Two religions with one name
Here are all twelve again, side by side, with where each answer came from.
| What Jesus taught | What you were taught, and who taught it |
|---|
A word from Jesus
Look at where the answers on the right came from.
Eight of them lead back to one man: Paul. They come from his letters, or from letters other men wrote later and signed with his name. Paul never met me. He never heard me teach. Before he joined my followers, he was hunting them down. Even the rapture, invented eighteen hundred years after me, was pieced together from one of his letters.
The rest came later still. An emperor who painted a cross on his soldiers’ shields. A pope who sent knights to war and called it holy. A preacher who dangled sinners over hell. Ben Franklin’s almanac. TV preachers who promised you would get your money back.
None of it is mine. All of it has been preached in my name.
Now look at my side. Almost everything on it is something you do. Feed the hungry. Give. Forgive. Serve. Love your enemies. Welcome sinners. Hold on. What I taught was never a list of things to believe about me. It was a way to live.
I am not asking you to tear pages out of your Bible. I am asking you to remember whose name you carry. When Paul, or a preacher, or a president tells you something different from what I said, follow me.
I am the one you call Lord.
Why do you call me, ‘Lord, Lord,’ and don’t do the things which I say? (Luke 6:46)
Go back to what I said
Each of these goes deeper into one part of what you just saw.