Who Is This Jesus?

Park Community Church is about to start its next series called “Who is this Jesus?,” where we will explore that question using the book of Luke as the basis for our Sunday message series. In preparation, I have been listening to a series by one of my favorite pastors, Mark Driscoll of Mars Hill church in Seattle, in a series they called “Vintage Jesus”. I love his blog, where he chronicles what many famous folks think of Jesus:

It seems that everyone has an opinion of Jesus. The following quotes are a smattering of what great figures in human history have said about Jesus:

• Mahatma Gandhi: “I cannot say that Jesus was uniquely divine. He was as much God as Krishna, or Rama, or Mohammed, or Zoroaster.”
• Adolf Hitler: “In boundless love as a Christian and as a man I read through the passage which tells us how the Lord at last rose in His might and seized the scourge to drive out of the Temple the brood of vipers and adders. How terrific was His fight for the world against the Jewish poison.”
• Larry King: “was once asked who he would most want to interview if he could choose anyone from all of history. He said, ‘Jesus Christ.’ The questioner said, ‘And what would you like to ask Him?’ King replied, I would like to ask Him if He was indeed virgin-born. The answer to that question would define history for me.’”
• John Lennon: “Christianity will go. It will vanish and shrink. I needn’t argue with that; I’m right and I will be proved right. We’re more popular than Jesus now; I don’t know which will go first—rock and roll or Christianity.”
• Carlos Mencia: “You know what, I became more Christian after I saw the movie [The Da Vinci Code] because, I, you know, as a Christian, I was like, you know, Jesus died for our sins he suffered. But now that I know that he’s married, I’m like, wow, did he really suffer. Poor guy.”
• Friedrich Nietzsche: “Jesus died too soon. If he had lived to my age he would have repudiated his doctrine.”
• Jean-Jacques Rousseau: “Socrates died like a philosopher; Jesus Christ died like a God.”
• Joseph Smith: “Mormonism is the pure doctrine of Jesus Christ; of which I myself am not ashamed.”
• Mark Twain: “If Christ were here now there is one thing he would not be—a Christian.”
• H. G. Wells: “I am a historian, I am not a believer, but I must confess as a historian that this penniless preacher from Nazareth is irrevocably the very center of history. Jesus Christ is easily the most dominant figure in all history.”
• Oprah Winfrey: “There couldn’t possibly be just one way . . .” [Lady in the audience: "What about Jesus?"] “What about Jesus? . . . Does God care about your heart or does God care about if you call his son Jesus?”
• Malcolm X: “All white people who have studied history and geography know that Christ was a black man. Only the poor, brainwashed American Negro has been made to believe that Christ was white, to maneuver him into worshiping the white man.”

Jesus is the central character in the history of the world and this series is going to challenging and enlightening as we explore who Jesus says he was. Please join us by subscribing to our podcast here or downloading message from our Sunday Messages download page here.