(Chapter 1 from WHO IS THIS GUY? and What Have You Done with My Sweet Savior?)

“The Son of Man has come eating and drinking, and you say, ‘Look, a glutton and a winebibber, a friend of tax collectors and sinners!’” — Luke 7:34

I have to admit that for most of my life, or at least as far back as I can remember, there has been a word, or more often a phrase, almost constant in my vocabulary (spoken or unspoken). It pops into my head when someone cuts me off in traffic, when someone is rude to me or another person, or when someone’s words or actions are oddly out of order from what to me is normal behavior.

It doesn’t necessarily mean the person is a bad person. It refers to a person who is acting badly—selfish, inconsiderate, disrespectful, mean-spirited, vindictive, using coarse language, or even just acting silly—and I think, What a Jerk!

The definition of the word jerk in the New Oxford American Dictionary is “a contemptibly obnoxious person with its root in the idea of a person who is jerking someone around or who deals with others dishonestly or unfairly.”

As a person who regularly probes the Bible as a source of guidance and truth for my life, I enjoy digging into certain topics to see what Scripture has to say about issues pertaining to my life and the world around me. Not surprisingly, when I looked, I could not find the word jerk in any translation of the Bible. What I did find was an interesting word that is one of the few words most of the major Bible translations don’t bother to translate: raca.

While reading through the gospels, on numerous occasions the above-mentioned phrase has popped into my head: What a jerk! Feeling my face flush with embarrassment, I move on. For the thought was not directed toward the words and behavior of the Pharisees who through their hypocrisy sought to trap Jesus, or to the Jewish people who turned away from Jesus, or to the dim disciples who would regularly miss the point of a teaching from Jesus, but for the words and actions of Jesus himself.

Wait a minute! Did I just call Jesus a jerk? Even as I’m thinking it I can feel the wrath of all Christendom bearing down on me.

Who Is This Guy?

Like Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid staring across the western landscape at the posse who were relentlessly chasing them and asking, “Who are those guys?” I look across the Gospel landscape and sometimes ask, “Who is this guy?”

John Ortberg’s book, Who Is This Man? expands upon Dr. James Allan Francis’s One Solitary Life. Ortberg seeks to answer his question by highlighting how Jesus’s life and ministry has so powerfully impacted our world in so many ways. Many in Jesus’s day asked the question, “Who is this?” because of the power of Jesus’s words and his many miracles or because he was so radically different. On several occasions, whole towns asked the question, as in Matthew when Jesus entered Jerusalem, the whole city was stirred and asked, “Who is this?” (Matthew 21:10).

I have asked the very same question when Jesus acts nothing like what I expect of a gracious Savior. I ask because of what I see in the Gospel story—a man exhibiting strange behavior and saying difficult things, behavior and words that are troubling and, dare I say, seem not very Christ-like.

Jim Daley, President of Focus on the Family, writes in his book Refocus, “As Christians, we’re irritated when we see other Christians behaving badly. We grow frustrated when we see people inside the church treating others unkindly.” But, what about when Jesus seems to behave badly? In numerous episodes in the gospels, Jesus seems to act rudely and even unkindly, and I have to ask myself, Who is this guy?

Is Jesus really a vindictive name-caller? Throughout the gospels Jesus is treated poorly by the Pharisees. He strikes back with a vengeance, yelling at them, embarrassing them in front of the crowds, and calling them “fools” and other names. He seems justified. But, whatever happened to turning the other cheek, forgiving seventy-seven times, and doing good to those who mistreat you?

Or is Jesus really a short-tempered bigot? In the Matthew 15:21-28, we find a desperate Canaanite woman chasing after Jesus begging him to heal her demon-possessed daughter. He denies her saying that he only came for the House of Israel and not to her—a filthy dog. Wow! I mean, really? What a raca!

Or is Jesus really an impatient, petulant man? In Mathew, Jesus is hungry and goes up to a fig tree hoping to satisfy his hunger with figs. When he discovers there are no figs on the tree he becomes angry, cursing, and killing the tree. Wow! How about a little patience, Jesus? British philosopher Bertrand Russell would use this very story as evidence to demonstrate that Jesus was really a bad person—short-tempered and angry.

Or is Jesus really a crazed maniac? All four gospels depict Jesus entering the Temple in Jerusalem and going crazy, tearing the Temple apart, screaming at the workers who are just doing their jobs, flipping over their tables, abusing their property, and whipping them. Okay, where is the kind, gentle Jesus we all expected?

Or is Jesus really an impertinent child and family antagonist? In Luke, Jesus as a boy visits Jerusalem. He wanders off from his parents and hides in the Temple. When they return to find him, they are understandably upset. Jesus does not apologize or show any concern for their feelings. Then, in John’s Gospel, at the wedding in Cana, Mary asks Jesus to help with the shortage of wine. Jesus curtly refuses and disrespectfully tells his mother that she is only a “woman” and has no business telling him what to do. And, on a number of occasions Jesus says derogatory things about his family. Jesus, whatever happened to the fifth commandment to honor thy mother and father? Where is Jesus’s respect for all God’s people?

No longer do I gloss over the strange episodes and behaviors depicting Jesus in an uncomfortable way to shake my head and move on to more familiar and comfortable territory. But at face value if someone today behaved in the same way as I read in these accounts, I would be compelled to think, What a jerk!

Who holds Jesus accountable to his own teachings and to the many other teachings of the New Testament? These are the same moral teachings or supposed “characteristics of Christ” his followers are held to. Are we afraid to look more closely at these strange scriptures to possibly discover that the Jesus I have understood him to be is not all who I thought he was and is? Where can Jesus’s followers find confidence that he is as good and righteous and true as they have always believed?

The late Christian thinker and writer, Dallas Willard, consistently urged his readers to study the life of Christ for the benefit of knowing all of who Christ was when He walked the earth and for knowing all He can be in Christian’s lives today. Who Is This Guy? takes a handful of challenging Gospel accounts and seeks to dig deeper to answer that very question. Is he always the loving, kind, and gentle Savior, or is he at times an impertinent brat, a male chauvinist, a bigot, a crazed maniac, a vindictive name-caller, or an impatient, petulant man?

Some of these behaviors, taken at face value, are used by Christians to justify their own bad actions. Well, after all, Jesus behaved that way! Or did he?

We cannot fully enjoy any relationship without fearlessly entering in at a deeper level with confidence that what we uncover will not diminish but enrich our relationship. This book seeks to answer the question, “Who is this guy?” to more fully expose the full character of the one who came to save the human race—Jesus Christ.