I wonder what it says about me or about Mr. WIlson’s book that I enjoyed the footnotes, which are multitudinous and entertaining, almost as much as I did the main text of the book. In fact, I found myself turning each page, reading the footnotes first, then the text to which each footnote referred, then the two facing pages in order. Some examples:

p. 101: I keep assuming that you’re someone who speaks aloud to books. If I were you, I wouldn’t do this if you’re seated next to someone in a waiting room or on an airplane. Unless you really want to freak people out and give them a good story to tell their friends. In that case, go ahead, weirdo.

p. 193: Well, for me personally, it’s not up for debate, but I’m trying to be charitable to all my less Calvinist friends.

(Footnote to a footnote: Thanks, Jared, for your Christian charity in bearing with us wishy-washy Arminocalvinists.)

So, I liked the footnotes. What else?

A lot. I read Jared Wilson’s manifesto (n. a public declaration of policy and aims) on who Jesus is, what Jesus “policy and aims” were and are, and then I started again and read it all over. I did the re-reading thing for two or maybe three reasons:

1. There’s a lot of good stuff in here. I confess that whenever I read nonfiction, unless it tells a story, I tend to skim, to look for the good parts, mostly the story parts. But Mr. Wilson has written a book that tells the story of Jesus from twelve different perspectives or roles, and I was afraid that because of my bad reading habits, I might have missed something. I did miss stuff, and I’m glad I gave myself a second chance.

2. Jared Wilson and his fellow Thinklings were some of the first bloggers I ever read, so when I heard he was having his first book published, I wanted to read it. And I wanted to make sure I read it thoroughly. I can’t claim to be an unprejudiced reviewer; Jared and I have actually met once. We’ve exchanged emails a couple of times. And I like his writing and his focus on the person of Jesus. So I was predisposed to like his book, footnotes and all. (However, no money exchanged hands in the process of my writing this review.)

3. In the end I was captivated, not by Jared’s writing or his wit, but by the person he was writing about: Jesus. I wanted to know more. I wanted to know what I had missed in my fifty plus years of doing church. I’ve been a disciple of Jesus Christ for a long time, but in reading Your Jesus Is Too Safe, I fell in love with Jesus all over again. That’s not safe, but it sure is fun and rich and Awe-ful, in the best and most archaic sense of the word.

If you think you’ve heard it all before, maybe you have. But maybe, just maybe, you should read Your Jesus Is Too Safe with an open mind and a heart prepared to reencounter the Biblical Jesus who is our Promise, our Prophet, our Forgiver, the Son of Man, our Shepherd, our Judge, our Redeemer, our King, our Sacrifice, our Provision, our Lord, and our Saviour.

“Brace yourself. Turning over tables is a messy business.”

This review is a part of Jared Wilson’s blog tour for the book Your Jesus Is Too Safe. For more reviews of the book, you can go to Jared’s blog, The Gospel-Driven Church.