The First Idiot in Heaven

Book excerpt: While on Earth, Jesus said some difficult things. He told the rich to give away all their money, and the joyful to become mourners. If you wanted to inherit the Earth, you had to be meek. If your eye offended you, no problem--as long as you plucked it out. A friend of mine said, "Can I start following Jesus on Monday? I'd like to enjoy the weekend." Obviously, the words and commandments of Jesus are pure, perfect, holy--and meant for Israelites. Jesus Himself said, "I was not sent except to the lost sheep of the house of Israel" (Matthew 15:24). Is it possible we have been struggling along someone else's path? What if the words in red were never meant to be our marching orders? Several months after leaving Earth, the Jewish Messiah appeared as a very non-Jewish light to a self-righteous idiot en route to Damascus to kill Christians. Up next? Not only a starling new destiny for believers (heaven instead of Earth) but a new message of pure grace for all humanity. This is that story.