Wilderness Conversations

Jeff Deuble of the Churches of Christ in Sydney, Australia shares his journey to uncover the genuine Jesus from scripture alone. After his brother Greg challenged him to understand Christ from a Jewish perspective, Jeff set out on a quest, reading through all of scripture to see what it really said about the Messiah. What he found upended his life, bringing both delight at his clearer understanding of Christ and heartbreak over losing the church he planted and pastored for 19 years.

He pens the book – Christ Before Creeds.

The book cover says:

Just when you thought you knew who Jesus was, along comes a book like this to profoundly challenge and wonderfully inspire. Most Christians are unaware of how different their Western worldview is from those who wrote the original accounts of Jesus’ life. Pastor Jeff Deuble issues a clarion call to prioritize biblical testimony over the later church creeds that were influenced by Greek philosophical thinking, so as to rediscover simple, uncluttered Christianity.

Meticulously presenting information from biblical, historical, Jewish, and Christian sources about how the early followers of Christ thought about him, this book promises new insight and an enriched understanding of Christ’s identity. More than informative, Christ Before Creeds is an invitation to examine the identity of Jesus the Messiah, engaging with respect and grace.

The full name of the book is “Christ Before Creeds: Rediscovering the Jesus of History”

The book is available from Amazon and other bookshops such as Dymocks.

https://wildernessconversations.com/

Now also available on YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@wildernessconversations

In the chapter called “Why Question”, Jeff has 3 subsections:

It (the trinity) was a post Apostolic Development

Here in is some very good detail digging below the surface of the story that of often told – Constantine wanted the troublesome few to go way’ – in fact the events were very different indeed.

1. A few of the writings of the church fathers indicate that they did not believe in anything like the trinity.

2. The process for its acceptance as orthodox was flawed

It was, as we might have surmised – all politics.

3. It contains inherent rational and theological discrepancies.

These are well known and are often dismissed with the “it’s a mystery” claim but to expect an answer is not unreasonable:

• The Judeo-Christian faith is thoroughly and ardently monotheistic. Jesus himself affirmed its foundational statement of faith, recited daily by the Jews: “Hear, O Israel: the LORD our God, the LORD is one” (Deut. 6:4; Mark 12:29). How can you have a singular God who is also plural?



• How can you explain three “persons”, who constitute one “being”?



• How can Jesus be both “fully human” and “fully God”?



• How can you combine that which is inherently limited with that which is intrinsically unlimited? What is the interplay between these two natures, and how does such a composite person operate?



• How can Jesus be eternal, yet begotten by God? “Begotten” contradicts any notion of an uncreated, eternal being.



• Trinitarians try to address this conundrum by speaking of him being “eternally begotten.” But not only is this an oxymoron, it runs counter to the scriptural witness, which speaks of Jesus being begotten at a point in time: “You are my Son, today I have become your father” (Ps. 2:7; Heb. 1:5; emphasis added).



• The Bible says that “God cannot be tempted” (James 1:13), but Jesus was tempted (Matt. 11:1-4)-in fact, he was tempted “in every way, just as we are” (Heb. 4:15). Some Trinitarians even assert that Jesus’ sinlessness is proof that he must have been God. But if that is the case, how can he have been completed or “made perfect” through his resisting temptation (Heb. 5:9; 7:19)? And how can he be an example for us to follow in obedience and Christian living (1 Pet.2:21; 1 John 4:17)?



• We know that God “alone is immortal” and therefore unable to die (1 Tim. 6:16; see also Rom. 1:23), yet Jesus was killed. And “God..brought back from the dead our Lord Jesus” (Heb. 13:20).



• We read that “no one has seen or can see” God (1 Tim. 6:16), and that “no one has ever seen God” (John 1:18; 1 John 4:12), yet Jesus was seen.



• God “knows everything” (1 John 3:20), yet Jesus himself admitted that he didn’t have complete knowledge, and that there were things that his Father knew that he himself did not (Matt. 24:36; Mark 13:32).



• Why would “all authority in heaven and on earth” have to be given to Jesus (Matt. 28:18)? Wouldn’t this already be his by virtue of him being God?



• If Jesus is God, how can he have a God over him (Rom.15:6; 1 Cor. 11:3; 15:28; Eph. 1:3, 17; Rev. 1:6; 3:12)?