Christianity

1. Christianity

2. JESUS CHRIST IS LORD Let all that you do be done in love. -I Corinthians 16:14 I believe in God the Father Almighty. And in Jesus Christ, his only Son, our Lord, Who was born by the Holy Spirit , of the Virgin Mary, was crucified under Pontius Pilate, and was buried. The third day he rose from the dead, He ascended into heaven and sits on the right hand of the Father; From there he will come to judge the living and the dead. And in the Holy Spirit, the Holy Church, the forgiveness of sins, the resurrection of the body. -Roman Creed I looked upon all the world as my parish; that in whatever part of it I am, I judge it meet, right and my duty to declare unto all that are willing to hear, the glad tidings of salvation. -John Wesley God does not occupy an Olympian fastness, remote from us. God has this deep, deep solidarity with us. God became a human being, a baby. God was hunger. God was tired, God suffered and died. God is there with us. -Desmond Tuto of South Africa

3. OUTLINE: • THE JEWISH JESUS: CONTEXT FOR THE DISCUSSION • WHAT DO JEWS BELIEVE ABOUT JESUS? • TRADITION AND THE DEVELOPMENT OF DOCTRINE • THE HISTORICAL JESUS IN EARLIEST CHRISTIANITY: • WHO DO YOU SAY I AM? • NEW TESTAMENT VIEWS OF JESUS: THE GOSPELS

4. Gospels • The gospels are edited versions of the story designed to make a point. • We know very little about Jesus' actual life. • He was baptized by John, began his ministry in Galilee, and focused all his preaching and teaching on the Kingdom of God. • He had a well-deserved reputation as an exorcist and healer, and attracted attention because of it. • He gathered a group of disciples around him, without regard for sex, status, or background, and celebrated their unity through the sharing of meals. • He set himself and his followers at odds with the more sectarian, excommunicating mentality and practice of contemporary Judaism. • Opposition to him reached a climax during a Passover celebration in Jerusalem, when he was arrested, tried, and crucified. • The one who proclaimed the Kingdom in his lifetime is himself proclaimed after his resurrection. God's final redemptive act has been exercised in and through the risen Lord. • Faith in the resurrection is at the center of the New Testament's witness to Jesus Christ.

5. THE 'Q' SOURCE This is a rather ghostly source postulated by scholars: The tone of Q is clear: Jesus challenged the religious establishment, suffering for his holy mission, and triumphed through the Resurrection. The Q community conceives of Jesus as the enfleshment of God's wisdom, its dramatic coming into history.

6. MARK • The Gospel of MARK probably came into something close to its present form about 70 CE. • Two themes dominate this gospel: Who is Jesus and what it means to be a disciple of Jesus. • Jesus is both a suffering Messiah and the Son of God--blessed by God--whose final reality is as full of power and glory as the Son of man depicted by Daniel. He is the fusion of suffering and glory.

7. MATTHEW • Matthew was written later than both Q and Mark, probably about 85 CE. From its themes we can infer that Matthew's community was composed mainly of Jewish Christians and that Antioch in Syria may have been the center of Matthew's community. It has a strongly Jewish flavor. • The gospel is carefully structured into five main parts, each concluded with a "wrap-up" section, e.g., 7:28-29. Matthew presents Jesus as the authoritative NEW TEACHER who succeeds Moses as the main interpreter of Torah. Jesus is the fulfillment of Jewish prophecy. Sections: • Chapters 3-7 • Chapters 8-10 • Chapters 11-13 • Chapters 14-18 • Chapters 19-25 -- the new five books or Christian Pentateuch

8. LUKE-ACTS Scholars currently believe that Luke probably arose about the same time as Matthew (about 85 CE) from a Gentile church possibly Antioch in Syria or someplace in Asia Minor (Turkey). Luke's outline is rather clear: • Prologue 1:1-4 • Infancy 1:5-2:52 • Preparation for Ministry 3:1-4:13 • Jesus in Galilee 4:14-9:50 • Jerusalem Journey 9:51-19:27 • Ministry in Jerusalem 19:28-21:38 • Passion21:1-23:56a • Resurrection 23:56b-24:53 The Acts of the Apostles continues the Lukan development of Christology. LUKE SEES JESUS NOT ONLY AS THE CLIMAX OF GOD'S ACTIVITY IN ISRAEL BUT AS THE VERY CENTER OF SALVATION-HISTORY ITSELF

9. JOHN • A rough date for the gospel of John is about 90 C.E. The Johannine Epistles are even later. Both draw on traditions different from Q and the Synoptics. A popular hypothesis is that the Johannine churches centered in Ephesus and were the products of a rather complicated development among Jewish Christians, originally from Palestine, and Gentile converts, perhaps from the Ephesus area. • The Christology of John's gospel may be the highest in the New Testament. John pictures Jesus as the preexistent Word. he exists before creation. John goes beyond this notion by introducing the preexistence motif into Jesus' own statements (8:58; 17:15).

10. PAUL In the sixth decade of the first century C.E., Paul wrote a number of letters to young Christian churches. Paul's conversion experience fashions his theological understanding of Jesus. The resurrected Christ is one with his Church; to persecute the Church is to persecute him. Paul develops the notion of the body of Christ.

11. THE GOSPELS: A REFLECTION ON EXPERIENCE • He Went About Doing Good • Never Spoke Anyone In This Way • We Have Seen His Glory

12. THE END AND THE BEGINNING: POST-BIBLICAL DEVELOPMENT • THE GOOD NEWS • THE MYSTICAL BODY OF CHRIST • THE MIND OF THE CHURCH

13. The Nicene Creed: • We believe in one God the Father Almighty.... • and in one Lord Jesus Christ, the only-begotten Son of God... • and in the Holy Spirit, the Lord and giver of life... • who with the Father and the Son together is worshipped and glorified.

14. POST-BIBLICAL THEOLOGICAL DEVELOPMENT • Adoptionism: General term for views which look upon Jesus Christ as the purely human, "adopted" son of God. • School of ALEXANDRIA: Theological and catechetical center of Egypt, from the end of the second century, which emphasized the divinity of Christ (Clement, Origen) • School of ANTIOCH: Theological and catechetical center in Syria, from the end of the second century, which emphasized the humanity of Jesus (Arius, Theodore of Mopsuestia, John Chrysostom). • Arianism: The heresy, condemned by the council of Nicea (325) which made the son of God the highest of creatures, greater than we but less than God. • Chalcedon: The city if Asia Minor where in 451 the fourth ecumenical council was held in which it was defined that Jesus Christ is true God and true man, and that his divine and human natures are united in one divine person, without confusion, change, division, or separation. • Docetism: A view which held that Christ only "seemed' to have a human body. • Ephesus: A city in Asia Minor where the third ecumenical council was held in 431. It condemned Nestorianism and held that Mary is truly the Mother of God (theotokos). • Filioque: Literally "and from the Son." this word was added to the council of Nicea-Constantinople at the end of the 7th Century, contending that the Holy Spirit proceeds from the Father and the Son as from a single principle. It was opposed by the Greek church, which preferred the term "per Filium" to emphasize the primacy of God the Father in the work of salvation. • HOMOOUSIOS: Literally, "of the same substance." Used in the teaching of the early Christological councils, especially Nicea, to affirm that the Father and the Logos are of the same substance, or nature. Jesus is thus truly divine. • Hypostatic Union: The word hypostasis refers to the person of the Logos. This union is a permanent union of divine and human natures in the one divine Person of the Word in Jesus Christ. • Logos: The Word of God, the Second Person of the Trinity, who became flesh in the incarnation. • Monophysitism: The teaching, condemned by the Council of Chalcedon (451), that the human nature of Christ was totally absorbed by the divine nature. An expression of the Alexandrian School, it empathized the divinity of Christ. • Nestorianism: The teaching, condemned by the council of Ephesus (431), that posited two separate persons in Jesus Christ, the one human and the other divine. Therefore, Mary was the mother of the human Jesus only. As an extension of the Antioch School, it emphasized the humanity of Christ. • Nicea: The city in Asia Minor where in 325 the first ecumenical council was held to condemn Arianism. • Soteriology: Literally, "the study of salvation." It is that area of theology which focuses on the passion, death, resurrection, and exaltation of Christ insofar as they bring about our salvation. • Subordinationism: A second- and third-century heresy which held that the Son and the Holy Spirit are less than the Father because they proceed from the Father. Therefore, the Son and the Spirit are not fully divine. • THEOTOKOS: Literally, "the Bearer of God." The title given to Mary at the Council of Ephesus (431), which taught that there is one divine person in Jesus Christ, not two as the Nestorians argued. Mary is truly the Mother of God and not only the mother of the human Jesus.

15. The Beatitudes: Design for Discipleship Matthew 5:3-12 Seeing the crowds, Jesus went up the hill. There he sat down. His disciples gathered around him, and he began to teach them. • Happy are they who know they are spiritually poor, the Kingdom of heaven belongs to them! • Happy those who mourn: God will comfort them! • Happy are those who are humble; they will receive what God has promised. • Happy are they whose greatest desire is to do what God required; God will satisfy them fully. • Happy are those who are merciful to others; God will be merciful to them. • Happy are the pure in heart; they will see God. • Happy are those who work for peace; God will call them his children. • Happy are those who are persecuted because they do what God requires; the Kingdom of heaven belongs to them. • Happy are you when people insult you and persecute you and tell all kinds of evil lies against you because you are my followers. Be happy and glad, for a great reward is kept for you in heaven. This is how the prophets who lived before you were persecuted.