Sunday, June 27, 2010

Question 3: To which social strata would Jesus Blog or Twitter?

As well as the diversity of ethnicity, take into account the social structure of Jesus' audience.
They weren't stiff weirdos in robes with odd looks on their faces as depicted in Flannelgraph or Felt board illustrations from Sunday School. (If they came from the corner of the teacher's shoe box where their head had been folded in half they looked particularly weird.)

There were Roman soldiers and officers, Roman knights, Herod's soldiers and officers, taxmen, fishermen, labourers, farmers, tradies of all kinds – blacksmiths, wheelwrights, cartwrights, boat builders, sail makers, tent makers, carpenters, stone masons, shopkeepers, merchants, retired, housekeepers, slaves, tutors, kids, slave traders, wealthy landlords, temple officials, religious nuts, religious leaders, scribes and calligraphers, scholars, boof heads and rabble rousers – not to mention sick, deformed, tormented and lame people by the dozens.

And isn't that the population of the internet?

So what were they thinking and what would he say to them?

Monday, June 21, 2010

If Jesus blogged or twittered who would be his readers or followers?

Galilee in Palestine in 30 AD was like the main drag at the Sydney Royal Easter Show or The Strand in London. There was every kind of ethnic group you could find.

There were native born Jews, foreign Jews coming for a visit or to trade, traders from all corners of the known world – importers and exporters – from Egypt, Rome, Turkey, Crete, Malta, Italy, Persia, Ethiopia, Spain, Babylonia, Syria, Assyria. There were Roman soldiers and officers, Roman citizens, slaves, the poor, the sick, wealthy women, rich landlords, Herod's soldiers and courtiers, political insurgents, rebels, loyalists.



Does that remind you of any collective audience today?

It's a lot like the internet community, isn't it? He'd have impacting things to say to the Internet community today too.

Tuesday, June 15, 2010

What message would be in Jesus' blog?

What would Jesus Blog look like?
Who would be his friends on Facebook?
How would his Twitters read?
What would he be promoting on his website?
No-one knows of course, but he did leave clues as to what he might have e-communicated about.


He told his followers to go into all the world and preach the Gospel. So what was the Gospel?
If you follow the six or seven sermons that (St.) Luke recorded in the Book of Acts you'll see the followers followed a distinct pattern. It went more or less like this:

  1. This is God's world
  2. People have mucked it up
  3. God has proved it is his world by raising the man Jesus from the dead.
  4. The offer is that if you believe this and line your life up with what he stands for, God will regard you as always having been on his side and mucked up nothing at all.
  5. If you don't believe it and keep on going your own way regardless, it's a no brainer – it's God's world, so who do you think will have the last word?

Thursday, June 10, 2010

Question 1 of Many: What would Jesus Blog and Twitter About? – WWJBTA

Question 1 of Many: What would Jesus Blog and Twitter About? – WWJBTA
Would he do either?
Don’t know. I’m as good or bad a guess as anyone wearing a WWJD wrist band. 
However he did leave clues which you might follow and take up where he left off.
So here's a starter.
1. He’d recognise that the Internet and the Blogosphere are his scene.
He said on his departure from Palestine, “All authority is given to me on heaven and on earth” and so it is reasonable to assert that he would include authority over the Internet and the Blogosphere in his purview as well. That means the Internet is not Steve Jobs' or Bill Gates' or even Tim Berners-Lee's oLeonard Kleinroc's.  He‘d no more shy away from it because it is full of porn or time-wasting or perverts than he shied away from the entire earth which in his time – if not ours – was full of the same.
Message: You should be in here stirring up a little controversial goodness just as he would.
To infinity and beyond, then!