Jesus Misunderstood Quotes & Sayings

Is it so bad, then, to be misunderstood? Pythagoras was misunderstood, and Socrates, and Jesus, and Luther, and Copernicus, and Galileo, and Newton, and every pure and wise spirit that ever took flesh. To be great is to be misunderstood. — Ralph Waldo Emerson

We don't get to opt out of living on mission because we might not be appreciated. We're not allowed to neglect the oppressed because we have reservations about their discernment. We cannot deny love because it might be despised or misunderstood. We can't withhold social relief because we're not convinced it will be perfectly managed. Must we be wise? Absolutely. But doing nothing is a blatant sin of omission. Turning a blind eye to the bottom on the grounds of "unworthiness" is the antithesis to Jesus' entire mission. — Jen Hatmaker

I don't see a coherent global order anywhere on the horizon. — Ian Bremmer

If my activism, however well-motivated, drives out love, then I have misunderstood Jesus' gospel. I am stuck with law, not the gospel of grace. — Philip Yancey

When he lived on earth, [Jesus] surrounded himself with ordinary people who misunderstood him, failed to exercise much spiritual power, and sometimes behaved like churlish schoolchildren. — Philip Yancey

Worship has been misunderstood as something that arises from a feeling which "comes upon you," but it is vital that we understand that it is rooted in a conscious act of the will, to serve and obey the Lord Jesus Christ. — Graham Kendrick

Jesus Christ can afford to be misunderstood; we cannot. Our weakness lies in always wanting to vindicate ourselves. — Oswald Chambers

The High Cost of Servanthood
Jesus warned, however, that this life of servanthood is not lived without cost. He said, "The servant is not greater than his Lord" (John 13:16) and, if the persecuted and hated Him, we can expect no better treatment.
In 2 Timothy 3:12 Paul wrote, " All that will live godly in Christ Jesus shall suffer persectution," so this is also the cost we as servants must be willing to pay.
This is so difficult for us to accept in our world of man-pleasing, "I'm OK, you're OK" Christianity. No one wants to be disliked, hated or misunderstood
especially by family, friends and loved ones. But this of often exactly the price to be paid by anyone seriously wanting to follow Jesus into a life of servanthood. — K.P. Yohannan

When you love someone, you often surprise yourself with the kind of forbearance you can show in the face of total exasperation. — Amit Pandey

There is not a hint of one person who was afraid to draw near him [Jesus]. There were those who mocked him. There were those who were envious of him. There were those who misunderstood him. There were those who revered him. But there was not one person who considered him too holy, too divine, or too celestial to touch. There was not one person who was reluctant to approach him for fear of being rejected. — Max Lucado

It is easy to gain a definite notion of the furnishing of colonial houses from a contemporary and reliable source - the inventories of the estates of the colonists. — Alice Morse Earle

I worry the Christian community has accepted an insidious shift from laboring for others to prioritizing our own rights. We've perpetuated a group identity as misunderstood and persecuted, defending our positions and preferring to be right over being good news. We've bought the lie that connecting with people on their terms is somehow compromising, that our refusal to proclaim our moral ground from word one is a slippery slope. It has become more vital to protect our own station than advocate for a world that needs Jesus, who came to us, wrapped in our skin, speaking our language. If we were not too beneath Christ, who died for us while we were still sinners, then how dare we take a superior position over any other human being? How lovely is a faith community that goes forth as loving sisters and brothers rather than angry defenders and separatists. — Jen Hatmaker

History does seem to repeat itself hence it's mindboggling to still hear the 'avoid all negative people' speeches from, of all people, supposedly important spiritual teachers. Ironically, their congregations would probably be the ones hiding their faces from the accuracies of truth speakers like Christ. Now, Christ was the complete opposite of negative, however the danger is that truth is often misunderstood as negativity by those who are constantly taught to only seek flattery. — Criss Jami

Some of the first human beings in whom the new consciousness emerged fully became the great teachers of humanity, such as Buddha, Lao Tzu, or Jesus, although their teachings were greatly misunderstood, especially when they turned into organized religion. They were the first manifestations of the flowering of human consciousness. — Eckhart Tolle

Dru? Don't leave wihtout me."
What could I say to that? I said the only thing I could.
"I promise. — Lili St. Crow

That Jesus' task "is consummated" must be true, because he says so (John 19:30). Yet what a spectacle of failure! His word rejected, his message misunderstood, his commands ignored. None the less, his appointed task is accomplished, through obedience to the death - that obedience whose purity counterbalances the sins of a world. That Jesus delivered his message is what counts - not the world's reaction; and once proclaimed, that message can never be silenced, but will knock on men's hearts to the last day. — Romano Guardini

The teaching of the Sermon on the Mount is not
Do your duty, but
Do what is not your duty. It is not your duty to go the second mile, to turn the other cheek, but Jesus says if we are His disciples we shall always do these things. There will be no spirit of
"Oh, well, I cannot do any more, I have been so misrepresented and misunderstood" ... Never look for right in the other man, but never cease to be right yourself. We are always looking for justice; the teaching of the Sermon on the Mount is
Never look for justice, but never cease to live it. — Oswald Chambers

A mother's heart is a vast and glorious thing. My mother's heart was expansive, having been enlarged by suffering and years of clinging to Jesus while being misunderstood, dismissed, and judged by those she loved most. Me included. It had cost her to love, had cost her much to mother. It always does. But she would tell you that it's worth it, that there is no other way. — Stasi Eldredge

This is what God taught me through Judas at Jesus' table, eating the broken bread that was His body: We don't get to opt out of living on mission because we might not be appreciated. We're not allowed to neglect the oppressed because we have reservations about their discernment. We cannot deny love because it might be despised or misunderstood. We can't withhold social relief because we're not convinced it will be perfectly managed. We can't project our advantaged perspective onto struggling people and expect results available only to the privileged. Must we be wise? Absolutely. But doing nothing is a blatant sin of omission. — Jen Hatmaker

The dark and the light, they exist side by side,
Sometimes overlapping, one explaining the other.
The darkened path is as illuminated as the lightened,
Only the fear of the dark keeps us from seeing our way. — Raven Davies