There are two kinds of books I read most: books about the church and books about Jesus. So it was with great excitement when I learned that one of my favorite authors who writes about the church, was publishing a book about Jesus. The book is Jesus: A Theography, by Frank Viola and Leonard Sweet. Sure, they have both written a previous book about Jesus, Jesus Manifesto, but this was their most recent endeavor and I was excited to read it.

And let me just say that I was not disappointed. While many of the books about Jesus are written in scholarly language and primarily for other scholars, Viola and Sweet have written a well-researched and documented biography of Jesus, but in a way that the average Christian can read and understand.

The book also approaches the life of Jesus from a perspective that is not found in most other books about Jesus. Although Viola and Sweet are primarily using the four Gospels as their source material for retelling the life of Jesus, they also include theological material and ideas from the rest of Scripture. Not only that, but rather than begin their theological biography with Matthew 1, they begin with the pre-existence of Jesus before time began (chapter 1), and the work of Jesus in creation (chapters 2-3).

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I work with a lot of Jewish people, and have even spent time reading and studying the Scriptures with them. I am always impressed at their attention to detail, their exuberance in debating the text, and their willingness to listen to alternative explanations. Sometimes the discussions can seem more like an argument than a dialogue, but in the end, everybody remains friends and expresses anticipation for the next time we gather to discuss Scripture.

To my shame, however, I have never had the courage to bring up Isaiah 53 in any of my Scripture discussions with Jews. I have often wanted to, but so far, have not done so. Part of this was that I have never fully studied the passage myself and was not sure how to handle Jewish objections to the Christian interpretation of Isaiah 53, but another part of my neglect of this passage is due to the fact that I did not know how essential it is to Jewish evangelism.

After having read The Gospel According to Isaiah 53, I have become more knowledgeable about both. I now know more about what the text means, how Jewish people interpret the text, how to respond to these interpretations, and how essential and central this chapter is for helping Jewish people see that Jesus truly is the promised Messiah.

I really wish more books like this would get written.

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Since I plan to resume work soon on my Commentary on Luke, I am always interested in seeing and reading other online commentaries that people are writing. Dan King recently put out a Commentary on Philippians as an ebook, and he was gracious enough to send me a copy of it for review.

After looking it over, I wouldn’t really classify his volume as a commentary. Most commentaries take a book of the Bible and work through it verse by verse, line by line, and even word by word. One verse of biblical text will often result in many paragraphs (or even pages) of commentary text. Dan King’s commentary did not do this.

Instead, he divided Philippians into sections, similar to how a pastor would divide the book to preach through it. Then for each section, he had friends of his write some thoughts about that section from Philippians. The length of each section was roughly the length of the average blog post—a couple hundred words at most.

Each section concluded with a Greek word study for one of the key words in that section, and some quotes from other available reference tools.

As a result of this approach, each section read more like a blog post than a page out of technical reference tool. This could be helpful for our sound-bite, blog-addicted world. Dan is not so much writing a commentary as he is a blogentary, and he may be on to something. Maybe there is a large audience for just such an approach to Scripture study.

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Thomas à Kempis once wrote, “Let our chief endeavor be to meditate on the life of Jesus Christ.”

I try to do this as much as I am able, but one thing that helps is to not only read the Gospels, but also to read books about Jesus by other Christian writers and speakers. Their perspective helps me view Jesus in a different way, and think about Him even more.

For this reason, I was thrilled to recently hear that Frank Viola and Leonard Sweet are coming out with a new book on Jesus. It is called Jesus, A Theography.

I am guessing from the title, and from reading Frank Viola’s blog, that this book is going to be a cross between a book on Christology, a biography of Jesus, and a biblical survey.

Here is something Frank Viola wrote about this book in his most recent email newsletter:

The book uniquely tells the story of Jesus from Genesis to Revelation, connecting all the dots together, showing that the Bible is a beautiful narrative about Christ. The latest (and most fascinating) research about Jesus during His lifetime is also included.

There is a lot more about this book on his website, where you can download a free sample chapter, and preorder the book for only $10 (if you order by Sunday, August 19).

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You haven’t lived until your life has been wrecked.

Far too many of us today live a life of ease and comfort. We think that Christianity is about being “happy, happy, happy all the time,” seeing God miraculously answer all our prayers, and have all of our Christian friends surround us with financial and emotional support every time the least little thing goes wrong.

But this isn’t the way Christianity really is.

At least, this isn’t the way it is supposed to be.

I am convinced that truly following Jesus will lead to two things.

First, it will lead to Jesus wrecking most (if not all) of your plans for your life. Despite what you might have heard in church, the plans of Jesus for your life do not closely resemble the American Dream.

If you have dreams for what you are going to do for God, and how your ministry will grow, and what books you will write, and how many children you will rescue, and how churches will beat down your door to ask you to come speak for them, the chances are pretty good that if you are following Jesus, none of this will happen and instead, He will lead you into obscurity, poverty, nakedness, danger, and sword (Rom 8:35).

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