• We hold the future
• The Commentary
  Advice about strikes
• Renaming your church?
  Pastor Chris Thomas shares his experience
• King's speech?
  Pat William shares her remarkable story
• Young, Christian and unashamed
  About Sorted, a prodigious youth event
• Contending for Christ in Dubai
• Caymanian Christians
• Polygamy?
  Towards a biblical response
• Christian anniversaries 2012
• Third culture kid
  Youngsters who grow up outside their parents' home culture
• Crossing the culture
  Leonardo's modern mind
• The Music Exchange
• Unapologetic Christianity
  Morality and deity
• Letter from America
  Tebowing!
• Roland Lamb, 1917-2011
  Obituary
• The Third Degree
  Missions' flying start
• Monthly youth leaders column
  Team player
• Notes to growing Christians
  What will 2012 bring?

other articles

• Written on the heart
• Pigeon English - Secular shelf life
• The New Testament for everyone
• The Bible book by book
• The minister's wife - Privileges, pressures and pitfalls
• Josiah's reformation
• The money mentor - Getting to grips with your finances
• Our home is like a little church
• What is the church?
• Fathering leaders, motivating mission - Restoring the role of the apostle in today's church
• The green mirage - Why a low-carbon economy may be further off than we think
• You're on your own - How policy produced Britain's pension crisis
• Who is Jesus?
• Smooth stones from ancient brooks - Selections from the writings of Thomas Brooks
• Wait till you see the butterfly
• The life and times of Charles Henry Mackintosh
• Jesus the hero
• Remember - The things that matter when hope is hard to find
• John Knox and the Reformation
• Divide & ... multiply - A vision and a way to go for self-multiplying churches
• What to look for in a pastor - A guide for pastoral search committees
• The doctrine & practice of holiness
• Freedom and order - History, politics and the English Bible

Christ made clear

WHO IS JESUS?
By Roger Carswell
Christian Focus. 69 pages. £4.99
ISBN 978 1 845 506 353

Who is Jesus? is an evangelistic book. It is quite small, hardback, light and has a good cover design, which altogether make it an attractive book to give away.

The content answers the book’s title question and does it very well. The five short chapters cover: the historical Jesus; Jesus — fully man; Jesus — fully God; Jesus, the substitutionary sacrifice; and, an invitation to trust in Jesus.

The book’s standout features are: 1) its conversational style of writing; 2) the wonderfully full, immediate, even earthy, presentation of Jesus — sometimes the information about Jesus is so rapid that it feels like Roger is shooting Bible truth at you through a machine gun, which I found powerful rather than overwhelming; 3) the use of the New Living Translation for Bible quotes.

Who is Jesus? sets out evidence straight from the Bible in a very impactful way. Clearly effort has been made to be simple, cohesive, persuasive and accessible. However, some of the vocabulary and quotations seem to target a reader a little more at home with literature and history than some of the inner-city people I want to give literature to. Having said this, the book will remain very accessible and engaging for many non-Christians who have a little Bible knowledge and a good high-school grasp of English.

Unfortunately, there are two things this book has that make it harder to use, for me. The first is that it ends with a ‘sinner’s prayer’. As someone who gives books away to people I have relationships with, this treads on my territory in my view. Maybe we need two versions. Secondly, when it comes to evangelistic literature, I prefer a book to be free of publisher advertising, commendations and mission statements.

All things considered, I’m glad I’m aware of this book.

James Young,
pastor for evangelism, Lower Ford Street Baptist Church, Coventry