Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #71235 in Books
• Published on: 2003-12-12
• Original language: English
• Number of items: 1
• Binding: Paperback
• 208 pages

Synopsis
This book presents a fresh - and perhaps controversial - look at Jesus by one of Britain's most respected Christian authors. Who is the real Jesus? Do we remake him in our own image and then wonder why our spirituality is less than life-changing and exciting? Steve Chalke - a high-profile visionary in the United Kingdom and an evangelical recognized not only by Christians but by the general public as well - believes that the real Jesus is deeply challenging. And each new generation must grapple with the question of who he is, because only through a constant study of Jesus are we able to discover God himself. "The Lost Message of Jesus" is written to stir thoughtful debate and pose fresh questions that will help create a deeper understanding of Jesus and his message. It is an encounter with the real Jesus of his world - not the Jesus we try to mold to ours. Themes include: the Kingdom of God - shalom - is available to everyone now, through Jesus; the world outside your own church needs to hear of the depth of God's love and suffering. Jesus was a radical and a revolutionary! Jesus offers immediate forgiveness, without cost, to anyone.

Jesus shows us repentance isn't a guilt-laden list of dos and don'ts, but an inspirational vision of a new way to live. Focusing on some of the key episodes, events, and issues of Jesus' life, we will see how too often the message we preach today has been influenced more by the culture we live in than the radical, life-changing, world-shaping message Jesus shared two thousand years ago.

Customer Reviews

Aims to challenge with a fresh view of Jesus, but ultimately misrepresents him
This book contains much that is thought-provoking and challenging. Chalke rails against the way Christians (and the church) can be judgmental rather than gracious - assenting in principle to what Christ says but failing to put it into practice. And yes, we do need to keep asking ourselves where in our church and society we would be likely to find Jesus if he walked this earth again today. And we need to keep repenting.

However, Chalke pushes the pendulum so far back that he loses the crucial balance of what Jesus actually did say! (It's also significant, I think, that he quotes very little from the book of Acts and the Epistles, which tell us what the first eye-witnesses of Jesus thought his message was, and how they put it into practice.)

Some of the book comes across at first glance merely as slightly wacky: for example he asserts that the reason God tells Moses, "no one may see my face and live" is not because of God's overwhelming majesty and holiness (cf Isaiah 6), but because God's face is riven which so much pain that the sight of it would be too much for Moses to bear. But the book, along with the challenges and insights, and the things that raise an eyebrow or a question mark, has a dangerous undertone.

Someone once said that most heresy comes about simply because we emphasise one truth at the expense of another! Christ's humanity rather than his divinity (or vice versa); God's sovereignty rather than man's free will (or vice versa). And, in his attempt to emphasise God's love and grace, Steve Chalke has subtly downplayed talk of sin and judgment.

This started to alarm me long before I got to the pages which proved the most controversial: Chalke's attack on the principle that one of the awful things happening at Calvary was that Christ was being punished, by his and our loving Father, for our sins.

It is encouraging that Chalke recognises early in the book that "although God is love, this doesn't exclude the possibility of him eventually acting in judgment". However, when it comes to examining the Cross of Christ, Chalke seems to be unable to hold those two ideas - love and justice - together.

His view of the Cross is predominantly that is was God's final and total identification with the lost, the outcast and the marginalised. This is true. But the bible also teaches (and no, we shouldn't find this easy to stomach!) that:
"God presented [Christ] as a sacrifice of atonement, through faith in his blood. He did this to demonstrate his justice, because in his forbearance he had left the sins committed beforehand unpunished - he did it to demonstrate his justice at the present time, so as to be just and the one who justifies those who have faith in Jesus." (Romans 3:25-26).
Compare that with Steve Chalke:
"The fact is that the cross isn't a form of cosmic child abuse - a vengeful Father, punishing his Son for an offence he has not even committed. Understandably, both people inside and outside of the Church have found this twisted version of events morally dubious and a huge barrier to faith. Deeper than that, however, is that such a concept stands in total contradiction to the statement "God is love". If the cross is a personal act of violence perpetrated by God towards humankind but borne by his Son, then it makes a mockery of Jesus' own teaching to love your enemies and to refuse to repay evil with evil. The truth is, the cross is a symbol of love. It is a demonstration of just how far God as Father and Jesus as his Son are prepared to go to prove that love..."

Very sadly, this starts to remind me of Richard Niebuhr's famous description of the essence of theological liberalism: `A God without wrath brought men without sin into a kingdom without judgment through the ministrations of a Christ without a cross.'

Amazing Grace
The book really fired me up as a Christian. Steve Chalke talks of God as the God of love and it was incredible to be reminded that God loves me just as I am.

More important, that God loves all those people I have been critical of. Who was I to be intolerant of anyone when God loves them? The book is threaded through with the concept of grace. One consequence is that it has made my discussions about Jesus much easier.

The book is highly accessible and full of anecdotes. Some people say it shows weak theology. I think it shows readable theology. It is a good starting point for anyone who wants to read about Jesus.

And it challenges Christians to go out and get involved in the world, to make a difference - and that was the LAST message of Jesus!

Very readable examination of the 'Good News' of Christ
This positive but thought-provoking book looks at how our culture has misrepresented the Good News of Christ. It explores the historical and cultural context that Jesus Christ lived in and how his message was that the Kingdom of God had arrived.

I like the authors' explanation of repentance and how the Church has tried to scare people into becoming Christians in contrast to Christ's all accepting invitation to be part of the Kingdom.
Chalke & Mann write in a very readable way using stories and examples from history including Martin Luther King and Gandhi to show how the message of Christ should have practical implications to the world in which we live. Apparently this is has been the most controversial book Steve Chalke has written but I couldn't find any heresy in it. It will probably upset 'hellfire' preachers but they should still read it.