Here is a brief portion of Marcus Borg's Book Meeting Jesus Again for the First Time: The Historical Jesus and the Heart of Contemporary Faith
Images of Jesus matter. The foundtaional claim of this book is that there is a strong connection between images of Jesus images of the Christian life, between how we think of Jesus and how we think of the Christian life. Our images of JEsus affects our percetion of the Christian life in two ways: it gives shape to the Christian life; and (as we shall see later in this chapter) it can make Christianity credible or incredible.
The way images of Jesus give shape to the Christian life is illustrated by two widespread images and their effects on images of the Christian life. The most common image of Jesus--what I call the "popular image"--sees him as the divine savior. Put more compactly, this image is a constellation of answers to the three classic questions about Jesus: Who was he? The divinely begotten Son of God. What was his mission or purpose? To die for the sins of the world. What was his message? Most centrally, it was about himself: his own identity as the Son of God, the saving purpose of his death, and the importance of believing in him.
The image of the Christian life to which this image of Jesus leads is clear: it consists of primary of believing--that Jesus was who he said he was...
Only slightly less common is an image of Jesus as teacher...
Both images, it seems to be, are inadequate.
If you like the excerpt, check out the book:
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