Book Review: “What If Jesus Was Serious?”

Interesting but simple doodles helped Jethani illustrate his points;

Over a year ago, our pastor did a sermon series based on concepts in the book What If Jesus Was Serious by Skye Jethani. The book is based on the Sermon on the Mount. Up until that series, I had never heard of the book or of the author. Pastor Jeni’s sermon series was very good. So when the pastors of our church put together a space where we can borrow some of their books. I checked, this one was available, so I borrowed it. And I’m glad I did.

The book consists of seventy-two chapters, each two pages long, dealing with a small part of the sermon. Jethani’s point is that, if Jesus was serious in what he said, and we really think about what each point means, we will have to change our lives. Each chapter includes a sketch—a doodle—at the start that illustrates the point.  A number of these doodles are on the book cover.

The Sermon on the Mount is worth studying over and over. To see it from different eyes, hearing a little different take on it, is good. Jethani brought out points I never thought of, so that’s good. I found only one area I disagreed with him on. In Chapter 21, he said that guardrails (i.e. self-imposed barriers to our behavior) are good, but living at such a higher plane that you don’t need guardrails is better. I’ve read too many accounts of Christians in the limelight have benefitted from having established rigorous guardrails for themselves to agree with Jethani. At the same time, stories of Christians who haven’t established and lived by guardrails have had moral failures. Maybe Jethani is right, and not needing guardrails is superior to living by guardrails, but I’m not convinced.

The main thing I didn’t like about the book was the short chapters. I think I’d have liked 3 or 4 page chapters with a little more examination of the scripture point. On more than a few chapters, I was left a bit confused at Jethani’s point. Some more explanation would have benefitted me.

Oh, and I must say that Pastor Jeni’s sermons were much better than the book. Of course, she had more time to go into each point than the books did. And, no, the sermon series was not seventy-two weeks long.

My rating? If I could put 3.5-stars, I would. But, sticking to whole numbers, I give it 4-stars. Since I read this in a borrowed book, whether or not it’s a keeper isn’t a question. But I won’t be acquiring a copy for my library.

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