Book: The Jesus I Never Knew

It have been long time since i manage to finnish reading a book. And lately manage to catch up some time reading this book which i have been wanting to read for long long time. Wrote by Philip Yancey whose other works include 'Disappointment with God', 'What's so Amazing about Grace', 'Rumour of Another World', etc. I would say he is one of the best writer.

In this book, he potrayed eloquently, clearly and vividly the person of Jesus from the scripture and historically who he really is compare to general perception. I would say it's very readable, sweetly written and thought provoking. Very good read for all people.

I think i will leave some excerp from the book:

My career as a journalist has afforded me opportunities to interview "stars", including NFL football greats, movie actors, music performers, best-selling authors, politicians, an TV personalities. These are the people who dominate the media. We fawn over them, poring over the minute of their lives: the clothes they wear, the food they eat, the aerobic routines they follow, the people they love, the toothpaste they use. Yet I must tell you that, in my limited experience, I have found Paul Johnson's principle to hold true: our "idols" are as miserable a group of people as I have ever met. Most have troubled or broken marriages. Nearly all are incurably dependant on pychotherapy. In a heavy irony, these larger-than-life heroes seem tormented by self-doubt.

I have also spend time with people I call "servants". Doctors and nurses who work among the ultimate outcasts, leprosy patients in rural India. A Princeton graduate who runs a hotel for the homeless in Chicago. Health workers who have left high-paying jobs to serve in a backwater town of Mississippi. Relief workers in Somalia, Sudan, Ethiopia, Bangladesh, and other repositories of human suffering. The Ph.D.s I met in Arizona, who are now scattered throughtout jungles of South America translating the Bible into obscure languages.

I was prepared to honor and admire these servants, to hold them up as inspiring examples. I was not prepared to envy them. Yet as I now reflect on the two groups side by side, stars and servants, the servants clearly emerge as the favored ones, the graced ones. Without question, I woulf rather spend time among the servants than among the stars: they possess qualities of depth and richness and even joy that I have not found elsewhere. Servants work for low pay, long hours, and no applause, "wasting" their talents and skills among the poor and uneducated. Somehow, though, in the process of losing their lives they find them.

~The Jesus I Never Knew (pg 117-118)~

Happy reading!!