Dan Kimball: Vintage Faith:

Every year our local weekly newspaper puts out a special "Back To School" issue welcoming back university students. They select some of the places around town they think students would be interested in and write up descriptions to let them what is in town. I just read this sitting in a restaurant and saw that they put our church in the list of 3 churches in the "Christianity" section. The "Christianity" list was placed right above the "Pagan/Occult" one. Not sure of their description of the "pastor" they wrote, but did find it encouraging that we were described as crushing stereotypes. That is one of our hopes in building trust in our town and with the university. And our coffeehouse "The Abbey" was also written up in this issue with a little description by them too. The university just started classes again last week. This Sunday we have a college info. meeting Sunday night and our college ministry kicks off the week after. We did a survey in May of this year and our church is comprised of 37% college students which makes it a wondrous challenge and so glad they are part of the church.

I could write a lot about this book - The King Jesus Gospel by my friend Scot McKnight. When I got my copy in the mail from Zondervan I started scanning it late night, but it was such a wonderful thinking-book that I stayed up straight until 6:30 AM reading it. My day was interested after that, as I did sleep a couple hours but then went to the Santa Cruz Beach Boardwalk with Katie and Claire. So my day on rides and roller-coasters had Scot McKnight's words in my head the whole day. I think I shall forever now associate The King Jesus Gospel with the Boardwalk every time I go.

What I found when reading this book is that it directly speaks to questions which have been slowly but surely rising to the surface a lot over the past couple of years. Such as:

- Is the definition of the "gospel" primarily about personal salvation?

- Before the cross/atonement/resurrection of Jesus actually happened, did Jesus preach the "gospel" if He hadn't been crucified yet?

- Is the gospel of Jesus different than the gospel of Paul?

- What is the gospel? (for some you may have a simple answer, but perhaps as we generally define it in a sentence or two , that is not quite as biblical as we may think).

For a review of this book to get a better idea of the fuller content, you can read a good one here.

What I love about Scot's books is that he is a theologian who writes in a way that average people can read. So often theologians write great books, but they are often heavy reading and leave out practical implications for life. Scot's books feel like you have a pastor, friend and smart theologian writing them. I have recommended Scot's The Blue Parakeet dozens and dozens of times which is another fabulous book.

I assume by the sub-title of this book "the original good news revisited" it could sound somewhat controversial. But as I read it, Scot isn't doing a revisionist version of the gospel as much as he is just laying out the full story of the gospel as taught in the whole Bible story. We have mainly focused on one segment of the gospel story, rather than the full story (see this review for more details). Scot isn't saying that personal salvation is not a result of the gospel. He is saying that saying a prayer for personal salvation isn't the gospel. I personally don't see anything wrong with saying a prayer of repentance and commitment as one puts faith in Jesus in the process. But we need to ensure those we may lead in prayers of decision, that they do learn and understand the full gospel story.

I am re-reading it again now, as it is such a book of depth, but one you can truly read and be invigorated and encouraged as you do. You really can't be asking more an important question in regards to "what is the gospel?" so that is why reading this book was so natural and even fun to do. This isn't a book only for church leaders, this is a book for all Christians. Because if we reduce the gospel from the full biblical gospel, we can then unintentionally reduce the fullness of Jesus as we think of Him. Which then impacts how we live as followers of Jesus. So this is a epicenter important topic for anyone who is interested in Jesus.

If you do read it, and I sure hope as many people do because of the importance of this topic - with underlining sentences, opening your Bible to verses as you are going through it, occasional short breaks of watching original Planet of The Apes movie excerpts on You-Tube (which I did that night) - if you start it around 12:35 AM, and you can finish it around 6:15 AM. And then head to the Boardwalk to make the experience complete.