I'm a follower of Jesus. Since 1970.
When I got rescued by Jesus I experienced a great desire to know my Rescuer. I began to study Jesus.
I have read and studied the Text over and over. One of my doctoral qualifying exams at Northwestern University was in ancient Christology. I have a library of books on Jesus. At Redeemer I and others preached through the four Gospels - it took seven years. Seven years of deep, focused, Jesus studying and experiencing!
I have a "Che Jesus" t-shirt. Here it is.
I wore this t-shirt a few times when teaching my philosophy classes at Monroe County Community College. One professor saw me, and told another professor, "Piippo is wearing a Che Guevara t-shirt." The other professor corrected him. "Piippo is actually wearing a Jesus t-shirt."
The Real Jesus is, among other things, a temple-cleansing, idol-smashing revolutionary.
A leader is one who has followers. Therefore, Jesus is the greatest leader in all human history.
I have been on a Real-Jesus-knowing rampage for almost fifty years. Do you want to know him, too?
Dallas Willard writes:
"If you really want to know Christ now, you have somehow to set aside the cloud of images and impressions that rule the popular as well as the academic mind, Christian and non-Christian alike. You must try to think of him as an actual human being in a peculiar human context who actually has had the real historical effects he did, up to the present. You have to take him out of the category of religious artifacts and holy holograms that dominate presentations of him in the modern world and see him as a man among men, who moved human history as none other. You must not begin with all of the religious paraphernalia that has gathered around him or with the idea that his greatness must be an illusion generated by an overlay from superstitious and ambitious people—mainly that “shyster” Paul—who wanted to achieve power for their own purposes.
Just look at his teaching and his influence for what it has been through the ages—there is really no secret about that—and be clear-minded and fair in your estimate of what kind of person could have brought such teachings and influence upon human life." (Willard, Knowing Christ Today, p. 67)
