Reenacting the Way
Join the BOOK conversation on Facebook
  • Book
  • Video
  • Author
  • Reviews
  • B.IQ Test
  • Seminar
    • Watch Bible Seminar
  • Contact
  • Blog

What Jesus Meant: New Book about What We Misunderstand

5/12/2025

0 Comments

 
What if we have misunderstood what Jesus meant?
 
Trusting something Jesus said, which we actually misunderstood, is a recipe for disaster. 
 
When our religious tradition, cultural lens, or personal approach to interpreting the Bible distorts what Jesus meant, our faith becomes a fantasy. We end up following a misimagination of Jesus. We start doing things he didn’t recommend and believing unreliable promises he didn’t make.
 
When our fabrication of Jesus turns out to be an untrustworthy and irrelevant fiction, we become disillusioned—before we even understand what Jesus is all about! The fake Jesus disappoints us, and the most sensible response is to discard the whole deal. It’s why “deconstruction” of misinformed Christian doctrine has become a growing epidemic. But it can be avoided.

The reason we misunderstand what Jesus meant is our assumptions. We assume Jesus taught universal truths to a timeless audience which can be instantly understood regardless of our culture or language today. We assume our translated Bible verses make the meaning of anything Jesus said plain and simple to understand. But that assumption blinds us to our own self-deception. It excuses us from carefully defining Jesus’ words by their particular use in his time and place. Instead, our personal and cultural biases run wild without us ever noticing it, distorting what Jesus meant.

Read More
0 Comments

Jesus' Definition of Leadership Is Backwards: Like other Jewish Martyrs

5/9/2020

3 Comments

 
Picture
​Jesus’ definition of leadership is not what the political revolutionaries of his day wanted. They wanted to subjugate their enemies. They wanted to turn people into an army that followed their commands. They ironically used the same strategies of the system that oppressed them to fight for change. But Jesus had a different idea.
 
To understand how Jesus leads, we must understand what kind of leaders were rallying people to their cause in first-century Israel. He wasn’t the only one claiming to be the Messiah. Many self-proclaimed kings were carving out what they thought would create God’s kingdom on earth. So he had to boldly demonstrate what leaders in God’s economy really did.


Read More
3 Comments

“Seek First the Kingdom and His Righteousness” (Matthew 6:33): And how will God meet our basic needs?

3/15/2020

5 Comments

 
In the middle of the Sermon on the Mount, Jesus addresses our anxiety about basic needs. He says not to worry about food or clothing because God has a plan to provide for us just like he does for the birds and the flowers (see Matthew 6:25-32). Then Jesus tells us where to put our focus: “But seek first the kingdom of God and His righteousness, and all these things will be added to you” (Matthew 6:33).
How should we understand this combined command and promise from Jesus? We know from the preceding context that “all these things” doesn’t refer to everything you might want. It only refers to your basic needs: things to eat, to drink, and to wear. But even with that caveat, we know many people have both loved Jesus and struggled in dire poverty. Having faith in Jesus has not eliminated their children’s malnourishment or covered their bodies during cold nights. So is Jesus giving us some optimistic half-truth or have we misunderstood the message?

Read More
5 Comments

Jesus' Parables: Surprising Stories that Change How You Imagine God

10/13/2019

2 Comments

 
Picture
​Jesus was not always the most succinct teacher. And he taught that way on purpose.

Among first century Jews, Rabbis generally had one of two teaching styles: Halakha or Hagadda. Halakha focused on concrete rules to follow. Hagadda focused on provocative story-telling that explored what God was all about in more powerful ways than abstract statements could deliver. Jesus preferred one of these methods to the other.


Read More
2 Comments

Gain the whole world but lose your soul: Jesus dismantles YOLO Theology (& the Sadducees who loved it)

7/4/2019

0 Comments

 
Picture
What are we really looking for in life? How you answer that question determines a lot about you. You might do the same things as people around you, but your reasons shape the results. It’s no different when it comes to faith. So much of what we seek from Jesus is determined by what we want out of life itself.​

I have found over the years that most of us use God to get what we want. Spiritual Narcissism is rampant. We are not looking to get on board with God’s mission, but rather to get God’s help on ours.

Read More
0 Comments

The Story that Defines Us: A Narrative Creed for the Church, from the Bible, and relevant to the Human Experience

4/14/2019

3 Comments

 
Picture
I proclaimed the "Death of Systematic Theology" in 2016 because its form and function does not reflect the diverse genius of Scripture. It is a bold claim, but I believe the evidence is there to warrant it. In that critique, I called for a new kind of creed that advances beyond "statements of faith" to an inspiring storyline that defines who we are and where everything is headed. I called it an "Orthoscript,” so we could move beyond the debate between"Orthodox" statements (about how to correctly phrase the tenets of your faith) and "Orthopraxy" (the right things to do).

In my initial manifesto, I presented a sample narrative of Jesus in action rather than the typical set of static statements, but I never published a comprehensive "Orthoscript" about the whole story that defines why we are here, where we have faltered, and who we can now be in the story God is writing. I believe it is now time to replace every "doctrinal statement" stuck in the linguistic concepts of previous cultures with a new metanarrative. And I need your feedback in order to overcome my own biases and cultural misperceptions as we craft a story bigger than ourselves that can define each self.

Read More
3 Comments

Do You Follow Jesus, or a Religion You Created Around Jesus? Rabbis, Scribes, and Pharisees All Missed His Point

3/27/2019

1 Comment

 
Picture
A lot of antagonistic stories in the Gospels begin with “then some Pharisees and Scribes showed up.” Matthew 15:1-2 is typical. “Then some Pharisees and teachers of the law came to Jesus from Jerusalem and asked, ‘Why do your disciples break the tradition of the elders? They don’t wash their hands before they eat!’” These religious teachers were always concerned that Jesus wasn’t doing and teaching what they demanded. They were threatened by the possibility that people would follow his lead.

But Jesus isn’t impressed by their social capital. He thinks their enterprise is an epic adventure in missing the point. So he replies in Matthew 15:3, “Why do you break God’s command for your tradition?” Would Jesus say the same thing to you today?


Read More
1 Comment

    BUY the BOOKs

    Picture
    Picture

    Coming June 26.


    Author

    Paul Penley's training as a Bible scholar, life as a human being, and work as a philanthropic advisor overflows into this blog

    View my profile on LinkedIn
    Picture

    Top 5 Blogs

    1. Women Should Not Teach Men What?
    2. John Calvin Killed Rival Theologians
    3. Turning the Other Cheek
    4. I Wish You Were Cold or Hot, not Lukewarm
    5. When Heaven and Earth Passed Away
    Picture
    Picture

    Enter email address to receive monthly blogs:

    Delivered by FeedBurner

    Picture

    RSS Feed

    Categories

    All
    Bible Interpretation Gone Wrong
    Faith Isn't Knowing Everything
    How To Follow Jesus
    How To Study The Bible
    Ministries Gone Wrong
    Narrative Theology
    The Character Life Demands

    Archives

    January 2021
    May 2020
    March 2020
    December 2019
    October 2019
    August 2019
    July 2019
    June 2019
    April 2019
    March 2019
    February 2019
    January 2019
    December 2018
    November 2018
    July 2018
    June 2018
    March 2018
    February 2018
    December 2017
    November 2017
    September 2017
    July 2017
    May 2017
    March 2017
    February 2017
    December 2016
    June 2016
    May 2016
    March 2016
    October 2015
    August 2015
    July 2015
    June 2015
    May 2015
    March 2015
    February 2015
    December 2014
    November 2014
    September 2014
    August 2014
    June 2014
    February 2014
    January 2014
    December 2013
    November 2013
    September 2013
    August 2013
    July 2013
    June 2013
    May 2013
    April 2013
    March 2013
    February 2013

Powered by Create your own unique website with customizable templates.