Philip Yancey goes back to the Gospels and attempts to find the real Jesus, unencumbered by expectations and two thousand years of traditions. What he finds is a person who was as misunderstood when He walked the earth as He is today. Yancey goes through Jesus’ life, covering His birth and youth, His ministry, His death and resurrection and ascension and, briefly, what it all means today. Near the end of the book, Yancey makes this statement: “Why am I a Christian? I sometimes ask myself, and to be perfectly honest the reasons reduce to two: (1) the lack of good alternatives, and (2) Jesus. Brilliant, untamed, tender, creative, slippery, irreducible, paradoxically humble — Jesus stands up to scrutiny. He is who I want my God to be.”

As always, I found Yancey’s writing challenging and compelling. I always look at my faith a little differently (in a positive way) after reading one of his books.