Gettin' Clumsy Wid It

J-Cap and I like to laugh about our common malady:  We can barely live with being misunderstood.  Drives us NUTS.

And yet...every time you put pen to paper, finger to key, or open a microphone, you're going to be misunderstood.  Shoot, silence can be misinterpreted, too.  I still don't get Grebbo Marx or whatever his name was.

Here's a nice illustration of things I have to let go.  I don't blame the reporter at all, but I want to add, after each paragraph, "That's not quite what I meant to say, in context..."

Fact is, she did a great job.  I was kinda...clumsy.

I tried to relate that Jesus had his own explanation of the "Good News", and it was a message that clearly meant certain things to his audience.  What, widely, we now call the Gospel -- that Good News -- doesn't really capture what Jesus was talking about. 

In fact, ask most evangelicals, or Bible-believing fundamentalists, and they won't be able to tell you what Jesus's own "Good News" was.  You'll get a blank stare.  (I tried this recently with a Christian talk radio host, a cool, funny, very bright guy who teaches apologetics on his program.  "What did Jesus say the 'Good News' was in Mark 1?  You know, the message he sent his disciples to share?"  -- no idea.)

So, we've lost something really good, but lately, we're seeing people talking about the Good News -- the Kingdom is here -- and understanding its wonderful implications.   When people know what it means to want the Kingdom to come, here on earth, as it is in Heaven, well, they can't wait to make sure little babies in malaria-infested villages have mosquito nets over them. 

I didn't do a very good job of laying this out.  Part of it's because, while many reporters well understand the gospel as we've explained it, they're yet unfamiliar the good news that Jesus sent his disciples out to share in Mark 1. 

That may say something about us.