Confronting Jesus
Confronting Jesus: 9 Encounters with the Hero of the Gospels
By: Rebecca McLaughlin
“Every seeming roadblock to faith in Jesus becomes a signpost.”
Rebecca McLaughlin has written many books including Confronting Christianity and The Secular Creed, among others. The former was written, McLaughlin said, as a kind of love letter to her friends who had objections to her faith and this is the ‘sequel.’
Whereas Confronting Christianity spoke to 12 of the most common objections to Christianity, Confronting Jesus narrows in on the person of Jesus.
Who was he? Why was he important? How does Jesus set Christianity apart from all other religions?
Similarly to my feelings about Confronting Christianity, my recommendation would be, sure, read this book, but don’t ONLY read this book. At the end I’ll give a couple other books that I may even recommend to people instead of this one and I’ll explain why in this review.
I also read the study guide that goes along with this book. It’s only 62 pages- 10 reflection questions per chapter with space to write. It’s helpfulness depends on the type of reader you are. I didn’t find most of the questions particularly thought-provoking, but if you plan to read this book with a group, it would be good to have some conversation starters. Many of the questions are answered in the book and the questions provide the corresponding page numbers.
Study Guide Pages
Study Guide Pages
The 9 Encounters
There are nine chapters, each one focusing on a characteristic of Jesus:
Jesus the Jew
Jesus the Son
Jesus the King
Jesus the Healer
Jesus the Teacher
Jesus the Lover
Jesus the Servant
Jesus the Sacrifice
Jesus the Lord
She shares a story or two in each chapter from Scripture that depicts the person of Jesus and how he relates to his people. They showcase his humanity, his divinity, his love, grace, and power.
She also touches on some bigger questions within a few of the chapters like: Why can we trust the Gospel accounts about Jesus’s life? Did Jesus even claim to be God? What do we do with the evil in the world? Isn’t Christianity oppressive to women? Aren’t Jesus’s teachings on sexuality really restrictive? Doesn’t the Bible condone slavery? Is there diversity in the Bible? How can we believe the resurrection?
My Favorite Chapters
I think my two favorite chapters were Jesus the Lover and Jesus the Servant.
Jesus the Lover
The idea of ‘marriage’ these days has largely been hijacked. People have forgotten that marriage originated from God from the very first. Why? Because it is a picture of Christ and the Church.
Marriage is not just a piece of paper. It’s not just a tax benefit. It’s not just convenient or something you do when your feelings direct you to it. It’s not a cultural construct. It’s a God-designed covenant to image himself.
“The greatest human romance is at best an imitation of that love… if we treasure human marriage more than Jesus’s love, we’ll find it disappoints. But if we treasure Jesus’s love above all else, we’ll find it has the power to turn our weakness into death-defying strength.”
This chapter reminds us the power and wonder of marriage. The beauty and significance of its creation. For those who wonder why Christians are so uptight about the ‘redefinition of marriage,’ this chapter will shed some light on that.
It will explain that while marriage is important, it’s not ultimate. Yet it’s worth protecting as God designed it because otherwise we are distorting the image of God.
“The fundamental reason why Christians believe that sex belongs only in the permanent bond of male-female marriage is because of the metaphor of Jesus’s love for his church. It’s a love in which two become one flesh. It is a love that connects across sameness and radical difference: the sameness of our shared humanity and the radical difference of Jesus from us. It’s a love in which husbands are called not to exploit, abuse, or abandon their wives, but to love and sacrifice for them as Jesus did for us.”
It will explain how the boundaries God puts on sex is good. How you protect something that’s precious. How his laws in Scripture don’t oppress women but when considered in the cultural context reflect his utmost love and protection for the widows, children, and marginalized.
“Whether we are single or married, widowed or divorced, romantically fulfilled or disappointed, we’ll all relate to human marriage best if we see it as a copy of the real thing— the love that truly burns for all eternity. And when we put this masterpiece in pride of place, we’ll start to understand the Bible’s boundaries around sex.”
[For further reading on this check out these books: Born Again This Way; What God Has to Say About Our Bodies; or Gay Girl, Good God. All of these were written by people who experience same-sex attraction. Or for a closer look at the specific Bible passages related to sex and marriage try What Does the Bible Really Teach About Homosexuality]
Jesus the Servant
“The question for God’s people was never whether they were servants, but whose servants they were. Would they live enslaved to people who oppressed and hated them? Or would they gladly serve the God who made and loved them?”
“Enslaved people were drawn to Jesus the servant, who throws down the powerful and lifts up the disempowered.”
“How much must Jesus value you and me to give his life up as our ransom? Jesus’s sacrifice for us can breed humility if we will only let it. We won’t need to be recognized by others if we know we are seen and known and deeply loved by the King of all the universe himself. We can unclench our grip on status if we know we’re held in Jesus’s hands. We can kneel down if we are sure that he will one day lift us.”
In her book Jesus and John Wayne, Kristin Kobes-Du Mez critiqued the term ‘servant leader’ that has been used in many churches. It would seem she has forgotten that Jesus came to serve and not be served and that he is our example to follow. True leadership is serving in humility just as Jesus did. Of course, we cannot image Christ’s example perfectly and we need repentance and forgiveness for that.
But it’s a reminder that maybe if Christians spent more time serving then lifting themselves up, maybe people outside the church would recognize the godliness and freedom of submission.
This chapter connects a lot with the next one about Jesus the Sacrifice which is the ultimate form of serving.
It reminds me of the Downhere song- How Many Kings. The lyrics say,
‘How many kings step down from their thrones
How many lords have abandoned their homes?
How many greats have become the least for me?
And how many gods have poured out their hearts
To romance a world that is torn all apart?
How many fathers gave up their sons for me?
Only one did that for me.’
Isn’t that amazing?! There is no other religion hinged on the sacrificial death— and further- resurrection— of its god. There is no other. Jesus, and only Jesus is Lord.
This is where she spends time explaining how we can believe the resurrection.
[She also has a new book coming out this spring called ‘Is Easter Unbelievable?’ which I’m sure will go into even more detail about it if this is something that you struggle with.]
My Critique
I have one main critique. And this is why I may not always recommend this book for someone wanting to study the truth about Jesus.
McLaughlin spent a lot of page real estate on references to popular movies, shows, or books.
I understand the audience for this book are those who may not believe in Jesus at all. Perhaps she has used these references as a point of connection, an approachable way to help keep people’s attention and have something familiar to compare these new ideas with.
To some degree, I can respect that. I can appreciate a good illustration or parallel in secular places.
That audience doesn’t describe me so I don’t know how all of this comes across for other people.
But, for me, it felt like too much.
She references: the Hamilton musical, Dr. Who, Shang-Chi, Hunger Games, Harry Potter, Gladiator, A Tale of Two Cities, Ted Lasso, The Good Place, The Midnight Library, and Collateral Beauty.
But in such a short book, to have one or two of these within each chapter felt like a lot. And it often felt disjointed. She would spend a few paragraphs describing a scene from a movie, then the next paragraph starts a completely different idea that she doesn’t connect to the scene until later.
Maybe because the content wasn’t new for me, the analogies were too distracting for me rather than complimentary.
I had no issue with the theological content of her book, but her writing style and delivery is what takes this book down a notch for me.
I wouldn’t discourage someone from reading this book, but I may give them a heads up about all the references so they can decide for themselves whether they feel like that will be helpful or hindering in their taking in what McLaughlin’s saying.
Recommendation
As described above, my main critique of this book was the overuse (to me) of pop culture references that felt disjointed and largely underwhelming for their purpose in this book.
I love the subject matter of this book. I think it’s very important.
Christianity is predicated on the life, death, and resurrection of Jesus. What you believe about Jesus is of utmost importance. If you don’t know who Jesus was or why we can believe he is who he said he was, you should definitely wrestle with that!
This may be the book for you.
Or it may not.
Here are a few other books that I would most likely recommend to people above this one for people questioning Jesus:
Why Believe?: A Reasoned Approach to Christianity by Neil Shenvi
Seeking Allah, Finding Jesus: A Devout Muslim Encounters Christianity by Nabeel Qureshi
Why God Makes Sense in a World that Doesn’t: The Beauty of Christian Theism by Gavin Ortlund
If you want to read more of Rebecca McLaughlin’s books, she has written a lot of good ones. Other than the ones linked above:
Is Christmas Unbelievable?: Four Questions Everyone Should Ask About the World’s Most Famous Story (Is the virgin birth real?)
Jesus Through the Eyes of Women: How the First Female Disciples Help Us Know and Love the Lord (Does the Bible oppress women?)
The Secular Creed: Engaging Five Contemporary Claims (What does the Bible say about marriage, women’s rights, race, immigrants, and diversity?)
If this spurs an interest in you to study more about common objections to Christianity or finding out what the Bible says about hot topics, browse my links below for other books that might interest you.
This book was published in August, 2022. You can purchase a copy of this book via my affiliate link below.
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