A Genuine Faith: How to Follow Jesus Today

This is a greatly accessible book spanning the Synoptics and John. Reeves uses a conversational tone, employing story, parable, and explanation to make a scholarly discussion of the gospels understandable to anyone. The book is places largely in a narrative criticism and socio-historical contextual mindset, which does not concern itself with out-dated redaction criticism or unhelpful historical Jesus studies. Reeves takes each book seriously, reads from left to right, and acknowledges points of contact. The text comes alive through Reeves reading, and the tension of an ethical Christian life is once again radical, not the Americanized, corporate religion that many of us have settled for. This is a great read, and a worthwhile buy.

Today's review is a column I wrote this for the Missouri Baptist Convention newspaper The Pathway. What does it mean to follow Christ in today's world? How can we be disciples of someone who lived 2,000 years ago? Why do the Gospels each emphasize contrasting pictures of Jesus? More... Rodney Reeves, professor of Biblical Studies at Southwest Baptist University, Bolivar, is the author of a recently published book that answers these questions. A Genuine Faith: How to Follow Jesus Today examines each of the four Gospels, bringing to light their unique understanding of discipleship. "My own desire to take seriously the call of following Jesus led me to the Gospels," Reeves said. Another source of inspiration for the book is his personal experience in pastoral ministry. He finds in the Gospels a powerful antidote to clueless Christianity. "You pastor a church and you begin to discover that people don't know how to live out the Christian life,â Reeves noted, adding that many Christians know they are saved, but lack a deeper understanding of how to follow Jesus. That is where taking a fresh look at the Gospels can be of great benefit. "In the four gospels we have a single Christology, but we have four views of Jesus," said Reeves. "I think we are content with going to Paul who lays it out so well, but the Gospel stories were also written both for evangelism and discipleship." Reeves desires for pastors to press on with these texts, bringing out the implications for how we are to follow Jesus in our own day. So, how does Reeves understand each of the Gospels? According to Matthew, we see Jesus is willing to make disciples of anyone who has eyes to see and ears to hear. Furthermore, greatness in God's kingdom is not viewed the same as greatness in the world. "Littleness defines greatness in the kingdom of Christ," Reeves said. Matthew also reveals Jesus' preparation of the disciples for his eventual departure. When Jesus said, "Lo I am with you always", he knew the vast majority of Christians would become disciples without seeing him in person on earth. The Gospel of Mark reveals Jesus as one who risked everything for God. "He believed in the reign of God," said Reeves, "and He ploughed deep fields of faith among shallow disciples." Retelling the parable of the soils, Reeves shows how Jesus wants us to personalize the soils through self-examination. Is my heart shallow soil? Do weeds choke out my faith? Is my soil good, ready for a bountiful harvest? Certainly the parable communicates truth pertaining to both conversion and discipleship. Luke shows Jesus reversing the curse, inaugurating the fulfillment of Isaiah's prophecy regarding the poor, the prisoner, the blind, and the oppressed. Although many of his enemies thought him a lunatic, Jesus proclaimed that the kingdom of God had come. Provoking the wrath of the religious leaders, Jesus feasted alongside spiritual and social outcasts. In a particularly memorable quote, Reeves writes, "T

I really, really like this book. We have bought many and given to pastors and friends. Dr. Reeves is a very humble man and a wonderful New Testament teacher. He challenges you to think beyond what you have heard all of your life and encourages you to open your mind and see the real passion of Christ. When you read A Genuine Faith, you are don't warm up, get to the peak of the book and then cool down at the end. It is a book that keeps going up and up and stays that way until the end. I highly recommend and strongly urge you to get this book. In fact, you may want to order 2 of them, and then you can give one away.

I must confess; this may be a biased review, since I had the author of this book as a Professor of New Testament History. Dr. Reeves does a wonderful job of taking what the Gospel writers have given us and spelling it out in real-world terms today. The greatest hindrance Americans have when they read the Bible is that they take the text out of context; these are not 'American capitalist' people with cloaks and sandals that we're reading about, they are Jews living under Roman oppression in the first century A.D. At times this one difference between how we act as Americans and how they acted in the scriptures can make for a decided historical and cultural conflict; one that may keep the reader from fully understanding the text. Thank goodness someone like Dr. Reeves is able to wake us up from this sleep of ignorance. This book is a wonderful tool for understanding the meaning of the four Gospels, and it looks at each Gospel thoroughly and individually, as well as provide essential background information on both the author, setting and purpose of each individual book. The real amazing part of this book is that it can educate those who don't have the slightest clue as to what is meant by the writing of the Gospels, as well as rebuke and re-educate those who think they've "understood" the good news. I thoroughly enjoyed having this author as a professor because he was able to add so much life to what might otherwise be a boring, easy to misread biblical text. However, his true talent of teaching is that he can address a concept that you may think you've already learned, and yet continue to shed multiple new lights on what you might have considered to be a mundane subject. I'm so impressed with this book. It is my hope that writing will not detract this man so much from his job and family obligations that he may not continue in his written endeavors. We definitely need more books like this one. Now that he's given us insight on the Gospels, perhaps tackling the Epistles wouldn't be so tough? One can only hope. Buy this book, and, more importantly, read it.

I really enjoyed the book. So many sermons focus on discipleship by using a variety of verses from all over the bible. This study, however, focuses on each gospel separately. We really get new insight into what Matthew, Mark, Luke and John were each trying to teach us. People rarely today study the individual gospels as individual letters. Therefore we sometimes miss the value of each writer's whole story. Rodney does a great job in focusing our attention to the actual stories in front of us, allowing us to see the writer's story and keeping us from bringing in information from the other writers. By using this method I was able to see truths that I had not seen before and had a greater appreciation for the gospels, individually and as a whole.