Is Jesus relevant today?

Karl S. Sandberg, Jr.

To question Jesus' relevance might seem almost impertinent, especially to a regular churchgoing, Bible-toting Christian. But when I had dinner recently with a young businessman who isn't a regular churchgoer, and asked him this question, I was rather surprised by his answer.

In essence, my friend said he knows we all need to be honest, hard-working, good, and so on, but because Christ Jesus was the Son of God, he was so good and so spiritual that no one could possibly be that good, or that spiritually-minded. So why bother trying? "At least not right now," he added, "because right now there are a lot of other things I want to do."

Those comments made me stop to think more deeply about the relevance today of what Jesus said and did two thousand years ago. I asked myself exactly what the "other things" are that people would rather be doing today. I considered my friend's situation. He has a good job, he's well liked, has lots of friends. He's in good health, and he loves golf. In short, he's quite happy! He doesn't appear interested at the moment in changing anything he's doing. From his point of view, why should he?

Send a comment to the editors

NEXT IN THIS ISSUE

Article

Christ, the safest mooring