Jesus was in terms of his influence the most important human being in history he is also the most written about and discussed the earliest surviving document dealing with him was circulated in the 50s of the 1 Century ad within a half a century of his death four
biographies written in Greek had been published and all have come down to us meaning they survived since then entire books about him have been published in growing quantity and in all languages today there are over 100,000 printed biographies of Jesus in English alone the religion which
commemorates Jesus's teachings death and Resurrection was well established in half a dozen countries by ad. 50 the first Christian place of worship dates from about ad50 and now nearly 1 million chapels churches basilicas abies and Cathedrals include many of the largest
most remarkable and beautiful buildings ever erected in many ways and in cultural and moral respects especially Jesus's life and the faith it created are the central events in the history of humanity so far we have considered the influence of Jesus as man but I believe that he was and is God too it is futile
for us to inquire about the nature of Jesus and God and His pre-existence from the beginning since that is unable let alone the future which is still hidden from us what we can do however is write about Jesus the man the problem with writing about the life of Jesus the man
is not so much the pity of sources as there abundance and the difficulty in reaching behind the written text to the full meanings of sayings and episodes the sketch that follows reflects many years of reading and historical study my objects have been Clarity and brevity
and my desire is to convey the joy and nourishment that I receive in following Jesus's footstep steps and pondering his words that is an excerpt from the book I'm going to talk to you about today which is Jesus a biography from a Believer and it was written by Paul Johnson so I want to immediately jump
into some background that Paul gives you and I uh which will help understand the society uh the really the world into which Jesus was born into uh he says it was harsh cruel violent and unstable it was also materialistic and increasingly wealthy Rome was in the process of
transforming itself from a republic into an Empire Rome now occupied all of Italy and Spain as well as Greece and Egypt and what we now call Turkey between 50 to 60 million people came under its laws 50 years before Jesus was born Julius Caesar had added the whole of Gaul which
would be modern France to the Roman Empire the expanding Empire was based upon muscle rather than technology thanks to about 15 million slaves who constituted onethird of its population and whose life was summed up by aristot mod in four words work punishment and
food as you probably already know I'm a huge fan of Paul Johnson's writing I've read and made podcasts on a bunch of biographies that he's written uh like on Winston Churchill Alexander the Great Julius Caesar Socrates mozar Picasso Disney I'll leave all those Linked In
the show notes in case you want to check out those other episodes but one of the things I love uh about his writing is the way he's able to use contrast to drive home a point and you see that here because he's going to compare who is ruling the area in which Jesus is going to be born into with really the main
lessons that Jesus the man taught and so he talks about the ruling the ruler at the time uh being Herod the Great for more than 30 years this astute financier had made himself the richest individual in the entire Empire but he was still subservient uh to the rulers of Rome uh
he made himself Master of the ancient Kingdom and he was the greatest builder of his age so he built shipping ports uh he rebuilt the temporal in Jerusalem uh he built a bunch of public baths and aqueducts and what we would call today uh shopping centers in more than a dozen
cities but he was also a monster he had numerous wives and concubines and sired many children he was suspicious and cruel and he slaughtered over 40 of his wives he killed over 40 of his wives children and close relatives and this is the contrast point that I was referencing earlier the last year of his
life was the year of Jesus's birth Jesus was most constantly referred to as Jesus of Nazareth Nazareth being the this small Galilean town uh that he grew up in uh he's estimated to be born somewhere around 4 BC Nazareth at this time was home to many small workshops
and Craftsmen one of these Craftsmen was Joseph who was a carpenter Joseph was a prosperous Tradesman or the way you and I would talk about that is that he was a good entrepreneur and then he takes as his bride as his wife Mary this is a description of Jesus's childhood there
was great piety in their home there was much praying and the Jewish feast and practice were meticulously observed every year at the Feast of Passover they went up to Jerusalem to make a sacrifice in the temple so by the time that Jesus is 12 years old they think that he's old
enough to wander around Jerusalem by himself exploring they usually do this trip with a bunch of other people so a few days later they wind up leaving and heading back home they get about a day's uh Journey away when they realize that Jesus was not in their group that he was
lost and this frightened Mary because she realized that he was left behind behind in what they called a holy and wicked City and for 3 days they cannot find him on the third day they find him in the temple sitting in the midst of the elders both hearing them and asking them questions and it says and all that
heard him were astonished at his understanding and his answers and it is in this exchange where we get Jesus's first recorded words uh his it says Mary rebuked him for his thoughtlessness and she said Son why have you treated us so we have been searching for you in great
distress and this is Jesus's reply he said why were you looking for me did you do not know that I must be in my father's house so there's a couple interesting things here one depending on the translation and this is really uh what we'll talk to a lot talk a lot
about is the fact that the way to think about Jesus is think about him as a teacher in his teachings he uses questions a lot depending on the translation there's over 300 different questions just in the four gospels alone it is interesting that the first recorded words that we get from Jesus is
actually in the form of a question and then after this Paul Johnson writes it is striking that these first recorded words of Jesus are of peace with his entire life and Mission he must be about God's business and that is the extent of what we know about Jesus's childhood uh
the gospels then skip the next 18 years of Jesus's life and they don't pick back up until he's being baptized by St John John the Baptist and this is what Paul Johnson writes it is a somber and unwelcome fact that for more than half of Jesus's life we know absolutely
nothing about what he did or where he went or how he lived all we know is that his story picks up around he's around 30 years of age and it's very clear that he's a man of wide knowledge we must assume that Jesus was self-taught in many respects his words and Concepts
betray absolutely no sign of academic deformation or the impress of a system being an autodidact he was dismissed by his critics as uneducated and so there's examples where the educated or the ruling Elite hear him speak and they say stuff like this how did this man get
such learning without having been taught Jesus possessed Broad knowledge especially of trade and agriculture this is made clear by his confident and expert references to those practical matters in his sayings and Parables Jesus had a huge range one reason why so many people love to listen to him but I
suspect that his knowledge reflected actual experience the death of Joseph which occurred during his Missing Years led to the breakup of the Nazareth household his mother Mary went to live with one of her numerous family at that point it would have been natural for
Jesus to leave home and seek experience in a wider world but Paul makes the point that this is just his opinion based on his readings and studying because he says there is no means of knowing what he did this then is what we know of Jesus's birth in childhood and what we can reasonably guess about his
life from 12 to 30 at that point he began his ministry and entered the full glare of Evangelical record and so in part because we have the most documentation but this is also what I want to focus on the most which is what was Jesus teaching what did he believe
and what did he go around teaching up until the time of his death so the little background here is that Judaism in the time of Jesus was ripe for reformation just like Christianity was in the early 16th century the alternative teaching that Jesus did at this time this is what it was about the
alternative was a spiritual Revolution one based on love and neighborliness which could be embraced by all classes and all people so John the Baptist was also teaching the need for reformation uh some people believe that John the Baptist was Jesus's cousin Paul uh is one of those people that
believe that John the Baptist was Jesus's cousin there is some people that dispute that but in any case what's not for dispute is that John was also teaching the need for reformation the importance of being baptized was also drawing huge crowds and the attention of
authorities what is also not in dispute is that he played a large role in the mission of Jesus you could almost interpret it like John's life mission was to help launch Jesus's mission and so Jesus requested that John baptizm and this is why Jesus was adamant that he
must go through the ceremony of renewal he was stressing the universality of the the need for every human being to wash off the stains of the past and to become fresh and new and clean it was the actual as well as the symbolic beginning of his mission the baptism of Jesus was
also the culmination of John's own mission because John is speaking out against the authorities and the powerful of his Day history shows that speaking out against the powerful in any age is dangerous and life-threatening and as a result John is going to get arrested and
then he is going to be beheaded and so then Paul combines all the different sources and studying he did to give us an overview of Jesus he says there's no reliable evidence of what Jesus looked like but there are certain traits that are repeated over and over again so Jesus was observant detail oriented
several people commented on the intense eye contact that he would do he was confident decisive charismatic The Authority that he exercised was there from the beginning he did not need to acquire it it was innate and one of the first important acts that Jesus did was
choose the 12 apostles so the apostles were a group of 12 individuals chosen by Jesus to be his closest followers and witnesses to his teachings Jesus knew he was starting something new and as you and I have discussed in other contexts a ton of times before the first and most
important step when starting anything is recruiting the people who are going to help you on your mission and so not only are they going to help him on his mission and help spread his teaching but they also keep him physically safe so before he had uh the 12 apostles he's he began
teaching and the people Nazareth immediately become violent because remember what he is teaching is in direct conflict with what they believe and so here's a summary of that the nazarin react with violent anger a mob physically ejects Jesus from the synagogue and takes him to a nearby
Cliff their intent is lethal so they're trying to throw him off a cliff to his death because he is teaching something that conflicts with what they already believe there is a lot of lessons of human nature in this story Timeless lessons of human nature in this story
and so Jesus is able to escape and it says it was there that he chose his first followers sturdy fishermen strong and resourceful to stand around him and protect him when his words angered the self-righteous Orthodoxy and there's a standalone line that Jesus says that I
feel has a lot of wisdom in it no Prophet is acceptable in his hometown let's go to what Jesus was telling the 12 apostles Jesus insisted that the group come with him full time this mission is only for the fully committed that is the note I left myself as I'm reading all this and then I went
actually defined it the definition of committed feeling dedication and loyalty to a cause activity or job wholeheartedly dedicated that is exactly what Jesus demands Jesus was adamant that the men he called must put their mission first he admitted that his work
would cause dissension within their families Jesus stressed the Absolut nature of a vocation to serve him it involved painful choices Jesus had just narrowly escaped death at the hands of angry bigots and was never in any doubt about the danger of his mission the 12
people he picked were special they had particular functions and were given powers to carry them out they were the earliest people enlisted in Jesus's mission he would sometimes give them nicknames or rename them I just thought this part was funny James and John were brothers whom Jesus called the sons of
thunder because of their enthusiasm thus was Jesus's mission prepared for and organized what was his object at whom was it aimed and what were its methods again this is not very different than the other people that you and I have studied on the podcast what we're trying
to figure out like what are they trying to do what's their object who are they trying to do it for who was it aimed at and what were their methods how did they accomplish the goal they set out and of course how recruiting a team of special people to help you with your mission is
of utmost importance and so there's a couple examples spread over a few pages that I think are really important to to to spend some time on and it's this idea that starting anything starting anything requires an Act of Faith Jesus wanted to convince you or to persuade you through
reason and he hated to be looked at like some kind of holy magician I think is the term that Paul Johnson uses later in the book and you'll see this through some of his actions which I'll get to in one second hopefully this makes sense in a minute Jesus makes it clear that it is
preferable that men show Faith by listening to the truth and by accepting it and following it rather than by waiting for signs and miracles to convinced them Jesus taught that the truth was reasonable that goodness made sense that to follow his teaching was a rational thing to do and he'll
demonstrate this because there's a lot of examples like I was asking myself this question as I was reading this like why did Jesus repeat his desire to keep any kind of healing private and there's example after example so I'm just going to go over a bunch of pages and I just
pulled out a bunch of individual sentences that show you this Jesus charged them that they should tell no man another example as a rule when moved to cure he took trouble that no one knew he told them do not go into the town nor tell anyone in the town he preferred to
cure The Afflicted away from public view another example Jesus straightly charged them saying see that no man knows this or knows of this and so after several pages of examples like this Paul Johnson gives us a great summary of what's going on he wanted to avoid at all cost being
known as a miracle worker he detested being thought of as a kind of holy magician but sometimes publicity was unavoidable and it could be dangerous as well as irksome to a profoundly thoughtful man and speaker who is eager to convey his message by reason and not by signs and so Jesus is going to travel
around and teach continuously for three years up until his death and they make the point that you think of it as teaching not as preaching it says taught is more accurate he taught often in response to what he saw or heard or to questions from people in the crowd he
was teaching all the time the only other times that he was not teaching is when either he was resting or he was praying and he insisted on praying in solitude and so it says he was teaching even at meal times for Jesus was convivial that word convivial is used I think three or
four times in the book it means a person that is cheerful and friendly and jovial and he loved to teach when people were relaxed and enjoying their food and companionship I calculate that Jesus in three years must have taught on as many as 400 different occasions when crowds
gathered as well as scores of other times when an informal opportunity arose so what did Jesus teach Jesus taught that life was to be devoted to self- transformation he produced a series of precepts known as Beatitudes which taught which he taught as a guide through life and its material problems
there's eight of them I'm just going to give you like a summary of uh what some of those lessons were and some of the things they emphasized they emphasized the importance of humility gentleness and nonaggression the importance of the pursuit of justice and righteousness he
encourages acts of compassion and forgiveness towards others he focuses on inner Purity sincerity and genuine heart he commends those who work towards reconciliation Harmony and peace and he acknowledges the challenges faced by those who stand for what is right and just these Beatitudes teach a
perspective on blessedness that often contrasts with the world's conventional ideas of success and happiness and this is such an important sentence this was tough teaching hard to follow and entirely new it had no equivalent in the Old Testament or any the pious wisdom
literature of the ancient near East and Jesus followed it with still more difficult maxims a few examples of those love your enemies do good to them which hate you bless them that curse you another one if someone slaps you on One Cheek turn to them the other also if
someone takes your coat do not withhold your shirt from them above all he told them hesitate to criticize other people judge not and you will not be judged condemn not and you will not be condemned forgive and you will be forgiven Jesus taught that inner sentiments mattered Jesus stressed that
evil feelings allowed to develop unrestrained led to major sins it had always been obvious that killing was wrong he argued but I say that what's whoever is angry with his brother without a cause was also sin so again going back to Inner sentiments mattered he also said it was wrong to abuse or
swear at another person many of Jesus's sayings have become maxims familiar to us from childhood but they were startingly new in his day they provoked thought astonishment often anger fear and doubt which leads to his death and excitement and really a lot of these
sayings are spread across a bunch of different pages you could almost summarize what he's saying in two words be kind and an illustration of that is he was asked uh Jesus's response to this question was what is the great commandment and he actually combines two
ideas here and I'll translate it it says love God with everything you have and then love every other person he added there is none other commandment greater than these he believed that that doing those two together was the center of a good life so love God with everything
you have and love every other person there is none other commandment greater than these when Jesus was asked who is my neighbor CU he kept saying like you have to love your neighbor you have to be good to your neighbor so okay well who is my neighbor his answer was
everyone he turned compassion this is a really fascinating sentence he turned compassion which all of us feel from time to time for a particular person into a huge overarching Gospel of love he taught the love of mankind as a whole love of mankind as a whole did not exist in Jesus's day as a concept the
intellectual social and racial climate of Jesus's day was hostile to this message this message of loving mankind as a whole Jesus was a Universalist he said I will draw all men to me he had no home no country no race no characteristics tying him to a tribe or a nation or a locality he was United to
all men by love he was philanthropy incarnate why did Paul Johnson just write that at the end of all that saying he's a Universalist that his he he's opening to every single person he believed you love every single person that every single person in your neighbor that you
love every single person you encounter just like you love yourself he United all men by love why did he just say that he was philanthropy incarnate because a few pages prior he talked about that the love of mankind as a whole is actually uh there's a the Greek uh have a word
for this and I'm gonna it I'm gonna butcher this this pronunciation philanthropia which in the English translation is philanthropy so think about that the Greek had a word for this the Love of All Mankind which they called philanthropia right and so let's go back to that a few pages later he was
United to all men by love he was philanthropy the love of man incarnate man as a whole every single human there was nothing exclusive about Jesus and his teaching his message was the most inclusive of all such Communications that is some of what he taught this is
how he taught it's very obvious when you read about him he's very charismatic he's poetic he's persuasive he's a gifted Communicator some of his teachings made hard demands and set a high standard of virtue and self-sacrifice yet his teaching was mesmeric he thought and reasoned and
spoke as a poet does in images flashes of insight and metaphors from the world of nature all the time he taught he was creating little pictures in the minds of the men and women who listen to him his lessons are rich in metaphor and simile in Vivid comparisons with the world of
nature there are not a half a dozen lines of his teaching without an image and often an unforgettable one inanimate objects spring to life animals are an anthropomorphized I did not pronounce that correctly nature teams with purposeful moral activity and human beings often assume a dignity a
profundity a pathos Jesus was a Storyteller and the particular form of Storytelling that he favored was the parable Parable is just a a short like simple story used to illustrate some kind of usually moral lesson but what I think is fascinating is up until this
point he talks about the methods that he used that were most effective in teaching they were most effective in teaching in his day they are still the most effective in teaching in this day and that is a combination of maxims and storytelling Jesus like all great storytellers understand that the lessons
can't won't be applied if they aren't remembered as David ogy famously said you can't save souls in an empty church and so two of The Parables that Jesus taught that are the most memorable and the ones that usually spread the furthest was the good Samaritan and the prodigal son and for the Good Samaritan
in particular he actually told the parable in response to a question that he received which is who is my neighbor and so Paul Johnson writes he told it so well and so convincingly that the Good Samaritan has gone down in history and literature and in art and drama as an
ideal neighbor to a man in distress Jesus was illustrating the principle which was perhaps the most important element in his message we are all neighbors one to another and our human Fellowship depends on kindness and charity not tribe or race or color or
nationality and a reoccurring theme in all the Parables is that Jesus's sympathies lay with the poor the disenfranchised we're going to get to uh there's an entire chapter where Paul Johnson has Jesus's like 10 new Commandments and a lot of it is the fact that if you have the power if you're in
the position of power use that judiciously try to help people and so he talks about this with with a lot of wealthy people too Jesus never made the mistake of supposing that poverty made people virtuous but he was painfully aware that wealth offered endless opportunities for corrup for corruption
Jesus's General point about wealth is that it all depends on what you do with it Jesus was eager to encourage all those who had wealth to distribute a generous portion of it to the poor in telling the parable of the Good Samaritan Jesus describes a case where
money promotes virtue the merchant was industri this Merchant in the Good Samaritan uh Parable this Merchant was industrious and Provident he did a good trade and used proceeds to help others as well as his own family a less successful man might also have felt
compassion for The Battered traveler but could have done little about it I can't remember if it was Charlie Munger or Les Schwab in one of the last few episodes but in one of those two books uh they made the point that the more net worth you have the more service you can do for
others let's go back to the importance that Jesus put uh the emphasis on the individual although Jesus constantly addressed crowds he spoke directly to each individual who composed oppos them it was his gift and also his philosophy jesus' love of people as individuals was
in some ways his most striking characteristic Jesus was for gentleness patience and forbearance he was hugely intuitive he disliked any kind of legalism or ponderous logic preferring the flashes of instant perception and poetry which illuminated his speech he relied more on emotions than reason to
get across a point in his teaching he explained in an interesting luminous way difficult things by using images from everyday life and work he was glad to make people interested and happy and he also trained his Apostles to fall in his footsteps and to imitate him his apostles were expected to go on
Independent missions of and alone and to direct the disciples as part of the organization Jesus set up to spread his gospel so the apostles are the smaller like hand selected 12 uh people that Joseph that Jesus chose disciples as a broader group of followers or students
that also followed uh and learned from Jesus but the important part there is the imitation of Jesus's teaching methods starts with the apostles spreads to the disciples and then uh if you go to church today you still see aspects of that uh this is Jesus on the importance
of children he was fascinated by every aspect of the way in which a baby comes into the world and then grows and becomes a delightful child he brought them into his teaching constantly he was very observant again that is repe repeated over and over again he noted
how the Delight of a mother in her baby obliterated the Pains of childbirth how the father cuddled his child in bed and how parents listened to what children said and granted their requests but only went unharmful the impulses of children at play interested him and so did their
sorrows children were not to be ignored it was always Jesus teaching and his profound belief that the study of children had much to tell I'm with Jesus on this children are by far my favorite versions of humans uh right now I'm going through this with my
three-year-old he is endlessly fascinating to me and I love this this line the impulses of children at play interested him somewhere along the line we we lose that that impulse for play and the inherent value in it and I think to that degree and to the others the
study of children has much to tell and then we get to the chapter called Jesus's new Ten Commandments this is really fascinating I'm going to give you my overview of what's taking place on these two pages and then I'll read uh some sections to you Jesus taught to change and improve yourself he led by
example and encouraged imitation those that changed themselves changed the world this is how Paul Paul Johnson puts it uh the Revolution was entirely inward a revolution against selfishness and greed cruelty and Prejudice anger and lust a revolution from self-love into
love for all and fellowship with everyone the reborn person would be totally different and all would be changed but outwardly the world would carry on at the heart of this is the imitation of Jesus the example of how a person behaves and thinks and speaks those that imitate Jesus have made the
world a better place and they lead more fulfilled and happier lives what Jesus provided by his life was in effect a new Ten Commandments and so I'm going to list out all the Commandments some of them I'll go into more detail but this uh the first one is each of us must
develop so number one each of us must develop a true personality each of us is unique you you must develop your own character number two abide by universality see the human race as a whole number three the Third thing that Jesus taught respect that we are all equal give equal consideration to all
number four use love in all of your Human Relationships at all times and in every situation number five show mercy and I want to elaborate on this one I think it's uh Paul's elaboration here is interesting the fifth commandment of Jesus's life concerns Mercy we are to
show Mercy Mercy is an emotional word like love it is hard to Define though instantly recognizable when exercise Mercy is Grace it is undeserved Jesus says that if you get the Glorious chance to show Mercy do so without forethought or afterthought without reason or logic
not expecting thanks or even repentance not to accomplish something in the way of social or personal reform simply for its own sake six balance keep your head even when others are losing theirs seven cultivate an open mind Jesus's life and death were a struggle against those
whose Minds were closed he disliked bigotry in any form and spoke out against it constantly eight pursue truth nine judiciously use your power the ninth new commandment concerns power its exercise and the respect due to the powerless exercise your power with con with restraint and moderation with Mercy
pity and love and number 10 is show courage Jesus showed High courage with endurance of pain and persecution a sustained heroism in the face of inequity and a dogged persistence in proclaiming the truth at all costs and so that brings us to the death of Jesus uh describing it Paul Johnson
says something that's very interesting he says there's more agreement in the sources about the death of Jesus than there is about the assassination of Julius Caesar I think he means in how it was carried out not not why because usually the the responsibility of
Jesus's death is attributed to is usually a combination of factors Paul's outline in the book essentially is that Jesus is executed on the orders of Pontius Pilate who was the Roman prefect at the time many times it appeared that pilate tried to dissuade the crowd and
the powerful uh religious leaders not to execute him but there's also sources that say pilate viewed him as a threat to Roman that viewed Jesus as a threat to Roman Authority but we do know there was a definite collaboration between Pontius Pilate and the high priest of the temple and that they wanted him
executed because they regarded him as a threat to their stability in both the the religious teachings and also the political order of the day there is an entire account of these trials in the book but what I found most interesting is this one paragraph that I think speaks about teaches us a lesson about
human nature and so in summarizing what Jesus went through during the trials he says what the narratives amount to in effect and perhaps in intention is a bitterly ironic condemnation of human Justice lying and perjury Prejudice and false witness une eagerness to take
innocent life but a determination to avoid any responsibility by passing the decision to others cowardice on all sides and not without a vile Touch of frivolity these were the Salient characteristics of the trials of Jesus and so Jesus is ordered to be crucified
says Jesus was compelled to carry the heavy cross on which he was to be crucified to the place of execution you can walk the path today through the narrow streets of Old Jerusalem Jesus weak from shock from a loss of blood and having had no sleep and having been subjected to subjected to various
cruelties stumbled three times under his burden he was nailed to the cross and so for one second I want to put the book down and then read this description of what crucifixion was like crucifixion is a form of execution where a person is affixed to a wooden Cross or stake and
left to die it was a method of capital punishment used by various ancient civilizations and was intended to be a particularly cruel and public form of execution the process typically involved a person being nailed to the cross with nails driven through the wrists or hands
and sometimes through the feet this method of execution caused immense suffering and pain as the victim would gradually suffocate due to the inability to support their own weight while hanging on the cross death from crucifixion was often slow and agonizing crucifixion was not only a means of
inflicting physical torment but also served as a deterrent and it was usually carried out in a highly visible place to intimidate and discourage others from committing crimes or challenging Authority and that brings us to the end of the life of Jesus in the first time
in the conversation today where the story splits from Believers to non-believers if you're a Christian then you believe that his death was followed by Resurrection the crucifixion and the Resurrection being the Cornerstone of the Christian faith and that's certainly
what the author Paul Johnson believes but even if you're not a Believer Paul does an excellent job of why it is still valuable to study and learn from the life of Jesus Palestine in the first century ad was a land crowded just as our Earth is crowded with a multi-racial
multi-religious population the people believed themselves to be civilized in practice it was corrupt mendacious grossly inefficient and cruel it was run by men who were plainly inadequate and sometimes monsters amid all this teing humanity is the gregarious friendly
figure of Jesus always there teaching listening and talking with people of all kinds occasionally he was Stern once or twice he showed righteous anger but he was usually softspoken and genial he was a fascinating irresistible figure radiating love benevolent forgiving talking always of mercy and smiling
often he was a serious man nonetheless one who spoke with authority a man to respect he was clearly a man who despite his meekness challenged official Authority so they had him watched always at his elbow were agents spies informers and provokers Jesus lived in a cruel
unthinking world and his life and death formed an eloquent protest against it he offered an alternative not an outward life of Revolution and reform but an inner life of humility and love of generosity and mercy of forgiveness and hope we live in a cruel world too so Jesus's alternative is still relevant if
Jesus were to appear again today we can be sure not only that he would find countless followers but equally that he would be persecuted and killed that is why his biography in our terrifying 21st century is so important we must study it and learn and that is where I'll leave it
for the full story highly recommend buying the book if you buy the book using the link that's in the show notes in your podcast player or available at Founders podcast.com you'll be supporting the podcast at the same time that is 332 books down 1,000 a go and I'll talk to you again soon