Talk:KCU/04/Polos

Instructor's Feedback

Missing the first deadline is going to have the consequence that the highest grade you can get for the final draft will be automatically lowered by one grade level.

However, Anna Kautzman has graciously agreed to help you. So, if you follow her instructions & get the rest of the work in, you will still receive credit, only with the consequent penalty described above.

Here are some web resources that may be helpful:

http://www.religion-online.org/showarticle.asp?title=2689

http://cicministry.org/commentary/issue62b.htm

http://www.tomorrowsworld.org/cgi-bin/tw/tw-mag.cgi?category=Magazine17&item=1104101990

http://www.growingchristians.org/dfgc/servant.htm

http://mwillett.org/atheism/WWJD.htm

http://www.biblebb.com/files/MAC/sg60-29.htm

http://www.apuritansmind.com/Apologetics/SituationalEthicsWWJD.htm http://books.google.com/books?id=0YGvVaIN2cEC&pg=PR9&lpg=PR9&dq=wwjd&source=web&ots=1Hollzu2eP&sig=W9b8BcsqZ-9TsLQaXK5yVbEVktU

http://www.allaboutfollowingjesus.org/wwjd-faq.htm

http://www.trueu.org/Academics/LectureHall/A000000599.cfm http://books.google.com/books?id=bOa_GU5PlBUC&dq=wwjd&printsec=frontcover&source=web&ots=X9D7q4jiNE&sig=cH98zQsxFqjHL_U-OwB-Nk7a388

http://gadfly.igc.org/liberal/WWJD.htm

http://www.the-highway.com/wwjd.html

Bible passages to look for:

Stories about Jesus in the Gospels of Matthew, Mark, Luke, & John

Philippians 2:5-11

1 Peter 2:21-25

1 Peter 3:13-22

Below is a good forum contribution by a student in the Christian Heritage online class (Missi Balch) that may be helpful to you, which you may use as one of your dialog partners:

Since I fully understand the fact that Jesus was fully man and fully God, I can see how his life was a perfect and complete example of how we should live. I spent the first twenty-five years of my life not really knowing how to live. I followed some of what my parents did, some of what my friends did, and very little of how God wanted me to live. Until I had a personal relationship with Christ, I was aimlessly wandering around this world trying to figure things out. My purpose in life was discovered through this relationship with Christ that evolved from reading the Bible, having fellowship with other Christians, attending church and Sunday school. As I began to study the life of Christ, I was able to see that His humanness and Hid godliness were absolutely perfect.

God as the human Jesus is a concept that is difficult for many to comprehend. As a matter of fact, just last Sunday in my small group Bible study, a woman asked why Jesus would refer to Himself as “Son of Man”. I thought oooh, oooh, oooh, I know this one, pick me! It was clear to me why He would say this. But, it dawned on me that it wasn’t long ago when I was in her position. Why did Jesus refer to himself as “Son of Man”? The reason is because He was the son of a man. He was fully man and fully God at the same time. Jesus used this term to identify Himself with the human race. According to Colossians 2:9 “The fullness of the Deity lives in bodily form”.

Now that I have a relationship with Christ and recognize that he is God in the flesh, I now look to Him as the example of how to live my life. Jesus’ ministry years as told through Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John are packed full of examples of how to live. In Cloud and Townsend’s book How People Grow, They describe ways in which we can learn from Christ’s example when dealing with suffering, being sinned against, authority over evil, and dealing with temptation. Jesus shows us how to treat others, how to grieve, how to pray, when to cry, when to and how to worship, and how to pray. Every aspect of our lives has been also experienced by Jesus. This is so important to realize because without Him having the same human experiences as us, we would easily discount that he really understood us and therefore would not follow his examples. Even Ghandi quoted “I tell the Hindus that their lives will be imperfect if they do not also study reverently the teaching of Jesus” (Christianity for Skeptics by Steve Kumar, p.82).

Is there any aspect of Jesus’ life that isn’t an example for me? Yes, all of His supernatural powers. The part of Him that is fully God. I can’t compete with that. I think His example of when he walked on water and calmed the storm. That isn’t exactly an example of how I should live my life. The reaction and response by Peter is how I should live my life. It teaches me to learn to trust Jesus and know that he is in control. Jesus died on the cross for the atonement of my sins. I am not expected to put myself on the same level as Christ. I am just to follow his footsteps, walk closely to Him, letting his example be my guide. We get into trouble if we begin to compare ourselves to Christ.

Below is a second good forum contribution by a student in the Christian Heritage online class (Erika Simpson), which you may use as a dialog partner:

By watching the life of Christ we can learn how to deal with most things in our life from how to pray (Luke 11:2) to how to see the kingdom of God (John 3:3). In fact, there has never been nor will there ever be a better example how God wants us to live. In fact in John chapter three Jesus put it simply "...apart from me you do nothing". Looking at it more untraditionally Jesus' example has a boundary that other example cross. The most prime example of a way that we can't follow the example of Christ is in the repentance of sin, since Jesus knew no sin. George Eliot said I couldn't live in peace if I put the shadow of a willful sin between myself and God (The Mill on the Floss). Paul talks about the sin that so easily entangles us (Hebrews 12:1) and in fact many of us lived in sin before finding the God that was seeking us, however Christ never repented because he never had to he was sinless (2 Corinthians 5:21). So when we sin we need to follow the example of someone that has sinned and repented, like David (Psalm 51). Even though following David's example leads you right back to Christ (or in his case God) still having committed adultery and being in need of repentance is something that your average person might have in common with David.

At first thought, one may find it near impossible to think of any ways that Jesus is not our model/example for living, because no fault was found in him. However, if we approach the question from another angle, perhaps we can see that as humans, we are limited in our ability to mimic Jesus. In Theology Matters, the authors affirm Jesus’s deity by making reference to the divine names, attributes, actions and worship that He exhibited and received (p.17). The Scripture supports the divinity of Jesus many times; and according to Colossians 2:9, the “fullness of the Deity lives in bodily form.”

I agree with Robert that following the example of Christ will show us how to deal with most things in our lives, such as “praying” and “seeing the kingdom of God.” I also agree that we as human beings cannot follow the example of Christ repenting and seeking forgiveness for sins, because he was without sin. It may be wise to look at the example of an ordinary human being in the Bible who confessed his sins and was forgiven. Nonetheless, we must realize that while we are expected to do our very best, we will never be God. Dr. Gregory Fizzell, author of Returning to Holiness states that Jesus died not only to take us to heaven, but to “indwell and empower us here on earth” (1). We have been given a certain degree of power and authority on earth over sin and demons. Although the Scriptures say that Jesus was “made a little lower than the angels,” the Word also says that he was “crowned with glory and honor because he suffered death” (Hebrews 2:9). Although we are now lower than the angels, once we leave our physical bodies, we will be worshipping God among the angels. We cannot expect glory and honor to come to us, as these things only belong to God.

Jesus also set a good example for us to follow when he was tempted in the wilderness. Satan tempted Jesus to make bread out of stones and throw himself off of the temple and Jesus resisted him. Laurie Beth Jones, author of Jesus, CEO, points out that it was not until after Jesus experienced victory over temptation in the wilderness that he began to refer to himself as “I am” (2). She notes that these words reflect “all the creative power in the Universe.” Here, we can draw confidence from Jesus’s victory, because he has given us a spirit of power (2 Tim. 1:7). This spirit enables us to conquer sin, overcome temptation and defeat the enemy in this sense. However, we cannot draw from this experience any infinite creative power of our own. We cannot, like Jesus did, call ourselves “I am” or claim to have the kind of authority that belongs only to God.

1. Dr. Gregory Fizzell. “Returning to Holiness.” Bethany Press International: 2000.

2. Laurie Beth Jones. “Jesus, CEO.” Hyperion: 1995.