Tuesday 13 April 2010

Jesus Was A Middle Class Architect?

The following article appeared in the Daily Mail last week. It was brought to my attention by my favourite of all Radio 4's satirical comedy offerings.

Whilst I don't like the essentially political undertones of the article, i.e. casting Jesus as a mere social maverick/reformer rather than Son of God, I think there may be something in it for the following reasons:

1. The Hebrew word used in Proverbs 8:30, speaks of Christ as a master workman/architect of everything. So it seems to me eminently appropriate in the prophetic symmetry of God that he should mirror this reality by being the son of one in his earthly life too.

2. Whilst Jesus was the Son of God and full of the Holy Spirit, he would, in his humanity, have had to study the scriptures (and his two times table) like anyone else. (For more on that, click here.) Psalms 1 and 119 are prophetic about Christ in this regard, because he loves the law of his Father more than anyone ever could or ever will and shows it in his obedience. To love it, he had to know it and that meant study - lots of study. At least 10,000 hours! ;-)

Now it needs to be stated that this is all an argument from silence and I'm not going to lose any sleep over it, but the question remains: is Bradford wrong or is he helping to cut through some of our sentimental myth making about blond haired, blue-eyed, meek and mild boy Jesus?

I personally think he is onto something, but then you may prove me otherwise.

Comments are open...!

:-)

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

Interesting!! Might explain why Jesus was never dismissed by the authorities as uneducated or side-lined as irrelevant. I checked this out and there is an mp3 link to a lecture the guy gave on this at www.templehouse-publishing.com
Slightly different take to the traditional chair maker line...

Richard Walker said...

The lecture is fascinating. Worth a listen!