I Made a MISTAKE About JESUS (So does Joe Rogan)

I made a mistake about Jesus and honestly I’m not proud of it. But I think a lot of men watching this right now are making that exact same mistake. It’s not the mistake of rejecting Jesus. It’s the mistake of almost getting him right.

Despite being a Christian all my life, I spent years doing just that, just almost getting him right. And some of the most intelligent, well-read, influential men today are doing the exact same.

In this video, I’m going to show you exactly what that mistake looks like and why it is not as innocent as it seems and what finally changed everything for me. But before all these mosquitoes outside here eat me alive, let’s finish up this walk and get back inside and continue the conversation.

Let me tell you where I’m coming from first.

I am a Christian man, a husband, a father, an Ironman triathlete, and healthcare professional. And I did not always have a settled faith.

There was a stretch of my life through high school and into the first few years of university where if you asked me about Jesus, I would have said something like this:

“Yeah, Jesus was real. Probably one of the greatest human beings who ever walked the earth. A brilliant moral teacher. A man with incredible character. Someone worth admiring and learning from. But God? The Son of God? Lord and Savior of all mankind? That felt like a step too far for me at the time.”

And I want to be honest about why I thought that.

It was not because I had done deep theological research and arrived at that conclusion. It was because culture had shaped how I saw him.

Modern culture has a very specific and very convenient version of Jesus. It is the version that is safe. The version that fits comfortably into any dinner conversation without making anyone uncomfortable.

Culture is completely fine with that Jesus. The wise Jesus. The inspiring Jesus. The morally admirable Jesus.

What culture pushes back hard against is the Jesus who says he is the only way to the Father.

That Jesus makes demands of your life.

That Jesus is not manageable.

So I did what a lot of young men do. I took the culturally acceptable version, kept the parts that felt reasonable, and quietly left the rest on the table.

Now, here is where it gets really interesting because today some of the most talked about men on the planet are doing something that I find genuinely fascinating.

And I want to be clear, I have a lot of respect for both of these men, Joe Rogan and Jordan Peterson.

These are two guys who have done more to encourage men to think critically, seek meaning, and get serious about their lives than almost anyone else in popular culture right now.

And both of them have spent serious time with Jesus. Not dismissing him. Not mocking him. Actually studying him, wrestling with his words, his teachings, his life.

Jordan Peterson has gone incredibly deep into the Bible, especially in his book We Who Wrestle with God. I actually found it very well written.

He talks about Jesus in a way that is genuinely moving and profound sometimes. He understands the moral weight of the story. He sees Jesus as the ultimate example of what a man should be. The sacrificial hero. The one who bears the weight of the world.

He gets so close.

And then he stops.

Because when it comes to that final step, that Jesus is not just a powerful archetype or a symbol, but that he is literally God in human form, Lord and Savior, Peterson has not crossed that line, at least not publicly and not fully.

“Do you believe in God?”

Peterson’s answer:

“I act as if God exists. That’s a sufficient statement as far as I’m concerned.”

A few years ago, Peterson was also pressed with a question:

“So, you believe that Jesus was God?”

“Yeah. I think if you understand what that means that it’s indisputable.”

This is significant. Peterson may be moving closer to full affirmation, but notice that he still hedges with “if you understand what that means,” which implies he is still framing it philosophically or psychologically rather than as a straightforward theological confession.

Joe Rogan is similar.

He has had incredible conversations about Jesus throughout the years. He clearly respects him. He acknowledges the staggering impact Jesus has had on Western civilization. He sees the wisdom and the moral clarity.

But Joe stops at the same place.

Great man. Great teacher.

And that’s where it ends.

“But you get to the teachings of Christ. I can’t find any faults in it.”

And from a separate clip circulating from the same era:

“There’s this one person that everybody agrees existed that somehow had the best plan for how a human being should interact with each other and behave.”

And look, I completely understand that because I lived there.

I understand the appeal of that position. It feels intellectually honest. It feels humble. It feels like you are giving Jesus credit without being one of those people who goes all the way in.

But here’s the truth that I had to reckon with eventually.

That stopping point is not neutral.

That stopping point has eternal consequences.

And the reason I say that is not to be dramatic. It is because of something Jesus himself said that makes the moderate position logically impossible.

In a recent Joe Rogan interview with Wes Huff, a Christian apologist, which is someone who defends faith or specific belief, Rogan pushes Huff through tough questions on whether Jesus is actually God. And even though Joe says that he attends church with his wife, he is still clearly in the “great man, but prove the God part” camp.

I’m praying that both Joe Rogan and Jordan Peterson come to accept Jesus as their Lord and Savior.

Let me address something that comes up a lot.

There are people who push back on Christianity by saying there is no real historical evidence Jesus even existed. That is actually a very weak argument.

The vast majority of secular historians and scholars, people with zero religious agenda, accept that a man named Jesus of Nazareth was a real historical person. He lived. He taught. He was crucified.

That is not seriously debated in academic circles.

But here is the critical thing to understand.

Acknowledging that Jesus was a real historical person is not the same as following him.

Even Islam does this.

Islamic scholars will tell you that Jesus was a real prophet. One of the great prophets, actually. Some Islamic scholars have even said that they hold a higher regard to Jesus than many Christians do.

And yet their Jesus is only a prophet.

A prophet is not God.

And that difference is not a small theological footnote.

That difference is everything.

Because the Jesus of Christianity did not walk around presenting himself as a wise prophet passing on good advice. He made claims that no prophet had any right to make.

This is where I want to bring in one of the most important arguments I have ever encountered.

It comes from C. S. Lewis.

If you don’t know of him, he was a brilliant Oxford scholar and one of the most influential Christian thinkers of the 20th century. He wrote The Chronicles of Narnia, if that rings a bell. He was also, for a significant part of his life, an atheist. So he was not someone who came to faith without serious intellectual resistance.

Lewis had an argument called the trilemma, and it goes like this:

Jesus made direct, specific claims to be God. He said, “The Father and I are one.” He forgave sins, which only God has the authority to do. He accepted worship from his followers.

These are not the words and actions of a humble, wise, moral teacher who is simply trying to help people live better lives.

These are the words of someone claiming to be God himself.

So Lewis said, “You have exactly three options when it comes to Jesus.”

Option one: He was a liar.

He knew he was not God. He said that he was anyway.

If that’s true, he is not a good man. He is not a moral teacher worth following. He would be one of the greatest conmen in human history.

Option two: He was a lunatic.

He genuinely believed he was God, but he was wrong. He was delusional.

And again, a delusional man is not a wise, admirable teacher. He is someone who needs serious help.

Option three: He is Lord.

He is exactly who he said he was.

Lewis put it plainly:

“You can shut him up for a fool. You can spit at him and kill him as a demon. Or you can fall at his feet and call him Lord and God. But let us not come with any patronizing nonsense about his being a great human teacher. He has not left that option open to us.”

And that is the problem with the Jordan Peterson position. That is the problem with the Joe Rogan position.

You cannot call Jesus a great moral teacher and walk away because a great moral teacher does not tell people he is the only way to God.

John 14:6 says:

“Jesus told him, I am the way, the truth, and the life. No one can come to the Father except through me.”

That is not the language of someone offering helpful life advice.

That is one of the most exclusive and demanding claims ever made by any person in human history.

So who is he actually?

Colossians 1:15-16 says:

“Christ is the visible image of the invisible God. He existed before anything was created and is supreme over all creation. For through him God created everything in the heavens and on earth.”

That is not describing a good man.

That is describing the Creator of the universe choosing to put on human skin and walk among us.

John 1:1 says it plainly:

“In the beginning, the Word already existed. The Word was with God and the Word was God.”

The Word is Jesus.

And Scripture does not leave a lot of wiggle room on this.

Here’s what I want to say to every man watching this, especially the younger guys in their late teens, their 20s, their 30s, who are in that in-between space I was for so long.

The mistake I made was not about a lack of information.

It was that I was willing to take the comfortable version of Jesus and leave the challenging version alone.

I was fine with Jesus the teacher.

I was not ready for Jesus the Lord who requires something of me.

Men like Joe Rogan and Jordan Peterson have done something genuinely valuable. They have brought back serious intellectual attention to Jesus in a culture that mostly wants to ignore him or water him down.

I have real respect for that.

But getting close is not the same as getting there.

And I spent too many years just getting close.

The most important question you will ever answer in your life is not about your career or your health or your legacy.

It is this one:

Who do you say Jesus is?

Because that answer changes everything.

And that’s the better story.

If this video made you think and ponder just a little bit, do me a favor, hit subscribe.

I put out content every week for men who are serious about their faith, their families, and living with real purpose. Not soft content. Not feel-good fluff. Real conversations that most people are not willing to have.

And if this specific video challenged you, share it with one man you know who is still in that in-between space with Jesus because that is exactly who I made it for.

I will see you in the next one.

God bless.