Discipleship audit

THE UNHEEDED CHRIST
Jesus demands serious obedience
By David Cook
Christian Focus. 176 pages. £6.99
ISBN 978-1-84550-369-7

This relatively short book starts with the shocking and thought provoking claim that Muhammad, rather than Jesus, is the most influential person in history. Jesus doesn’t even come second, but lags behind in third place.

Michael Hart, who makes this assessment in his book The 100: A Ranking of the Most Influential People in History, reaches this conclusion because he observes that Muhammad has far more influence over the lives of Muslims than Jesus Christ does over the lives of Christians.

David Cook, the Principal of Sydney Missionary and Bible College, who is giving the main Bible Readings at New Word Alive this year, sets out to correct this failure head on by confronting Christians with teachings of Jesus that are all too easily ignored, and urging them to more radical discipleship and obedience. In a characteristically clear, direct, accessible and pastorally warm style he confronts his readers with the words of Jesus from Matthew’s Gospel and expounds what it means to obey them in practice. Among other things he enables Jesus to challenge readers to love their enemies, resist seeking revenge, fight against lust in the mind, forgive those who have sinned, make eternal investments rather than pursuing earthly wealth, live in the light of the second coming and eternal judgment, and obey the Great Commission.

Cross-carrying life

It is perhaps slightly surprising that there is no chapter dealing directly with Matthew 16.24-26 and Jesus’s demand that his disciples take up their cross and follow him, but the substantive content of the chapters fleshes out the shape of a cross-carrying life.

The chapters consist of transcribed sermons given by David at the college, and they have lost nothing of their power. They are easy to read, well illustrated (from the Bloodhound Gang to Michael Card!) and applied, and deeply unsettling. Many years ago I read Jim Packer’s Laid Back Religion, and in a similar way this book is a clarion call against a comfortable, respectable and reasonable Christianity that has neutered the teachings of Jesus so that they are compatible with the prevailing attitudes and aspirations of our culture. Alongside the challenge, David gives plenty of encouraging examples and practical help to renew our thinking so that we will be enabled to obey. I read this book in my daily quiet times and found it profoundly unsettling and challenging, and it led me to want to make sure that I was genuinely ‘listening’ to the words of Jesus. It was immensely helpful to undergo such a thorough ‘discipleship audit’ and to have my delusions of obedience swept away.

I would strongly recommend that you read this book, and then read it again on a periodic basis to ensure that you are making progress in serious obedience. If the whole church were to read this book, we might begin to live in a way that would ensure that, in the eyes of observers such as Michael Hart, Jesus is the most influential person in our lives, in history and in the world today. We need to ensure that Jesus is not the ‘unheeded Christ’, and David has done us a great service in sharing these challenging talks more widely.

John Stevens, Director, FIEC