Tuesday, June 12, 2007

and here enter the Messiah

After the 4 books, in the 5th book, in Deuteronomy 18 a prophet...a Messiah is guranteed by God through Moses. Messiah who later changed the course of human history. Undoubtedly from the time when the Messiah was promised i.e. since 1500 BC i.e. in thses 3500 years there had not existed a personality with purest essence of human being other than Jesus Christ. He is the Messiah.......undoubtedly! But lets try to see the paragraph Deuteronomy more closely.
As I surfed the net I came across one interpretation which tried to connect the paragraph where the prophet is promised with its preceding paragraph. In the preceding paragraph God just warns sons of Israel not to get deceived by the people who might say that they have the power to interprete omens or dreams, or they can caste the spell or call up the deads i.e. they are the people with divine powers. Emergence of such kind of people was very much possible at that time. To restrain people from such kind of things a prophet was promised by God. God knew that come what may people would fall victim to such kind of things so its better to promise the one prophet who would be Moses says "a prophet like me from among you, from your countrymen"
Another thing is that, that the prophet was promised to the people of Israel. That means the prophet was the need of the people of the Israel. Such kind of need need not to be necessarily true for all the people of the world.
In case of Marathi Protestant Christians, who are mostly converted from the lower castes of India....there was never such a immidiate need of a person who is a prophet. My point is come what may Marathi Protestant Christians would never understand in real sense that what was exactly the need of such kind of "promise of prophet". The reason is quite simple that the socio-political-economical-cultural structure of "sons of Israel" and "Indian lower castes i.e. Marathi Protestant Christains" was never similar. So the "need of the prophet" was a very unique need limited to only the people of Israel of that time.
Another important thing here is that I am talking only abou the "need of the prophet" amd not the need of the values which Christ brought with him.
I know for sure that lot of Marathi Protestant Christians spend their precious time in understanding and explaining to others that how the work of Jesus Christ was the design of the God. Marathi Protestant Christians explain this concept to others about which they thenselves are not convinced. I think by doing this they do nothing bbut just harm the core of the Christ which are his values.
Christ is not Christ just because his years on this earth was the pre-thought design of the God, he is hrist because of his values. Thats why the universal appeal of Christ lies in his values and not the peripheral thing.
A common history is always needed to carry the faiths, beliefs ahead. With common history ot becomes easier for community to carry their faiths and beliefs ahead. In case of Marathi Protestant Christians or lets say the Indian Castes who got converted in Christianity this option of "common hostory" doesnt exist as the history of "people of Israel" is literally pretty far from them. Excluding history waht remains are the values. I think Christ is better understood in converted communities of recent years rather than in the communities who are following it for centuries.