by Tim Stafford

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review by Jamie Johnson

WE HAVE ALL had a similar moment. You know, you are about eight years old, at the grocery store, when you round the corner into the cereal aisle, and there standing before you is your third grade teacher. You stare at him in bewilderment, not quite sure what to think, and certainly not sure what to say. The only context in which you have ever known him is as his pupil, learning from his infinite wisdom of long division and proper grammar.

But now, seeing him at the store revolutionizes what you think of him. He is a real person! He eats real food! The memory stays with you a long time, and changes how you see your teacher for the rest of your life. It makes you reconsider everything you had ever known, or thought you had known, about your teacher.

Tim Stafford, in Surprised by Jesus, believes this is what needs to happen within the Christian community. Christians need to reconsider who Christ was in his Jewish context, and what his message was to the Jewish community in which he was an integral member. Stafford calls what he sees in the 21st century a superficial understanding of Jesus: “Jesus is God, and he came to earth as a baby. He lived a sinless life and gave himself to die on the cross for our sins. Then he rose again and now lives in heaven.” This is a neat little package that makes Jesus very palatable to our Western sensibilities. As Stafford writes,

The “everybody knows” version of Jesus too easily carries an individualistic, consumer-oriented appeal. In the extreme, we preach a gospel that is all about me—my personal growth, my spiritual experiences with Jesus as my friend. This makes worship superficial, for we miss the grandeur of Jesus' character and ministry.

That grandeur, as Stafford notes, is most clearly seen and understood within the context of historic Judaism.

In His Steps

Stafford aims to follow Jesus' steps throughout Jesus' ministry by focusing on the main aspects of it: his baptism, his temptation, his preaching, his healings and works of power, his warnings, his calling and sending of disciples, his praying, and his death and resurrection.

Each section begins with a historical, contextual understanding of what the experience would have been like if we were seeing it with our own eyes. Stafford's ability to recreate the scene is exceptional, and as a well-designed set does for a play, it gives the reader the feel of being there with Christ as he is ministering to the Jewish world. Seeing things from this Jewish perspective helps the reader better understand what Christ is doing.

And as one would expect, the first-century Jewish interpretation is much different from our 21st-century American interpretation. A good example of this is found in the chapter addressing the temptation of Jesus.

As Stafford notes, the fact that Jesus faces temptations shortly after being pronounced the beloved Son of God at his baptism is a great surprise. It is evident in Western Christianity that when we are being tempted, our first thought is that somehow we have displeased God, and therefore he is testing us with temptation. But a closer look at the temptation of Christ shows this is not the case. Stafford writes that, “Temptation is no failing, but the natural outgrowth of the baptism of the Holy Spirit.” It is during this time of temptation that Christ does not seek to thwart the devil with supernatural powers; instead Christ relies on something to which all people have access: God's Word.

I have heard, and even personally used as an excuse, that Christ's knowledge of Scripture was superhuman. But such a concept betrays the Jewish context in which Jesus lived. The Hebrew Bible was known and memorized by the Jewish people. Portions of Scripture uttered by Christ would have brought to the minds of the Jewish listeners the entire passage from which it came. God's truth revealed in the Hebrew Bible was not only known, but also lived and breathed by the Jewish community. They saw all of life through the lens of Scripture. This was not unique to Jesus, but it is forgotten today.

Jesus the Leader

We can also learn much about Jesus as we examine the way he led those around him. Stafford does a wonderful job portraying the way Jesus came to lead as a servant.

Messianic predictions during first-century Judaism said that a warrior figure would ride into Jerusalem on a stallion, proclaiming to all that the nation of Israel would be restored one battle at a time—a process resembling how God, in the Hebrew Scripture, handed over unbelieving nations in battle after battle. But as Stafford writes, “Jesus' way is a peculiar combination of strength and humility. He went to Jerusalem, boldly and persistently making himself impossible to ignore.”

Jesus entered Jerusalem on a donkey, and defined his revolutionary movement by loving his enemies and praying for those who persecuted them. His sharpest critiques were not for those outside the Jewish faith who espoused a polytheistic belief, but for the very leaders of his Jewish faith. This is a contrast to what happens in American Christianity today! As Stafford correctly notes, we lambaste those whose moral and religious beliefs differ from ours, and often we look past the sins of those within Christianity.

Leadership is another area in which Jesus operated in a way foreign to Western culture. He sought to create—as Stafford calls it—a kingdom of the improbable. One sees this most clearly in the Beatitudes, where those who are meek, poor, and hungry are blessed. Our usual approach to this passage is to spiritualize it, so it does not chafe against our materialistic sensibilities. But Stafford reminds us that,

If we follow Jesus' steps…we will be pulled outward and downward. A gospel that blesses the improbable must be announced to the improbable. What is more, it will appeal to the improbable.

Is this hard to believe when today the church is growing rapidly in third-world countries, and declining rapidly in Europe and North America?

A Great Nation

What began as a small group of believers (120 before Pentecost) Jesus intended to be a much greater movement. As Stafford opens up the first-century Jewish world to the reader, one can see that Christ placed great value in the communal beliefs of Judaism. The Jewish people, even today, have a great sense of identity that even transcends bloodlines. Just as Abraham was promised a great nation to succeed him, Stafford says, Jesus' agenda also lived out the same promise:

[God] would make a great nation…not merely a collection of individuals, [but] a people with a sense of their joint authority. Linked by a common identity, God's people take responsibility for their land—to work justice, to care for creation, above all to love and care for all God's creatures.

This is what Jesus intended, and what we have strayed so far from today. Studying Jesus in his context is the place to start, but it does not end there. Allow the words of Stafford, again, to elucidate our part today:

Scripture gives us no detailed plan for how to live the gospel in our situation. We have to translate. We need creativity, inspiration and careful analysis. Always, we start with Jesus' pattern and example. He is the Word we translate.

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