Archive for May, 2011
5 items.
This is called being passive aggressive. It’s Jesus’ recommendation for dealing with confrontation. The idea is that instead of fighting with a bully or thief, you just give them what they want, except you go one further and give them even more. It shows your generous nature. And if anyone is watching, they won’t see a strong guy picking on a weak guy, they’ll see a suddenly awkward situation where the bully looks bad and you look great. And Jesus wants you to look great to others, cause then it makes him look great. And he is great. Great. (My writing skills are in tip top shape apparently… great…)
If you check out the other translations of the Bible (which you can do on the site I link to for my bible verses), they say something about someone forcing you to walk a mile with them. But that makes no sense out of context, so I like this translation. (It’s also the one I was reading at the time.) If you’re ever wondering about some part of the Bible that sounds weird, or you’re not sure what it’s about, this is a good lesson. Check out some other translations on it. Or look up some commentary. Figure it out for yourself. Chances are there’s something interesting going on there that just isn’t clear when you read the Bible on its own. I actually first heard the interpretation of this passage from “The Meeting House” podcast. And it suddenly made waaay more sense than just being forced to walk a mile for no reason.
I should have the video of me drawing this weeks comic up on my youtube channel soon. It’s at 800% speed, so it’s not long. You might notice the roughs I draw from are in red. That’s because I finally got a scanner, so I can draw on paper again. whoo hoo! This may only matter to me, but drawing on paper is fun, so that’s how I’ll be drawing the comic from now on. It doesn’t effect anything, except now I have a physical copy I can look back on and say, “wow, that sucks.” It’s gonna be great. (There’s that word again…)
Thanks for reading,
Jared
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May25
Jesus was a smart guy. This was clear as he trained under Jewish teachers as a boy. So when he was a man, with brilliant new revolutionary ideas, I imagine a lot of Jews would have wanted to tutor under him. Maybe not so much after he went fully Messiah and started bashing the religious leaders and preaching about a whole new message, one of love and peace. But at this time, when he was looking for his disciples, it would have been pretty crazy that he picked out a bunch of country louts who flunked out of Jew school.
This is actually the second We Like Sheep comic I ever drew, oh so long ago. I drew it on paper with pencil and ink. Crazy I know. I recently got a scanner (finally!) so I thought I would post this comic. I might scan the first one and post it on my Facebook page.
Also. No Apocalypse. Thank God!! Seriously, you should thank him. Because he clearly said the day of Jesus’ return is unknowable, because he knew crazy people like this would crop up and do crazy stuff. I would also argue what the return of Jesus even means. I’m pretty sure it’s not raining fire and four horsemen. Although that stuff does make for an awesome video game.
Thanks for reading!
Jared
May15
The Joseph story is one of those stories that everyone knows from the Old Testament. You may know it as Joseph and the Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat. My suspicion is that any story that seems to have narrative with continuous characters and clear plot are popular in the Old Testament. Because it seems like it’s mostly just following people around as they do stuff. So this is the story of Joseph, the son of Jacob, now known as Israel. Because God renamed him that when he broke his hip.
I won’t go into details. I suggest you go read the story for yourself. It starts here. It’s actually like a story, so it’s entertaining. Partway through, Joseph is tempted by his master’s wife. Well, not tempted, so much as ordered to have sex with her. But he says no. I’ve heard a few different motivations on this. He doesn’t want to betray his master who has been kind to him. He doesn’t want to commit sexual immorality. I think those apply. But I also think he just didn’t want to do it with her.
She probably wanted Joseph because he was apparently hot, but also because he said no. And she, being used to power, found this an attractive challenge. But I think Joseph was an upstanding guy. He wants a woman who loves him, so they can share something together. So maybe he doesn’t want to have casual sex with someone. Maybe sex means more to him.
If Joseph was telling this story to his buddies over a drink after work, most of them would probably ridicule him for passing up such a sweet deal. But I would pat Joseph on the back for having some integrity. Some moral standards. Some character. Good Joseph, you run from that vicious cougar.
I’ve started a We Like Sheep YouTube channel. You can find it HERE. I will be uploading videos of me drawing, creating the comic, and maybe some more special stuff in the future.
Thanks for reading,
Jared
May07
Events before this comic are as follows. John the Baptist, the guy who sort of ushered in Jesus as the Messiah (Jesus’ forerunner if you would), has been a big pain in the side of King Herod. So Herod currently had him in jail with no idea of what to do with him. Then this happens.
“On Herod’s birthday the daughter of Herodias danced for the guests and pleased Herod so much that he promised with an oath to give her whatever she asked. Prompted by her mother, she said, “Give me here on a platter the head of John the Baptist.”
So a pretty young girl kills John the Baptist. There are some political motivations behind it all I’m sure. Anyway. Immediately after this, Jesus tries to get some solitude. Time alone to collect himself and maybe pray and what not. This is pretty important I think. Jesus, the son of God (kind of God himself), is distressed enough at John’s death that he just wants some time alone. If you ever think God doesn’t care about someone who’s died, here’s a pretty good passage that says otherwise.
Unfortunately for Jesus, his celebrity status doesn’t allow him time alone. Entire villages follow him to where he’s going. But instead of bitching and moaning, he just sets about healing the crowd, and teaching them. And eventually feeding them. You see, in the eagerness to get some free healing from the Messiah, most people were too dumb to bring food. But instead of criticizing them, Jesus feeds them all. Jesus. The most patient man ever to have lived.
So I’ve dipped my toes into the streaming pool. If you want to see a really boring video of me drawing this weeks comic. You can go here. I might do this again next week. We’ll see. I couldn’t figure out how to get sound from my computer playing, so there’s no music or anything. Maybe some other time. I don’t blame you if you have no interest in this though. There is a crap tonne of stuff to do on the internet. Watching me slowly draw and color a comic is one the least interesting things you could be doing. =)
Update: You can watch the video of me drawing my comic in hyper speed here. It’s only 7 minutes, so preferable to the actual hour long version. =) And it makes me looks like I can draw super fast. haha.
Thanks for reading,
Jared
May01
This is a little section from Jesus’ sermon on the mount. If you don’t know what that is, it’s basically a chunk of the gospel where Jesus speaks to an extremely large crowd, and drops bombs of teaching upon them. It’s where a lot of Jesus’ more popular teachings come from, such as “do unto others as you would have them do unto you.” That’s actually Jesus number one rule really. So I tried to portray this part in a comic. I may have succeeded, or not. The only thing that maybe isn’t clear, is that Jesus helps us serve one master. Him. Without him it’s supposed to be pretty hard to ignore the other master. (Sin?) That’s why he’s flicking the little devil off the shoulder. He’s helping us choose what we know is right, but may be reluctant to choose.
I admit, I fell for some stupid stereotypes this comic. I’m not a fan of the generic christian images. Like old man God. But I have to admit, the little shoulder devil angel idea is a pretty apt portrayal of what we deal with. If you’ve ever heard someone talk about sin, and figure he’s just talking about doing bad stuff, maybe this idea will help. I think sin is more like the little devil. Having him on your shoulder doesn’t make you evil. And doing things he suggests doesn’t make you evil. It’s more because things he suggests are usually in opposition of the little angel on the other shoulder. That’s sin. It’s the voice that says don’t do the thing you think is right, do the thing you think is awesome.
That’s actually a pretty terrible analogy. haha. But I dislike how sin is spoken of without an explanation of what it is. Then when you call someone a sinner without context, it’s pretty insulting. If you’ve found a better explanation of sin, please post it in the comments, then people won’t have to really upon my terrible attempt to describe it.
Thanks for reading!
Jared