Posted on 07/28/2007 6:17:10 AM PDT by xzins
When you think of Jesus of Nazareth what descriptions come to mind? Do you imagine a holy man who, while off pondering deep thoughts, is not particularly brilliant? Christians might wear the fashionable bracelets with the initials WWJD, “What would Jesus do?” which demonstrate that they at least think him to be an ethical role model. However, do his followers also think of him as the smartest man in the world? I believe the way in which we think of Jesus’ intelligence directly impacts how we submit to him as Lord and King.
In chapter three of Dallas Willard’s book, The Divine Conspiracy, he writes, “And can we seriously imagine that Jesus could be Lord if he were not smart? If he were divine, would he be dumb? Or uninformed? Once you stop to think about it, how could he be what we take him to be in all other respects and not be the best-informed and most intelligent person of all, the smartest person who ever lived?” Jesus’ closest followers—those he traveled, ate, and lived with—were convinced that he was The Intelligence behind all the universe (John 1:1-5; Col 1:17; 2:3). And they saw his triumph over this world’s greatest weapon—death—to bolster their recognition of him as the rightful king over all minds and bodies in the universe (Rev 1:5, 18).
Consider how Willard explains Jesus’ mental greatness:
Master of Molecules “At the literally mundane level, Jesus knew how to transform the molecular structure of water to make it wine. That knowledge also allowed him to take a few pieces of bread and some little fish and feed thousands of people. He could create matter from the energy he knew how to access from ‘the heavens,’ right where he was.
It cannot be surprising that the feeding of the thousands led the crowds to try to force him to be their king. Surely one who could play on the energy/matter equation like that could do anything. Turn gravel into gold and pay off the national debt! Do you think he could get elected president or prime minister today?
He knew how to transform the tissues of the human body from sickness to health and from death to life. He knew now to suspend gravity, interrupt weather patterns, and eliminate unfruitful trees without saw or ax. He only needed a word. Surely he must be amused at what Nobel prizes are awarded for today.
In the ethical domain he brought an understanding of life that has influenced world thought more than any other. . . .And one of the greatest testimonies to his intelligence is surely that he knew how to enter physical death, actually to die, and than live on beyond death. He seized death by the throat and defeated it. Forget cryonics!
Death was not something others imposed on him. He explained to his followers in the moment of crisis that he could at any time call for 72,000 angels to do whatever he wanted. A mid-sized angel or two would surely have been enough to take care of those who thought they were capturing and killing him. He plainly said, ‘Nobody takes my life! I give it up by choice. I am in position to lay it down, and I am in position to resume it. My father and I have worked all this out” (John 10:18).
All these things show Jesus’ cognitive and practical mastery of every phase of reality: physical, moral, and spiritual. He is Master only because he is Maestro. ‘Jesus is Lord’ can mean little in practice for anyone who has to hesitate before saying, ‘Jesus is smart.’
He is not just nice, he is brilliant. He is the smartest man who ever lived. He is now supervising the entire course of world history (Rev 1:5) while simultaneously preparing the rest of the universe for our future role in it (John 14:2). He always has the best information on everything and certainly also on the things that matter most in human life.”
REFLECTION QUESTIONS: 1. Why is it that we don’t tend to think of Jesus as a master intelligence? 2. How does thinking about Jesus’ supreme intellect inform and impact your understanding of him as your life’s master?
SUGGESTED RESOURCE: For a great short book on Jesus as a philosopher, who valued reasoning and who held a well-developed worldview, see Doug Groothuis’ On Jesus, in the “Wadsworth Philosophers Series” (Wadsworth, 2003
Oh, “poring,”, not “pouring.”
I remember my SAT homophones when I can’t remember my own birthday!
Is faith/faithe to be equated with intellect?
And there you have it. Too much cerebration will fry the brain. `:-D
I’ve demonstrated that I’m not a genius.
Now, does anyone need his diaper changed? I’m really good at that!
What is genius? If intellect is correlated to wisdom...
Psalm 127 says
3. Behold, children are a heritage of the Lord; and the fruit of the womb is a reward:
4. As arrows are in the hand of a mighty man; so are the children of one's youth:
5. Happy is the man who has his quiver full of them; they shall not be put to shame, but they shall speak with the enemies in the gate:
Well, by that criterion, I’m happy, Happy, HAPPY! The sons of one’s youth are all over the landscape.
Moslem Jihadists can get outtahere, because I’ve got them outnumbered, at least in this little corner of North Carolina.
That’s the problem with Ishmael. He is/was an archer. Hotheaded, he’s always shooting at something. Therefore *his* quiver is perpetually empty. :-)
I was doing three things at once and didn’t proofread. It should be “celebrate”, “celebrate” not celebration. It’s the 12th inning.
“But you’re missing my point. During His time here on Earth, He operated, acted, did what He did, as a man anointed with the Spirit, not as God— even though He is indeed both.”
I got your point - I just don’t agree with it.
Jesus has always been God - and acted as both God and man while here on earth.
That doesn’t mean he WASN’T annointed with the Spirit as well - His conception occurred through the Spirit and certainly was united with the Spirit.
I just don’t see any evidence that Jesus was somehow stripped of his divine attributes while on earth.
“Before Abraham was, I Am...”
“We can do the same works He did, and even greater.”
We can do SOME of the works He did...but not all of them.
We cannot save souls on our own, but can help others by leading them to Christ.
And while we can sacrifice ourselves for others, none of us can recreate the greatest “work” Christ performed - His salvation of souls through the crucifixion.
Any seemingly miraculous works performed by men are only through the gifts of God.
Paul.
See #72 above
YES! Exactly my point. *sigh*
Funny - Brent must have one of those wireless plans that lets him think of other things - like why cookies are called cookies and not bakies, since they’re baked...;-)
I never really considered the question....don’t really care - since He’s the Master, worthy of ALL adoration. None other can ever touch that..
my response is the same.
These passages reflect the relationship between the 3 persons in the Holy Trinity - a relationship we cannot fully understand.
There is nothing that suggests that Jesus was stripped of his divine attributes while He lived on earth.
“Before Abraham was, I Am”
why the sigh?
to recognize that men can only do these works with God’s help does not in any way “prove” that Jesus was stripped of his divinity.
Jesus is different from us. We are different from Him.
We share similarities with Him, but we are never going to be divine. We are never going to become members of the 3-in-one Godhead.
The Son has a mysterious relationship with the Father.
There is nothing in scripture that suggests this relationship underwent a drastic change of some sort when He took on human form.
When Jesus says He cannot do anything without the Father - why do you all assume that statement is a change from how it always was or always will be?
I believe Jesus’s relationship with the Father remained the same throughout His mission. I believe it has ALWAYS been true that the Son doesn’t do anything without the Father, and that will ALWAYS be true in the future.
LOL! Very clever observation, I’ve been chuckling about it all morning.
Don't know, but I wouldn't want to take Him on in Trivial Pursuit.
For one thing, He probably knows there are no Moops.
I’ve never thought of it that way. I’ve always thought of him as Truth. Being man gave him the tools to act in human ways in order to explain the truth with wit and grace.
Actually, the aliens came 5767 years ago and planted a colony of humans on earth that forgot where they came from. The aliens continued to visit from time to time and came to be considered to be gods. There IS only one God though.
As opposed to ‘celibate’, not to put too fine a point on it.
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