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    Who Jesus Is and Why It Matters (Ebook Shorts)
    Who Jesus Is and Why It Matters (Ebook Shorts)
    Who Jesus Is and Why It Matters (Ebook Shorts)
    Ebook36 pages50 minutes

    Who Jesus Is and Why It Matters (Ebook Shorts)

    By Jim Wallis

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    About this ebook

    Who was Jesus? Why did he come? Some people think it was to save them from their sins, so their spiritual focus is personal salvation. Others appreciate Jesus's teachings but see little connection between the wise teacher of old and how they live life here and now.

    Both groups have lost the true vision of who Jesus is--a vision that changes everything about us and our world. What we believe about Jesus has the power to transform how we treat all our neighbors--including the poor, the marginalized, and our enemies--and promote the common good.

    Jim Wallis steps into our current context with this timely invitation for fellow sojourners on the road of faith to change the world in sustainable, life-giving ways. He explores what Jesus himself said about why he came and why it matters today, showing that our faith impacts our household values, our community values, and our institutional behaviors for the sake of the world. He suggests "Ten Personal Decisions for the Common Good" that will inspire you on your journey.

    This is a selection from The (Un)Common Good: How the Gospel Brings Hope to a World Divided.
    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherBaker Publishing Group
    Release dateAug 15, 2013
    ISBN9781441245953
    Who Jesus Is and Why It Matters (Ebook Shorts)
    Author

    Jim Wallis

    Jim Wallis is the author of the New York Times bestseller God's Politics, which electrified Americans disenchanted with how the Right had co-opted all talk about integrating religious values into our politics by offering an alternative voice. Wallis is a leading figure at the crossroads of religion and politics in America today, the author of eight books, and the founder of Sojourners, a global faith and justice network. He is a public theologian, an internationally renowned speaker and preacher, a faith-based activist, husband, and father to two young boys, and a Little League baseball coach.

    Read more from Jim Wallis

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      Book preview

      Who Jesus Is and Why It Matters (Ebook Shorts) - Jim Wallis

      © 2013 by Jim Wallis

      Published by Brazos Press

      a division of Baker Publishing Group

      P.O. Box 6287, Grand Rapids, MI 49516–6287

      www.brazospress.com

      Excerpted from On God’s Side: What Religion Forgets and Politics Hasn’t Learned about Serving the Common Good

      Ebook edition created 2013

      ISBN 978-1-4412-4595-3

      All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means—for example, electronic, photocopy, recording—without the prior written permission of the publisher. The only exception is brief quotations in printed reviews.

      Scripture quotations are from the New Revised Standard Version of the Bible, copyright © 1989, by the Division of Christian Education of the National Council of the Churches of Christ in the United States of America. Used by permission. All rights reserved.

      Contents

      Cover

      Title Page

      Copyright Page

      Who Jesus Is and Why It Matters

      Epilogue: Ten Personal Decisions for the Common Good

      Notes

      About the Author

      Back Ad

      Back Cover

      Who Jesus Is and Why It Matters

      Precious Lord, take my hand, / lead me on, let me stand.

      —Gospel hymn by Thomas Dorsey[1]

      Jesus did not come just to save our souls. The Jesus I was told about as a child was quite different from the one I met later, years after leaving my childhood church. As much as we loved the Bible in the congregation my parents helped to found, we somehow missed the central message of the New Testament, the message that Jesus called the kingdom of God. Jesus’s gospel of the kingdom is much more than the gospel I was raised with, which I will call the atonement-only gospel—a message that was mostly about how I could get to heaven and not about a new order that had come to change the world and me with it.

      The question is, why did Jesus come? The answer is, of course, fundamental for Christians. But it could also be of great interest to all who want to understand the true meaning of their nation’s and the world’s largest religion. Are we getting it right? What would be the implication if we weren’t, and, even more important, what might happen if we did get it right?

      If we are asking why Jesus came, it makes sense to see what he said himself and what the New Testament says. So

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