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Retaining Our Results on WWJD: A Vouchsafement to Forum Users

Editor's note: For a vouchsafement definition, check out our Term of the Week.

Chatting In the Coffee Shop

Starting next month, we shall turn our attention to Jesus' view on topics of more traditional theological interest: miracles, the Bible, the Kingdom, and so on. So far I have tried my best to provide a précis of Jesus' position on a number of presently-contested moral topics: politics and the state, war, abortion, and a word or two about capital punishment. Unfortunately, severe space limitations have prevented me from developing detailed, nuanced treatments of these subjects apt for treating gray areas or problem cases. But these topics are too important to leave for only larger tomes.

I don't blog or post on forums; in fact, I don't even read them. But it has come to my attention that certain concerns have surfaced about my earlier pieces, so before we transition to other kinds of topics, I want to address what I take to be the most important one of them.

I do so because I think my claims about Jesus' views, along with the method I have used to reach them, are of utmost importance. In that spirit, I want to offer some advice to my brothers and sisters (and those outside the family), and, as an older brother, a reminder or two.

Jesus vs. the Old Testament and Paul

The most ubiquitous concern represents a very, very serious (though, I believe, unintentional) mistake about how to discern Jesus' views on a topic. Some have argued that I sometimes support my views without providing a single quote from Jesus, and that my series would be better entitled, "What Would the Hebrew God of the Old Testament Do?" or "What Would Paul Do?"

It is very important to realize that the practice of pitting Jesus against the OT or Paul (or the early church in general) is one that secular New Testament (NT) scholars use to remake Jesus in their own image. This point was noted long ago by Albert Schweitzer in his critique of the old quest for the historical Jesus. This egregious employment has been repeated by theologically liberal, secular de- and re-constructionists ever since — most recently by the Jesus Seminar. By pitting Jesus against these sources, it becomes easier to fashion Him into the image of the critic, especially when Jesus did not comment much on a particular subject.

For example, the fundamental principle of secularly motivated Gospel criticism is the Criterion of Dissimilarity: A saying of Jesus can be considered authentic only if we cannot find a parallel teaching in the Jewish community of His day or in the early church (as discerned from the rest of the New Testament writings) He founded. So if Jesus teaches on a topic such that He agrees with a teaching in His Jewish culture or with a teaching in the New Testament outside the Gospels, Jesus did not say it (or we cannot know He said it and should, therefore, reject it).

When Dissimilarity is applied to the Gospels, we get a unique, thin Jesus (one who only teaches things no one else accepted), but not an accurate, centrally portrayed Jesus. After all, one would expect that many of His teachings would be echoed in the writings of His apostles and among the churches founded in His name. By following Dissimilarity, we miss much of what Jesus said and did, and even what was central to what He said and did.

A Summary of the Summary

Now consider a parallel. I am frequently asked to speak in churches about Christianity and the life of the mind. This raises two serious problems. First, I have to leave out of my talks entirely at least 80 percent of what I believe about the Christian life. Second, when folks have sent me summaries of my sermon (or weekend talks) in the church newsletter, these summaries trim down even further what I taught on the life of the mind. Someone reading that newsletter will get a highly (although often accurate) selective sampling of my teaching according to the purposes of the newsletter reporter.

After about 10 years of this, I began to hear distorted rumors about what I do or do not believe is important to the Christian life, and I was appalled at the misrepresentations. So for years I have done two things.

First, I give a reading list to the pastor to make available to his congregation. It includes books by various authors that express my beliefs about numerous aspects of the Christian life.

Second, if someone whom I trust and who knows me and my views well is a member of the church, I mention that if anyone is confused about what I taught or curious about my beliefs on other topics, they can consult with that person in the weeks to come. Just as the President's press secretary has the right, on the assumption of competency and honesty, to speak on behalf of the President, I designate a trusted friend in a given local church to be a spokesperson for me.

Now, consulting this broader context is the only intelligent, fair, and honest way to discern what someone thinks about different topics. If a person speaks briefly on a particular subject, and if folks offer even briefer summaries of his/her teaching for dissemination, then it is very dangerous to form a view of what that person believes from that talk or those summaries. If the person has referred to other works and designated a spokesperson that accurately expresses his/her views, it would be intellectually dishonest and a sure way to a false understanding to leave these out in favor of exclusive reliance on the more focused, highly summarized pieces of communication.

Spokesmen for Christ

Jesus said much that is not recorded in the Gospels. Moreover, He had a specific set of issues and goals that were uppermost in His mind and central to His mission. Also, the Gospel writers offer summaries of Jesus' speeches and are highly selective of what they include and leave out in light of their own unique purposes for writing.

Thus, the Gospels are very narrow and highly selective. As I mentioned in the first part of this series, one should clearly begin with the words and deeds of Jesus to discern what He believed and how He would act. But Jesus also put His stamp of approval on an "additional reading list" and on official, designated spokesmen, so people could get a fuller, accurate view of His ideas beyond what is presented in the Gospels.

Remember, at the very beginning of the Sermon on the Mount, Jesus stated intentionally and clearly His full commitment to every single teaching of the Old Testament. In recording this sermon, Matthew selects important facts in Jesus' life to intentionally draw parallels between Jesus and Israel as God's servant, and between Jesus and Moses as God's designated leader over the covenant community.

For example, both Israel and Jesus are born and called the servant of God, both are taken to Egypt in the early days, both leave Egypt and experience 40 years or 40 days, respectively, of testing in the desert, and at the end Moses and Jesus deliver the "Law" to the community of God. The affirmation of the entire authority of the OT as speaking for Jesus Himself could not be any clearer (Matthew 5:17-20).

As one of today's leading experts on Matthew's Gospel, Michael Wilkins, notes:

Jesus emphatically affirms the lasting validity of 'the Law' (the entire Hebrew Scriptures) as the revealed will of God for his people until the end of this age brings a consummation of what God had purposed.¹

Readers may wish to drive a wedge between Jesus and the "God of the Old Testament," but Jesus Himself rejected that wedge and affirmed that the Old Testament expressed His views on all subjects about which it speaks. Jesus corrected mistaken interpretations of the Old Testament, but never the Old Testament itself.

Moreover, in keeping with the oral culture and tradition of His day, Jesus designated a band of authorized Rabbinic students — His apostles — to serve as His spokesmen after His departure (John 16:12-15, Matthew 28:18-20). They understood that it was Jesus Himself who spoke in and through them (cf. II Corinthians 13:3).

And it's a good thing Jesus appointed such spokesmen because there were several crucial issues the early church faced from AD 35-85 that the Gospels do not address, but that the risen Jesus clarified through His apostles (for example, circumcision, charismatic gifts, baptism, food laws, rules governing assembly meetings, several ministries of the Holy Spirit, the authority structure of local churches, the nature of the mission to the Gentiles).

How Would Jesus Think?

If we really want to know what Jesus would think and do, we have to consult the things He said accurately expressed His views. If we limit our scope to a "quote from Jesus," we may get what was unique to Him relative to His narrow purposes and the more narrow purposes of the Gospel writers, but we won't get a full, rich, mature understanding of what He really thought about a wide range of issues.

C O F F E E  S H O P

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Do you think Jesus gave the apostles the authority to speak for Him?

Join the discussion!

We may not want to believe that the OT, Paul or other NT writers accurately speak for Jesus, but Jesus did. He said so explicitly in regard to the OT, and He trained and sent His Spirit into His disciples to speak for Him once He left.

Thus, in a curious and ironic twist of fate, if we limit what Jesus would think and do to 'specific quotations from Jesus,' we are, by that very approach, actually failing to think and act as Jesus would.