“Would Christians today be different if we only had the four Gospels to interpret? What if all we had to look at over all these centuries were the four accounts of Christ’s life? Would we be better Christians on the streets? I think we probably would. Sure we would be missing a depth of rich theology about Christ through Paul, John, Peter, and a few others, but ‘What would Jesus do?’ would not be a wristband we wear but the constant attention of our lives. We would live like Jesus!” (Halter, Smay, The Tangible Kingdom, p.20)
Though it would be hard to understand most of the Gospels without the OT background or the NT commentary, there is something to this question.
So many of our doctrinal debates sidetrack us away from Jesus to secondary or unimportant teachings.
What if we focused on Jesus’ life, teaching and example, His sacrifice for others and His call to join Him in sacrifice for others.
What if we remained fuzzy and uncertain about many hot button issues, but were absolutely clear on the beatitudes?
What do you think?