Jesus Starting His Ministry With The Jesus Paradigm/Tom Colgan

JESUS STARTING HIS MINISTRY

Jesus knew it was difficult starting something new.

But he understood the problem. The world needed a new truth. It needed a new paradigm, new boundaries for how we understand things, a new vision of reality that overcomes blindness, and compels all to see with new eyes, a new heart, and a renewed mind. He felt he had discovered his message. It was not of an apocalyptic fire coming, but a message of a presence of God that has already come. It is here already. The available presence of God, accessible to us now, was his message. And in that message which would be a new message, itself, was a new revelation about what God is like. Jesus had new paradigms, new truths, to share about Gods characteristics. Not only was the presence of God available and accessible, it was not something to be feared.

Jesus Starting His Ministry With The Jesus Paradigm/Tom Colgan

Jesus message would be about the incredible reach of Gods love for all, including those who felt so utterly disenfranchised from society by a lifetime of teaching that had told them the opposite of this truth. Gods love was available. Gods spirit was available. Gods reality was available. Gods presence was available. And all without brokerage, without mediation, no priest, no temple, no institution or individual was necessary. Jesus taught a new way to live. And his life was an example of how it could be done. He called it The Way. And it meant living with a God-centeredness, living with a God-focus, and living with a sense of being God-filled.
When you understand what Jesus was facing in his 1st century society, you can begin to see and understand his new vision, the truth he knew

Jesus Starting His Ministry With The Jesus Paradigm/Tom Colgan needed to be disclosed, and the new paradigms he revealed. It is so difficult to see The Jesus Paradigm, but it is illuminated brightly in this passage that centers on How Jesus Started His Ministry. Sometimes, it takes exciting new perspectives to see a new vision. Read this simple account of Jesus understanding the problems he was addressing in the first century.

Excerpt from The Puzzles Answer , a novel about The Jesus Paradigm by Tom Colgan

When You Are At The Beginning of A Ministry

Later that evening after the sun had gone down on Okaloosa Island with a brilliant display of reds and yellows and oranges against a blue and white clouded sky, Ryan decided it was time to let the ministry begin. Its always a hard thing to know how to begin. Nick knew it must have been hard for Jesus to begin his ministry. Most people probably think that if you are the Son of God, have divine powers, and can walk on water, it wouldnt be too hard to think of a way to start your ministry. All you do is something dazzling and amazing and people will flock around you. But, Jesus was not about doing spectacular proofs. He was about substance. In a ministry, you have to know what it is that you want to say. And that message is usually motivated by something that you are seeing and wanting to address. And then it is probably going to be addressed to even specific people. In Jesus case, we look for answers to these kind of questions to try and understand his situation. From the study of the historical Jesus, we know he, at first, focused his ministry upon the outcasts of society, to those who were labeled as outsiders in the religious Jewish society.

Jesus Starting His Ministry With The Jesus Paradigm/Tom Colgan The society was based upon the purity laws, and these laws made the decision on who was accepted and who was not. If you were part of a group that was considered unclean or impure, you were an outsider, someone who was not in Gods favour, and who had little or no hope of ever finding that favour restored. In most cases, it was assumed that you were a part of this outsider group because God had caused you to be there. If you were poor, or ill, or diseased, a slave, a woman, or a gentile, you might find yourself being treated by society and the prominent leaders and members of it, as if you were totally unworthy, before God, and anyone else who wanted to be seen as worthy. You were an outsider. And all of society would treat you as if God had told them you are a real nothing, something worthless. In a time when almost everyone in that society was teetering on the brink of economic chaos and disaster, almost everyone in the society must have felt like it was an imminent possibility that they would become an outsider soon. So, with a whole society filled with incredible anxiety about their precarious position before God, and many already virtually resigned to their rejected status as something that cant be fixed, Jesus had to envision a message that would address their real needs. He didnt address the problem proclaiming he was God and could zap it and fix it. He looked at the problem and understood it was the result of the truths proclaimed by the purity laws of the Torah and how they were being interpreted. He saw the injustice being done to major groups of society, and the potential for all of society soon to follow, on the way to becoming outsiders according to the law. And he didnt say the old paradigms were wrong, he didnt decry the law, but he did proclaim a new paradigm. He spoke of a new truth. It was a truth about God, and Gods love. You are understanding your situation wrongly, because you are not understanding Gods love correctly. And Jesus began to proclaim a new revelation about the characteristic of Gods love. Gods love is deeper, wider, and greater than we have ever imagined. No one is outside the reach of the love of God. This was not what the society believed. This is not what the purity laws taught. This is not what the priests believed. But, Jesus showed by his life, and to whom he went to perform his ministry, to share his truths, that this was a truth that he believed, and it was a truth about God. So, Jesus began his ministry by choosing as his target those to whom he felt society was doing a gross injustice. Societys laws told Jesus that in order to be obedient to the laws, and therefore to God, he must avoid the impure. He must have nothing to do with them. Jesus chose to do just the opposite. These were the ones he went to serve. He wanted to bring them comfort. And he also wanted to tell them a new vision of reality. How can we know this? The gospels, written 40-70 years after the events of Jesus ministry, were written with the purpose of proclaiming Jesus identity as the divine Son of God and the Messiah, the Christ, the one who has come to bring salvation. The main focus and most of the effort was spent on the end of Jesus life and ministry, the events of the passion week, and the story of how Jesus died. But they also told of his ministry. In their narratives, they are found to be emphasizing the wondrous deeds of Jesus that help the people see his real identity. Mark

Jesus Starting His Ministry With The Jesus Paradigm/Tom Colgan teaches in his gospel that during Jesus actual ministry, his followers hadnt grasped this truth. It had been a secret. Studies of Mark call it the messianic secret. But during the telling of Jesus early ministry, the gospels do tell us that Jesus didnt go to the temple or synagogues, but it was to the people who were hurting most in society. When Jesus began his ministry, he went to those outcasts of society, probably the lowest level of all outcasts. They would be found begging at the city gates at the entrances on the side of the road. They would be people in great misery, trying to survive on the little compassion that they could draw from people, from others who could easily see their terrible plight in life. I am sure they were ruefully scorned almost constantly. Society openly said it not only was all right, but it was the peoples Godly duty to avoid them, lest their impurity would be passed on. These were people that were hurting, most with physical maladies of some kind. But emotionally and mentally, they must have been horrifically scarred by the treatment that they received on a daily basis. Their vision of life was greatly impacted by what they had been told by all. They would have believed that what others said was the truth. Their situation was proof for them. They deserved to be where they were. This was evidence of how they were thought of by God. Dismal and without hope, their life could never get any better. These were the people to whom Jesus went to serve. These were people whose needs were incredibly great. But the biggest hurdle for Jesus was their blindness, caused by the current paradigms of truth proclaimed and believed by all of society. The reality they believed was not the reality that Jesus knew they could find if they only were able to open their eyes and see it. And Jesus knew it was his task to help them overcome this mountain of a struggle. He knew if their hearts could be given a glimmer of hope, a new light could bring them out of this deep darkness they were in. Jesus understood the problem. It wasnt their deep sinful condition. It wasnt because they were so awful that a just and pure God couldnt stand them, and had condemned them to this life of hell forever. The problem was this was the truth they had been told all their lives, and it was the truth that was held up for all of society, so that everyone in society would be compelled to obedience. Jesus understood the problem. The old paradigm had fenced the people in to a position where this truth was accepted as their reality. No one thought outside these lines, outside this box, along different perspectives. And Jesus realized that all of his society needed a breakthrough. They needed to go down another road of thinking. They needed a new set of truths. The old paradigm wasnt working and had created a reality that was as wrong as ancient interpretations of fire shadows on a cave wall in a Platonic analogy. New light was needed. This was what faced Jesus at the start of his ministry. Jesus was having to start this ministry in a society that was taught to fear God. No one could look at God. No one was supposed to even say the name of God. The Chief High priest was allowed to enter into Gods presence in the Holy of Holies in the temple on only one day of the year, the Day of Atonement. So entering into Gods presence even was a foolish

Jesus Starting His Ministry With The Jesus Paradigm/Tom Colgan impossibility. God was not a personal God, but something to be dreadfully feared, because of the might and power that would come down against you. But Jesus knew this was wrong. He knew that the beauty of the world around him had compelled him to search and find the wonderful loving presence of a compassionate God. Everything he had learned in his life had helped him to see a growing vision of a reality much different that what was being taught by the religious authorities. A few months before this start of his ministry, Jesus had traveled to the south to see and hear the ministry of one called the Baptizer. He had become a friend to John and had helped in his ministry. John was a different man, and outwardly a bit strange in his dress and actions. He was proclaiming a vision of a God who could make you clean, and you could realize it by being baptized in the river Jordan, instead of going to the temple and burning sacrifices. But it was a temporary situation, a special time. It was a gathering of those who wanted to be servants of God. And John was telling them that God was going to come in a powerful way, and destroy their enemies in a mighty apocalypse, and God would reign on earth, and they would be his chosen servants. Jesus saw in Johns ministry, the tremendous response that he received from those who were the most downtrodden. John was offering a new way, a new opportunity to get out from under what was thought to be impossible oppression that would never be escaped. Jesus experienced his own baptism, and again the special reality of the presence of God. It was an awareness that he had experienced his whole earthly existence. And Jesus realized that the availability of Gods presence in your life giving you the experience of being loved was the message that was taking him over. It was a message to tell others they too are cared for by a compassionate God, the one who is the great almighty that society has always taught is the one who should be feared. Jesus saw the large groups of outcasts who were responding to Johns ministry. They needed a new truth. They needed a way to discover if any hope was really available for their dreadful state. And Jesus knew that the message of new truth that was formulating inside his own heart and mind and soul was the answer that would bring that hope to them. And it started with these struggling souls and emotionally wrecked people that Jesus found outside the city gates. These people were looking for a little food, a bit of money, things that were like tiny hidden treasures in the heap of scorn that also came from putting themselves publicly in front of the traveling passerbys. Most of the time they were met with belittlement and condescension, negative attitudes of disdain that made the beggars fill with resentment, even hatred. But these attitudes had to be kept hidden behind humility and impassive staring. To be a successful beggar you had to be able to be seen, but to be as inobtrusive as possible. You would fade away and not intrude, if they would only throw a small coin your direction. Jesus knew it would be a tough crowd. They would not want to hear anything he would have to say. They would be filled with skepticism. Their lives were already shot. They were there because they were failures in Gods eyes. What more could they do when that fact could never be changed?

Jesus Starting His Ministry With The Jesus Paradigm/Tom Colgan

Jesus knew it was difficult starting something new. But he understood the

problem. The world needed a new truth. It needed a new paradigm, new boundaries for how we understand things, a new vision of reality that overcomes blindness, and compels all to see with new eyes, a new heart, and a renewed mind. He felt he had discovered his message. It was not of an apocalyptic fire coming, but a message of a presence of God that has already come. It is here already. The available presence of God, accessible to us now, was his message. And in that message which would be a new message, itself, was a new revelation about what God is like. Jesus had new paradigms, new truths, to share about Gods characteristics. Not only was the presence of God available and accessible, it was not something to be feared. Jesus message would be about the incredible reach of Gods love for all, including those who felt so utterly disenfranchised from society by a lifetime of teaching that had told them the opposite of this truth. Gods love was available. Gods spirit was available. Gods reality was available. Gods presence was available. And all without brokerage, without mediation, no priest, no temple, no institution or individual was necessary. Jesus taught a new way to live. And his life was an example of how it could be done. He called it The Way. And it meant living with a God-centeredness, living with a God-focus, and living with a sense of being God-filled.
It must have been difficult at first to get the people to listen. But they were very hungry for truth that could help them. And the hurting was in many cases, a physical need. One of the surest things we know about the historical Jesus ministry is that he was known quickly as a healer. As people believed his message, they began to believe that he had a close connection with God, and that closeness offered the possibility of getting divine help, for themselves, through him for their physical needs. This was a superstitious age where the ill, for example, would sit around certain pools waiting for a disturbance of the water, which they knew to be caused by angels of God. They were waiting to react and be the first in the water, because they knew that would bring them healing. Jesus once talked to a man at the Pool of Siloam, who had been waiting to be first for 38 years, but was sad because he was too slow and unable to ever win the race. As people began to see transformation happen when they responded to Jesus ministry and believed what he was saying, some experienced miraculous physical effects. Jesus became identified with having an association with the divine that would enable healing to happen, much like a pool of water

Jesus Starting His Ministry With The Jesus Paradigm/Tom Colgan having an association with angels and providing a chance for a miracle to happen. And when several began experiencing amazing things, they quickly went and told their friends who needed such an event in their own life. This caused crowds to multiply quite rapidly. It wasnt a magical touch or zapping that Jesus would have been doing like present day tent revival healers, but people having faith in the presence of Jesus and his obvious divine connection. They listened to his new revelations about God, and how God-closeness was a real possibility. And remember, these were people who had been estranged from God, perhaps, for most of their lives and had felt it mightily. Believing Jesus new truths about these rich possibilities of having a positive favor with God must have been a doorway to a totally different life. Imagine the difference in your zest with life. People who could barely walk, now found the ability to run. Life was changing right in front of friends who knew how desperate things had been. The enthusiasm for what could happen next must have made the people bubble with anticipation. Blood stirred. Hearts beat fast. Nerves tingled. And the people couldnt wait to bring others to see this man tomorrow. Jesus would have had a hard time getting started. But he knew the problem. These were people who had been out of favour with God, people who society had told that they would never be able to have favour with God again, and who were told that their present condition was a curse from God. They were under the powerful weight of Gods thumb, and they couldnt move, and never would be able to move again. Jesus had a message for them. Their alienation and estrangement from God could be overcome. He had a message of the possibility of God-closeness that would turn their lives around. It was a message totally different and almost the opposite of what tradition had taught them. It told of a new truth about an inclusive, loving God, whose love would reach to all people. There would be no more outsiders, if you would only hear this new truth. This could be your experience in your life. He proclaimed this God-closeness as a way to live. It was his own experience, and they could find it, too. Without brokerage, without waiting, it was there for them to be transformed. And they were. Jesus had a message. It was hard for people to hear at first. His message solved their problem. His message brought transformation. And suddenly, people who had never felt close to God, and who didnt even think it was possible, who had been told all their lives to fear and not even say Gods name, now felt a stirring realization that divine presence was close by. And it was all because of this man with the new message, this man, Jesus, who was so obviously close to God, himself. This was the Jesus Experience. It happened to the disciples. It happened to those who chose to follow him. It happened to those who witnessed his ministry. It was a feeling of being closer to God, by being close to someone, who was so obviously close to God. The Jesus Experince was a true experience of

Jesus Starting His Ministry With The Jesus Paradigm/Tom Colgan God-closeness. Jesus had a mission. It was to deliver his message, his new paradigms, his new revelations, his disclosure of God, that could be called the greatest disclosure of God ever given. His message included these new truths about Gods characteristics, Gods love, Gods Spirit, and Gods Presence. It was a message about availability and accessibility of divine relationship. It was a message that could be summarized as a message about the reality of God-closeness. It was a revelation. It was new truth. It was a new vision of reality. It was a new paradigm that would rock the world of his listeners. He had to get their attention. He had to get them to listen. He had to get them to understand. He had to get them to comprehend that this was a new direction. He had to get them to see that it was a real possibility. He had to get them to discover it was a reality. And he had to get them to be willing to accept and allow the transformation of their lives to happen, that they earlier had thought was a complete impossibility. And he did it! He completed his mission. He got his message across. It was received. It worked miracles. People were healed. People were transformed. And people were allowed to feel something very new, something society had told them could not happen. From a position of being estranged from God, feeling hated by God, being squashed in life under Gods powerful thumb, now they were feeling this amazing truth of Jesus, the truth of God-closeness. Ask any fundamentalist Christian or any conservative who loves the Bible what Jesus main message was and what mission he was trying to accomplish when he started his ministry among the outcasts of the world and they will look at you with complete puzzlement if you tell them it was to give a new paradigm of God-closeness to a world of people who were living under an old paradigm that asserted they were in a position of unchangeable God-estrangement. Ask them what the message of Jesus is and they will tell you that God has given his divine son to die for our sins that all who believe might have salvation and eternal life. Ask what Jesus mission was and a similar answer to die for the sins of the world might be the response. Our understanding today of the Jesus story may be good Pauline theology, but it doesnt come from what Jesus took seriously in his ministry. It doesnt come from his dynamic new vision for those who were a part of his 1st century world. As impossible as it is for us to grasp this, it is easy to see how we can miss his paradigm shifting disclosures that could transform still today. Jesus knew it would be difficult to start a ministry, especially among these outcasts that he had chosen to serve. He knew their problem. They needed a new truth. They needed a reality that would erase what their old reality had been. That new reality was found in Jesus message about God, and the possibilities that existed for them, about which they knew nothing. Jesus took them from where they were in their thinking, explaining the old truths that were making their lives so hard, confronting their frustrations with being out of favour with God, and having no hope of that ever changing. And he told them that reality is different. He told them new reality, new truth that meant they did have hope. And not just hope, but certainty that they could be in Gods favour, and have the reality of his new truth of God-closeness.

Jesus Starting His Ministry With The Jesus Paradigm/Tom Colgan He didnt tell them his identity. And I am sure he didnt tell them that something in the future was going to happen, a death, a sacrifice, and you should remember to believe, and all your sins will be forgiven. His message was not his identity. It was not a future action. It was not about blood sacrifices to appease God or to gain forgiveness for sins. His message was a message of truths, new truths, truths that applied to their situations, to their lives. They were new paradigms replacing old paradigms that were suffocating them. Jesus was bringing to them a paradigm shift that would change everything for them. It was a great paradigm shift that rocked the world. What was that paradigm shift that rocked the world? What was the central paradigm given by Jesus to those unto whom he ministered? What was the new paradigm that transformed the lives of those who came into contact with Jesus? And would that be a paradigm that would still change the world today? The paradigm that was the centerpiece of the Jesus Experience was simply a major paradigm shift from God-estrangement to God-closeness. The paradigm centered on a new vision of Gods inclusive and unlimited love, Gods almost incomprehensible capacity to love, and the availability and accessibility of divine relationship. It was modeled by Jesus as The Way to live, with a God-focus, a God-centeredness, and a God-presence. All this was available to be received, and without the brokerage of any group, individual, or institution. And it rocked the world and lives of all those who encountered this Jesus Experience. Jesus started a real ministry. He understood the problems. He had a new vision. To grasp it, is to understand the new paradigms he was introducing. The Jesus Paradigm. Can we see it?