Who Is at the Center?

Every church, every denomination and nearly every Christian alive agrees on one thing: Jesus is the center. Catholics and Baptists, Pentecostals and Presbyterians, people who pray in cathedrals and people who pray in storefronts all say it. It may be the only sentence they would all sign.

Here is the problem in one sentence: much of what is preached in Jesus' name today has little to do with what Jesus said. You have seen it. Certainty without humility. Judgment without mercy. Wealth sold as a blessing and power pursued as a calling. And if you have tried to talk about it with people you love who are sure they're right, you know how maddening it is, and how alone it can make you feel.

You are not the only one who sees it. This book calls people like you honest heretics. It's meant with a smile: the religious leaders of his own day accused Jesus himself of blasphemy.

It doesn't ask you to believe anything about who he was. It shows, lesson by lesson and with the Bible open, where Christianity broke from its own founder, and it gives you the words to say so clearly and calmly. It also makes a claim you may not expect: the teachings themselves are good. You don't have to be a Christian to let them shape your life.

Read it3 min

Start with the moment the Gospels describe as the clearest instruction God ever gave about Jesus. Three disciples are on a mountain with him. Moses, who gave the Law, and Elijah, the greatest of the prophets, appear beside him. Peter, not knowing what to say, offers to build three shelters, one for each, as if they were equals. Then a voice interrupts.

Matthew and Luke tell the same story, and all three record the same command: "Listen to him." Not to Moses or Elijah, and not to Peter's good idea. The rest of the New Testament says the same thing in its own words.

And when Jesus sent his followers out at the end of Matthew's Gospel, he told them what to pass on. It was not a list of beliefs about him. It was what he had taught.

The world behind the words4 min

To the first people who read these words, "listen to him" was startling. Jesus' world was full of voices with authority. There was the Law of Moses, read every Sabbath. There were the prophets, the teachers who explained the Law, the priests who ran the Temple, and the Roman governors who ran everything else. A Galilean carpenter's son with no school, no title and no army was not supposed to outrank any of them.

Yet the Gospels say again and again that people noticed something different about the way he spoke. When he finished the Sermon on the Mount, his longest recorded teaching (Matthew 5–7), Matthew writes that the crowds "were astonished at his teaching, for he taught them with authority, and not like the scribes" Matthew 7:28-29. The scribes quoted earlier teachers. Jesus said, "You have heard that it was said… but I tell you."

That is the setting for the mountain scene. Moses and Elijah were the two greatest names in Israel's history. Peter's instinct was to honor all three equally. The voice from the cloud corrected him, and when the cloud lifted, Mark says, "they saw no one with them any more, except Jesus only" Mark 9:8.

The early followers carried that conviction everywhere. Paul, writing to the church at Corinth, called Jesus the only foundation anyone can lay. The letter to the Colossians said he should have "the preeminence," first place, "in all things." The letter to the Hebrews said God spoke in many ways through the prophets, but has now spoken "by his Son." None of these writers was trying to make Jesus one important voice among many. They put him at the center and measured everything else from there.

How it drifted5 min

If everyone agrees Jesus is the center, how could anything drift? The answer starts early and quietly, with good intentions.

In the first centuries, Christians wrote short summaries of their faith, called creeds, to teach new believers and to settle arguments. The best known is the Apostles' Creed, which grew from a baptism statement used in Rome in the 100s and 200s and reached its final wording centuries later. Millions of Christians still say it every week. Read its middle section and notice what is missing.

The creed moves from his birth straight to his death. Everything in between is missing: the Sermon on the Mount, the parables, the healings, the meals with outcasts, the command to love enemies, everything he spent his life teaching. The Nicene Creed of 325 and 381, the most widely shared statement of faith in Christianity, does the same thing: "for us and for our salvation he came down from heaven… he was crucified."

The people who wrote the creeds were answering the questions of their day: who Jesus was, and how he could be both human and divine. Those were serious questions, and the creeds answered them. But a habit formed. Being a Christian came to mean holding the right beliefs about Jesus, more than living by what Jesus said. Over the centuries, the beliefs grew longer and more detailed, and the teachings moved to the edges.

What they'll say back3 min

"All Scripture is inspired. Why put the words of Jesus above the rest?" Paul wrote that every Scripture is "God-breathed" 2 Timothy 3:16, and this book does not ask anyone to set that aside. But the Bible itself ranks its voices. On the mountain, Moses and Elijah were present, and the voice still said "Listen to him." After his resurrection, Luke says Jesus explained "in all the Scriptures the things concerning himself" Luke 24:27. Christians have always read the rest of the Bible through him. Starting with him keeps the rest of it in its place.

"What matters most is his death and resurrection, not his teaching." For Christians, the cross and the empty tomb are the heart of the faith, and nothing here argues otherwise. But Jesus did not treat them as rivals. His last instruction in Matthew was to teach "all things that I commanded you." And he asked a pointed question of people who honored him without following him: "Why do you call me, 'Lord, Lord,' and don't do the things which I say?" Luke 6:46

Measured against the center2 min

Measured against the center, the creeds do not contradict Jesus. They do something quieter: they leave him out. A faith that can recite its creed perfectly without mentioning a word he said has drifted from the one it is named after. Jesus told his followers to teach "all things that I commanded you." A summary that skips them is incomplete, however true its other lines are.

This is a real failure, and a large one, because it sits at the very center of the religion. If you were raised on those statements, you are free to set them down and go straight to what he said, and you will often find you understand him better than the people who kept reciting.

A keeper1 min

Whatever you believe about who Jesus was, the teaching he told his followers to pass on holds up on its own. Settle quarrels quickly. Tell the truth without needing to swear to it. Don't return harm for harm. Give without announcing it. Stop letting worry about tomorrow run today. Treat people the way you want to be treated, a rule Jesus said sums up the whole of Scripture.

People far outside the church have recognized it. Mohandas Gandhi, a lifelong Hindu, wrote that when he first read the New Testament, "especially the Sermon on the Mount," it "went straight to my heart."

You can take these teachings without taking anything else. Letting them lead your life doesn't require joining a church or reciting a creed, and many people live them more faithfully than the people who claim them loudest. If you choose to follow them, you need no one's permission.

Reflect2 min

1. When Christians have talked to you about their faith, did they talk more about beliefs about Jesus, or about things he said to do?
2. What did you absorb about Christianity growing up, and where did it come from?
3. Based on the teachings in this lesson, what would you expect Christians to be known for? How does that compare with what they are known for?

Take your time with each one. There is space to write your answers in the book and the PDF.

Practice this week1 min

This week, listen to how the Christians around you describe their faith: at work, online, in your family. Notice whether they talk about beliefs about Jesus or about things he said to do. Write down one example of each.

Bring it back1 min

Remember it

The whole book in three words: "Listen to him." Mark 9:7. When the cloud lifted, they saw "Jesus only."

Two rings, one point: pale paper rings fade outward, and one small dark point holds the center. Listen to him.

1. What did the voice on the mountain say?
   "This is my beloved Son. Listen to him" (Mark 9:7).
2. What do the Apostles' and Nicene Creeds leave out between Jesus' birth and death?
   Everything he taught and did in his life.
3. What did Jesus tell his followers to teach in Matthew 28:20?
   "All things that I commanded you."

Show the answers