Ross Stackhouse - October 12, 2025
Because of This Love, vol. 5: Why Jesus Is Still So Misunderstood
The section of the Bible that recounts the life of Jesus and the movement that followed his life–aka the New Testament–is united in this mysterious idea: that before time began there was a plan that one day the Christ would come to the world as a human being to complete God’s glorious plan for the world. Put more simply: It was always a part of the plan that God would give the world a very clear view of what Love looks like. Now, Jesus wasn’t always crystal clear about what he meant with his teachings (he spoke in parables or riddles, after all), but ultimately Jesus was clear about what he came to bring to the world (love) and what he came to do to the world (save it). Why is he so misunderstood? So misused? And how do we get back to his simple, challenging and life-saving way? How do we recover this love as Jesus made it possible for us to do?
From Series: "Because of This Love"
1 Peter 4:8 tells its readers "to keep this intense love among you." That adjective–translated here to “intense”–occurs only here. The verb that shares the same root means “to stretch” such as when Jesus stretches out his hand to heal. This is the love we’re trying to recall and recover in this series. From the beginning and even before the beginning, God’s character has been purely that of love and goodness. God’s drive to create life–from the big bang to the consciousness of humankind crowned with glory and grandeur (Psalm 8)–was out of an intense love and desire to extend love, power and glory to created things. But a hallmark feature of the world in which we live and our existence in it is that it is so easy to miss or forget God’s intense love. In this coming weeks, our goal is to reach into our souls, our experiences, our Scriptures, into God’s heart as revealed in Jesus to recover what we’ve lost: this love that covers practically everything (Eugene Peterson’s translation of 1 Peter 4:8).
