WatchmanOnTheWall
Well-known member
Today Jesus is recognised around the world as having started what is now the largest religion on Earth. His ministry of showing love for God and everyone, including our enemies (which was a new idea at the time), has proven to be very successful.
However, although Jesus is widely recognised as a very loving person, it wasn’t the main subject he tried to teach everyone on. In fact, during His ministry, He only spoke and taught about love on six separate occasions. This therefore represents less than one percent of His total ministerial teaching.
Love wasn’t the only reason He came to Earth. If it was then Jesus would have instead taught us more about love but clearly He had more important things to tell us in the time he was with us. So what was Jesus trying to teach us?
Jesus talked about Heaven and Hell quite a bit; The word Heaven is spoken by Jesus 123 times and Hell 27 times. Clearly Jesus wanted us to know that these two places are real and we’ll all end up in one or the other after this life.
That said around nearly a fifth of everything Jesus said related to money and possessions. He spoke even more about this subject than Heaven and Hell combined. This was because Jesus understood how money itself can become a god. Money is even more important now than it was then as He knew the world would end up turning to money more and more as the basis for our way of life.
However, above all and by a big margin Jesus taught more about His coming Kingdom and His return than any other subject. Over half of everything Jesus is recorded as saying related to this coming event. The phrase, Kingdom of God, appears fifty-three times in the New Testament Gospels and Kingdom of Heaven appears thirty-two times in the Gospel of Matthew alone. Jesus also made a specific point about this coming Kingdom at the very beginning of his ministry:
Mark 1:14-15
14 Jesus came to Galilee, proclaiming the Good News of God, and saying, 15 “The time is fulfilled, and the kingdom of God has come near; repent, and believe in the Good News”.
After all just about everyone who will end up in Hell will be individuals who had loved others. Love itself does not get anyone into Heaven and as we draw nearer and near to His return this is why Jesus main teaching is more important now than ever.
However, although Jesus is widely recognised as a very loving person, it wasn’t the main subject he tried to teach everyone on. In fact, during His ministry, He only spoke and taught about love on six separate occasions. This therefore represents less than one percent of His total ministerial teaching.
Love wasn’t the only reason He came to Earth. If it was then Jesus would have instead taught us more about love but clearly He had more important things to tell us in the time he was with us. So what was Jesus trying to teach us?
Jesus talked about Heaven and Hell quite a bit; The word Heaven is spoken by Jesus 123 times and Hell 27 times. Clearly Jesus wanted us to know that these two places are real and we’ll all end up in one or the other after this life.
That said around nearly a fifth of everything Jesus said related to money and possessions. He spoke even more about this subject than Heaven and Hell combined. This was because Jesus understood how money itself can become a god. Money is even more important now than it was then as He knew the world would end up turning to money more and more as the basis for our way of life.
However, above all and by a big margin Jesus taught more about His coming Kingdom and His return than any other subject. Over half of everything Jesus is recorded as saying related to this coming event. The phrase, Kingdom of God, appears fifty-three times in the New Testament Gospels and Kingdom of Heaven appears thirty-two times in the Gospel of Matthew alone. Jesus also made a specific point about this coming Kingdom at the very beginning of his ministry:
Mark 1:14-15
14 Jesus came to Galilee, proclaiming the Good News of God, and saying, 15 “The time is fulfilled, and the kingdom of God has come near; repent, and believe in the Good News”.
After all just about everyone who will end up in Hell will be individuals who had loved others. Love itself does not get anyone into Heaven and as we draw nearer and near to His return this is why Jesus main teaching is more important now than ever.