I was recently reminded of a conversation I once had with a woman who insisted that Jesus didn\u2019t eat.<\/p>\n
Her thinking was somewhat reasonable. Jesus, after all, created the earth and all the plants and animals therein, so the Creator, logically, wouldn\u2019t consume that which He created, right? Well, I guess that stands to reason, other than the fact that the New Testament records several occasions of Jesus eating, even after His resurrection when he was no longer mortal and wouldn\u2019t need food to sustain Himself.<\/p>\n
Ah, but that was just an illusion, she said. He simply pretended to eat.<\/p>\n
And how did He do that? I asked.<\/p>\n
Answer: He\u2019s Jesus. He\u2019s the Son of God. He can do whatever He wants.<\/p>\n
Yes, well, I suppose there\u2019s some truth in that, too. But the woman\u2019s supposition doesn\u2019t really say anything about Jesus, per se, although it says a lot about the woman herself. Jesus may have been capable of going without food his whole life \u2013 40 days of fasting, anyone? \u2013 but if we are to believe the NT writers, He ate. Her dismissal of inconvenient scriptures as illusory simply meant that she\u2019d found a way of remaking God in her own image. She says Jesus can do whatever He wants, but her Jesus doesn\u2019t do whatever He<\/span> wants.<\/p>\n He does whatever she<\/span> wants.<\/p>\n I\u2019ve also heard others claim that Jesus is a vegetarian using a similar rationale, despite the whole loaves and fishes thing. Maybe fish are a vegetable. I have a sister-in-law who is a vegetarian but still eats fish, so there you go. It\u2019s all so complicated \u2013 even today, nobody can give me a straight answer on what a tomato is. But I digress.<\/p>\n You see a bunch of this kind of nonsense in the world today, like the environmentalists who ran the “What would Jesus drive?” campaign, insisting the Lord would prefer a hybrid to an SUV. Or consider Cornel West and\/or My Esteemed Colleague, both of whom insist that Jesus was a Marxist, ignoring Marxism’s contempt for religion, something Jesus would have been unlikely to overlook.<\/p>\n Disagreements about God\u2019s dietary habits exemplify one of the reasons I\u2019m a Latter-day Saint that believes in continual revelation. It\u2019s much harder to remake God when He\u2019s still around to correct the record.<\/p>\n Most Christians believe that all revelation ended with the complete, self-sufficient, self-explanatory Bible, but they have a hard time agreeing on what the Bible is or what it means. If you were to drop the Bible on an alien world with no instructions other than to fashion a religion based on its precepts, how much would you want to bet that whatever they came up with would look radically different from anything we see on Earth? You think they\u2019d spontaneously come up with the Nicene Creed or Christmas trees? You think they\u2019d celebrate the Resurrection by having rabbits hide colored eggs?<\/p>\n The Bible isn\u2019t religion. The Bible is a record of people who had religion. True religion comes via direct revelation from God. That\u2019s how the people in the Bible did it, and that\u2019s how we should do it, too.<\/p>\n Which gets to the heart of the matter:<\/p>\n The question \u201cWhat would Jesus do?\u201d always bugs me.<\/p>\n We really don\u2019t know what Jesus would do under most circumstances, and, like the “Jesus is a Fruitarian” example, our guesses say more about us than they do about Him.<\/p>\n Case in point:<\/p>\n At a critical moment in my life, a church leader \u2013 I\u2019ll call him Phil – provided me with counsel that I\u2019ve never forgotten, although not for the reasons he intended.<\/p>\n On this occasion, I was wondering whether or not I should pursue a career as an actor. To help guide my decision, Phil told the story of going to see a movie that his son had picked out. Phil found the film to be highly offensive.<\/p>\n \u201cAh, gee, Pop,\u201d the son told Phil, \u201ccompared to most stuff in theatres today, that movie wasn\u2019t half bad.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cWould you take a date to see that movie?\u201d Phil asked.<\/p>\n \u201cSure,\u201d said the son.<\/p>\n But then Phil delivered what he considered to be the coup de grace:<\/p>\n \u201cWould you take the Savior to see that movie?\u201d<\/p>\n I knew where he was heading with this, so I stopped him and said, \u201cI wouldn\u2019t take the Savior to see any movie!\u201d<\/p>\n To which Phil replied, \u201dThat\u2019s why I don\u2019t go see movies.\u201d<\/p>\n I still agree with my answer, but not because movies are inherently immoral. I wouldn\u2019t take the Savior to a movie, but I wouldn\u2019t take the Savior to a baseball game, either. Heck, I wouldn\u2019t take Him to a Mormon Tabernacle Choir concert. So, certainly, if the Savior showed up at my doorstep, I wouldn\u2019t say, \u201cyou know, there\u2019s a matinee of Dan In Real Life<\/span> playing at 4:45 \u2013 we can just make it if we leave now, though we might miss the previews.\u201d<\/p>\n When I was getting my MBA at BYU, we were presented with an ethical dilemma. Suppose you work for a bank, and it\u2019s your responsibility to evaluate business loans for a new customer. You discover the financials are rock solid, but there\u2019s a slight hitch \u2013 the client’s business is producing pornography.<\/p>\n Do you recommend that the loan be approved?<\/p>\n I thought the answer was clear cut. I wasn\u2019t the one making the final decision on the loan \u2013 it was my job just to make sure the financials were in order. They were. So I would do my job.<\/p>\n Then one of the other students got indignant. \u201cWhat would Jesus do?\u201d he asked me, certain that would change my mind and put the issue to rest.<\/p>\n \u201cI don\u2019t know,\u201d I answered back. \u201cWould Jesus be a loan officer?\u201d<\/p>\n That’s not the only question. Would Jesus refuse to pass on the information because it would be used in a way He would disapprove of? Would Jesus fulfill his obligations, despite the fact that he worked for an imperfect employer? Would Jesus grab his cat-o-nine-tails and clear the moneychangers out of the bank? Would he call down legions of angels to bring the pornographers to their eternal reward?<\/p>\n What would Jesus do? The only way to know is to ask Him. And if He doesn’t tell you, you’re on your own.<\/p>\n Summing up: I like fresh tomato slices with pepper, no matter what they are.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Iwas recently reminded of a conversation I once had with a woman who insisted that Jesus didn\u2019t eat. Her thinking was somewhat reasonable. Jesus, after all, created the earth and all the plants and animals therein, so the Creator, logically, wouldn\u2019t consume that which He created, right? Well, I guess that stands to reason, other ... 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