Seven principles from Jesus' interactions with the Pharisees: 1. Do not take questions at face value. 2. Choose the right setting for conflicts. 3. Use coded-language at the right times. 4. Shift the conversation. 5. Claim the moral high ground. 6. Challenge unqualified authority. 7. Expose logical absurdities.
Thank you, Jon. This is very helpful guidance, even for conversations with liberal Christians that compromise on doctrine. I'm getting so tired of the canned nonsense responses like "you don't know their heart" or "everyone is on their own journey" or "nobody is perfect" or "we aren't supposed to judge".
Good question from the audience about Jesus' ability being from his divinity or not... to me, part of our discernment is knowning when to 'be like Jesus' and when to let him be Jesus and we just be obedient. Jesus had 'miraculous' knowledge as to the hearts and intents of the audience as mentioned early in John's gospel about what Jesus "knew". We dont always know the motives and multiple drivers for people we confront as well as Jesus did (even if we have a pretty good probability of why or know it manifests as sin or not of God). We may be better at times to instruct (at least publically) with a more generic attack on mankind and human ideas as versus the individual (which is softened by some of the tactics in the points of this talk). And of course as apologists (unlike Christ) we often have a testimony of how we too had a log in our eye and can share that in our instruction.
The sermon on the mount was a deliberate deception. God doesn't liie; but as Isaiah wrote, the Messiah will speak in parables so people wpuld NOT understand. Christ hid the Gospel from the masses and it was to the disciples to proclain the good news.
Seven principles from Jesus' interactions with the Pharisees:
1. Do not take questions at face value.
2. Choose the right setting for conflicts.
3. Use coded-language at the right times.
4. Shift the conversation.
5. Claim the moral high ground.
6. Challenge unqualified authority.
7. Expose logical absurdities.
Thank you, Jon. This is very helpful guidance, even for conversations with liberal Christians that compromise on doctrine. I'm getting so tired of the canned nonsense responses like "you don't know their heart" or "everyone is on their own journey" or "nobody is perfect" or "we aren't supposed to judge".
This is very important. Today's Church needs every lesson it can get on the difference between gentleness and being gentled.
Great teacher
Dude, this is so useful. Thank you 🙏
I really enjoyed this episode
Great resource "Questions and Rhetoric in the Greek New Testament: An Essential Reference Resource for Exegesis"
Kindle Edition by Douglas Estes
True true true
Good question from the audience about Jesus' ability being from his divinity or not... to me, part of our discernment is knowning when to 'be like Jesus' and when to let him be Jesus and we just be obedient. Jesus had 'miraculous' knowledge as to the hearts and intents of the audience as mentioned early in John's gospel about what Jesus "knew". We dont always know the motives and multiple drivers for people we confront as well as Jesus did (even if we have a pretty good probability of why or know it manifests as sin or not of God). We may be better at times to instruct (at least publically) with a more generic attack on mankind and human ideas as versus the individual (which is softened by some of the tactics in the points of this talk). And of course as apologists (unlike Christ) we often have a testimony of how we too had a log in our eye and can share that in our instruction.
Political enemies. Spiritual enemies? Be like Jesus. Are we Jesus?
The sermon on the mount was a deliberate deception. God doesn't liie; but as Isaiah wrote, the Messiah will speak in parables so people wpuld NOT understand. Christ hid the Gospel from the masses and it was to the disciples to proclain the good news.