Jesus Journal: Musings on Lenses we see Jesus in

[Note: Just some thoughts I had after reading a chapter of a book that discussed the lenses that we see jesus through. One focus was the different cultural perspectives we have in the current day.]

I find the culture clash between "American" or "contemporary" or "secular" culture and "Christian" culture. This is the focus of my Liberal Arts and Christian issues class, and the difficulty of the topic is probably one of the main reasons that so many students and professors find it frustrating to different degrees.

This chapter started to touch on some of the ways that our secular culture has severely distorted our understanding of Jesus, and therefore how we should live as Christians. After reading this chapter, I have realized something a little disappointing about modern church as I have experienced. We often have sermons that just teach on solid points based off of a few verses, but rarely do we even discuss the context, meanings, or lenses in which the text can be or should be read. This is probably one of the reasons that I personally struggle so much with reading the Bible. I just don't always get the context. I don't always know what is to be taken literally, which is metaphorical, which is supposed to be applied to everyone, or which is only applicable at the time. It is all well and good to learn some of that in college courses, but what I would like to see is a little more academic approach given by the church, so that church members can be more knowledgeable.