McKnight, Scot. The King Jesus Gospel: The Original Good News Revisited. Grand Rapids, MI: 2011. (Amazon.com; Zondervan.com)
Today I received a copy of Scot McKnight’s new book The King Jesus Gospel. I am excited to read it and I will be blogging on it as part of the Blog Tour scheduled by Zondervan for the 19th-23rd of the month. This means that I will be one of many writing on the book, including Mark Stevens who co-blogs here on occasion (see his personal blog “The Parson’s Patch”).
Both N.T. Wright and Dallas Willard wrote forwards to the book. These are excerpts from what Wright wrote (pp. 11-13):
“…the Christian faith has never been something that one generation can sort out in such a way as to leave their successors with no work to do.”
“…the movement that has long called itself ‘evangelical’ is in fact better labeled ‘soterion.’ That is, we have thought we were talking about ‘the gospel’ when in fact we were concentrating on ‘salvation.'”
“…’the gospel’ is the story of Jesus of Nazareth told as the climax of the long story of Israel, which in turn is the story of how the one true God is rescuing the world.”
“This book could be one of God’s ways of reminding the new generation of Christians that it has to grow up to take responsibility for thinking things through afresh, to look back to the large world of the full first-century gospel in order then to look out on the equally large world of twenty-first-century gospel opportunity.”
Dallas Willard wrote (pp. 15-16):
“At the root of the many problems that trouble the ‘church visible’ today, there is one simple source: the message that is preached. Note first of all that there is today no one message that is heard, but three or four prominent ones.”
“Second, because of that confusion, what is ordinarily heard as the message given does not lead the hearer who tries to respond into a life of discipleship to Jesus Christ.”
“He [Scot McKnight] works from a basis of profound biblical understanding and of insight into history and into the contemporary misunderstandings that produce gospels that do not naturally produce disciples, but only consumers of religious goods and services. In the course of this he deals with the primary barrier to the power of Jesus’ gospel today– that is, a view of salvation and of grace that has no connection with discipleship and spiritual transformation. It is a view of grace and salvation that, supposedly, gets one ready to die, but leaves them unprepared to live now in the grace and power of the resurrected life.”
It is apparent that McKnight will be challenging many “gospels”, which is a trendy thing to do currently, but I think he is qualified to address important blind spots in ways that other authors and groups have not been. I think this book will be a good one that will have readers rethinking what we mean by the gospel.
the archives near Emmaus 
SNAP! Was just about to post this! I guess I’ll do mine at the Patch or should we cross post?
Mark : You can post a review here and there. I think more than one perspective is a good thing.
I’ll be watching for your review(s). 🙂
Brian –
I thought about buying the book, and I might still in the end. But I am wondering if this will be much different from what Ladd said many years ago in his Gospel of the Kingdom and what N.T. Wright continually puts forth in the multiplicity of his books.
I think both of those have done a solid effort in reminding us what the gospel truly is about.
@Derek : Thanks!
@Scott : Good question, but I don’t know if I have an answer. Of course Scot will bring a unique perspective, but if someone has read broadly in this area it may not be that unique. Thus far it is very readable though and I like what he has to say.
Oh, I like McKnight a lot. I just read a short blurb about the book (maybe Amazon) and realised that this seems like he is going to try to better embed the gospel into it’s NT narrative and also bring in the kingdom of God aspect, while also maybe looking at how to walk this out today. I feel Wright has done that for the past 20+ years, and Ladd before him (though maybe Ladd wasn’t as practical as Wright at times).
I’m sure it’s a good read and could be something to give people over an NT Wright, who can get a little heady and big-worded at times.
@Scot : Indeed, his writing seems more accessible that Wright’s and his familiarity with (1) the US context and (2) college-aged and twenty-something readers gives him a more precise, main audience.