A Flexible Jesus?

     A phrase found in the Bible in Mark 4:36 has always intrigued me. As Jesus and the apostles prepared for a boat trip across the Sea of Galilee, Mark records, "And when they had sent away the multitude, they took Him even as He was in the ship. And there were also with him other little ships" (King James Version). Some 40 years ago I heard Brother G. P. Holt preach on that verse, and one of the things he preached stuck permanently in my brain. He declared that if you want Jesus to get in your boat and travel across the sea of life with you, you will have to take Him "even as He is." He won’t let you be in charge of who and what He is and what He teaches! Holt went on to declare Jesus Christ is Lord and that those who wish to follow Him must take Him "even as He is" in matters relating to morality, doctrine, the plan of salvation and His church, etc. In short, we must accept Him as the New Testament depicts Him – the crucified Savior of the world (1 John 2:1-2; 4:14) – but also a living Lord who demands faithful obedience from followers (Luke 6:46; Acts 2:36).


       There is irrefutable evidence many modern believers in Jesus don’t like to take Jesus even as He is. Pluralism demands choice in everything – from the kind of clothes we wear to the kind of church we attend to the kind of morality we practice (or not) to the kind of sex we want (and with whom) to the way we want to be saved or even if we need to be saved or not! Meanwhile, many want a flexible Jesus they can bend and shape to sign off on all this. In his book, Mean and Wild, Mark Galli references his interview with Stephen Prothero in 1994. In that interview, Prothero contrasts an older way of thinking about Jesus to the newer mindset. He said: "Christians traditionally, as they’ve shaped Jesus, have been worried about getting it wrong, including the Puritans. Americans today are not so worried. There isn’t the sense that this is a life-and-death matter, that you don’t want to mess with divinity. There’s a freedom and even a playfulness Americans have [he means in their approach to religion] ... The flexibility our Jesus exhibits is unprecedented.

      There’s a Gumby-like quality to Jesus in the United States. Even turning Jesus into a friend among born-again Christians–that kind of chutzpah is something that was unknown even to Americans in the Colonial period" (p 16). If you don’t know, Gumby was a green clay humanoid creature created in the early 1950's and featured on TV and a movie. Like a lump of moldable clay, Gumby could expand and bend in endless ways. He was flexible off the flexibility scale! The New Testament does not depict a flexible, Gumby-like Jesus. A loving and caring and forgiving Jesus to be sure - the cross puts that beyond debate.  But we must take Him "even as He is."  He is declared to be "the same yesterday, today, and forever" (Hebrews 13:8). His Person, position, commands, gospel, doctrine, plan of salvation, teaching about the church, etc., do not flex or bend based upon opinion polls or personal preferences of people.

      Colossians 1:18 proclaims the inflexible truth about Christ: "And He is the head of the  body, the church, who is the beginning, the firstborn from the dead, that in all things He may have the preeminence." Jesus Christ will travel this life with you, but you must take Him "even as He is." He is faithful off the scale - but He is not .flexible. Think about it

  – Dan Gulley, Smithville, TN