The Gospel is About Jesus

In my desire to expand my knowledge (and keep myself entertained), I read a lot of books. In my head, I know that many times I need to ruminate on a book more to really get the point and put into practice what I have heard from it. But too often I just keep reading. After all I have a blog to write.

So I made a goal for myself to re-read one book a month. I suck at meeting goals. I have only re-read 10 in the last 18 months and only 2 this year. But when I re-read, I like to read in a different format. The first time I read King Jesus Gospel I read it on my kindle. This time I listened to the audiobook.

First things, first. I think this is a very important book. I think that the message, that we need to place Jesus as Savior, Lord and Messiah and full-filler of the story of Israel, is vitally important.

I have been reading a bit on the unity of Christ and different streams of Christianity lately and understanding the central component of the gospel is vitally important.

This book seems to be frequently misunderstood. McKnight is not minimizing the need for salvation or the need for good theology or the need for good Christian living. Instead he is arguing that as important as all of those things are, they are implications of the gospel, not themselves the Gospel.

The simplest way for me to explain this is that our salvation does not make Jesus Christ Lord and Savior. Instead, the fact that Jesus Christ is Lord and Savior means that we can be saved by his grace and power through his work on the cross and his resurrection and because Christ came to fulfill and complete the story of Israel.

But I do have two thoughts on reading this a second time. First, as important as it is, I think that McKnight needs to expand two parts. First, he wants to tightly connect the Old Testament to the New Testament. Too often we present Christ as absent from the history and action of God with Israel. McKnight talks about the importance of this, but I wish he expanded it more. I get his point, I agree with his point. I still have a hard time communicating his point to others. So I would like more.

In a similar way, I wish he would talk more about the implications for communicating the gospel because of the way he is trying to limit its scope. Some people seem to take McKnight’s point as meaning we should not share a plan of salvation with anyone. That is not his point. But I do see how a too quick reading of the book might lead you to think that.

In addition to those two areas I would like to see expanded, I thought that there really was not much more that I gained by re-reading it. McKnight was clear. This is not a book that needs to be read over and over for fresh insight. He was clear the first time through.

But I would suggest that you read this rather than listen to it. There is nothing wrong with the audiobook. But this is a book that I think benefits from reading the word on the page instead of listening to them through your earphones.

5 people found this helpful

Brings Clarity to Important Issues

What did you love best about The King Jesus Gospel?

Scot, whether you agree with him or not, brings so much clarity to some of the biggest issues of our day, and gives the underlying ideas very helpful names and frames the arguments clearly. I love his style, and I love that even people he disagrees with are given a fair treatment, and are treated generously.

He obviously knows his material, and refers to much longer works that he's written on some of the subjects that he covers, but he tends to stay above the academic jargon and make it easy enough to understand.

I've recommended it to many people as a must read. You'll be glad you did.

4 people found this helpful

Remarkable! have changing!

I've been rediscovering the Bible, it's story and meaning, scholars like Scot McKnight are a great help. Having the right understanding of what the Gospel is and what the Jeshua and the apostles were Gospeling is crucial to understanding is meaning and applications.

1 person found this helpful

Pretty Good Story

This book is kind of repetitive and doesn't get to the point very quickly... The only thing I really learned from it was that Jesus in his entirety is the gospel as opposed to the salvation plan that many Christians recite today.

1 person found this helpful

IT could have been excellent but not charitable toward Calvinists

McKnight makes a very good case regarding the content of the Gospel and it’s implications but his tendency against calvinists show up by overstating their sqlvific tendencies. Sorry, but they also emphasize the Lordship of Jesus as the point of the Gospel. The ‘gospel’ is the good news that through Christ the power of God’s kingdom has entered history to renew the whole world. When we believe and rely on Jesus’ work and record (rather than ours) for our relationship to God, that kingdom power comes upon us and begins to work through us.”
– Tim Keller
The Gospel, the good news, has an intrinsic demand to it, such that our rearticulation of the demand for repentance, faith, and obedience cannot be divorced from the gospel itself
-D.A. Carson
n and through Jesus, God, the king, is coming in a way — a new way — into the world to establish his saving rule.
-John Piper
The gospel is not merely about “getting us saved,” as if we simply pray a prayer and are immediately transported into heaven. God describes “salvation” and the transformation of the Christian life like this: I will give you a new heart, and a new spirit I will put within you. And I will remove the heart of stone from your flesh and give you a heart of flesh. And I will put my Spirit within you, and cause you to walk in my statutes and be careful to obey my rules. (Ezek. 36:26–27)”
― Francis Chan,

2 people found this helpful

Still a long way to go to shed supercessionism.

I appreciate that where from where McKnight starts, this book is actually pushing back on replacement theology. He addresses it explicitly in fact. But this is still a deeply supercessionist book. I cringed every time McKnight said that “the story of Israel reaches its conclusion in Jesus”. We have to get past this type of thinking! We are grafted in to the story of Israel. How can we say it’s concluded?

Did the story of Ruth’s life end when Boaz redeemed her? Jesus is the Redeemer of Israel. Salvation is not a conclusion but a beginning! The messianic age will be the golden age of Israel, when “the Torah goes out from Zion, and the word of the Lord from Jerusalem,” and “the latter glory of this house is greater than the former.”

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Must read

So much truth in this book. It made me reexamine some of the terms and concepts I have "known" my entire life.

Mind Changing

A must re and re and re read for every follower of King Jesus.

great big picture ideas

I highly recommend this book for anyone who wants to take the story of Jesus seriously. if you have ever heard the word gospel thrown around in ways that don't really make sense when your reading the gospels, this book will help.

The Best book on the Gospel I have ever read!

This book is a crystal clear explanation of how the Bible and more specifically the story of the Gospel was intended to be read and understood. this truly was an eye opening book!