preacherman

Monday, July 25, 2011

Does Jesus understand, even when he didn't experience them?

Does Jesus really understand? Can Jesus know what it is like if he never experienced it? Does Jesus know what it is like to be married and have children? Does understand the emotions and challenges involved in life experiences that He himself never experienced? Does Jesus understand pain? The only physical pain mentioned in the gospels that Jesus experienced was for what maybe 2 days at the most? I heard one person say, "I don't want to hear Jesus understand's your pain when he only experienced a day or two of it on earth." I have heard others say, "Don't tell me Jesus understands my divorce when he wasn't ever married." Should and why didn't the gospels tell us more of what Jesus experienced on earth? Life experience? Yes the Hebrew writer tells us that Jesus was tempted in everyway just as we are yet was without sin? In everyway? Why didn't the gospels show or share other ways besides what they show in gospels in which Jesus was tempted? Why do the gospels only give us 3 temptation when it comes to Jesus? If more life experiences were shared in the gospels and if Jesus had experienced more life experiences would people relate to Him better? Easier? Would you? Can we say Jesus really understands in every situation? Why or why not? How does it make you feel that Jesus was limited in his life experience? What would you have liked the gospels to include? What do you wish Jesus would have experienced? Why? Is Jesus relevant to everyone and in every situation?

What do you think?
Share your thoughts?

32 Comments:

Anonymous Anonymous said...

FAITH

9:48 AM  
Blogger preacherman said...

Is FAITH ENOUGH?

10:00 AM  
Blogger preacherman said...

In saying that I mean do people use it to say well, I not going to question or think for myself? Is Faith just a cliche for those Christians who refuse to deal with questions that man in the world struggle with and deal with in life? Is Faith easy? Is Faith enough when people suffer and the gospels show us a very narrow, limited view of Jesus life experience?

10:03 AM  
Anonymous danny said...

Preacherman
Thanks for this post. I have a son that has stage 3 cancer. My wife lost her job a month after he was diagnosed. We have had constant stress in our marriage dealing with a sick son, our income, as I look at pain my little boy is in I grieve. I pray, and yes I ask the same questions. Why am I praying to a Jesus who never had a son, a sixk son of his own. Does he understand my pain as a father? He wasnt married, didnt need money. Limited. Yes. Jesus cant understand what I am going through as a father and husband. That frustrates me. I wush Jesus better understood my pain and trials. I think it would bee easier for nany including myaelf if Jesus would have experienced more suffering and pain and temptations that we could look back on. Yes I am sick of the so may "Christians" that offer up to us simple cliches. But I continue to pray for my boy. Hoping God will have mercy like the stories in the gospels.

10:41 AM  
Anonymous danny said...

Sorry for all the miss spelled words preacherman. I am on the Iphone.

10:55 AM  
Blogger preacherman said...

Danny,
I want you to know you, your son, marriage and monetary situation is in my prayers. I want to thank you for sharing life with us. I pray that your son finds healing, you find strength, and hope you need. The miss spelled words, no problem. I just hope your weren't posting while driving. :-)

11:02 AM  
Anonymous Steve said...

I wish the gospels would have given us more about Jesus. A prelude to his life before ministry. I don't believe the books that were thrown out that tell fantasy stories of Jesus. Like the story of Jesus killing a boy then bringing him back from death. I don't believe the stories about Jesus taking a nap while the tools and stuff going off in his dad's shop. I don't believe when he was a boy he made a bird out of clay and it flew away. Those aren't the stories that people care about. I think people want to know more ways in which Jesus was tempted. More of his humanity. Did he want to marry? Did he want to have a family? Did he have financial problems? Did he have other pain besides the cross? Was he tempted to cuss out his brothers? Talk back to his parents? Disobey?

12:53 PM  
Blogger marieclv said...

Yes, yes and yes again. God sent us his only son, that if we accept him as our personal Savior we will have eternal Life. Jesus is the rock of our salvation, he suffered everything that the world could put on him, just for us. He was the ultimate sacrifice, he would not have been chosen for the task if it were not so. "Great Topic"

Love you in Jesus Name.

5:46 PM  
Blogger kc bob said...

Sitting in an ICU room in Chicago watching my wife struggle to breathe so I understand the questions and sometimes ask them too. It is gut wrenching to experience this kind of pain.

Last week I penned a devotional titled "Do you want to be healed?". Please check it out and let me know what you think. I think that it may add to this conversation.

6:52 PM  
Anonymous Kevin said...

I wish the gospels would have showed us more of Jesus humanity. His trials. His struggles. All of his temptations or more then just the desert temptations. More pain that he experienced. Kansas Bob, I read your post and think maybe Jesus asked the question Do You Want To Be Healed not to see if the man wanted to be healed or his heart but maybe because of Jesus own lack of experience of pain. If Jesus experienced more pain, suffering he would have understood the logic of the question. It is hard to relate to a Jesus because of the limited view the gospels give us into his humanity.

8:56 AM  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

I think Jesus and the gospel writers should have shared more of his humanity with us. Easier to relate with Jesus had he or had we known more of the pain and suffering and temptations he had on a daily basis. Maybe they were afraid if they showed too much of His humanity then people wouldn't fail to see His divinity?

9:20 AM  
Blogger Martin Dean said...

I have a slightly different view... Humans attribute perfection to God. Perfection as we as limited humans understand it. God as perfection knows everything. Perfection by definition has no wants or needs, wants and needs imply a lack of something, lack negates perfection. Okay having said that, I believe God knows what we feel, how we feel, why we feel. God being perfect has no need to experience something in order to understand that thing, and being perfect He understands on a level we don't. It has nothing to do with him sending his son, that act was done for us to see, not so that God could gain knowledge about humanity and their struggle, remember God is perfection, perfection lacks nothing, you can't make perfection more perfect.

9:46 AM  
Blogger kc bob said...

Another thing that has crossed my mind over the years is that, in a sense, Jesus suffered his whole life. The scriptures tell us that he existed before he took on human form. I am not sure that anyone other than he knows what it was like for him to take on human form. In my thinking it would have been like one of us becoming an ant and living the life of an ant knowing that our real and true nature is human. Not a great analogy but one that might speak to the way that Christ suffered.

10:12 AM  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

I find it difficult to believe in Jesus do to the lack of human experience or His perfection. How can a perfection understand imperfection?

10:55 AM  
Blogger Somethin's Up said...

The question presupposes that Jesus had to experience what I experience in order to "understand". I think that is a bottomless pit. Would it not be the case that had Jesus the challenges of marriage that some would say, "Well, yeah, but he didn't experience my particular challenges!"

It seems to me that that line of thought invites constant challenges. If Jesus had been a crack addict he would not have known what it was like to be like me: a meth addict.

I suspect there CAN be a constant challenge to the sufferings of Jesus with a "yeah-but-that's-exactly-what-I experience." And, though I am not making this statement about any of the above comments, it might be possible that some would see that as a good thing.

Jesus cannot be like me because he only experienced a broken leg and all I've ever had is a broken arm. Since he never had a broken arm he doesn't understand my pain.

Having worked with a lot of addicts in my almost 40 years of ministry, I can tell you that is "addict logic". Well, since Jesus suffered like you maybe he's a help to you but Jesus can't possibly know my suffering since he never was addicted to the precise combination of drugs, in this or that order, that I do.(And that is often said with an accompanying yet unspoken: "Whew! Thank Goodness! Now I can blow him off!")

I think a better starting point is with the question that the New Testament poses in many ways: "Who is Jesus?"

We turn to Jesus, not because he has experienced suffering in precisely the way I have but because he is the "Word that was God and IS God."

We call him Lord not because he has experienced exactly what I have experienced (crack didn't exist in the 1st. c, right?) but because He is God made flesh.

And, no, I'm not addicted to crack, etc. just examples. Thanks! Great discussion!

11:18 AM  
Anonymous Becky said...

I don't understand all things about Jesus but I pray and trust.

12:29 PM  
Anonymous Outlaw Christian said...

I think the church has made Jesus irrelevant and seem out of touch. Jesus needs new PR.

12:33 PM  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

Preacherman
Great post and questions.

12:56 PM  
Blogger Irene said...

Jesus is part of the three persons in one God. Therefore, He is also God. He is just the one among the three who became human, but He is still God. And being God, he is Omnipotent, Omnipresent, and Omniscient. Omniscient is defined as having infinite awareness, understanding, and insight; possessed of universal or complete knowledge. I guess that explains why Jesus understands everything we are going through. He is an Omniscient God.

9:16 AM  
Anonymous Becky said...

Irene great point. I agree.

10:27 AM  
Anonymous Ben said...

I AGREE TOO IRENE. GREAT EXPLINATION.

12:09 PM  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

Faith is enough.

12:21 PM  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

I wish Jesus ould have suffered more and all gospels tells about it. I hope he felt every lash and nail.

1:18 PM  
Blogger Paul G said...

Probably you won't listen, but I'll say it anyway.
When my sons were little, at the beach we had a wonderful time all day long. At evening I said, 'ok boys; get in the car it's time to go home'.
They stamp the ground and said, "We don't want to go home". So I said to them, 'you can have it the easy way or the hard way.
The easy way is; being obedient and get in the car and we all drive home happily and joyfully.
The hard way is; I will discipline you, smack your bottom, put you in the car and drive home, with a painfully sore bottom and miserable, but we all will drive home'.

Any time afterward they did not want to obey me, I reminded them; which way it's going to be, THE EASY WAY, or THE HARD WAY?
After a couple times of pain and suffering, they became wise and always chose the easy way.
As a Father it's great to have wise and obedient sons, they are blessed and we are blessed, in fact the whole family is blessed.

In the Lord it is exactly the same.
He will cast you on a bed of suffering and cause you to suffer intensely, and He will strike your children dead unless you repent. Then all the churches will know that Jesus is the one who searches hearts and minds, and He will repay each of you according to your deeds.
He, who has an ear, let him hear what the Spirit says to the churches.

12:49 AM  
Blogger Paul G said...

Irene Cortez;
Blind Freddie can see that you are a polytheist, (meaning, that you believe in many gods) and the Jesus you believe is a false Jesus (2 Cor.11:4).
He certainly can not save you or heal anyone.
If you would have eyes to see, look in your local Hospital and see that the Jesus you believe does not have the potency to heal anyone of them.
It would be better to turn away from your false gods to the true God Jesus Christ of Nazareth and be saved.
Kind regards
Paul

12:55 AM  
Blogger preacherman said...

Kansas Bob,
I want you to know you and your family are in my thoughts and prayers. Thank you for sharing the pain you have experienced and are experience. Your faith and wisdom is inspiring.

9:37 AM  
Blogger preacherman said...

I want to thank everyone for joining in and adding to this discussion. Lets try to continue to respect everyone's views and opinions.

9:39 AM  
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