The Words of Jesus

What are we to do, we who wish to follow the words, the teachings, and the life of Jesus, when we look around us and compare our times to the times of Jesus and recognize that the people of that day were not at all like the people of today? Jesus spoke to the people of his day so that THEY would be motivated by him. Human life did not mean then what it means today. One of life's pleasures in those days was often to see another human being slaughtered. We all know of stories of yesteryear in which people were burned alive, hanged on a cross to gasp their last breaths, cut down by beasts or by combatants in an arena. And virtually everybody came to watch, even children. What fun! Such events are shuddered at by most of today's population. Today, we are washed in the experience of our own individual independence, thanks to the unleashing of some of our deepest truths. WE are responsible for our life. WE seek the freedom to do as we wish, to choose our own career, to marry whomever we may love. Not the State. Not God. We. We live in a different time than Jesus did. A different time than the one the message of Jesus was delivered into. Jesus recognized this in the Gospel of Matthew and told us that we must use very creative means to get his message out there that WE are God, that we ARE love, and our purpose here is to gain our own internal recognition of that fact by service to others. The best source for that bold message today is the New New Testament. Moreover, many readers may prefer to see only the words of Jesus teaching, without the concomitant obvious connections to those so different times – his miracles, his travels, the things that tied the teachings together. The teachings of Jesus work for all times, especially when they have been given to us for our time. So this book, The Words of Jesus, has only the teachings of Jesus, in his words, as told to the Scribe to write down, for us who live in this century.