Review: "Following Jesus Christ"

            John K. Goodrich and Mark L. Strauss have edited a tremendous collection of essays together in Following Jesus Christ:  The New Testament Message of Discipleship for Today.  A Volume in Honor of Michael J. Wilkins.

            In the opening chapter, the editors explain the value of Wilkins work on discipleship.  Wilkins writes, “Discipleship and discipling mean living a fully human life in this world in union with Jesus Christ and growing in conformity to his image” (5).

            Discipleship and discipling are words that I have found to be vague in Christian-speak, so seeing what the text of the New Testament says about the words/concept was exciting.

            The largest section of the book – Part One – enlists eighteen authors to explained what each of the books of the New Testament says – and so, some chapters cover more than one book.

            The first chapter is on Matthew, and the author explains that in Matthew, discipleship means “faith and obedience” (9).

            In looking at I Corinthians, the author finds discipleship to mean “fellowship with Christ,” entering “the mind of Christ,” and bodily bearing the “image of Christ.”

            And so on and so forth.

            One interesting fact is that while the word “disciple” and its Greek variants are used 261 times in the Gospel and Acts, they are used zero times in the rest of the New Testament.  One must turn to other words that convey the same meaning (241).

            In the second part of the book, three essays are presented to consider “discipleship today.”

            The first essay looks at what it means to be like Christ in the mind.

            The second looks at the issue of “soul care “and how it fits into the discussion.

            The final essay brings the whole human being out embodying Christ in the community.

            The volume ends with a Scripture index and a person index.

            For someone interested in the idea discipleship in the New Testament, this is an excellent resource.  As I read through I, I thought, I never realized that – I never saw that, and this would be great for a sermon series of a seminar.  There is much useful information to be gathered for the teacher, seminarian, and preacher – this is probably above the average congregant.

            There were times when I turned my head askance.  For example:  the author of the essay on Romans and Galatians argues that Romans must be read backwards to make sense and not be doctrinally overwhelming (94), and the author of the essay on Revelation says we must take the number 144,000 as the actual number of Jews that will be saved (288).

Overall, I would encourage you to pick up this very useful collection.  I ma glad to have it on my shelves and look forward to using it more.

            [I received this book for free in exchange for an honest review.  This review appears on my blog, my YouTube channel, Amazon.com, Kregel.com, and Goodreads.com.]