New Testament writers had a wonderful way of using few words to speak great volumes. I am not sure they would have been too popular with today's book publishers or other media channels, because single paragraph books really don't spin the tills.
It has taken me half a lifetime to get a basic grasp of what Paul taught, because he refused to elaborate. He would sometimes reduce significant truth to a paragraph, but Jesus was even more elegant.
It was Jesus who simply stated, "if you will not eat my flesh or drink my blood, you will have no part of me". If I blogged anything like that you would cast a few bricks my way, banish me to Siberia and then delete my URL. Yet He offered no clarification, not even when a substantial part of His support base walked away.
As a king he had no need to explain Himself, but as the son of God there just was nothing to explain. God is. That is not an opinion, it is a statement that will defend itself though history, even when there is not one supporter left standing. It matters not what I have to say about it all: heaven and earth will pass away before one, just one, single utterance of God fails.
Jesus also reduced the entire law of Moses to a sentence. I am reminded of a philosophy test that asked, "if this is a question answer it", to which one wise-guy replied, "if this is an answer, mark it". The difference though, is that in Jesus' case, He effectively stated, "this is truth, do it". One small sentence captured the spirit and essence of the entire Mosaic law when He said, "Love the Lord your God and do unto others what you would have them do unto you".
Wow, if you were a student of the law, you would have got by, not through extended study or careful summations, but through your ability to recall that one, single sentence. Well actually, quoting the sentence would have got you 1 mark, whilst your grasp of its significance would have accounted for the other 99.
It was John, in 1 John 5:2, who made one of the most telling statements, when He reduced the totality of the New Testament to a similar yet infinitely elegant equation. Having spent time in the intimate presence of Jesus, he was best qualified to say, "No its not about your much studying (Paul rightly argued that such would make one made), nor is about your institutions or dogmas or doctrines or concepts or bright ideas or original thoughts." Just about anything that we regard as so important pails into insignificance when it comes to Jesus. Thus John aptly stated, "He who has the Son has eternal life, but He who does not obey the Son of God, will not see life: for the wrath of God remains on Him."
All He grasped was what Abel once grasped when, without so much as a word, He brought back to God all that God had once entrusted to Him. He brought none of His sweat capital or original thought, no impressive rereferences or higher debates. He simply offered a lamb to God ... because he had acquired enough of a sense of God's heart to know that was all that God wanted him to bring.
I say again, as I have said a few times of late ... the battle lines are forming around the one and only name given amongst men whereby all might be saved. There is no higher name. At His name, angels and devils, slaves and kings, the bond and free, male and female, Jew and Scyhthian, will all bow their knees. The coming struggle will reduce to one, simple, elegant equation - "what have you done with the son of God?"
(c) Peter Eleazar @ http://www.4u2live.net/
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