Jesus Christ as Expression of Divine Kindness and Compassion in the Synoptic Gospels: An African Perspective
This article dealt with the way the kindness of God was manifested to humanity in various ways in both the Old Testament and the New Testaments. It adopted a socio-historical hermeneutics as a method of interpretation. This method enabled the article to gain insights from both the Old and the New Testaments on how the word kindness was translated and applied. The article showed that hesed in the Old Testament and eleos in the New Testament means kindness and encompassed various nuances based on the context of the reader or the interpreter. In the New Testament, Jesus is the fullness of the expression of the mercy and Kindness of God to humanity through his actions and words. The article believed that the same kindness in the Bibles was extended to Africa through various works by ecclesia and its missionaries in Africa. The article concluded that the African people must learn from Jesus and his disciples how to express kindness, mercy, love and grace to one another to develop Africa as a continent.
Keywords: african, christ, compassion, divine, expression, gospels, jesus, kindness, perspective, synoptic