, From childhood. It has often cast him into the fire and into the water, to destroy him; but if you are able to do anything, have pity on us and help us. Jesus said to him, If you are able!—All things can be done for the one who believes. Immediately the father of the child cried out, I believe; help my unbelief! When Jesus saw that a crowd came running together, he rebuked the unclean spirit, saying to it, You spirit that keeps this boy from speaking and hearing, I command you, come out of him, and never enter him again! After crying out and convulsing him terribly, it came out, and the boy was like a corpse, so that most of them said, He is dead. But Jesus took him by the hand and lifted him up, and he was able to stand. When he had entered the house, his disciples asked him privately, Why could we not cast it out? He said to them, This kind can come out only through prayer.

      ~ Mark 9:14-29

      There are some things that Jesus says that are really meaningful, that deserve to be memorized and repeated and posted on Facebook when a friend is having a bad day. Love thy neighbor. Come to me, all you who are weary. I am the light of the world. Those are all touching, moving statements. But have you ever seen a wall hanging or crocheted pillow that says, You faithless generation! It’s funny how there are certain things Jesus said and did that we conveniently forget because they don’t fit our image of who Jesus is. It’s easy to ignore the harsher stuff when we can sing What A Friend We Have in Jesus and hear stories about him welcoming the little children. That’s the good Jesus. We want the good Jesus.

      But ignoring the more difficult passages won’t make them go away. We either have to go through the Bible with pruning shears, cutting out the parts we don’t like, or we have to accept the whole thing as God’s word and then try to make sense of it. But what do you do when the Jesus of scripture acts and speaks in ways that make him seem – dare I say it? – like a jerk.

      This is not a modern dilemma. Believers have struggled with this since the beginning. One group of folks tried to smooth the ragged edges of Jesus’ humanity by saying that he wasn’t really human. The Docetists said the body of Jesus was just an illusion and he never really walked on the Earth or ate real food or was crucified, so we can discount all those times when he acted thoroughly human. Let’s just focus on his divinity, they said, and forget all that other messy stuff.

      That would be great if I could do the same thing in my own life. Let’s hold onto the beautiful, the joyous, the sublime, and just ignore the messy, the failures, the anxiety. But we all know that’s not a choice, is it? We don’t get to pick and choose what we want to experience in life. Bills still have to be paid, diseases still have to be treated, conflicts still have to be dealt with. We can’t stop being human. So if that’s true, then I need to know my Savior

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