Jesus has been a profound embarrassment to Christianity.

For the best part of two thousand years, Christian churches have produced neat statements and triumphant declarations, setting out their views of the world in finely structured formats. Often, they have forced others to accept these beliefs, bullying, bribing, beating and burning people who disagreed.

They have justified this behaviour in the name of Jesus. At times, they have discouraged people from opening the New Testament and reading the words of Jesus for themselves. Jesus’ teachings are challenging, provocative and awkward. They don’t fit into neat categories and well-structured theories, whether liberal or conservative, Catholic or Protestant. In the pages of the Bible, you can find a Jesus who socialised with outcasts, criticised the rich and powerful, broke the sexual conventions of his day, was rude to his own mother and was a frequent cause of confusion even to his followers. He almost never gave a direct answer to a question, often answering with another question and coming at issues sideways on.

Jesus’ teachings were designed to make people think, not to shut down thinking; to encourage questions, not to provide every answer; to challenge basic assumptions and to encourage his listeners to look differently at their lives and how they related to others.

There are at least a few church leaders who would find Christianity much easier without Jesus. He’s like a socially awkward guest at a respectable dinner party, making people feel uncomfortable but too important to be asked to leave.

I write as a Christian who accepts most standard Christian doctrine. I believe in Jesus’ divinity and I have faith that he rose bodily from the dead after his execution.

I don’t know whether you believe these things and, on one level, I am not too bothered. That’s because I want to discuss the teachings of Jesus.

Jesus spoke with people in the midst of their everyday lives. He talked about their concerns: food, friendship, money, marriage, love, work, morality and prejudice. He lived in a culture vastly different to our own in many ways, but in which people experienced many of the same emotions, doubts, conflicts and struggles that are part of our own lives. Today, people who might have a very polarised argument about whether Jesus is the son of God can have a much more productive discussion about the content of his teachings.

This book is based on the conviction that Jesus’ teachings can still speak to people from all walks of life, regardless of whether they are religious or whether they have academic training.

Of course, we have a great deal to learn from academics, particularly those who can tell us about the historical background and the culture in which Jesus taught. But the Bible does not belong to scholars, just as it does not belong to clergy or even to Christians. It is up to you to decide how to take on board what you have read and – if you want to do so – how to apply it in your own life.

What makes this book different is that it looks at Jesus’ teachings by beginning with the insights of people reading them for the first time. These can come as a shock to people who are used to hearing the passages in church and who assume that a particular interpretation is the ‘obvious’ or ‘common sense’ one.

This is a book for Christians and non-Christians, as well as those who are unsure of their views and feelings about Christianity. It can be read by those who know nothing of Jesus’ teachings and those who want a fresh way of looking at them.

WORSHIPPED BUT NOT FOLLOWED

Given the power of Christianity over the last seventeen hundred years, it’s perhaps surprising how little attention is given to Jesus’ teachings. Take the so-called ‘Apostles’ Creed’, used by many churches as a summary of basic Christian belief. It includes these words:

This creed is remarkable, not so much for what it says as for what it misses out. Christian theologian Stuart Murray says, ‘I believe that Jesus was born of the Virgin Mary and I believe he suffered under Pontius Pilate, but didn’t something happen in between?’¹

Indeed it did. Jesus’ teachings, not to mention most of his actions, are left out of the Christian creeds. It is in many ways much easier to talk about obtuse doctrines concerning Jesus’ relationship with God than to address the thorny questions of Jesus’ comments on power, poverty, wealth and women. This tendency continues. I recently came across a ‘beginner’s guide’ to Christianity, written by a leading British theologian. It has thirteen chapters. The teachings of Jesus do not appear as a topic until Chapter Twelve.²

As Stuart Murray rightly puts it, for much of Christian history Jesus has been ‘worshipped but not followed’.³

In the light of this, there are three ways in which this book approaches Jesus ‘upside-down’:

• Jesus’ words and actions have been neglected as churches discuss Christianity in terms of abstract doctrine. The ‘upside-down’ approach begins where Jesus’ first listeners began: with his words.
• For seventeen hundred years, Churches have been at the centre of wealth and power. Interpretations that uphold the status quo, or at least do nothing to challenge it, have become the norm. Reading ‘upside-down’ means recognising that Jesus mixed with poor people and outcasts and that his teachings challenged power and dominant values.
• It is often assumed that Christians who have heard the Bible read in church for years are the best placed to comment on it. I have taken an ‘upside-down’ approach by showing some of Jesus’ teachings to non-Christians who are reading them for the first time. They have not heard sermons about them and can come to them with fresher eyes than regular readers.

I’M BIASED – AND SO ARE YOU

We all come to the Bible with preconceptions, whether or not we have read it before. There are no unbiased readers; there are those who acknowledge their biases and those who do not. The dominant views and values of any culture often seem obvious and self-evident to those who have never questioned them. Those of us who believe that Jesus sided with the poor are accused of bias, but for centuries influential writers and clerics have insisted that Jesus did not challenge political or economic systems. In effect, they are arguing that Jesus sided with the rich. But they are not acknowledging this.

This is not to say that we should just believe what we like and not worry about the evidence. Attempts to get to the truth are worthwhile, even if the truth is not what we would like it to be. While doing this, however, let’s acknowledge our motives and our viewpoints – as well as recognising that we may have preconceptions of which we are not even aware.

We can all be challenged by other people’s insights. In particular, those of us who are used to hearing the Bible in church can learn a lot from people approaching it for the first time. At the UK’s Bisexual Convention (BiCon) in 2014, I ran a session called ‘What does the Bible really say about sex?’. I was both delighted and surprised by the turnout. The room was full. Most of these people were not Christians. Some had never opened a Bible in their lives, or not since school. As bisexuals, many of them had very negative experiences of Christians who condemned them and sometimes told them they were going to hell. In that room, I felt a genuine eagerness to discover what the Bible really says.

The discussion got lively as we explored Jesus’ comments on sex. In particular, we looked at what Jesus said about men who look at women with sexual desire. Some in the room found Jesus’ comments liberating. Others were much more critical. Several people made observations that would never have occurred to me. (We’ll be exploring the same passage in Chapter 8.)

Jesus had a great deal to say about money. Non-Christians naturally respond to Jesus’ stories about money by talking about money. It may seem odd to say that Christians rarely do. They have spent years listening to sermons which suggest that when Jesus talked about money it was only a metaphor for something else. Jesus told a story about a wage dispute, but if you hear it mentioned in church, the chances are that you will be told it is a story about the grace of God. First-time readers from non-Christian backgrounds, on the other hand, respond by talking about wages. Like Jesus’ original listeners, they are more concerned with the everyday necessities of life than with doctrines about the nature of God. (We will look at this passage in Chapter 4.)

On several occasions, Jesus referred to people who do not have enough to eat. If you have been in this situation yourself, it will affect how you relate to his words. If you have not, then however much you may sympathise with those who have been there, it is difficult, if not impossible, to imagine what it is like. Jesus’ teachings about race and prejudice may trigger different responses from people who have been on the receiving end of racial abuse than from those who have not (more on this in Chapter 13). If I ask Christians about Jesus’ positive comments about sex workers, they tend to assume that he is praising people who have given up sex work. I had a very different reaction when showing the same passage to sex workers (as we will see in Chapter 11).

In researching this book, I shared passages of Jesus’ teachings with dozens of people who had never previously read them. On some occasions, this was in workshops and conferences. I also found volunteers on social media and sought out people with experiences and backgrounds relevant to the passages in question. They include Jews and Muslims along with members of other faiths, atheists, agnostics, some who are unsure of their religious views and a few who have recently come to Christianity.

I do not for a moment claim that these people are a representative sample of the British population. They do not represent anyone but themselves. The Jews, for example, are of course influenced by their own faith but I do not claim that all Jews would react in the same way. This is equally true for the Muslims, Pagans, atheists and so on.

When I say that these people were new to Jesus’ teachings, I do not mean that they knew nothing at all about Jesus. Most people in Britain are taught something about Jesus at school, although it may be minimal and they might not remember much of it. Christian imagery and ideas are still very present in British culture.

For over a thousand years, Christianity was a dominant political, cultural and economic force in Britain. This situation is sometimes described as ‘Christendom’. The word, at least in this sense, is used to describe a set-up in which Christianity is at the centre of politics and culture, and the dominant values are seen as Christian ones. Christianity’s prominence in Britain, and much of Europe, has waned gradually over the last century or so. We are now in ‘Post-Christendom’, as Christian institutions decline in influence and as Christianity becomes less central to the country’s identity.

One result of this is that far fewer people are familiar with the Bible and with what it has to say about Jesus’ life. Despite this, Christian imagery lives on in British culture: almost everyone has heard the phrase ‘Good Samaritan’, even if they are not clear that it derives from a story told by Jesus (see Chapter 13). When I showed non-Christians a passage from the Bible about Jesus’ teachings on marriage, several assumed that Jesus opposed sex outside marriage. He did not say this in the passage, although it’s a possible interpretation of it. However, the readers knew that many Christians oppose sex before marriage and they assumed that Jesus would too. This is a great example of how readers’ preconceptions can be shaped more by Christians than by Jesus. (We will explore this passage in Chapter 10.)

The observations of new readers are a starting point, a springboard for discussion. If you are new to Jesus’ teachings yourself, you may want to consider which if any of the new readers’ reactions are similar to your own. If you are familiar with Jesus, I hope these comments will provide new angles to approach the passage in question.

At this point, some will object. They will say that those with no knowledge of Jesus’ historical and cultural background cannot possibly comment on his teachings. I think there is a valid point buried within this comment: Jesus’ culture was very different to our own and we will understand his teachings better if we take this into account. While each chapter of this book begins with comments by first-time readers, it then goes on to explore Jesus’ background and to mention what scholars have said about the passage in question.

However, Jesus’ teachings continue to inspire people precisely because they relate to such common concerns as money, sex and violence. To take some of the examples that appear in this book: people alienated by religion, victims of violence, political activists, sex workers and people struggling to make ends meet probably have more in common with Jesus’ original listeners than many scholars and clergy (meaning no offence to scholars and clergy!).

To put it in academic terms, we are looking at Jesus’ teachings from three angles: the context of the reader, the text itself and the context in which it was written.

HOW TO USE THIS BOOK

You may be asking how we can know anything about Jesus at all. Did he really teach what the Bible says he did? Or only some of it? How do we know which parts are accurate? Did Jesus even exist?

Chapter 2 provides a brief exploration of these questions. For readers unfamiliar with Jesus or the Christian Bible, it explains a bit more about the New Testament and where Jesus’ teachings can be found.

While there is no need to read this book in order, if you are unused to reading about Jesus it may be helpful to read Chapter 2 before the rest.

Most of the book is split into three themes that can be found in Jesus’ teachings and that also concern many people today: Money, Sex and Violence. The themes are approximate, as many of Jesus’ comments naturally cover several subjects. Each theme is divided into chapters, each based around a passage from Jesus’ teachings.

This is not intended as a systematic introduction to Jesus’ ideas. It is a chance to explore several of his teachings in an open-ended way. Selecting the passages has been tough, but I have tried to choose some that illustrate common themes in Jesus’ teaching as well as others that are particularly relevant to controversies in our own society.

Each chapter includes these elements:

• The text of the passage (so you don’t need a Bible to hand).
• Questions about your initial reactions and feelings.
• Insights from people reading the passage for the first time.
• A reflection on various interpretations, quoting scholars when appropriate.
• Questions about your thoughts and conclusions based on what you have read so far.

There are several ways you can use this book:

• You can read it through in order.
• You can pick out sections you are particularly interested in.
• You can read it through reflectively, perhaps taking a different section each day or each week and giving yourself time to consider the questions in detail.
• You can use it in group discussion, either working through the book or selecting the sections that seem most relevant to the group.

This book is not designed to tell you what to think. As you will realise by now, I do not claim to be unbiased. I have, for example, given more prominence to interpretations that illustrate Jesus’ concern with the poor and marginalised than those that do not. This can only go a very small way towards balancing the tendency of certain others to do the opposite. But I never give only one interpretation. The book is an invitation to debate. Whatever else Jesus appealed to people to do, he encouraged them to think.

NOTES

¹ Stuart Murray, speaking on the Workshop course, London, 2008.

² Keith Ward, Christianity: A Beginner’s Guide (Oneworld Publications, 2007).

³ Stuart Murray, The Naked Anabaptist: The Bare Essentials of a Radical Faith (Authentic Publishing, 2010).