Philip Yancey is my favourite Christian author. I especially like those paragraphs where the ideas and images seem to fire out of his brain like a machine gun. Here’s a sample…
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“The more I studied Jesus, the more difficult it became to pigeonhole him. He said little about the Roman occupation, the main topic of conversation among his countrymen; and yet he took up a whip to drive petty profiteers from the Jewish temple. He urged obedience to the Mosaic law while acquiring the reputation of a lawbreaker. He could be stabbed by sympathy for a stranger, yet turn on his best friend with the flinty rebuke, “Get behind me, Satan!” He had compromising views on rich men and loose women, yet both types enjoyed his company.
“One day miracles seem to flow out of Jesus the next day his power was blocked by people’s lack of faith. One day he talked in detail of the Second Coming; another, he knew neither the day nor hour. He fled from arrest at one point and marched inexorably toward it at another. He spoke eloquently about peacemaking, then told his disciples to procure swords. His extravagant claims about himself kept him at the center of controversy, but when he he did something truly miraculous he tended to hush it up. As Walter Wink has said, if Jesus had never lived, we would not have been able to invent him.”
~~ Philip Yancey, The Jesus I Never Knew (Zondervan 1995) p.23 I Never Knew (Zondervan 1995) p.23ne day miracles seem to flow out of Jesus the next day his power was blocked by people’s lack o faith. One day he talked in detail of the Second Coming; another, he knew neither the day nor hour.He fled from arrest at one point and marched inexorably toward it at another. He spoke eloquently aout peacemaking, then told his disciples to procure swords. His extravagant claims about himsef kept him at the center of controversy, but when he he did something truly miraculous he tnded to hush it up. As Walter Wing has said, if Jesus had never lived, w would not have been able t invent him.”
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