Becoming like Jesus
What exactly does that mean?
Jesus was an unmarried peasant who didn’t put his family first.
Most of his friends were criminals or engaging in sinful lifestyles.
He spent most of his time with drunks, gluttons, fornicators, and thieves.
Nearly everything Jesus said and did, made religious people mad.
Once in a while, (but not very often) I’ll come across a christian website that actually makes some sense. While doing research for a series of blogs about what christians mean when they say they want to be more like Jesus, I discovered one such site. It’s called Theology in the Raw. In a 2020 blog titled “What Does it Mean to Become More Like Jesus?” the site’s author, Chris Sprinkle writes this,
“I’m one of those guys who has an extra sensitive Christian cliché antenna. Some call it a BS meter.
Hemingway called it a “crap detector”.
“It picks up on all kinds of chatter through the church airwaves and demands a concrete explanation. So, when I hear Christians say they want to ‘become more like Jesus,’ my meter goes nuts.”
On this point Sprinkle and I agree.
He rightly asks, “What does it mean to “become more like Jesus? What does it look like?”
This is exactly what I have been searching for while researching this topic. What exactly do christians envision when they strive to become “more Christlike”? And how will they know when or if they’ve actually achieved it? Even though Sprinkle’s writings show more logic than most of the christian blogs I’ve read, it’s obvious that he is a christian and he still says thing that cause my crap detector to go off.
Ground rules:
Given the amount of time (decades) that transpired between when Jesus lived and when the gospels were written, I don’t believe they accurately report everything Jesus said and did in his lifetime. However, most christians do believe. Anything that is written by modern day christians, about the life of Jesus must come exclusively from the four gospels. This will be our measuring stick of validity of what Sprinkle and other christians write about becoming more like Jesus. With that criterion in mind, let’s see how Sprinkle’s comments stack up.
Hate your family:
“My suspicion, though, is that if we look closely at Jesus without our modern moralistic filter, fewer people would want to become more like Jesus. Jesus was an unmarried peasant who didn’t put his family first.”
The Gospels do teach that Jesus was anti-family. In the Gospel of Matthew, Jesus was quoted as saying “For I have come to turn a man against his father, a daughter against her mother, a daughter-in-law against her mother-in-law—a man’s enemies will be the members of his own household. Anyone who loves his father or mother more than me is not worthy of me; anyone who loves his son or daughter more than me is not worthy of me. If anyone comes to me and does not hate his father and mother, his wife and children, his brothers, and sisters—yes, even his own life—he cannot be my disciple.”
Wow! Let that one sink in.
So, is this what it means to become more like Jesus? Are real disciples of Jesus required to disown their own family? That would be quite shocking and rather cult-like for most christians. Perhaps this is why Sprinkle’s says that “fewer people would want to become more like Jesus.”
Hang out with criminals.
Sprinkle: Most of his friends were criminals or engaging in sinful lifestyles.
Criminals? Really? This made my crap detector go off. To say that most of Jesus’ friends were criminals is not supported in the Gospels. It is reported in Matthew that he dined with Tax Collectors. One christian website says this about why tax collectors were so universally hated. “Tax collectors in the Bible were Jews who were working for the hated Romans. These individuals were seen as turncoats, traitors to their own countrymen. Rather than fighting the Roman oppressors, the publicans were helping them—and enriching themselves at the expense of their fellow Jews.”
Does that make them criminals? Is Sprinkle really saying that in order to be more like Jesus, christians should have more friends that are criminals who have sinful lifestyles? Try saying that from the pulpit.
Avoid religious people.
Sprinkle: “Jesus had hardly any friends who would be considered religious.”
I like where he’s going with this statement. He obviously understands that many christians believe that in order to be more like Jesus they must spend more time in the company of other religious people. Some (maybe all) of my former church friends have defriended me because I no longer believe as they do. I suspect that most of them have very few, (if any) non-christian or apostate friends. The gospels do teach that Jesus was at odds with the religious leaders of his day. “Alas, alas, for you Lawyers and Pharisees, hypocrites that you are…” Without a doubt the thought of hanging out with non-religious people would certainly take most christians way out of their comfort zone and would prove to be quite upsetting.
But it’s his next statement that sets off my crap detector.
Sprinkle: Jesus spent most of his time with drunks, gluttons, fornicators, and thieves.
Wait, what? Jesus spent most of his time with drunks, gluttons, fornicators, and thieves? Beside Jesus occasionally hanging out with tax collectors this statement by Sprinkle cannot be verified from the Gospels. It’s actually a quite comical thing to say. One can almost imagine that in the sermon on the mount Jesus was heard to say, “Blessed are the drunks, gluttons, fornicators, and thieves, for they shall be called friends of Jesus.” I seriously doubt the validity of Sprinkle’s statement.
Sprinkle: “He was so close to “sinners” that the religious leaders thought he was one.”
This statement can be verified in the Gospels. In Mark it’s recorded that “when the scribes and the Pharisees saw that he was eating with sinners and tax collectors, they said to his disciples, ‘Why does he eat with tax collectors and sinners?’” However, his next statement also set off my crap detector.
Strive to make religious people angry.
Sprinkle: “Nearly everything Jesus said and did, made religious people mad.”
I see where Sprinkle is going with this, but can he really say that he knows everything Jesus supposedly said and did? Of course not. The gospels indeed tell us that he was at odds with the religious leaders of his day, but we certainly don’t know “everything” Jesus said and did. This statement by Sprinkle can also be disqualified.
Give all your wealth to the poor.
Sprinkle: “One of Jesus’s favorite topics had to do with money. And this got people really riled up.”
It’s recorded in Luke that Jesus told his disciples that anyone who did not renounce all that he has cannot be his disciple. He also told a wealthy wannabe follower to “sell all that he had and distribute it to the poor”, and only then could he have treasure in heaven and become worthy to follow him. Easy thing for Jesus to say. As far are we know, he had no wealth to distribute to the poor. Any modern day christian who actually did such a thing would be considered a socialist, something the religious right openly detests.
Sprinkle: “In Matthew 25, one of the most terrifying passages in the Bible, Jesus describes judgment day in detail and His criterion for who’s in and who’s out has to do with whether you and I have served the poor and needy in this life. Part of what it means to become more like (the biblical) Jesus is becoming excessively generous with our material wealth and having the scent of poverty on our hands and feet.”
This is something that I have said quite often in my blogs. Evangelical christian soldiers like James Dobson, Jerry Falwell, Pat Robertson and Dr. Elizabeth Youmans on their pious crusades to vanquish the evil liberals in the world, fail to ever mention the ramifications of Matthew 25.
Love your neighbor.
Sprinkle: “Jesus also talked a lot about love. Take a quick look at the early Church and you’ll see that enemy-love would become the hallmark of Christianity long after Jesus’s resurrection. When people thought of Christians, they recognized them as the people who, like Jesus, love their enemies.“
Sprinkle’s suggestion that the reader “take a look at the early church”, violates our earlier stated criterion. Remember, any reference about becoming like Jesus has to come exclusively from the Gospels. Not only what he said, but also what he did. The writer of Matthew did indeed report that Jesus, in the Sermon on the Mount, taught his followers to love their enemies. ““You have heard it said, you shall love your neighbors and hate your enemy. For if you love only those who love you, what reward have you? Do not even the tax gathers, and the gentiles do the same?”
Let’s look more closely to the first part of that. “You have heard it said, you shall love your neighbors and hate your enemy”. In the margin of my bible this verse in Matthew refers to a verse in Leviticus 19 which says, “You shall not hate your fellow-countryman in your heart. You shall not take vengeance, nor bear any grudge against the sons of your people, but you shall; love your neighbor as yourself.”
It’s obvious that their “neighbor” was also Jewish. I am unaware of any Jewish law in the Old Testament commanding Jews to love gentiles. Not sure Jesus ever taught that either.
So, Jesus reportedly said, “love your enemy”, but is this an instance of “Do what I say, and not what I do?” What we really need to ask is, “Did Jesus have any enemies?” The answer to that question is an unequivocal YES. The religious leaders of his day, the Lawyers and Pharisees, were those with whom Jesus had his most significant opposition. So, how did Jesus act toward his enemies? Concerning the Lawyers and Pharisees, we know how he reacted. In the words from the musical Godspell Jesus says to them, “You snakes, you viper brood, you cannot escape being devil’s food”. (Matthew 18)
Sprinkle: Jesus’s hard-hitting, enemy-loving, harlot-embracing, wild-eyed way of life is captured in his famed call to come die with him. “If anyone would come after me, let him deny himself and take up his cross daily and follow me”. As Deitrich Bonhoeffer used to say, “When Jesus calls a man, he bids him to come and die.”
Summary:
How to become more like Jesus according to Theology in the Raw.
- Become an unmarried wandering peasant.
- Be anti-family.
- Hang out with criminals.
- Spend most of your time with drunks, gluttons, fornicators, and thieves.
- Avoid hanging out with religious people.
- Strive to make religious people angry.
- Sell all your possessions and give all you have to the poor.
- Become excessively generous with your material wealth. (Although Jesus had no material wealth to share.)
- Have the scent of poverty on your hands and feet. (Whatever that means.)
- Love your enemies. (Did Jesus?)
- Abstain from lust and adultery.
- Practice celibacy.
- Never get married.
- Never gaze at a woman.
- Get ready to die.
Coming next:
We’ll examine several christian websites, each giving us “10 ways to be more like Jesus”. Funny thing is, we end up with over 80 ways to be more like Jesus. We’ll put all 80 ways to the same “crap detector” criteria that we applied to Sprinkle. I’d be willing to bet that even his christian cliché antenna would be going nuts, because mine sure was.
From Where I Stand
June 22, 2025
Dale Crum