"The King Jesus Gospel" by Scot McKnight, a Review

The King Jesus Gospel: The Original Good News RevisitedThe King Jesus Gospel: The Original Good News Revisited by Scot McKnight
My rating: 3 of 5 stars

I will be doing a sermon series soon titled "What Is the Gospel". I had assumed "The Gospel" for years, and have heard others whittle it down to one or three or four points. But some time back I began to re-think what the Scripture, and Jesus, mean by "The Gospel". So I was delighted to pick up Scot McKnight's 184 page hardback and dive into it.

The strengths of the book are numerous. I think he builds a good case for what the Gospel actually is: the resolution of the story of Israel in Jesus, and thus the the story of God's world rescue operation - a world rescue operation that has Jesus, the Messiah of Israel and true Lord of the world, at its center. McKnight takes slow steps to carefully unfold each part, building brick-by-brick, until he comes to the end result. Whether the reader will be totally satisfied with his conclusion or not, he will have to appreciate what the author unfolds and puts on display. In my mind McKnight gets it right.

The weakness of the book may well be the writing style. I have a suspicion that the redundancy - a redundancy that builds to a climax - reflects the author's teaching approach. Nevertheless, for me, it was a bit annoying and I found myself saying, "Okay. Now get to the point!" And in the final chapter McKnight gets to the point, a point he has been subtly persuading the reader to embrace all along.

"The King Jesus Gospel" is a surprisingly easy read. This would be an ideal book for a church's small group to tackle, or an adult Sunday School. But I also think it is a book that needs to be in the hands of Evangelists, Pastors and leaders of every Bible-believing, God-fearing, Christ-loving congregation. To purchase this book would be worth your money, so rush out and snatch up a copy.


View all my reviews

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

"Was America Founded as a Christian Nation?" (Rev. Ed.) by John Fea. A Review

Image
  John Fea is a professor of history at Messiah University in Mechanicsburg, PA. A university founded in 1909 by the Brethren in Christ Church. He originally published "Was America Founded as a Christian Nation? A Historical Introduction" in 2011, and it was revised in 2016. This 328-page paperback is packed full with Colonial and American history, drawing from original sources to answer that question. It is a book written "for the historically minded and thoughtful reader who is looking for help in sorting" out this question, avoiding polemics (xix). Since we live in a sound-bite culture, Fea recognizes that it is difficult to have a sustained dialogue on this topic, but he makes a valiant effort toward having that sustained dialogue. The book reads fairly straightforward, and doesn't seem to get bogged down in the contentious mudpuddles or bogs. In the end, Fea seems to get his point across. To answer the reigning question if America was founded as a Christian...
Read more

Union with Christ - An Application

Image
  (This was my weekly letter to my congregation on Wednesday, 21 February 2024) This morning in my devotional reading, I was working through 1 Corinthians 8. Though I’ve read these words a huge number of times over the years, today one verse caused me to stop and take stock.  Paul wrote, “ Thus, sinning against your brothers and wounding their conscience when it is weak, you sin against Christ ” (1 Corinthians 8:12). What struck me is a couple of things. First, in God’s saving work, we are – by grace alone – united (hitched, bonded, ingrafted) to Christ so much so, that what happens to us happens to him, and what is his becomes ours (think of Galatians 2:20, for example). As Sinclair Ferguson put it, “through union with Christ all that is his by incarnation becomes ours through faith” (“The Christian Life,” 110). Let that percolate in your heart for a while. Your fear, anxiety, tears, and so forth, he feels. And his “ Peace, be still ” is yours. Second, the way we treat one an...
Read more

"Ah, Lord! We are Animated by Anger and Anxiety, Fear and Fury..."

Image
I hesitate to put this out there because of the combative environment we are in at present. But I think some souls will take courage from this, and some will also join with me as we get to the end of this little composition. I am struck by the words of God in Zechariah 8. As he rehearses the waywardness and faithlessness of his people in the past, he clearly declares that he " set every man against his neighbor " (8:10). That got me thinking long ago. I started putting the pieces together and realized that one of God's acts of judgment is division, setting a man against his neighbor. That's what happened when he divided his people into the northern tribes and southern tribes (see 1 Kings 11:26-40). Because of Solomon's turning aside, allowing his wives to turn his heart away from the God of his father, David, the Lord brings about a rift in God's people. And this pattern of divisive judgment runs throughout Scripture. On the other hand, truthful unity is the g...
Read more