To read the gospels in the spirit with which they were written, it is not enough to ask what Jesus did or said. We must ask what Jesus meant by his strange deeds and words. He intended to reveal the Father to us, and to show that he is the only-begotten Son of the Father.

What he signified is always more challenging than we expect, more outrageous, more egregious. That is why the Catholic novelist Francois Mauriac calls him “of all the great characters history places before us, the least logical.”

Dostoyevsky’s Grand Inquisitor knew this when he reproached Christ for puzzling men by being “exceptional, vague, and enigmatic.”
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Gender-neutral version:

To read the gospels in the spirit with which they were written, it is not enough to ask what Jesus did or said. We must ask what Jesus meant by his strange deeds and words. He intended to reveal God to us, and to show that he is the only-begotten Son of God.

What he signified is always more challenging than we expect, more outrageous, more egregious. That is why the Catholic novelist Francois Mauriac calls him “of all the great characters history places before us, the least logical.”

Dostoyevsky’s Grand Inquisitor knew this when he reproached Christ for puzzling people by being “exceptional, vague, and enigmatic.”