To Know Christ Jesus
Type
Book
Authors
Category
Jesus Christ
[ Browse Items ]
Publication Year
1962
Publisher
Sheed & Ward, United States
Pages
377
Description
This is not a biography - the Gospels were written by men who were not biographically-minded. It is not a Gospel Commentary either, though written in the light shed upon the text by scholars. The author's concern with the Gospels is to see the face which looks out from them upon men. The book is about Christ - not the Christ of the great preachers or painters, but the Christ of Matthew, Mark, Luke and John. It is written for the great mass of people in our world who reverence him but barely know him. Its object is not to prove anything but to meet Someone.
The things Our Lord said and the things he did are studied to find out what they tell us about him: about him as our Redeemer, and what that meant for him and for us; and about him as himself - his obedience, his compassion, his tears, his great angers, the one time we are told he was joyful, the glimpses we get of his relations with his Mother, the terse unsentimental speech.
The individual things said and done do not stand alone, they have a context; part of it is written in Scripture, for part of it we must go to the history of the times. The Old Testament and contemporary history are brought in, not for their own sakes, but solely insofar as they shed light upon the main thing.
The author has tried especially to see Our Lord in his effect upon others - seeing how they saw him, trying to see why they saw him so. There is much about Mary and Joseph, in their task of bringing up; a baby who was adorable - not as all babies are, but literally; about John the Baptist; about Mary of Bethany and Mary Magdalene (two women? one woman?); about Nicodemus, with the three stages of his movement toward full discipleship; about people we meet only for a moment, like the man born blind and the owners of the drowned swine. Satan, seen primarily as obsessed with the threat that one would come who should crush his head, is much in evidence. There is an effort to see why the Pharisees, not only the worst of them but some of the best, would not accept Christ, and to show how small - nonexistent indeed - was the responsibility of the mass of Jews for Good Friday's crime. (taken from the inside flap)
The things Our Lord said and the things he did are studied to find out what they tell us about him: about him as our Redeemer, and what that meant for him and for us; and about him as himself - his obedience, his compassion, his tears, his great angers, the one time we are told he was joyful, the glimpses we get of his relations with his Mother, the terse unsentimental speech.
The individual things said and done do not stand alone, they have a context; part of it is written in Scripture, for part of it we must go to the history of the times. The Old Testament and contemporary history are brought in, not for their own sakes, but solely insofar as they shed light upon the main thing.
The author has tried especially to see Our Lord in his effect upon others - seeing how they saw him, trying to see why they saw him so. There is much about Mary and Joseph, in their task of bringing up; a baby who was adorable - not as all babies are, but literally; about John the Baptist; about Mary of Bethany and Mary Magdalene (two women? one woman?); about Nicodemus, with the three stages of his movement toward full discipleship; about people we meet only for a moment, like the man born blind and the owners of the drowned swine. Satan, seen primarily as obsessed with the threat that one would come who should crush his head, is much in evidence. There is an effort to see why the Pharisees, not only the worst of them but some of the best, would not accept Christ, and to show how small - nonexistent indeed - was the responsibility of the mass of Jews for Good Friday's crime. (taken from the inside flap)
Number of Copies
1
