In order to understand the New Testament with any real integrity, it must be placed into its historic setting. The events in the life of Jesus of Nazareth did not happen in a vacuum, nor are these events history as history is now defined. Not only was Jesus born in, shaped by and interpreted through a particular context, but also the narrative details of his life found in the gospels were not recorded until somewhere between two and three generations after his life had come to its end. Both of these facts are ignored in many church circles today.

First, we seek to fix the dates around the life of Jesus. That is accomplished by an appeal to both the remembered story of his life and to secular records that we can locate, which date other people who appear in his story. It is not an exact science but it is a trustworthy guide.

Dear Jesus,

You could have heard those two words millions of times in the last two thousand years- that is, if you had been with hearing distance, as those who addressed you certainly believed you were.

But it's my belief you didn't hear them. You died on a cross and never learned anything of what happened after you breathed your last. So I write to tell you, but where to begin? Seventy years after you died one writer said, "The world could not contain all the books that could be written about you." And if that was true after seventy years, what about two millennia later!

Countless thoughtful people are now so disgusted with the marriage of bad theology and hypocritical behavior by the church that a new Reformation is required in which the purpose of religion itself is reimagined.

Meyers takes the best of biblical scholarship and recasts these core Christian concepts to exhort the church to pursue an alternative vision of the Christian life:

* Jesus as Teacher, not Savior
* Christianity as Compassion, not Condemnation
* Prosperity as Dangerous, not Divine
* Discipleship as Obedience, not Control
* Religion as Relationship, not Righteousness

This is not a call to the church to move to the far left or to try something brand new. Rather, it is the recovery of something very old. Saving Jesus from the Church shows us what it means to be a Christian and how to follow Jesus' teachings today.

The reading from Matthew's Gospel - the only place in the synoptic gospels where anything approaching "trinitarian" metaphor appears - is confined to four verses, and the Apostle Paul is only allowed to say, "Lastly, brothers and sisters, rejoice, put things right, encourage each other, come to a common understanding, live peacefully, and the God of love and peace will be with you . . ."

In Matthew's narrative, Jesus has come to the region of Caesarea Philippi, and he is quizzing his disciples: "What are people saying about the 'son of Adam?'" They give him the stock answer, which likely reflects the thinking of most people of the time.  The "son of Adam' was the one to be sent by God to usher in the Fifth Kingdom, to be ruled by God, and not by the empires of the earth.  They report that some say the "son of Adam" is John the Baptist, or Elijah, or one of the prophets.  The disciples aren't picking up on the obvious, so Jesus asks them directly: "What about you, who do you say I am?"  

READ ON