Do I really want to be like Jesus?

As Christians we profess that Jesus is truly man and truly God. The Gospels are full of examples of Jesus performing miraculous signs and healings that show that He was God’s beloved Son. With His death and resurrection and His fulfillment of all the prophecies He proved that he IS God. We know the end of the story and so as we read the Gospel texts, we do not usually think about Jesus as the man from Nazareth but more likely as God Incarnate. There are some who cannot accept that Jesus was truly a man because of all the miracles he performed. Some think that he must have had special powers from birth. So, can we find anything in the Gospels that can show us what kind of a man that Jesus was?

If you search for human personality traits, you will find listings of more than 600 but Psychologists have mostly agreed on 5 categories of personality traits. Everyone’s personality and their humanity can be judged as being somewhere on the scale of these five categories. These Categories are Openness to Experience, Conscientiousness, Extroversion, Agreeableness and Neuroticism. Where you are on the scale describes what type of a person you are likely to be in your life and your dealings with others. We can get a picture of Jesus as a man by examining scripture and looking for his personality traits.

The category of Openness to Experience involves being curious, having creativity and being willing to try new things. The category of Extroversion involves being sociable, assertive and outgoing. The traits of these two categories were demonstrated by Jesus in the Bible story that occurred after Passover. When Jesus was a boy, he stayed over three days in the temple courts in Jerusalem listening and questioning the teachers (LK 2:41-51). This incident indicates that Jesus was curious, sociable, outgoing, and assertive as he listened and asked questions. For a boy to show such an interest while listening and asking questions would put the young Jesus high on the positive side of the scale of these two personality categories.

Conscientiousness requires a certain level of self-discipline; it also requires being responsible and dependable. In the book of John and Luke, before his crucifixion Jesus lays out the things he has done and how the Disciples should follow his example (Jn 15:10, Lk 16:10). The life that Jesus led as a teacher required him to spread his message to all and, despite the resistance he encountered, he never gave up or gave in to all the pressure. Jesus was always there supporting his Disciples and giving them encouragement.

The category of Agreeableness is marked by compassion, cooperation, and avoiding conflict. When Jesus saw a crowd, he had compassion on them (Mt 14:14, Mt 20:34, Mk 6:34). There was potential for conflict amongst the disciples due to their backgrounds and beliefs, but Jesus recognized that and would address it head on (Mt 20:20-28). Jesus was all about cooperation when he stated that “whoever is not with me is against me” (Lk 11:23). There are many more passages about Jesus being agreeable even to the point of death, so he is definitely positive in this category.

As we have said, the category for Extroversion means that a person is sociable, assertive, and outgoing. We can see this trait in him all throughout the Bible. There are passages about Jesus attending a wedding with his family, he was constantly interacting with his disciples and asserted what he believed in many scripture passages (Jn 2:1-2, Jn 2:15, Mk 7:5-8). The way that Jesus carried himself certainly showed that he was a leader who attracted many people to him. Some people were attracted to him because of his miracles but he also had many friends in spite of the miracles he performed.

The last category is that of Neuroticism. The traits in this category are about emotional stability, anxiety, and the tendency for negative emotions. There are almost no passages that I know that would show Jesus to be a neurotic person except for two that might be interpreted as that. After all of Jesus’ ministry, through all the trials and tribulation, through the false accusations and mock trial, there was no hint of Jesus wavering in his convictions except for in the Garden of Gethsemane, and when he was on the cross. In Gethsemane he asked God to take this cup from him, but added only if God was willing to do that. On the cross through his pain, he asked God why He had forsaken him. (Mk 14:36, Mt 27:46, Mk 15:34).

Jesus had all the traits that make us human, yet if we were to compare Jesus, the man from Nazareth, to any other person we would have to say that he was a charismatic leader, a friend of many, and an exceptionally good person.

As Christians we are expected to act and be like Jesus the man from Nazareth. So, the Disciple group asks that you consider the human man Jesus and compare yourself to him. If you are like the rest of us Christians, you will certainly fall short of Jesus’ example in some of your personality traits. If you are like us, you will struggle every day with trying to be as good of a person as Jesus was, but the rewards in this life and the next are worth it.