The Gospel According to Jesus by Chris Seay

Okay, I'm going to be honest, this was a tough read for me. It's not that it wasn't well written (it was) or that it did not have some unique aspects (I enjoyed the interviews at the end of each chapter), it 's just that this book travels down the same road as several others I have recently read. Essentially, it's a book on discipleship. After reading Stearns' 'The Hole in Our Gospel' and 'Starving Jesus' by Gross and Mahon, and 'The Christian Atheist' by Craig Groeschel, this book struggled to keep my interest.

Seay begins with the fact that the term 'righteousness' is widely misunderstood in Christendom and that we mostly relate it to behavior modification. He then argues that to achieve righteousness we must live as Jesus lived (i.e. become a disciple of Jesus). He gives a chapter on what we were created to be (image bearers of God) and why we fail at this (because we are sinful), and then he spends the rest of the book on how we can live in relationship with Christ. At the end of each chapter he interviews some well known church leaders on how they accomplish this in their lives. Personally, I got more from the interviews than any other part of the book.

The book is written with a somewhat 'anti-establishment' voice that is common to many young writers and ministers who are trying to shape the Church into an effective institution for post-modern culture, yet he doesn't try to purposefully offend anyone. His call to live in relationship rather than with regulations is spot-on. If you haven't read any books on discipleship, this would be a good start, although there are several others that I think share the same message much more effectively.