The titles of Jesus (son of God, messiah, light of the world, etc.) are not found in the earliest layer of tradition and are not part of self proclamation of Jesus. This does not make them wrong. Rather, they are the voice of the community, statements about what people around Jesus thought of him.
Marcus BorgThe Christian life is not about pleasing God the finger-shaker and judge. It is not about believing now or being good now for the sake of heaven later. It is about entering a relationship in the present that begins to change everything now. Spirituality is about this process: the opening of the heart to the God who is already here.
Marcus BorgI affirm, along with many others, that the major enduring religions of the world are all valid and legitimate. I see them as the responses to the experience of God in the various cultures in which each originated. To be Christian means to find the decisive revelation of God in Jesus. To be Muslim means to find the decisive revelation of God in the Koran.
Marcus BorgImagine that itโs not about the self and its concerns, about โwhatโs in it for me,โ whether that be a blessed afterlife or prosperity in this life.
Marcus BorgThere are people who assume that Christianity is about the afterlife and that our chief problem in this life is that we are sinners who need to be punished and the point of Jesus life is that he took our punishment so we can go to heaven. I write about the problems we get ourselves into by misunderstanding and limiting the way we think about our faith.
Marcus Borg