Jesus

Chapter 5 of my book, God is Love, is about Jesus: who he was, his teachings, where he was during the missing years and the purpose for his death.

The teachings of Jesus took on a whole new meaning for me when I began to understand the Aramaic language in which Jesus spoke. This language uses lots of idioms, mysticism, and amplification of words. Most of what Jesus said was not to be interpreted literally as we have been taught but had a deeper spiritual meaning for those with ears to hear and understand. Idiom is a figure of speech that says one thing but means something else, such as the phrase “raining cats and dogs.” The Bible contains more than a thousand idioms that were translated literally and not identified for what they were. Genesis 19:26 says Lot’s wife “looked back and she became a pillar of salt.” This is an idiom meaning that she suffered a stroke, became paralyzed, and died. Jesus told his followers that “they will pick up snakes with their hands; and when they drink deadly poison, it will not hurt them” (Mark 16:18). “Will pick up snakes” means they will handle fearlessly the challengers and enemies of his gospel. “Drink deadly poison” means the power to overcome all malicious gossip and false accusations made against his disciples. Paul’s “thorn in my flesh” (2 Corinthians 12:7) means a troublemaker.

I have a section in this chapter on where Jesus was during the missing years. I always thought it odd that this information was not in the Bible. Anyone over thirty knows how your teens and twenties affect who you are as a person and what you believe. So wherever Jesus was and whatever he was doing had to have had a big impact on his spiritual perspective on life. I found a variety of sources that attempted to answer this.  When I found out where he was I understood why it was left out of the Bible as it brings in a whole other dimension to who Jesus was and where he learned to do the healing miracles. I won’t give the you the answer in this blog, you’ll have to read the book to find out.

You can purchase God is Love, A Spiritual Journey from Fear to Love at:

 www.amazon.com or www.balboapress.com