Doodled Devotional Calls Christians To Take Jesus' Words Seriously

(REVIEW) Christians of many theological stripes claim to follow Jesus Christ, but how many actually follow his life and teachings? That’s the central question behind Skye Jethani’s visual devotional book “What If Jesus Was Serious?” (Moody Publishers, June 2020), which aims to remind Christians of Jesus’ most famous sermon.

According to Jethani, the problem is not that American Christians take Jesus too seriously, it is that they do not take Jesus seriously enough.

“What If Jesus Was Serious?” is divided into nine parts, with each part explaining a different section of the sermon. Jethani drew and doodled his insights from various pastors and professors from the late Anglican minister John Stott to Dallas Willard.

“[Willard] was the first person I read who really approached the Sermon as a single, cohesive unit,” Jethani told ReligionUnplugged. “I feel like prior to him … I had more or less been told that the Sermon on the Mount was an edited collection of Jesus’ popular teachings that Matthew or the apostles had sort of cobbled together and pasted into this section of Matthew’s Gospel.”

What stands out about Jethani’s presentation of Matthew 5-7 is his creative illustrations. At first glance, one might mistake “What If Jesus Was Serious?” to be a children’s book.

In reality, “What If Jesus Was Serious?” can be used in devotions for all ages. Jethani attributes the book’s success to its accessibility to readers. Because of the book’s success, Moody Publishers will be releasing a second book written titled, “What If Jesus Was Serious … About Prayer?” The book is set to release on June 1, 2021.  

“I’ve heard some people, like I heard a 25-year-old say, ‘This is the first Christian book that I want to give to my parents, because they’ve always given me books that they think I need to read, but I think they need to read this because they’ve abandoned these core teachings of Jesus, ironically in the name of serving Jesus,’” Jethani said. 

The tendency to cherry pick from or outright ignore some teachings from the Sermon on the Mount cuts across Christian denominations and traditions. Jethani is not the only one pointing this out.

“I’ve heard leading Christians of various traditions suggest that, particularly American Christians… the Sermon on the Mount is not for us, not for now,” said R. Scott Clark, professor of church history and historical theology at Westminster Seminary California, on a recent episode of his podcast, The Heidelcast. “And they give different reasons for why it isn’t for today and that’s just all special pleading.”

While Jethani’s main audience is evangelical Christians, the points in his book can apply to all American Christians. He calls out consumerism, for example. When talking about salt and light, he calls on Christians to do both evangelism and seek justice.

Jethani believes the separation of evangelism and justice is a primarily and uniquely American church dilemma. He cited the Fundamentalist-Modernist controversy of the last century as the reason why justice and evangelism have been pitted against one another in the United States.

He argues that based on Jesus’ teachings in the sermon, they should not be divorced from one another. Justice is the right ordering of relationships between people. Evangelism is about the right ordering of relationship between God and His people.

“In a way, it’s all about justice,” Jethani said. “It’s all about putting relationships back in the right order. That’s exactly what you see Jesus doing. He’s healing bodies, he restores relationships, he brings a Zealot and a tax collector together and binds them in community.”

Jethani finds it mind-boggling that the American church is still arguing over justice and evangelism.

He also calls out Christian and political leaders who are utilizing “the myth of scarcity”. The myth of scarcity is if someone else gets something, then the other person loses something. He cites Old Testament scholar Walter Brueggemann who shows how Jesus contrasted the myth of scarcity with the reality of abundance.

Jethani said the presence of the Lord brings abundance and Jesus manifests that throughout his ministry. He cites Jesus’ miracle of feeding thousands of people as an example of an “abundance miracle”.

“Once you’re set free from that fear, you can love, you can serve, you can give,” Jethani said. “And I think that’s what broken in so much of the American church. We bought into a vision of scarcity which has been fed to us by our political leaders, our cultural leaders and many of our church leaders that makes us fearful and angry and makes us see our neighbors as threats.

Jethani pointed out that if people see their neighbor as a threat, then it is difficult to love them as Jesus instructs Christians to do.

Jesus states in Matthew 5:9, “Blessed are the peacemakers, for they will be called children of God.” Jethani’s exposition of the verse is to contrast its true meaning with the world’s definition of “peacemakers.”

The world tends to define a peacemaker as someone who avoids conflict, but Jethani labels people who avoid conflict as peace-fakers.

“I think the true peacemaker is the person or the people who begin with the truth, who admit what’s really going on, who see the problem and bring it to the surface and allow it to be exposed to sunlight,” Jethani said. “And peace is what we find on the other side of conflict.”

Jethani said he is not a pacifist, but he has deep sympathies for pacifist theology. He said the power of the pacifist theological tradition is that it mimics Jesus.

“What If Jesus Was Serious?” calls Christians in every tradition to adhere to the ethical teachings of Jesus Christ. While not entirely original in its message, the book will service those Christians looking to be radically discipled by the simple way of Jesus.

Clay Sidenbender is a freelance journalist based in Edwardsburg, Michigan. He has written for ReligionUnplugged, Religion News Service, The Goshen News and The Elkhart Truth.