LOVING THE WAY JESUS LOVES
By Phil Ryken
IVP. 222 pages. £8.99
ISBN 978 1 844 745 654
Phil Ryken is the president of Wheaton College, a leading Christian university in the USA, and has written or edited over 30 books.
This volume started life as a sermon series at Tenth Presbyterian Church in Philadelphia, where he served as pastor for 15 years. Although Ryken is a scholar, Loving the Way Jesus Loves is the work of a pastor, aimed at ordinary Christians and written in clear, accessible prose.
Jesus said that love sums up the whole law of God, and that the way people will know we are his disciples is if we love one another. Clearly, living a life of love is a vital mandate for Christians! But what does love actually look like, and how can we grow in it? Ryken seeks to answer these questions by a fresh look at 1 Corinthians 13. His approach is as follows: identify one aspect in Paul’s description of love; explain it in the Corinthian context; then illustrate the principle and draw applications from the life and ministry of Jesus. Loving the Way Jesus Loves has 12 chapters covering topics such as love’s importance, love’s kindness, patience, hope, endurance and forgiveness, among others. The chapter titled ‘Love is not irritable’ was particularly challenging!
I appreciated the careful study of 1 Corinthians and analysis of love that underpins Ryken’s work. However, the real value of the book is the way in which it leads readers to meditate on the Lord Jesus — surely the best way to understand and grow in love. As a result, it is rich and stimulating, a book that would work well for personal devotional study or group discussion (it includes a useful study guide).
At times, I wished Ryken had gone further on how to make progress on specific issues; the book was occasionally thin on how to deal with sin. But this does not take away from the book’s overall value; a fine study that helps readers to apply the gospel of love to cold, hard hearts.
Mike Tindall,
minister of Grace Church Manchester, part of The Plant Network
