Jesus' Purpose(driven-Jesusness)

pg. 14 "If the main purpose of Jesus' ministry was to die on the cross, as the outworking of an abstracted atonement-theology, it starts to look as though he simply took on the establishment in order to get himself crucified, so that the abstract sacrificial theology could be put into effect. This makes both ministry and death look like sheer contrivance."

I really appreciated this because it gives better language for refuting why Jesus' life/purpose can't be looked at one-dimensionally. Also, if this is the case then what we really have in Jesus is someone who covertly went around pissing people off to achieve the means to His end, which allowed for his resurrection. This makes the kingdom of God a worthless endeavor, because it then only becomes lip service for an awkward faux-subversive attempt to poke at people's frustrations and become the victim. He is like a kid who decides taking on the Hot Topic lifestyle is the fastest way to piss off his parents so that he can say that his life is horrible and his parents don't understand him. If this is the divine, then I want my tithe money back!

This quote also reminds me of those who push the fulfilled prophecies angle hard. When we limit His life to winning God's scavenger hunt before the other wanna-be Messiahs, then we approach a different level of contrivance.

It comes back to a need to seek after a comprehensive understanding that leaves open possibilities for the life, death, and resurrection of Jesus. As he says, the more he studies the more he comes across those aspects of Jesus that make him uncomfortable. I think this is exactly where we should be found. If we are not the Camel trying to get through the eye of the needle, we have embraced the wrong Gospel and the wrong Jesus. I believe a necessary part of discipleship that we should all be embracing includes a continual openness to being "transformed by the renewing of your mind." God's word is not finite. It still needs to be taught and breathed in daily.