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4.01 AVERAGE
4.01 AVERAGE
Just finished this book for a bible study group. I truly enjoyed reading the different perspectives on Jesus. I highly recommend this book if you are interested in studying.
medium-paced
I enjoyed that Yancey (a self-identified journalist) enjoys (as I do) how faith questions are explored through novels, especially the section on Tolstoy and Dostoevsky. Best part of the book was his insight on the ability to hold in contrast that the Sermon on the Mount is calling us on towards perfection (and this striving is a good goal), but also recognizing that it is only grace and not our own striving that will bring us there. I liked his use of the struggles of two authors to illustrate this.
However, his insights into the historical Jesus were not particularly new or illuminating for me (although he does quote some theologians I like) and in the end his focus is on the resurrected Christ as the key to Christian faith and right now I’m more interested in exploring the meaning of the incarnational Christ.
Listened during a long and harrowing jeep ride, so missed some sections, but didn’t feel the desire to go back and review. Read on the recommendation of coworker in Nepal, but as with most folks I engage with here, Yancey comes from a more evangelical background, so the questions he is exploring in his faith journey are more where I feel I started than ideas that push me forward at this moment.
However, his insights into the historical Jesus were not particularly new or illuminating for me (although he does quote some theologians I like) and in the end his focus is on the resurrected Christ as the key to Christian faith and right now I’m more interested in exploring the meaning of the incarnational Christ.
Listened during a long and harrowing jeep ride, so missed some sections, but didn’t feel the desire to go back and review. Read on the recommendation of coworker in Nepal, but as with most folks I engage with here, Yancey comes from a more evangelical background, so the questions he is exploring in his faith journey are more where I feel I started than ideas that push me forward at this moment.
One of the things that I wanted to work on this year was my faith. I have to admit that I haven’t been the best at doing this. I think I have been to church one time so far this year. However, I have been trying to read more regarding the Christian faith. I can’t remember how I heard about Yancey, but I know I must have heard about him from somewhere. I ordered ‘The Jesus That I Never Knew” from the library. I wasn’t sure what to expect with Yancey. Some Christian authors make me feel like assholes cough Billy Gram cough I mean there is nothing wrong with them just that instead of being inspired I am left feeling like there is no hope for sinners such as I and I am filled with despair. So anyway I got the book and settled down to read it and read it all the way through in one sitting. It was THAT good.
We often have misconceptions about what Jesus was like. We have this sanitized view of what our Savior would have been like. Yancey takes off the rose colored glasses and takes a hard look at the gospels to determine what Jesus was REALLY like. For example, in today's world, you would never hear someone berating Jesus for being a glutton. In his day, many people did just that. Dude liked to have fun. We like to think of Jesus as a somber savior who never laughed or anything human like that but as Yancey shows you in “The Jesus I never Knew” this view of Jesus does not line you to how the gospels portray him. The Gospels are all we have to go on. Those are the people that knew Jesus. They were his inner circle so to speak. I think that it is sad how the church and humans have twisted Jesus to fit their idea of a savior. It almost as if the Jesus that was portrayed n the gospels was not good enough for the later church, so they had to make him into a version that fits their way of a savior.
I thought this book was fascinating and illuminating. I too had this idea of what Jesus would have been like and I found out that I was way off the mark. I learned that the jesus that I had in my head was the sanitized version that was passed down to me in a church. This Jesus never lost his temper, was always performing miracles and never once doubted going to the cross. In reading this book, I saw that this was simply not true. After reading this book, I feel that I have a better understanding of who Jesus was when he was here on earth.
I am glad that I read this book. I feel that it gave me a better, deeper understanding of who Jesus is and I can see just how big a sacrifice he made coming down to earth in human form. Modern people try to play down his humans but as we know from the gospels Jesus was very much human.
This review was originally posted on Adventures in Never Never Land
Wow. I thought this book would be a glorified retelling of the Gospels, and that I would have a hard time working through it. After all, it isn't fiction--it's not even a devotional--so I expected it to be a bit dry. I didn't once get bored. Not once. Every idea was new, or at least from a new angle, and I drank in every word.
Philip Yancey begins with "The Jesus I Thought I Knew"--the Jesus we all think we know--and spends the next 250 pages explaining what we don't fully understand about the Son of God, or perhaps what we don't think hard enough about. He starts at the beginning, at Christmas, and then takes a step further back to describe the Jewish culture into which Jesus was born. From there he moves chronologically through Jesus' life, ending with the Ascension and the Kingdom.
None of it is lofty or preachy, and it is clear through Philip's style of writing that he is on a faith journey like the rest of us and therefore doesn't have it all together, like some authors would have us think. I like that. It's real and raw and human. You should read it.
(This review was first posted on poetree.)
Philip Yancey begins with "The Jesus I Thought I Knew"--the Jesus we all think we know--and spends the next 250 pages explaining what we don't fully understand about the Son of God, or perhaps what we don't think hard enough about. He starts at the beginning, at Christmas, and then takes a step further back to describe the Jewish culture into which Jesus was born. From there he moves chronologically through Jesus' life, ending with the Ascension and the Kingdom.
None of it is lofty or preachy, and it is clear through Philip's style of writing that he is on a faith journey like the rest of us and therefore doesn't have it all together, like some authors would have us think. I like that. It's real and raw and human. You should read it.
(This review was first posted on poetree.)
informative
inspiring
reflective
medium-paced
An interesting book that gives a better view of Jesus' life and ministry as it would have been received by the Jews of his day, painting him in a much more human light than the one-dimensional images he is so often represented by in paintings and Sunday School lessons.
A really good read from Phillip Yancey, especially helpful as I have been re reading the Gospels lately. The book is scripturally sound, and really explains a lot about the history and culture of Jesus' time, offering modern day comparisons for some of the harder to relate detaills in the Gospels.
For my review:
http://girlwithherheadinabook.blogspot.co.uk/2012/04/jesus-i-never-knew-philip-yancey.html
http://girlwithherheadinabook.blogspot.co.uk/2012/04/jesus-i-never-knew-philip-yancey.html
I will just say now that I will read ANYTHING this guy ever writes. Awesome.