Jesus is Totalitarian

If you want a book surveying the life of Christ for late high schoolers and up, look no further than Robert Stein's Jesus the Messiah: A Survey of the Life of Christ. Stein taught New Testament and Hermeneutics at the Southern Baptist Theological Seminary (he was the mentor of that Rob Plummer fellow I quoted last week). This work chronicles the life of Christ as presented in the Gospels, explaining the historical and cultural background and summarizing Jesus' teachings. It would also be good college prep reading, since Stein introduces you to (and refutes) liberal and unbelieving views of Jesus and the Gospels. Though technical at times, this book  is still quite accessible, and is a good historical resource for any Christian to have. (Look for more excerpts from it in the future.)

"The 'totalitarian' nature of Jesus' demand for allegiance must not be lost sight of or compromised. To require greater loyalty than that due to father or mother, wife or children (Luke 14:26) is to demand the kind of allegiance that only God can make. In light of all this, one cannot avoid the questions "Who is this who thinks that the world revolves around himself? A deranged egomaniac? A false prophet? Or can it be that this is indeed the King of kings and Lord of lords?"

Robert H. Stein, Jesus the Messiah: A Survey of the Life of Christ


http://www.amazon.com/Jesus-Messiah-Survey-Life-Christ/dp/0830818847/ref=sr_1_3?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1319765434&sr=1-3