Encountering the Mind of Jesus

Wipf & Stock will be publishing a book that pulls together in one place Tom’s published articles over the years. Right now it’s in the seemingly endless stage of formatting each article according to Wipf & Stock specifications. We are both dedicated to this task and hope to complete it this Fall. But it will be done when it’s done.

In the meantime, a benefit for me as I look for footnotes to reformat, tags to add, extra spaces to delete, etc. etc. is that occasionally I actually attend to the content and pick up some gems. I was taken with this paragraph from “The Medium and Message of John” on which I’m currently working:

As with listening to Socrates, listening to Jesus required a facile and perceptive mind in order to perceive and understand what is going on in his interactions with his various Jewish dialogue partners. Thus, a dimension of the meaning of the Gospel for a sympathetic listener was the recognition that Jesus is a major thinker, a Rabbi of substance, who invites at the very least intellectual respect and at most intellectual consent. The theological complexity of the Fourth Gospel was experienced by the audiences of the story as an encounter with the mind of Jesus.

In our telling Gospel stories, how wonderful would it be if we can give our audiences/congregations an opportunity to encounter the mind of Jesus, this ancient “Rabbi of substance.”