Steven K. Scott, in The Jesus Mission (Waterbrook Press, 2011) talks a lot about the missions that Jesus accomplished, and the ones that have been left for us . He walks us through what he calls the four missions that Jesus assigned us: intimacy with God; accelerated personal growth; empowering other believers; and impacting the lives of non-believers.
To be honest, if I had gotten this book from the library, I probably would have returned it mostly unread, but I had agreed to read the book for the purpose of writing a review, so I stuck it out, and I’m actually glad I did since there are some interesting nuggets buried within the pages.
Although the book is full of scripture references to back up the author’s points, it’s not written by a theologian, and at times it seemed disjointed to me. At times I felt like I was at a men’s conference since many sections end with ‘action points’. Other parts of the book seem like a ‘how to’. Part theology, part theory, part self-help, and a little bit of the author’s personal opinion.
Opinion is good, but even as he writes “He [Jesus] does not give people the option of recasting Him to suit their agenda,” and states that Jesus is a favorite subject of people who want to rewrite history and refashion it to suit their own purposes, Scott spends part of a chapter showing how liberal thinkers such as then Senator Obama were totally off target when they wanted to “spread the wealth around.” That probably wouldn’t have caught my attention except for the fact that Scott’s bio on the dust jacket lists him as an “entrepreneur whose start-up companies have achieved billions of dollars in sales”. No wonder he thinks Jesus wouldn’t be in favor of redistribution of wealth.
There is some good stuff in this book, but it could have all been said in a much shorter book.
I’ll give this book a 3/5.
I received a copy of this book from the publisher in exchange for an honest review.
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