Jesus History Quotes & Sayings

Sometimes God takes his time: One hundred twenty years to prepare Noah for the flood, eighty years to prepare Moses for his work. God called young David to be king but returned him to the sheep pasture. He called Paul to be an apostle and then isolated him in Arabia for perhaps three years. Jesus was on the earth for three decades before he built anything more than a kitchen table. How long will God take with you? He may take his time. His history is redeemed not in minutes but in lifetimes. — Max Lucado

I am so profoundly grateful for the gospel of Jesus Christ, for a testimony of the Atonement of the Savior. I believe in it with all my heart, and I live for it, and I bear witness of it this day. Of all of the events of human history, none other approaches the Atonement of the Savior in its meaning and in its results. God be thanked for the gift of His precious Son, to whom we all owe thanks for His sacrifice in our behalf. — Gordon B. Hinckley

We can study the whole history of salvation, we can study the whole of Theology, but without the Spirit we cannot understand. It is the Spirit that makes us realize the truth or - in the words of Our Lord - it is the Spirit that makes us know the voice of Jesus. — Pope Francis

God made Himself totally a man but a man to the point of infamy, a man to the point of reprobation and the abyss. To save us, He could have chosen *any* of the destinies which make up the complex web of history; He could have been Alexander or Pythagoras or Rurik or Jesus; He chose the vilest destiny of all: He was Judas. — Jorge Luis Borges

The whole of history since the ascension of Jesus into heaven is concerned with one work only: the building and perfecting of this City of God. — Augustine Of Hippo

No time in history has the Church of Jesus Christ gone down! — Loren Cunningham

Once people get hung up on theology, they've lost sanity forever. More people have been killed in the name of Jesus Christ than any other name in the history of the world. — Gore Vidal

Jesus stands absolutely alone in history; in teaching, in example, in character, an exception, a marvel, and He is Himself the evidence of Christianity. — Arthur Tappan Pierson

The task of the Church, I suggest, is not to determine which is the theory of the atonement, or which theory of the atonement has pride of place among others. Rather, following Thomas (who stands clearly in line with the majority position of the history of theology), we ought to witness to the fittingness of the atonement: to demonstrate how the death and resurrection of Jesus Christ brings together a wide array of benefits for the sake of the reconciliation of all things to God, that we might have as full an understanding as possible of the work God accomplished in Christ. — Adam J. Johnson

Like every man who appears at an epoch which is historical and rendered famous by his works, Jesus Christ has a history, a history which the church and the world possess, and which, surrounded by countless memorials, has at least the same authenticity as any other history formed in the same countries, amidst the same peoples and in the same times. As, then, if I would study the lives of Brutus and Cassius, I should calmly open Plutarch, I open the Gospel to study Jesus Christ, and I do so with the same composure. — Jean-Baptiste Henri Lacordaire

True holy war in human history has ceased because Jesus has fought its last episode on the cross. — Karen H. Jobes

Apologetic explanations do not develop unless there is a reality that has to be explained and defended. Jesus was undeniably a figure of history. — John Shelby Spong

Jesus won the war, and the rest of history is simply mopping up. — Carolyn Custis James

God our Father and His Son Jesus Christ, with Their perfect foreknowledge, already recommended every one of you to fill your mortal probation during the most decisive period in the history of the world. — Sheri L. Dew

My spiritual history must have as its underlying foundation a personal knowledge of Jesus Christ. To be born again means that I see Jesus. — Oswald Chambers

The history of the kingdom of God is, directly, one of a reunion. The total divine milieu is formed by the incorporation of every elected spirit in Jesus Christ. — Pierre Teilhard De Chardin

If Christianity is true, this changes EVERYTHING. Christ's very last words to us in scripture were: "Behold, I make all things new." (Rev. 21:5) I hope you remember that most moving line in the most moving movie ever made, The Passion Of The Christ, when Christ turns to His mother on the way to Calvary, explaining the need for the Cross and the blood and the agony: "See, Mother, I make all things new." I hope you remember that line with your tear ducts, which connect to the heart, as well as with your ears, which connect to the brain. Christ changed every human being he ever met. In fact, He changed history, splitting it open like a coconut and inserting eternity into the split between B.C. and A.D. If anyone claims to have met Him without being changed, he has not met Him at all. When you touch Him, you touch lightning. — Peter Kreeft

Jesus did not pay the penalty for our misdeeds so we can continue disobeying God with abandon; rather, in dying on the cross, Jesus not only canceled our spiritual debt but also cured our spiritual disease. When we put our trust in Christ, He forgives our sins and also begins the work of changing us from the inside to become holy and loving like Him, and like God our Father. Jesus does this through the Holy Spirit, whom He sent. Salvation by grace does not mean we stay impure sinners forever. Rather, it means that God forgives all our sins and does for us what we cannot do for ourselves by paying the penalty for our sins and working to eliminate sin from our lives. He does this in two stages: while we are mortal, the Holy Spirit changes our hearts so that we begin to live in a way that is more pleasing to God, even though we still commit sin; and then in the resurrection at the end of history, we will be made morally and spiritually perfect beings. — Nabeel Qureshi

We save the honor of Jesus when we restore His Person to life from the state of inanity to which the apologists have reduced it, and give it once more a living relation to history, which it certainly possessed. — Bruno Bauer

The three greatest fools of History have been Jesus Christ, Don Quixote ... and me! — Simon Bolivar

The common depiction of Jesus as an inveterate peacemaker who "loved his enemies" and "turned the other cheek" has been built mostly on his portrayal as an apolitical preacher with no interest in or, for that matter, knowledge of politically turbulent world in which he lived. That picture of Jesus has already been shown to be complete fabrication. The Jesus of history had a far more complex attitude toward violence. There is no evidence that Jesus himself openly advocated violent actions. But he was certainly no pacifist. "Do not think that I have come to bring peace on earth. I have not come to bring peace, but sword" (Matthew 10:34 / Luke 12:51) — Reza Aslan

That Jesus of Nazareth died upon a cross is mere matter of history; that He who did so die was the Christ the Son of God is entirely a matter of revelation. — Robert Anderson

One of the tragic ironies of history is that such original and creative geniuses as Buddha and Jesus have been extolled as perfect patterns for all to emulate. In the very struggle to be like someone else rather than to be one's own true self, or to do one's own best in one's own environment, a child is in danger of losing the pearl that is really beyond price - the integrity of his (or her) own soul. — Sophia Lyon Fahs

History, I believe, brings us to the point where we are bound to say: there really was an empty tomb, and there really were sightings of Jesus, the same and yet transformed. History then says: so how do you explain that? It offers us no easy escapes at that point, no quick side-exits to the question. — N. T. Wright

In his own lifetime Jesus made no impact on history. This is something that I cannot but regard as a special dispensation on God's part, and, I like to think, yet another example of the ironical humour which informs so many of His purposes. To me, it seems highly appropriate that the most important figure in all history should thus escape the notice of memoirists, diarists, commentators, all the tribe of chroniclers who even then existed — Malcolm Muggeridge

That utterance of Jesus, "Render therefore unto Caesar the things which are Caesar's, and unto God the things that are God's," is one of the most revolutionary and history-making utterances that ever fell from those lips divine. That utterance, once and for all, marked the divorcement of church and state. It marked a new era for the creeds and deeds of men. — George W Truett

Tell me. You're a man who understands history," I said. "If you want to start a revolution, why not issue a manifesto? Why not show the people who you are, what you're doing?"
He leaned back, grateful to explain. "That's perfectly understandable. Socrates wrote nothing down. Neither did Jesus. The problem with text is that it assumes it's own reality. It cannot answer, and it cannot explain. — Nicholas Shakespeare

So these liberals say historical research can't possibly discover the Jesus of faith, because the Jesus of faith is not rooted in history. He's merely a symbol. But listen: Jesus is not a symbol of anything unless he's rooted in history. The Nicene Creed doesn't say, "We wish these things were true." It says, "Jesus Christ was crucified under Pontius Pilate, and the third day he rose again from the dead,' and it goes on from there. — Gregory A. Boyd

We have become the revisionist society. We rewrite history in favor of viewpoints. We rewrite ethics in favor of "what's right is what makes you feel good after." Political correctness puts Jesus and Buddha on the same low shelf. Gender inclusivity has us tied up in proper pronouns. Since God goes undefined, His expectations have been missing for some time, and sin is what you do that hurts others. — Calvin Miller

He exclaims, "Happy is the one not scandalized by me." There will be throughout Christian history a tendency of Christians themselves to choose Jesus as an alternative scandal, that is, a tendency to lose themselves and merge into the mob of persecutors. For St. Paul, consequently, the Cross is the scandal par excellence. I would observe that the symbolism of the traditional cross, the crossing of the two branches, renders visible the internal contradiction of the scandal. The — Rene Girard

There could be joy in destruction, too, couldn't there? Isn't Jesus Christ's Second Coming supposed to occur only after a lot of unmitigated destruction? But again, human history is fraught with tragedies in which man spared no effort to destroy with millenarian joy, only to learn that no messiah appeared afterwards. — Kenzaburo Oe

In today's America He (Jesus) has moved from the central figure of world history to source material for late-night comics and pundits who would not dare treat other religious leaders with such disrespect. — David Jeremiah

You're looking at me as though I'm weird. My God! Are you so out of touch with most of America, most of which believes in the Devil? I mean, Jesus Christ believed in the Devil! It's in the Gospels! You travel in circles that are so, so removed from mainstream America that you are appalled that anybody would believe in the Devil! Most of mankind has believed in the Devil, for all of history. Many more intelligent people than you or me have believed in the Devil. — Antonin Scalia

Moreover, although the people are guilty, Peter understands that it was precisely through the evil execution of Jesus that "God fulfilled what he had foretold through all the prophets, saying that his Christ would suffer" (3:18). That is the supreme irony of all history. — D. A. Carson

Religion, which was obviously created to give meaning and purpose to people, has become part of the oppression. This is true in both Eastern and Western religious traditions. The Buddha, Jesus and Muhammad were all revolutionaries who critiqued and attempted to dismantle the corrupt societal traditions of their time. Yet their teachings, like most things in human society, have been distorted and co-opted by the confused and power-hungry patriarchal tradition. What were wonce the creation myths of ancient cultures, have become doctrines of oppression. More blood has been spilled and more people oppressed in the name of religion than for any other reason in history. — Noah Levine

Cervantes told me history is the mother of truth.
Borges told me historical truth is not what took place; it is what we think took place.
So Billy Shakespeare was queer.
Ronnie was the greatest president in history, right up there on Mount Rushmore.
AIDS is mankind's greatest plague.
Israel only kills terrorists.
America never bombed Lebanon.
Jesus was straight. Juda and he were just friends.
Roseanne's parents molested her as an infant.
Menachem Begin and Yasser Arafat deserved their Nobels.
And Gaetan Dugas started the AIDS epidemic. — Rabih Alameddine

One area that I now consider safe to follow after any past hero of the faith is in their personal devotion and relationship to Jesus Christ. Each of these men knew God. They spent much time with God. The reason I put our thoughts in this direction is that from personal devotion and walking with God comes our callings and gifts. That is the place where God calls us into his purpose and will for our lives. — Greg Gordon

As another aside, it has occurred to various people, including Robert Graves in his epic novel King Jesus, that poor Judas Iscariot has received a bad deal from history, given that his 'betrayal' was a necessary part of the cosmic plan. The same could be said of Jesus' alleged murderers. If Jesus wanted to be betrayed and then murdered, in order that he could redeem us all, isn't it rather unfair of those who consider themselves redeemed to take it out on Judas and on Jews down the ages? — Richard Dawkins

We can embrace our whole life story in the knowledge that we have been graced and made beautiful by the providence of our past history. All the wrong turns in the past, the detours, mistakes, moral lapses, everything that is irrevocably ugly or painful, melts and dissolves in the warm glow of accepted tenderness. As theologian Kevin O'Shea writes, "One rejoices in being unfrightened to be open to the healing presence, no matter what one might be or what one might have done." - A Glimpse of Jesus — Brennan Manning

Jesus suffered more than any other person in human history. — Billy Graham

The failure of churches to continue Jesus' struggle to overcome domination is one of the most damning apostasies in its history. With some thrilling exceptions, the churches of the world have never yet decided that domination is wrong. — Walter Wink

Since ancient times, sacred texts from around the world foretold about a time period in human history when a mighty demi-god would appear on earth. Whether we call this figure Perseus, Krishna, or Messiah, he is epitomized in the figure of Jesus Christ - the modern equivalent of which is Superman! — Eli Of Kittim

Now from science we have a new creation story, which is very alluring and very exciting. It's not about deposing all the other wisdom stories about creation that humanity has gathered, but it certainly supplements it. It offers a real universal view because it's beyond any particular religion, ethnicity, nation and so forth. As we're struggling as a species to come together as a tribe, it provides us our basic framework, because it's from creation stories that ethics derive. Today's creation story from science is that we come from 14 billion years of an organic unfolding of the universe and are connected physiologically with every being in the universe. We all share the same atoms and the same molecules. That's truly significant and important at this time in history. We're all kin, we're all interdependent. And that's the basis of compassion, which was Jesus's ultimate teaching. — David L. Felten

Was the real Jesus of history one and the same as the Christ of faith whom we read about in the New Testament and worship in the church? Was Jesus really raised from the dead? Is he really the divine Lord of lords? — John Clayton

The Christian test was a willingness to believe in the one Jesus Christ and His Message of salvation. What was demanded was not criticism but credulity. The Church Fathers observed that in the realm of thought only heresy had a history. — Daniel J. Boorstin

I fear that which I cannot control, and this existential anxiety is most intense when I reflect on my ambiguous relation to the mysterious presence of God, which I am unable to manipulate, and on my futile attempts to secure a place for my "self" in the world. Theological anthropology articulates the gospel of grace manifested in the history of Jesus Christ, by whose Spirit I am set free from the binding pain of my attempts to control my own destiny and in whose Spirit I rest peacefully in the dynamic presence of divine love. But it is not simply about me and God. — F. LeRon Shults

No one in the history of the world has been more inclusive of repentant sinners than Jesus and no one has been more intolerant of sin. — Kevin DeYoung

We are not capable of foreseeing the creative possibilities that this kind of deconstruction - the deconstruction of the old sacrificial system - produces. I think that we must examine our history and try to see whether, beneath what has already occurred, there are not additional layers of phenomena waiting to be revealed; whether some aspects of life that used to be constrained by the old sacrificial system are not going to flourish, other domains of knowledge, other ways of living. Everything that the Passion undid in the cultural sphere might well be an opening, an extraordinary source of enrichment. I am certain it is. One must also keep in mind what Jesus called the "signs of the times."4 — Rene Girard

The mission of Tom Peterson and Catholics Come Home to bring souls home to Jesus and the church is critically important during this challenging time in our history. I fully support this New Evangelization project. — Rick Warren

Christmas has been a season of mixed interests and meanings, but the very foundation, of course, is its religious significance. No matter what other personal desires or crises we have faced, I've never forgotten that this is the time to celebrate the birth of the Baby Jesus, and the impact of this event on the history of the world. — Jimmy Carter

I find the name of Jesus Christ written on the top of every page of modern history. — George Bancroft

We must say to ourselves something like this: 'Well, when Jesus looked down from the cross, he didn't think "I am giving myself to you because you are so attractive to me." No, he was in agony, and he looked down at us - denying him, abandoning him, and betraying him - and in the greatest act of love in history, he STAYED. He said, "Father, forgive them, they don't know what they are doing." He loved us, not because we were lovely to him, but to make us lovely. That is why I am going to love my spouse.' Speak to your heart like that, and then fulfill the promises you made on your wedding day. — Timothy Keller

In other words, Hitler's soul life was not mature enough at that moment to maintain an awareness of himself and his surroundings when this alien entity entered him. During the following six months during a series of irregular meetings and discussions with Hitler, Walter Stein was to witness a maturing soul development in this enigmatic character through which he became more and more a conscious and responsive tool of the world-shattering purposes of the demonic Spirit which overshadowed him. 'I move like a sleep-walker where Providence dictates,' said Adolf Hitler at a press interview. — Trevor Ravenscroft

Though Christians have long blamed the Jewish leaders for the death of Jesus, in fact, he was executed for a political crime, sedition. The charge against him, posted on a placard over his head on the cross, read, "King of the Jews" The early Christian community, eager to deflect negative attention from the Romans, muted the political nature of Jesus' crime and thereby
contributed to what has become a long, horrible history of blaming the Jews for the death of Jesus and of persecuting them because of it. — Howard R. Greenstein

The themes of Jesus' teaching are important, but of course he was more than a teacher. All the Gospels put the end of his life at the dramatic center of his story. Here all the hopes of Israel come together - he is the king of the Jews, the greatest of all the suffering prophets. Yet Jesus transformed those expectations. He did not lead Israel to victory over Rome. Indeed, one of the remarkable features of the narratives of his last days is that his increasing isolation makes it impossible to identify him with any one 'side' or cause. The Roman governor sentenced him as a Jewish rebel, but the leaders of Judaism also turned against him. He attacked the powerful on behalf of the poor, but in the end the mob too called for his blood. His own disciples ran away; Peter denied him. He did not go to his death agony as a representative of Jews, or of the poor, or of Christians, but alone, and thus, according to Christian faith, as a representative of all. — William C. Placher

The doctrines known as Calvinism are not something that emerged late in church history, but rather are that which takes its origins in the teachings of Jesus.1 - James Montgomery Boice — Steven J. Lawson

The most important events in human history were the death and the resurrection of Jesus Christ. — Billy Graham

God doesn't do notes, either. Did Jesus Christ say, "Can I be excused the Crucifixion?" No! — Alan Bennett

Jesus takes upon himself the whole of humanity, the whole history of man, and he gives it a decisive re-orientation toward a new manner of human existence. — Pope Benedict XVI

What is truth? Pilate was not alone in dismissing this question as unanswerable and irrelevant for his purposes. Today too, in political argument and in discussion of the foundations of law, it is generally experienced as disturbing. Yet if man lives without truth, life passes him by; ultimately he surrenders the field to whoever is the stronger. "Redemption" in the fullest sense can only consist in the truth becoming recognizable. And it becomes recognizable when God becomes recognizable. He becomes recognizable in Jesus Christ. In Christ, God entered the world and set up the criterion of truth in the midst of history. Truth is outwardly powerless in the world, just as Christ is powerless by the world's standards: he has no legions; he is crucified. Yet in his very powerlessness, he is powerful: only thus, again and again, does truth become power. — Pope Benedict XVI

I would like to ask Him if He was indeed virgin born, because the answer to that question would define history. — Larry King

Jesus said his Father's House has many rooms. In this metaphor I like to imagine the Presbyterians hanging out in the library, the Baptists running the kitchen, the Anglicans setting the table, the Anabaptists washing feet with the hose in the backyard, the Lutherans making liturgy for the laundry, the Methodists stocking the fire in the hearth, the Catholics keeping the family history, the Pentecostals throwing open all the windows and doors to let more people in. — Rachel Held Evans

You can threaten a village wise woman with death and torture and she may say "jesus is lord" to survive, but you can never know what's really in her heart ... that, I feel, is how the goddess survived centuries of history and hatred. — Dianne Sylvan

Jesus of Nazareth was a real man, living and dying at a turbulent moment in real space-time history. His message, and the message about him that the early Christians called good news, was not about how to escape that world. It was about how the one true God was changing it, radically and forever. — N. T. Wright

From my youth onwards I have found in Jesus my great brother. That Christianity has regarded and does regard him as God and Savior has always appeared to me a fact of the highest importance which, for his sake and my own, I must endeavor to understand ... I am more than ever certain that a great place belongs to him in Israel's history of faith and that this place cannot be described by any of the usual categories. — Martin Buber

I would argue that the truth of Easter does not depend on whether there was an empty tomb, or whether anything happened to the body of Jesus ... I do not see the Christian tradition as exclusively true, or the Bible as the unique and infallible revelation of God ... It makes no historical sense to say, 'Jesus was killed for the sins of the world.' ... I am one of those Christians who does not believe in the virgin birth, nor in the star of Bethlehem, nor in the journeys of the wisemen, nor in the shepherds coming to the manger, as facts of history. — Marcus Borg

I am an 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. — H.G.Wells

In the fight against the communism in history, only Codreanu didn't give up. He was a new kind of Jesus — Corneliu Zelea Codreanu

If Jesus Christ was who He claimed to be, and He did die on a cross at a point of time in history, then, for all history past and all history future it is relevant because that is the very focal point for forgiveness and redemption. — Josh McDowell

The problem then with Jesus is that he cannot be removed from his time and transplanted into our own without simply creating him anew — Bart D. Ehrman

Two thousand years ago, in the Middle East, an event occurred that permanently changed the world. Because of that event, history was split. Every time you write a date, you're using the Resurrection of Jesus Christ as the focal point. — Rick Warren

Jesus Christ is the only God who has a date in history. — Dorothy L. Sayers

Sadly, we have confused biblical literature with history, and turned prophecy into biography. — Eli Of Kittim

Throughout human history, countries rise and fall. But not America
we continue to rise and rise, like dough, until Jesus bakes us in the fiery Afterscape of the Rapture. — Stephen Colbert

Between the sands of time is a multitude of truths untold. — Jason E. Royle

I've seen it all in Nevada, Kansas before that, and the War of Northern Aggression before that. People do all sorts of nasty things. And while I used to believe that there was something profoundly wrong about the human condition - sin passed on from the first man and that only the grace of God in Jesus Christ could make everything right, the standard explanation in churches Mormon to Methodist - it didn't take me long to learn that Christians and non-Christians, women and men, young and old were all capable of doing the worse things a human being might imagine, and then some.

From my upcoming novel, BATHHOUSE ROW, (available this fall). — Gregg Edwards Townsley

Albert Schweitzer, a century or more ago, used another strong image. Jesus, he said, was like a man convinced the wheel of history was going to turn in the opposite direction. He waited for this to happen, but it didn't. Then he threw himself upon the wheel, and it crushed him - but it did indeed start to turn in the other direction. — N. T. Wright

Let us remember that the Christmas heart is a giving heart, a wide open heart that thinks of others first. The birth of the baby Jesus stands as the most significant event in all history, because it has meant the pouring into a sick world of the healing medicine of love which has transformed all manner of hearts for almost two thousand years ... Underneath all the bulging bundles is this beating Christmas heart. — George Matthew Adams

One of the greatest ironies of the history of Christianity is that its leaders constantly gave in to the temptation of power - political power, military power, economic power, or moral and spiritual power - even though they continued to speak in the name of Jesus, who did not cling to his divine power but emptied himself and became as we are. — David A. Livermore

For a soul to come to Jesus, is the grandest event in its history. — Joseph Alleine

'Who Is This Man?' is about the impact of Jesus on human history. Most people - including most Christians - simply have no idea of the extent to which we live in a Jesus-impacted world. — John Ortberg

That is why the center of our faith isn't just a book, but a history of Salvation, and above all, it's about a person: Jesus Christ, the Word of God made flesh. — Pope Francis

Do you really believe that the Lord Jesus Christ, the Lord of glory, plans to be a loser in history? — Gary North

His glory Jesus Christ does not consist in beingplaced without the confines of history; a more real worship is paid to him, by showing that the whole of history is incomprehensible without him. — Ernest Renan

In the christian view, the ultimate evidence for the existence of God is Jesus Christ. If there is a God, we characters in his play have to hope that he put some information about himself in the play. But Christians believe he did more than give us information. He wrote himself into the play as the main character in history, when Jesus was born in a manger and rose from the dead. — Timothy Keller

The truth is in Jesus and it leads to the fullness of truth about God, man, creation, history, sin, righteousness, grace, faith, salvation, life, death, purpose, meaning, relationships, heaven, hell, judgement, eternity, and everything else of ultimate consequence. — John F. MacArthur Jr.

The sufferings of Christ on the cross are not just his sufferings; they are "the sufferings of the poor and weak, which Jesus shares in his own body and in his own soul, in solidarity with them" (Moltmann 1992, 130). And since God was in Christ, "through his passion Christ brings into the passion history of this world the eternal fellowship of God and divine justice and righteousness that creates life" (131). On the cross, Christ both "identifies God with the victims of violence" and identifies "the victims with God, so that they are put under God's protection and with him are given the rights of which they have been deprived — Miroslav Volf

We need to attack the false foundation of autonomous human reasoning that leads to evolution and millions of years, and proclaim that God's revealed Word is authoritative and its history of the world is foundational to Christian morality and the gospel of Jesus Christ. — Ken Ham

Jesus Christ is the greatest man in the history of the world. And to me, he's the greatest person in the history of mankind and the universe. We can't prove it, I can't put it in a test tube or in an astronomical formula, but by faith I believe it because the Bible teaches it. — Billy Graham

Are the Scriptures clear (perspicuous)? That is, can a literate, faithful Christian read the Bible and understand what God is saying? The answer depends upon how high or low we set the bar for "understanding" and how much or how little we allow for differences in that understanding. For example, setting the bar low, all Christians would agree that the Bible teaches that Jesus Christ came for our salvation by dying on the Cross. Further, the belief that Jesus was both truly God and truly man is a teaching that most Christians throughout history have held, though both of those doctrines were challenged in significant ways in early Christian history. But once we go a bit more in-depth and get into such questions as how Jesus saves a person and what, exactly, one needs to do in order to be saved by Christ, we run into all manner of differences among Christian traditions. — Devin Rose

In the New Testament, myth stands over against the truth of the history of Jesus Christ ... the decisive die has ... been already cast in the New Testament opposition to myth. — G. C. Berkouwer

It is impossible to avoid the suspicion that historical Jesus research is a very safe place to do theology and call it history, to do autobiography and call it biography. — John Dominic Crossan

He's [Jesus] the most fascinating character in history, really - the character who's made more difference to the world than anyone since him. I daresay that Muslims would say Muhammad was that character, but I think Jesus had a sort of 600-year start on him. — Philip Pullman

He is not just nice, he is brilliant. He is the smartest man who ever lived. He is now supervising the entire course of world history (Rev. 1:5) while simultaneously preparing the rest of the universe for our future role in it (John 14:2). He always has the best information on everything and certainly also on the things that matter most in human life. Let us now hear his teachings on who has the good life, on who is among the truly blessed. — Dallas Willard

Look, don't judge Christianity by the imperfect examples that we have seen in history. Judge it by Jesus Christ. — Chuck Smith

The God of freedom, the true God, is ... not recognized by his power and glory in the history of the world, but through his helplessness and his death on the scandal of the cross of Jesus — Jurgen Moltmann

It is possible to know all about doctrine and yet not know Jesus. The soul is in danger when knowledge of doctrine outsteps intimate touch with Jesus ... Have I a personal history with Jesus Christ? The one sign of discipleship is intimate connection with Him, a knowledge of Jesus Christ nothing can shake. — Oswald Chambers

For our sake, he made him sin who knew no sin, so that in him we may become righteousness of God ...
As we look at the cross, we begin to understand the terrible implication of these words. At twelve noon, 'there was darkness over the whole land' which continued for three hours until Jesus died. With the darkness came silence, for no eye should see, and no lips could tell, the agony of the soul which the spotless Lamb of God now endured. The accumulated sins of all human history were laid upon him. Voluntarily he bore them in his own body. He made them his own. He shouldered full responsibility for them. — John R.W. Stott

The two chapters of Matthew's Gospel devoted to the infancy narratives are not a meditation presented under the guise of stories, but the converse: Matthew is recounting real history, theologically thought through and interpreted, and thus he helps us to understand the mystery of Jesus more deeply. — Pope Benedict XVI

Jesus Christ is the most famous Jew of all time, but is today remembered as a Christian. Surprisingly, the Jewish community has accepted this distortion of history, and tends to regard Jesus as an apostate. How odd that the Jews would accept a Christian version of one of their brethren rather than seeking to discover the man entombed beneath the myth. — Shmuley Boteach