What Jesus Meant

Garry Wills is an excellent writer and I've enjoyed his work. I was very excited to read What Jesus Meant following the reading of What Paul Meant. Unfortunetly, I didn't find anything new.Honestly, Jesus came across as a troublemaker and a smart alec, and not very appealing. In this book, he is the first "woke" radical shamer. One thing to glean is that race meant nothing to him. He would be appalled at the current weaponization of race to divide, at this time in our history--although he witnessed divide among Jews and Samaritans. He was clear that God played no favorites. What you do to others, you do to Jesus himself, no matter who you are politically, or what you believe to be social justice. One can read back in time and see that there was never social justice.Jesus' message to us is that God the Father is the the only Judge. Not you, not me. His message is love your neighbor as yourself. Just as Paul preached, 2 decades after Jesus' death, love is the only answer.

The message moved me deeply, a Catholic for 75 years now. The author is also a Catholic, but would certainly not be welcome at the next meeting of the College of Cardinals. All religion , he says, is now big business, and the rule is "business as usual" in all cases. Masked by random acts of good will, the religions today have no use for the Kingdom Jesus brought us, His being a kingdom of the heart with no pope to raise his hands to mobs, no priests who we have to call father in spite of Jesus saying "call no man father", no black-robed nuns to terrify children, no bishops with rings to be kiss, no little boys to be abused, and no vast wealth accumulated through intimidating the poor. Just the heart.

I greatly enjoyed reading this well crafted book about the mission of Jesus and the resulting religions that emerged. The author exposes the errors of religious leaders, in their hunger for command and control of the growing movement that was preached as The Way to atonement with God, by the first Apostles. Mr. Wills carefully presents a serious and insightful interpretation of what and why Jesus said, and what the deeper meanings are.Although he arrives at the same intellectual conclusions that most traditional Christian thinkers have, his journey is well worth reading and sharing, so I gave it 5 stars! Every sincere aspirant to what Christ really means should read this.@WLIngramAuthor

This is an excellent book which clearly presents Jesus as one who challenges the ways in which we all complacently go with the flow of our self-centered culture. Wills is very perceptive about what Jesus was truly about and the ways in which all Christian traditions have distorted and tamed his radical message of self-giving love to suit the personal aspirations of both leaders and lay members.. Luther and Calvin said that the church must be continually reformed by he Word of God.

This book is not exactly what I expected - I guess I expected an interpretation of Jesus' words as they fit into modern social and political topics (i.e., what would Jesus say about the abortion debate, or global warming, or Obamacare). The author wisely avoids such contentious topics though, instead getting deeper into Jesus' personality and teachings. I think none of his theses are new, but they are compiled in such a way as to paint a picture of Jesus that we may not be entirely familiar with, even though it is clearly described in the gospels.Citing many scriptural quotes from Christ himself, Wills shows us the more radical side of Jesus... the Jesus that confounded the Pharisees, broke orthodox religious laws, overturned the money changers' tables, ministered to the "unclean" and died a horrible death on the cross, rejected and despised, even while he prayed for those who killed him. I don't mean to suggest that Wills depicts Jesus negatively... quite the opposite in fact. Wills seems to suggest that we have built up a mental image of Christ, dressed in white robes and surrounded by lambs and children, but that this vignette glosses over many of the important details about him which we tend to forget.For me to review this book beyond what I have already written would be to do it a disservice, as I lack the words to adequately describe Wills depiction of Jesus. I give it 4 stars instead of 5 only because Wills writing style is a little bit obscure sometimes and I found myself re-reading passages occasionally because my brain couldn't latch on to his point the first time around. This is probably more my failing than Wills'.

This book is well crafted, somewhat academic, and gets to the point. Though Professor Wills is a practicing Catholic as far as I know, he takes great pains to stay away from jargon or a point of view that you would associate exclusively with Catholicism. He actually goes so far as to show the Catholic Church and perhaps all organized religion as having strayed quite far from Jesus's core teachings. There is a a lot to chew on here. I liked this book a lot.

I was not certain what I was getting when I ordered this book. Was it going to be hostile to believers. Was it going to present a strange view of Jesus' message. It is a well crafted, well studied, easily understood look at the era of Jesus's life and review of what he said. I was very pleased to have read it. I can recommend this to believing friends and know they will not be offended and will probably deepen their faith or help them examine what it is they believe and why. It may offend some who are looking for easy answers to the mysteries of faith but for searchers, those who recognize Christianity was never meant to be an easy way to God, or for those who like myself have rejected the notion of Christianity this book offers many challenges and some answers as well.

This got me over my cognitive dissonance from going to university and doing biblical studies as a bible believing evangelical christian. Basically it is full of examples that cause people problems and he explains them in a way that for me left room for faith. He emphasises what the biblcal texts mean rather than prove.it is a bit marcus borg but with less of a conspiratorial feel about it

I have so enjoyed this book as it challenged me to move out into the world of Jesus. The church can be so narrow and inward looking the call of this book is to live and die in love - divine love.

Clear, understandable and thought provoking. The author cuts through all the edifice that the church has built up around Jesus and helps the reader examine his teachings as they are, unadorned and in context of the culture at the time.

A much needed recentring of Jesus' teachings.