13 Jul
2010
Posted in: Book Review
By    1 Comment

Ignore “The Jesus You Can’t Ignore”: a book review

In The Jesus You Can’t Ignore: What You Must Learn From the Bold Confrontations of Christ, John MacArthur attempted to argue that Jesus was not strictly “a meek, perpetually friendly, sentimental messiah reaching out to other religious leaders and engaging in scholarly dialogue with them instead of challenging them” (pg.45). That there were times when Jesus used harsh, chastising, embarrassing language with no place for dialogue. MacArthur discussed several Gospel cases (e.g. cleansing the temple in ch. 3, the woe proclamations in ch. 8) for the end that being nice was not always the example Jesus left for us.

The title of this book review was in now way misleading. John MacArthur, while a very easy to read author, created a book I would like to ignore. Overall, there is very little (if any) meat, the case he tried to make was neither effective nor revolutionary (an outspoken, in your face, non-docile Jesus toward the powers that be/oppressors/Pharisees/etc. has been presented successfully in works prior to this), there seems to be more filler in this book than necessary (would have been a lot shorter of a text had the author not included so much content and description). This was a difficult book to read because the reader is not invited to engage with the text, and it comes off as seemingly pieced together from various sermons.

Disclosure of Material Connection: I received this book free from Thomas Nelson Publishers as part of their BookSneeze.com book review bloggers program. I was not required to write a positive review. The opinions I have expressed are my own. I am disclosing this in accordance with the Federal Trade Commission’s 16 CFR, Part 255 : “Guides Concerning the Use of Endorsements and Testimonials in Advertising.”

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  • Watchman

    MacArthur, although a very good and clear communicator has never really struck me with great theology. I have never cared much for his tone and he strikes me as proud and arrogant rather than meek and humble. I agree with about 50% of his theology. But, the one thing that has always bothered me is his erroneous view on Lordship Salvation, that a person must fully surrender their lives to God in all avenues of their life in order to be saved. This is contrary to simply being saved by grace through faith that the Bible teaches (see Ephesians 2:8-9). I believe in the Lordship of Jesus Christ, but not as a prerequisite to salvation as MacArthur teaches.