Book Review: “How to Read the Bible through the Jesus Lens”

Review: How to Read the Bible Through the Jesus Lens (Michael Williams, Grand Rapids, MI: Zondervan ©2012)

Disclaimer: I received a free copy of this work for the purpose of reviewing it. I’m commenting on the portion of the book that deals with the letters of Paul.

Introduction
When I first saw this book, a phrase from Steve Hays’s “Love the Lord with Heart and Mind” came to mind. Steve said: “When I was 16, going on 17, I felt led to read the Bible. I began with the OT, but at that time it was like a thicket. Impenetrable. So I stopped reading the Bible.”

That’s pretty much the thing that the author seems to try to address in this work. And given that the author was Michael Williams, Professor of Old Testament at Calvin Theological Seminary, I thought, who better to take on something like this?

It’s clear that Dr. Williams wants to make it easier for someone to get through the “thicket” that Steve mentioned. And as a professor of Old Testament at Calvin Theological Seminary, he’s certainly qualified to take on this sort of thing. It’s worthwhile at this point to look at his stated intention:

The simple truth that all of the Scriptures—Old Testament and New Testament—testify about Jesus seems to be often overlooked. For modern readers, the picture of Christ in the Old Testament can be obscured by veritable whiteout conditions of chronological, sacrificial, architectural, geographical, and genealogical details, so that all that can be made our after spending some time in the snowstorm is a mound of white where the car used to be. To an admittedly lesser degree, the problem exists for the New Testament as well.

If that were the sole purpose of the book, that’s a very admirable purpose.

But we’re not through yet, and here is where it gets problematic. Williams continues:

Reading the Bible through the Jesus lens is reading it the way it was intended. It keeps our reading, understanding, teaching, and preaching properly focused on God's grand redemptive program that centers on his own son.

He cites Luke 24:27, “Beginning with Moses and all the Prophets, he explained to them what was said in all the Scriptures concerning himself”.

I hope I have avoided the usual dry, data-intensive introduction to the Bible in which dusty details of disparate documents are examined in an academically detached fashion apart from any apparent relatedness to Christ or contemporary life.

He certainly has touched on the kind of thematic material one might find in the introductory sections in a study Bible. And with regard to “contemporary life”, he brings in practical application. But all of these occur in bit-sized chunks which (a) may be misplaced, and (b) are short enough that they don’t really explore what he’s saying in any meaningful depth. Finally,

Finally, I consider what the fulfillment in Christ must necessarily entail for believers, who are being conformed to his likeness, along with ways to communicate those entailments to others effectively. By means of these considerations I hope to help brothers and sisters in the faith grow in their awareness of how all of Scripture finds its focus in Jesus Christ, and so help them to root their Christian life, theological discussions, and evangelical witness in the one who is our life (Colossians 3:4).

And he says he wants to do all this “in a book that one doesn’t need a wheelbarrow to carry around.” While each of these stated intentions is worthwhile and even noble, it seems to me the author was biting off a bit too much, and not doing real justice to any of it.

The Format
I found the format to be clunky, and even jarring.

There are 62 separate chapters, almost one for each book of the Bible. Each chapter contains all of the following sections:

• An Introduction
• “Theme of the Book”
• Memory Passage [expanding on the theme of the book]
• “The Jesus Lens” [referring each book, OT and NT, to some NT theme that relates back to Christ]
• Contemporary Implications [ethics, or application]
• “Hook Questions”

The author almost slavishly follows this format. Each book of the Bible receives this same four-page treatment. Oddly, longer works such as 1 and 2 Samuel, 1 and 2 Kings, and 1 and 2 are lumped together, while short, one-page works such as Haggai, Paul’s letter to Philemon, and 2 and 3 John, each receive the same four-page treatment.

The “Introductory” and “Theme” portions of each chapter were the type of thing you’d expect to read in your average study Bible (minus the dusty, data-intensive details).

Admittedly, his treatment of Philemon was helpful. But at that point, you have to wonder just how helpful this four-page treatment is when dealing with some of the longer Old Testament works. In fact, I think T.D. Alexander's The Servant King does a much more thorough job, in a much more manageable format. “The Servant King”, rather than stopping on each book of the Bible, picks up various themes and works them across the Scriptures.

“The Jesus Lens” section of each chapter (the stated purpose of the work) seems to read contemporary theology back into the texts, and I don’t know that that’s ultimately helpful. For example, he begins Exodus properly noting “the tabernacle included an altar for sacrifice, pointing toward the ultimate sacrifice that Christ would make to deliver his people from sin…. In fact, it is difficult to read the details of God’s deliverance of his people from bondage and into his presence without seeing the ultimate fulfillment of those details in Christ.” That’s true enough, but at this point, he cites Romans 7:21:25 and comments, “Through Jesus Christ, God accomplishes our deliverance from sin and also our deliverance into a rich life of meaning, purpose, and significance in his presence.” Now, does Romans 7 point back to Exodus? Yes. But should we understand the book of Exodus as promising us “a rich life of meaning, purpose, and significance”? I don’t think that’s what the author of Exodus intended to do.


These last two sections, “Contemporary Implications” and “Hook Questions” seemed out of place and could have been written separately. These are, according to his Introduction, where “I consider what that fulfillment in Christ must necessarily entail for believers who are being confirmed to his likeness, along with ways to communicate those entailments to others effectively”. In these sections, the author constantly focuses on the finished work of Christ. And almost always, his theology is good (but simplistic).

Here’s what I mean by “jarring”. Some of the longer works of the OT, such as Genesis and Exodus, receive a four page treatment according to this format. But the author seems so dedicated to this format, that a two-page book, such as the minor prophet Haggai, also receives this same four-page format.

And again, if I were going to sit down and read Haggai, his four page introduction would be very helpful. But the four-page treatment of the longer books is far less helpful because of the format.


Paul’s letters:
I have always found Paul’s letters to be the most accessible portions of the Scriptures. And so, the “problem” that was set out at the beginning – that the Old Testament is somewhat “impenetrable” – has faded by this point. Paul’s letters are “an open book” – and by this time, “the Jesus Lens” seems rather forced.

Williams follows the same format through Paul’s letters, of course. And again, the introductory and thematic information can be helpful, but often it’s forced into a package size it doesn’t fit. For example, here is his Introduction to Romans:

In Acts, Luke focused on the responsibility of believers to witness to the salvation available in Jesus Christ by faith in him. In his letter to the young church in Rome, Paul outlines the content of the witness”. “Earlier in his life, Paul had done his best to squelch the church (Acts 8:3; 9:1-2). But after his radical conversion, he did everything he could to nurture and encourage believers. So even though he had not had the opportunity to visit the believers in Rome personally, he had heard good things about them (Romans 1:8) and wanted to make sure their understanding of the faith was well grounded. In his letter to them, therefore, Paul touches on every necessary doctrine—but doctrine clothed in the genuine love and care of one who desires his readers to know and experience as fully as possible the new life they have been given in Christ.

While all of this is true, it’s so abbreviated as to not be very helpful at all, with respect to a book like Romans. These are true things about Paul, but while he is trying to fit in some small facts about Paul’s life, why say these things in the Introduction to Romans? Why not create an introduction section to talk about Paul’s life, including his conversion (which is not discussed in Williams’s chapter on Acts, even though it is a huge portion of it) some of the “dry dusty facts” about Paul’s missionary journeys, the reason his letters were collected, the fact that Paul outlines theology and then turns to practical considerations in his letters, etc. The “Theme” portion of Romans is very short and squelched as well:

There can be no appreciation for salvation unless there is an appreciation of the need for salvation. No one will grab for the life ring unless they are aware they are drowning. So Paul begins with an unflinchingly honest assessment of the human situation: “They have together become worthless; there is no one who does good, not even one.” (3:12). Having effectively pulled out the cheap rug of self-esteem from underneath everyone, Paul then replaces it with a surer foundation for life: the righteousness of God given through faith in Jesus Christ to all who believe (3:21-22). Paul goes on to describe what this new life looks like. It involves daily offering ourselves to God as those who have been brought from death to life (6:13) It involves being led by the Spirit of God (8:1-17) to experience more and more the divine gift of abundant life that expresses itself in serving God and others (12:1-15:13).

We hear about ice cream and sardines, but the really great themes of Romans – salvation by faith alone, Peace with God through Christ, the struggles of the believer in Romans 7, “no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus,” Paul’s struggles with “what about Israel now?” – all of these great themes in Romans seem totally absent from Williams’s treatment. The “Jesus Lens” section does mention that in our old lives, we are, like zombies, enslaved to sin. And that our real, Christian lives “begin and end with Jesus”. “In the words of Paul, when we put our faith in Christ, our old zombielike selves are crucified with Christ on the cross (6:6) [Yes, Williams does use the word “zombie” and no, Paul does not use the word “zombie”]. In his “contemporary implications” he does note that “the penalty for sin has been paid” and that “living for the Lord” means “proclaiming the good news of life in Christ through words and behaviors, love and service for others, hard work prayer (15:17-19), and even suffering (8:7-18). In short, it means becoming like Christ”. So in a way, the richness of Romans has been replaced by a trite popular theology that almost everyone who has heard about the shallowness of evangelicalism has already heard about.

By the end of the section on Paul’s letters, “The Jesus Lens” seems spent. In fact, all of the “Jesus Lens” information on the book of Titus comes from the Gospel of John. That seems to me to be a methodological error.


Conclusion:
“Through the Jesus Lens” is an ambitious project that takes on a lot, and the back-page blurbs reflect this ambition. Justin Taylor enthuses, “This is the sort of book I’d love to have in the hands of every member of my church!” And Douglas Moo calls this a “badly needed” “survey of all the books of the Bible that shows how they work together to point toward Jesus Christ”.

So in that regard, this is a useful work. For the absolute beginner in Scripture studies, there is some good reference material here. The author is trying to convey a lot of information, and, in a spotty way, he gets to it, but, in many cases, he merely skips like a rock over the surface of the water. While in some cases that may be enough to at least give the reader some orientation, it doesn’t take the place of deeper studies.

It’s a worthy goal to help people understand the Scriptures. And it seems as if this book is directed at new Christians who most might need this type of help. But ultimately, I think that his stated intention was a bit too ambitious, the format he uses to include all the information he wants to include is clunky, and ultimately, there are better ways to accomplish what he’s trying to accomplish.