How Do I know who Jesus is?

For a recent class I had to write an essay around Who is Jesus, one of the possibilities was to write about where we get our understandings about Jesus. The following is what I handed in:

 Introductory Essay

I would like to think that my primary source for my understanding of Jesus is the bible, of course that would be quite an oversimplification. In fact many books, classes and people have fed into how I read the bible, and interpret it. The following are some of the major influences when it comes to how I read scripture.

My Family has always been Christian, and I accepted Jesus at an early age. I attended Sunday School, Pioneer Club (a Christianized Boy Scout/Girl Guide program), Jr and Sr Youth programs. My Family also taught me about the importance of reading the bible devotionally. One of the images in my mind of my father is of him laying on his bed after supper reading his bible. Bibicaly literacy was important to him, he brought home cards with the names of the books of the bible from a conference and every day after supper we had to practice them. While I was never really good at memorizing the order, I learned a little about each one.

My parents also subscribed me to receive packs of 10 index cards once a month. These Index cards had a picture on the front of a biblical character, location, story, or theme, or some sort of cultural aspect. On the back it had a brief description as well as key bible versus referencing whatever the card was about. I used to spend hours looking at those cards, organizing them (I could never decide if they should be organized thematically or alphabetically), and reading the backs, they taught me about the bible and some of it's context.

I attended Rockway Mennonite Collegiate from grade 7 through 12. While there we had to take religious studies classes. In grade 8 Kathy Collins had us study the beatitudes, and in my grade 9 year, Kyle Gingerich Hiebert taught my class from Donald Kraybill's Upside Down Kingdom, where I began learning that Jesus's teachings don't always have the straightforward meaning we think they do because of the differences in culture between 21^st Century Canada and first century Palestine.

Another early influence was through the Left Behind series by Tim LaHaye and Jerry B Jenkins when I was in High School. After reading about the rapture, and the 7 year tribulation in those books, I wanted to learn more. As such, I read some of LaHaye's non-fiction books, I learned all about the Pre-Tribulation theory, and I was really bought into it. At one point LaHaye says that we should take the bible literally as much as possible, except when it is obviously metaphor. While I no longer accept this premise (see below), it is where I started (in tension with my lessons from Rockway).

Other early influences include Tony Campolo, especially his book Red Letter Christian where I learned the importance of Christocentrism, that scripture should be read in light of the words of Jesus (hence the bit about Red Letters), and Shane Claiborne's Jesus For President, where I was introduced to the Imperial imagery used to describe Jesus' triumphal entry and passion.

My first year in Undergraduate Studies was at Tyndale University College in Toronto, Ontario. That is where I was first introduced to Biblical Studies. I took two classes there that greatly impacted my faith and understanding of Jesus. The First Class was Stephen Thomson's Introduction to New Testament. There a lot of my earlier understandings from Sunday School and my literalistic reading of the bible. It seemed like every single class Professor Thomson would pick some foundational belief about God and in the course of an hour destroy it, demonstrating how completely wrong I was about it, and then somehow by the end of the class rebuild it with a deeper understanding. It also introduced me to Second Temple Judaism, and the world of first century Palestine.

The second class at Tyndale that influenced my understanding of Jesus was Benjamin Reynold's Hermeneutics Class. The Text books for the class were How to Read the Bible for all it's Worth by Gordon Fee and Douglas Stuart, and W. Randoloh Tate's Biblical Interpretation: An Integrated Approach. This class completely destroyed my literalist approach to reading the bible. I learned that I needed to read passages understanding their form, structure, and genre, that I needed to know the literary and biblical contexts before I could come to some conclusion about what the bible says about an issue, as well as the tools in which to gain this knowledge. The class moved me from a literal understanding of scripture to a literary understanding.

Eventually I transferred to Canadian Mennonite University where I continued my studies in Biblical and Theological Studes. Again, two courses have influenced how I understand Jesus. First, Sheila Klassen-Wiebe's Synoptic Gospel's class. Which taught me more about the scholarship surrounding the three synoptic gospels, as well as introduced me to a bible synopsis, which is one of my favourite tools for when I'm looking at a text from one of them because I get to see multiple perspectives of the same story about Jesus.

The other class at CMU that has impacted my understanding of Jesus is Harry Huebner's class Theology of Peace and Justice. The main unit of the class was about working through John Howard Yoder's The Politics of Jesus. The Thesis of which is that Jesus left behind an ethic, or politic, which is knowable through the biblical witness.

This past summer I participated in Mennonite Church Canada's Ministry Inquiry Program for my practicum. I spent my summer working at Steinmann Mennonite Church in Baden, Ontario as a pastoral intern. This experience informed my understanding of Jesus as the head of the church. The church truly became to me the hands and feet of Jesus within the community. The various events and committees lived out Jesus' commandment to love our neighbours through various outreach and service projects. In worship I learned about the Post-Resurrection Jesus who is head of the Church, and still calls us to follow him.

These are most of my main influences when it comes to my understanding of scripture and who Jesus is. I am sure there are many more, that I could list, but I am only allowed 3 pages.