The Core Teachings of Jesus+literary Forms

The core teachings of Jesus are as relevant today as they were in his time. The essence of his teaching was the fact that God loved us, and the need for us to love God, and each other. The teachings are still relevant because they teach us to be genuinely happy with ourselves and the people around us through God. They are even more relevant now due to the crisis in Iraq and the middle east, the tsunami’s and the general need for aid throughout the world.

This message is separated into different teachings, which are found in the four gospels of the New Testament, Matthew, Mark, Luke and John. As well as there being evidence of his teachings in Paul’s letters to the Corinthians.

The four gospels are essentially compiled records of oral traditions, parables, sermons and teachings put together by each of the four disciples. Individually they are very different from each other, but the core message each one presents is constant throughout.

This message is Jesus core teachings which can be broken up into four categories:

1. Gods love of us

2. The Kingdom of Heaven

3. Loving God

4. Loving thy neighbour

1. Most religions center around Divine entities which are essentially paternal and protective of those who believe in them. Jesus Christianity was no different, it attracted many people because it had a singular God who’s major focus was the welfare of his people. Constantly Jesus stressed that their God loved each of them equally and no man in God’s eyes was greater then any other man. Jesus preached this to his people through a literary form known as a parable.

A parable is a picture painted by the speaker using words. The fundamental importance of the use of parables was that they were open for interpretation. They never told the people what they should think, rather they were open ended and people derived from them what they wanted to. Also the parables were pictures of every day things that haven’t changed over the 2000 years since Jesus’ death. For example, God’s love is shown in the parable of the lost sheep, from the gospel of Luke:

“What man among you, if he has 100 sheep and has lost one of them, does not leave the 99 in the open pasture and go after the one which is lost, until he finds it? And when he has found it, he lays it on his shoulders, rejoicing. And when he comes home, he calls together his friends and neighbours saying to them, �rejoice with me, for I have found my sheep which was lost!’ [Luke 15:4-7]”

If each person is like the one sheep then it shows God would look out for you, no matter what the cost. This parable and the teaching in it can be altered so that, if a farmer lost one sheep in today’s world, he could go find that sheep and bring it home just like the shepherd.

2. Close to the heart of Jesus’ teachings is the Kingdom of Heaven, not the Kingdom seen in the Old Testament, but a new Kingdom which Jesus preached could be found inside the people. To enter this Kingdom the people must first embrace their Lord God, and then embrace themselves.

Essentially Jesus was preaching the need for people to love themselves, unless they truly loved themselves there is no way they could happy. An example of this is the parable of the sower in the gospel of Matthew. In it Jesus represents the people as seeds which a sower casts into his fields.

�A farmer was sowing grain in his fields. As he scattered the seed across the ground, some fell beside a path, and the birds came and ate it. Some fell upon rocky soil where there was little depth of earth; the plants sprang up quickly enough in the shallow soil, but the hot sun soon scorched them and tey withered and died, for they had little root. Other seeds fell among thorns, and the thorns choked out the tender blades. But some fell on good soil and produced a crop that was 30, 60 and even 100 times as much as he had planted.” [Matthew 13:1-8]

If the Kingdom of Heaven is found within then the seeds that found themselves and loved themselves were the seeds that fell on good soil. The other seeds were unable to find the message and happiness inside of them. Some were taken by the birds, or evil and were never able to love. Some only half grew and eventually were blasted away. And some tried their hardest but the oppression around them suffocated