Craft of Christ

What is so significant about Christ and the craft of his accomplishments? Considering the impact of Jesus on this world today, this seems like quite a relevant question. As I tend to do, I’ll attempt to gain some understanding through analysis, processing, and comprehension.

As far as we know, it is the only time in all of history of all existence that God is believed to have been present on Earth in human form. A potentially generalised commonly agreeable explanation of God might be: the over reigning and controlling force of the entire universe, influencing happenings and circumstances within nature as well as human life to allow life, existence, and purpose to begin and persist. Regarding this understanding of the potentially extreme significance of God, this one time situation where God was present as human should make it quite relevant to humans simply because it occurred. But beyond the significance of the rarity of its occurrence, potentially lies much more significance intended to be applied by that supreme over reigning force called God itself.

So what further importance did God intend with the presence of Jesus?

It’s of course quite commonly believed that Jesus lived to die and save us from our sins. Understanding exactly what that means can be the difficult part, as I feel like I don’t, but I’ll consider that aspect a separate sub-topic. Firstly, before Jesus died, he was alive and interacting with humanity for a fairly surmountable length of time (at least in relation to human life), and this seems likely to have yet another aspect of significance to the existence of Jesus. Throughout Jesus’ life on Earth, he taught, advised and imparted wisdom to all and anyone who would accept it. If the only importance of Jesus was dying for our sins, Jesus could have lived an inconspicuous and solemn life until the time for his death. Therefore is seems logically reasonable that his presence was additionally intended to instruct humans with certain knowledge of God.

To then know what knowledge God intended to impart on humans, you would then of course observe what records remain of the interactions of Jesus, hence, the Bible. From my experience of learning about Jesus, he would often give advice of what would be the preferable reaction to certain circumstances of problems that would present themselves to people he would interact with. He would often also explain potential examples of scenarios where a similar principle to a matter at hand could be applicable. As well as describing appropriate behaviour, he would often imply most effectively Gods recommended actions by leading as an example himself in any occurring scenario. Whichever the case of imparting Gods wisdom, Jesus would attempt to explain the reasoning and the principal behind the suggested behaviour. Logically, this would obviously make practical sense as the principle and reasoning behind actions in any problematic scenario, would allow the given advice to be applicable to a wide variety of similar scenarios. The general principle would be very adaptable to the vast variables possible within any given persons’ life.

This seems to me like an important aspect of Jesus’ teachings to understand. I get the impression that a large quantity of religions, and more broadly people, misinterpret what God intended to knowlify through Jesus. The common misunderstanding seems to occur by focusing on a specific scenario at hand, and assuming that only the specific reaction to the specific circumstances of the example is what is relevant. But, in my opinion, with understanding the principle, different reactions would be appropriate with even a very minimal difference in potentially discrete variables. This is why it seems more probable that anything God intended to teach through Jesus was not relevantly concerning the specific rule implemented in that scenario, but rather the reasoning behind the rule, as the reasoning can most often be applied to an exceptionally larger variety of potentially occurring circumstances.

To understand even more generally, and simply what message it seems Jesus was trying to relay, you can observe what all varying relative reasons, for acting the certain way or making certain decisions (implied by Jesus through his examples), had in common. It seems apparent that, what his examples had in common was to act towards others as you would prefer them to act towards you in their circumstances. This is the most accurate generalised summarisation that I can interpret, at least regarding interactions with others. I believe this basic same message was emphasised at some point by Jesus according to the scriptures, so coming to the same conclusion using logical analysis and interpretation should be a good sign.

But if this general message was all that was necessary, perhaps Jesus would have left us with only that simple message. The scenarios Christ encountered and explained throughout his life were therefore likely crafted examples of how to understand and apply this broadly general method of living and being. Aid, by explanation of application of method, in the understanding and use of the general rule, should be necessary to avoid misinterpretation, and allow a more accurate comprehension of the implied prospect.

I suspect God would only alleve such lessons to a relative degree of accuracy, with the rest up to us to choose to practice.

(April 5, 2015 (Easter))