A few years ago a group of salesmen went to a regional
sales convention in Chicago .
They had assured their wives that they would be home in
plenty of time for Friday night's dinner. In their
rush, with tickets and briefcases, one of these salesmen inadvertently kicked over a table which held a display of apples.
Apples flew everywhere.
Without stopping or looking back, they all managed to reach the plane in time for their nearly-missed boarding.

ALL BUT ONE!!! He paused, took a deep breath , got in touch
with his feelings, and experienced a twinge of compassion for the
girl whose apple stand had been overturned.

He told his buddies to go on without him, waved
good-bye, told one of them to call his wife when they
arrived at their home destination and explain his taking a later flight.
Then he returned to the terminal where the apples were all over the terminal floor.

He was glad he did.
The 16-year-old girl was totally blind! She was softly
crying, tears running down her cheeks in frustration, and at the same time helplessly groping for her spilled produce as the crowd swirled about her; no one stopping and no one to care for her plight.

The salesman knelt on the floor with her, gathered up the
apples, put them back on the table and helped organize her display. As he did this,he noticed that many of them had become battered and bruised; these he set aside in another basket.

When he had finished, he pulled out his wallet and said to
the girl, 'Here, please take this $40 for the damage we did. Are
you okay?' She nodded through her tears, He continued on with, 'I
hope we didn't spoil your day too badly.'

As the salesman started to walk away, the bewildered blind
girl called out to him, 'Mister, ' He paused and turned to
look back into those blind eyes. She continued, 'Are you Jesus?'

He stopped in mid-stride, and he wondered. Then slowly he
made his way to catch the later flight with that question burning and bouncing about in his soul: 'Are you Jesus?' Do people mistake you for Jesus? That's our destiny, is it not? To be so much like Jesus that people cannot tell the difference as we live and interact with a world that is blind to His love, life and grace.

If we claim to know Him, we should live, walk and act as He
would.
Knowing Him is more than simply quoting Scripture and going
to church.
Do what will make your name to be written in that BOOK, cos
your daily activity are already recorded in the books (Rev 20:12), but what matter most is your name to be in that BOOK!!!. It's actually living the Word as life unfolds day to day.

You are the apple of His eye even though we, too, have been
bruised by a fall. He stopped what He was doing and picked up you and me on a hill called Calvary and paid in full for our damaged fruit.

Please share this, {IF you feel led to do so}.
Sometimes we just take things for granted, we do what is
not right cos we believe man didn't know but do you know that God sees everything and recorded them in the books (Rev 20:12).

Excuse me, Are you Jesus?

This is a fun read: a completely blind girl manning a fruit stand in Chicago: O'Hare Airport!
No security personnels and people to shame those Sales persons, who are probably fathers
themselves, to stop and do the right thing with this "blind poor girl," whom I am sure was grieved.

They were so late in today's post-911 world that they did not care, but with a single mind to catch the
flight so that they can make dinner with their "wives," except the one who was dubbed "Jesus," cared.

Good read with some subtle moral message. Thats about it. The rest of it is falacy, because Chicagoans, rather
American Salesmen are not like that. At least not in the public, with a blind girl at a fruit stand, in O'Hare Chicago Airport.

Are you Jesus is a catchy phrase. Its impossible for any human being, living today to be Jesus. He was a Messenger, a Prophet, an elect of God. Thre were many like that before him. And there was only one after him. None after that. We can hope to have from his and others in this noble club's quality. We can never be exactly like anyone of them there were about 124,000 prophets and Messengers/prophets, in history. None of them is alive anymore. Are you Jesus? The answer is no. No one can be Jesus, or Muhammad, or Musa, or Ibrahim or Nuh (AS). We can only hope to emulate their qualities.

@Olabowale
your response is noted. but why can't you help starting debates aout who Jesus is? Why are you so obessed with him yet you don't believe his Gospel? Well this post was made to allow people who profess the christian faith reflect on their lives and examine if they are living a christ like life, the facts of the story don't really matter, it is the moral of the story that is important. As for the angle of your response all i can say is that it is pathetic

Knowing Him is more than simply quoting Scripture and going
to church.

you are blessed Kunle, i had to pause and pray after reading this line. Indeed quoting scripture is not enough . . . Lord help us to truly KNOW you instead of KNOWING ABOUT you.

Who is Jesus really?

Chrisbenogor:

Who is Jesus really?

The coming messiah to the jews

The son of god/god himself to the christains

The prophet of allah to the moslems

so its up to you to choose which ever you want to believe

my line. . . "Religion is poison because it asks us to give up our most precious faculty, which is that of reason, and to believe things without evidence. It then asks us to respect this, which it calls faith."

challenging post kunle.Good to see it coming from you.More of that.

mazaje:



my line. . . "Religion is poison because it asks us to give up our most precious faculty, which is that of reason, and to believe things without evidence. It then asks us to respect this, which it calls faith."

@KunleOshob: #2 on: Today at 05:01:56 PM »

@Olabowale
your response is noted. but why can't you help starting debates aout who Jesus is? Why are you so obessed with him yet you don't believe his Gospel?

I am obsessed with every prophet and or Messenger (AS Jamia). If you thought am obsessed with Jesus, then you will be shocked about my obsession with Muahmmad. Now thats obsession, because he was the one who spoke candidly and truthfully among other things about all previous prophets and or messengers, including Jesus!



[quote]
Well this post was made to allow people who profess the christian faith reflect on their lives and examine if they are living a christ like life, the facts of the story don't really matter, it is the moral of the story that is important. As for the angle of your response all i can say is that it is pathetic

My disagreement with you you will make me look pathetc to you. You can then Imagine how you look to me since you disagree with me.

[/quote]

Kunle, how do the real facts affect who Jesus is, you have done extensive study, in your opinion who is Jesus.
Is it the lifestyle the christians painted or is it the real Jesus?

Chrisbenogor:

Kunle, how do the real facts affect who Jesus is, you have done extensive study, in your opinion who is Jesus.
Is it the lifestyle the christians painted or is it the real Jesus?

Jesus is love: I would explain further, the gospel of Jesus christ was centred around love, love to God and Love to our fellow men, unfortunately this love on which christianity is based is largely ignored by the church leadership and christians. Most christians claim to love God they can't see but yet they fail to show love to their fellow men that they see and interact with everyday. The truth is that true christianity is not being preached and pracrtised in our churches today, true christianity as veered off into what ever church leaders want it to be and that is why we have so many "christian" sects today. Christian (christ like) love must be practicalized and not just said, it must be passionate like that of christ, it must be caring, it must be selfless and it must empathize. I know it is really difficult to achieve this level of love christ showed, but i believe true christians should strive in that direction and it should form the basis of our faith in christ. Unfortunately mostchurches are not even interested in this greatest commandment. Truth be told there is a lot of Hypocrisy in the church.

@KunleOshob

Although I  agree with your post, let's not kid ourselves here. One has to understand how hard it is to truly love in the context that you've given.
True love is totally selfless. That means you love without consideration of wether or not you're being loved back. You love purely for Love's sake. And that's a very difficult thing to do. In fact, the only time I can really think of such a thing coming into play is in the way that a parent loves a child.
Is it any wonder that the Catholic Church - a church which bans marriage and the fathering of children for members of it's priesthood, is so very out of touch then? It's not hypocrisy. It's just a plain healthy dose of ignorance.

Bastage:

@KunleOshob

Although I agree with your post, let's not kid ourselves here. One has to understand how hard it is to truly love in the context that you've given.
True love is totally selfless. That means you love without consideration of wether or not you're being loved back. You love purely for Love's sake. And that's a very difficult thing to do. In fact, the only time I can really think of such a thing coming into play is in the way that a parent loves a child.
Is it any wonder that the Catholic Church - a church which bans marriage and the fathering of children for members of it's priesthood, is so very out of touch then? It's not hypocrisy. It's just a plain healthy dose of ignorance.

I know it is very difficult to love as christ directed and it would take special grace from God to be able to love selflessly but my grouse is that love still remains a pillar on which being christlike is based. The painfull thing is that the church leadership and most christians just pay lip service to this directive. One would at least expect the church leadership to teach, emphasize and practicalize this greatest commandments of christ. Instead they are more interested in collecting tithes and other material things which Christ never directed the church to involve in. I know true selfless love would be very difficult to achieve but that is not to say we should not strive to keep Jesus commandments.

Kunle, I get your point but I want to be clear on something, do we really know who jesus was?
These books that tell us of him have so many holes in them and there are many logical explanations to show that if this character existed there is no authentic proof of whether he even said them.
I suppose you are familiar with the cloud of uncertainty surrounding the gospels?

Kunle, I get your point but I want to be clear on something, do we really know who jesus was?

Does it really matter? Seriously?
If he were a real, historical person would that make you look upon Him differently?

Kunle just about hit the nail on the head. Jesus is Love. It doesn't matter one bit if he existed physically or not. I believe the idea is what is important - not the man. The idea is Love. Jesus is Love therefore God is Love. What can be more important than that?

Chrisbenogor:

Kunle, I get your point but I want to be clear on something, do we really know who jesus was?
[b]These books that tell us of him have so many holes in them and there are many logical explanations to show that if this character existed there is no authentic proof of whether he even said them.[/b]I suppose you are familiar with the cloud of uncertainty surrounding the gospels?

I don't know what you are trying to get at here but i know for certain that it is a historical fact that Jesus existed even pontius pillate wrote about him in his reports to rome. Such records (independent of the bible) are still available today in roman arcives. I don't know anything about any cloud of uncertainity surrounding the gospels. I have read all of them and they are very consistent and true. Even though the individual writers might have used different styles and approaches that does not take away the substance of the gospel.

it is a historical fact that Jesus existed even pontius pillate wrote about him in his reports to rome. Such records (independent of the bible) are still available today in roman arcives

That simply isn't true.
There's only one independent mention of Jesus and that's now believed to be a hoax added onto a bit of work by the Roman historian Josephus.
Other than that, outside of scripture, there is absolutely nothing.

Kunle, I gave you more credit than this. There is no other record aside from the one bastage pointed out, there is absolutely no record of a Jesus christ aside from the four gospels whose authors are unknown till today. Matthew mark luke and john were not the people who really wrote those books, I suppose you have heard of the synoptic problem, and the document Q. The gospels were copied from mark and another source and the original mark does not even contain that Jesus resurrected so what are you talking about?
By the way there is no existing roman record of Pontious pilate writing anything to rome about jesus that is absolutely bull, the only evidence that pilate even existed at all was a stone that was discovered in the early 20th century.
What say you?

Chrisbenogor:

Kunle, I gave you more credit than this. There is no other record aside from the one bastage pointed out, there is absolutely no record of a Jesus christ aside from the four gospels whose authors are unknown till today. Matthew mark luke and john were not the people who really wrote those books, I suppose you have heard of the synoptic problem, and the document Q. The gospels were copied from mark and another source and the original mark does not even contain that Jesus resurrected so what are you talking about?
By the way there is no existing roman record of Pontious pilate writing anything to rome about jesus that is absolutely bull, the only evidence that pilate even existed at all was a stone that was discovered in the early 20th century.
What say you?

Jesus is a prophet of allah. . . . .lol

Jesus is a prophet of allah.

This has to be one of the biggest jokes that there is - a universal god prophesising for a tribal god.
Only the Muslims could be so illogical.

Allah is no different from Yaweh. The former came out of the latter and the latter evolved out of the Egyptian god Set.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Set_(god)

The fact that the Christian Christ is the "arch-enemy" of Set and therefore the arch-enemy of Allah and Yaweh, always seems to slip the literalists minds of all 3 religions.

Bastage:

This has to be one of the biggest jokes that there is - a universal god prophesising for a tribal god.
Only the Muslims could be so illogical.

Allah is no different from Yaweh. The former came out of the latter and the latter evolved out of the Egyptian god Set.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Set_(god)

The fact that the Christian Christ is the "arch-enemy" of Set and therefore the arch-enemy of Allah and Yaweh, always seems to slip the literalists minds of all 3 religions.

Lol Bastage, na wah for you ohhhh. . . . . i thought that jesus is the same yaweh, jehova, eliom all the gods/god of the old testament? or is he different from the god of the old testament? lol

Chrisbenogor:

Kunle, I gave you more credit than this. There is no other record aside from the one bastage pointed out, there is absolutely no record of a Jesus christ aside from the four gospels whose authors are unknown till today. Matthew mark luke and john were not the people who really wrote those books, I suppose you have heard of the synoptic problem, and the document Q. The gospels were copied from mark and another source and the original mark does not even contain that Jesus resurrected so what are you talking about?
By the way there is no existing roman record of Pontious pilate writing anything to rome about jesus that is absolutely bull, the only evidence that pilate even existed at all was a stone that was discovered in the early 20th century.
What say you?

Are you for real?? Apart from the books selected to be in the bible several other books testified to the life of Christ. The excerpts below should throw more light on these.

The universal church (catholic) started by Constantine was formed by the "opinions" of Eusebius and there is no record of any reference to standards of historical research or textual criticism. He did not form his idea of what was accepted by using the books that existed as the foundation for that acceptance, but first created the religious beliefs and accepted only the books that matched those beliefs. Eusebius stated that the only standard he used in deciding which texts to call[b] "recognized" is to accept only books that were recognized by orthodox authors he knew[/b]. Merriam-Webster defines "orthodox" as: "conforming to established doctrine especially in religion". Eusebius determined the doctrine of the religion and therefore became the sole judge of what was "orthodox".
The result of Eusebius' final judgment of biblical canon, the books of the New Testament to be included in that original Bible, was the division of all known and accepted books into three categories:

Recognized - Those books accepted by others that mirrored his specific beliefs
Those books generally make up the modern New Testament.
Recognized but Disputed - Those books accepted by most others that held his beliefs but disputed by some that also followed his concept of orthodox beliefs.
Those books included the Acts of Paul, the Book of the Shepherd of Hermas, the Apocalypse of Peter, the Epistle of Barnabas, the Teachings of the Apostles, and the Gospel of the Hebrews.
Heretical - Those universally regarded as heretical by those adhering to his idea of orthodoxy.
Those books included, but were not restricted to, the Gospel of Peter, the Gospel of Thomas, the Gospel of Matthias, as well as other gospel accounts not specified, and the Acts of Andrew and the Acts of John.

So, if Eusebius accepted the authority that recognized the book as orthodox, the book was accepted. If Eusebius did not consider the authority that recognized the book as orthodox the book was rejected. It should be noted that the sole reason Eusebius uses to reject all but the four gospels now found in the New Testament was that he considered them to be a "holy quaternion" of books that could not be changed. Later in church history, the divine nature of this specific group of four books being the only possible gospels to be used was justified because there were only four directions, and four pillars of the Earth, to name a few. Hardly a proper reason to exclude all other gospels without consideration.
We know, which New Testament books he accepted because those books are in the King James Bible. It should be noted that James, Jude, 2 Peter, 2 John, and 3 John were considered "Recognized but Disputed" books but were included in the original King James Bible. The Shepherd of Hermas and the Epistle of Barnabas are in Eusebius' original Bible known as the Codex Sinaiticus. This leaves nine New Testament books that were used and accepted prior to this change, but excluded solely on the original judgment of one man, Eusebius and two books on his "disputed" list that were eventually purged. Those few books we actually know were purged, at this time, are:
The Acts of Andrew
The Acts of John
The Acts of Paul,
The Apocalypse of Peter
The Epistle of Barnabas
The Gospel of Hebrews
The Gospel of Matthias
The Gospel of Peter
The Gospel of Thomas
The Shepherd of Hermas
The Teachings of the Apostles
(There are several other "Gospels" rejected but not specifically named by Eusebius)

Clearly there were several books in circulation that testified about the life ofchrist many of them just never madeit into the bible though some of those books are still in the archives of the vatican up till today.

or is he different from the god of the old testament? lol

Which god of the Old Testament?
There are so many, one gets easily lost.

You've got to remember, the early Jews were not monotheistic. This idea of them worshipping just one god is not born out by the archeological evidence. It's a much later evolution of their religion. Back at the time of the Exodus they worshipped dozens of different deities. Monotheism didn't come in until much, much later. The Old Testament authors decried polytheism but they left enough evidence in there to for even the Bible to show that polytheism was the norm.

In my opinion, the New Testament god is not the Old Testament god. Logically, he can't be. The Old Testament god is for Jews only. The New Testament god is for Christians. Claiming that they are one and the same is contradictory to all evidence and logic that we possess.

The Old Testament was used to sell the new religion of Christianity (or possibly to sell a reversion back to an even older one). Other than that it contains very little that is relevant to Christianity.

One would have thought that Islam would have learnt from this and picked a different set of scriptures to base their god upon. As it is, they're now stuck with the same god as the Jews and only differentiating by calling him Allah. It's no wonder the two sides are at each other's throats. The sad thing is, Islam had a chance to develop the tribal god into something more palatable. Instead, they chose to regress him to the base Hebrew god from the beginning of the OT.

@KunleOshob

I stated that there is no record of Christ outside of scripture. I'm well aware of the list that you have posted but that does nothing to defeat my argument at all as they are all considered scripture, even if they aren't included in the Bible. The fact remains that most of those books were actually considered for inclusion into the New Testament.
What independent verification do you have?

Fact - there is none. Zero. Nothing. Nil. Nada. Zilch.


By the way. The Gospel of Thomas is not considered "heretical". It's considered "heterodox". Eusebius may have viewed it as heretical but the Catholic Church and most other denominations do not consider it to be so. It should be noted that Eusebius and his fore-runner Origen were the founding fathers of dogma and fundamentalism. Take anything that those two imbeciles wrote with a pinch of salt.

@kunle
Bastage seems to always be ahead of me, what I meant obviously was independent verification, only you are now telling me of the controversies that surrounding these books.
There was a popular writer named philo during Jesus christ time, he never Wrote anything about him.
I ask you again are you even aware of the synoptic problem?