On a cold and dark Siberian winter’s day in 1850, an inmate at a Tobolsk prison was handed a New Testament—the only book prisoners were permitted to own and read. Over the following 10 years of hard labor, that New Testament became a lifeline to him. It introduced him to Jesus. “I believe that there is nothing and no one more beautiful, deeper, more sympathetic and more reasonable, courageous and more perfect than Christ,” he wrote in 1854.
For the rest of his life, Fyodor Dostoevsky never parted with that copy of the New Testament, weaving its imagery and message into the fibers of works we cherish today like The Brothers Karamazov and Crime and Punishment.
The influence of the Bible—and the New Testament in particular—on the course of history and culture is incalculable. Yet among millennials and skeptics in the West, biblical literacy is at an all-time low. Studies show a majority of Americans never read the Bible, and only 11 percent claim to read it daily. Rihanna can sing about a “thief in the night” without any idea she’s alluding to 1 Thessalonians 5:2. Culturally and politically, we live in a world haunted by Christianity, but our lack of familiarity with the Bible blinds us to its relevance.
That’s one of the reasons I was thrilled to read Rebecca McLaughlin’s latest book, Confronting Jesus: 9 Encounters with the Hero of the Gospels (Crossway, 2022). Confronting Jesus is unsurprisingly about . . . Jesus. McLaughlin’s goal is to lead people to a first-hand encounter with Jesus by picking up a Gospel and reading it for themselves.
We live in a world haunted by Christianity, but our lack of familiarity with the Bible blinds us to its relevance.
In nine easy-to-read chapters, McLaughlin—speaker, apologist, and author of the best-selling Confronting Christianity—thematically analyzes the life and teachings of Jesus. Along the way, she rebuts misinformation, distills complex biblical scholarship, and shares about her personal journey. By using familiar language and concepts to explain the context in which Jesus lived, McLaughlin lowers the threshold for engaging with the New Testament.
Biblical Studies Meets Apologetics
One of my favorite museums in Washington, DC, is the Museum of the Bible. Of the three floors, my favorite is the “impact floor,” which highlights how you cannot understand American history, contemporary culture, or Western values apart from the Bible. Reading Confronting Jesus is a bit like that.
McLaughlin’s engagement with pop culture and literature sets this book apart from other introductions to the Gospels. She starts with familiar concepts and stories like Hamilton, Doctor Who, and Harry Potter to build a bridge to the world of the Bible. These frequent references will especially appeal to teenagers and college students.
One strength of McLaughlin’s book is her disarming approach. Rather than arguing, McLaughlin often makes comparisons that appeal to our intuitions and sensibilities. For instance, she makes the point that if we can trust that Bryan Stevenson’s memory of his first visit to death row 37 years earlier is reliable, why wouldn’t we trust Peter’s memory of Jesus’s life and ministry as recorded in Mark’s Gospel?
Rather than dismissing the questions and objections of skeptics, McLaughlin takes them seriously while responding with biblical truth. Confronting Jesus is part biblical study, part apologetics.
Evangelistic Tool
There’s a danger in evangelism of downplaying difficult doctrines to present the gospel as more palatable. That can especially be the case in books that focus exclusively on Jesus, but McLaughlin steers clear of that error.
She winsomely conveys the clear scriptural teachings on controversial topics. From sex (“Jesus’ teachings about sexual sin make most conservatives look soft”) to a biblical understanding of marriage (“Jesus locates sex in the one-flesh union of marriage between a man and a woman”) to the judgment of hell that all people deserve for our sins, McLaughlin honestly and winsomely exposes readers to the truth.
Rather than dismissing the questions and objections of skeptics, McLaughlin takes them seriously while responding with biblical truth.
Though the frequent allusions to pop culture and literature may sometimes seem to overshadow scriptural engagement, McLaughlin’s fresh writing style, powerful illustrations, and autobiographical accounts make Confronting Jesus a wonderful contribution to the 21st-century Christian’s evangelistic tool belt.
My favorite chapter was “Jesus the Healer,” where McLaughlin shares how a close encounter with cancer led her deeper into the doctrine of the bodily resurrection. In a culture that waffles between idolizing the body and dismissing the body, McLaughlin shows from Scripture and personal experience how the Christian doctrine of physical resurrection is profoundly balanced. The body matters because Christ took on human flesh, rose from the dead, and will one day transform our broken bodies to be like his own glorious body.
Come, Meet Jesus
For the Christian, Confronting Jesus will help you become better acquainted with the Jesus of the Gospels. For skeptics, this book will lower the threshold for diving into the Gospels. I especially recommend it to youth and college students for whom the cultural references will sparkle rather than bore.
About halfway through my first read, I picked up a second copy and gave it to a teenager at my church to read through and discuss with me. I’m confident that he’ll learn much and profit from it. But most of all, I hope it will lead him, and everyone who reads it, to dive deeper into the Gospels for himself.
The Gospel Coalition