The premise of the book is that the first century Christians, not having any Scriptures other than the Jewish Scriptures spread the faith with their eye witness accounts of the resurrection. Succeeding generations similarly used their zeal over the resurrection event to gain new converts to the faith. It worked. The faith spread like wildfire even though getting caught and having to admit it meant that you would be put to death by the legal authorities. The author wants us to regain that zeal for the resurrection that our predecessors in the faith had. He believes it will transform how outsiders view the church and Jesus himself and bring people to Jesus as well as bring backsliders back into the church.
The author spends a lot of time distinguishing between the old covenant between God and Israel and the new covenant between God and everyone willing to participate in the new covenant. He explains that when the church became organized, rules and customs were set that were a blending of the two covenants. The two covenants were never supposed to be blended as after the resurrection the old covenant was ended because a new one had been created. Forty years later when the temple was destroyed in 70 AD and animal sacrifices could not be made any longer, ancient Judaism ended. Here he produced a considerable amount of Scripture and history as proof of his thesis.
He continues that the church today still blends the old covenant with the new covenant with Bible focused preaching and reading requirements. However, today's preachers are failing to tell their parishioners that the Old Testament was a means to an end. It brought Jesus to the world. The author is critical of those who pull passages and promises from the Old Testament and apply them to themselves when the passages apply to ancient Israel. This is also what he calls blending the two covenants. The final third of the book deals with how Christians should handle themselves with each other and with those outside the church in a new covenant manner, all backed up with Scriptural references.
The topic was well researched. Stanley presented Scriptures from Genesis through the New Testament as well as historical references from ancient Israel and the early church as proof of his interpretation and conclusions. He knows the material well.
The writing style of the author is poor. He writes in the same way that he speaks. Unless you are a member of his congregation and are accustomed to this approach you will find the writing disconcerting. Consequently, I found it difficult to connect the points as I got bogged down in the writing method.
Irresistible is the first book of Stanley's that I have read. I was expecting a serious book given the title and the back cover blurb. The writing style subtracted from the strong ideas that Stanley presented. Having said that, the author did do a good job of setting up major points in a dramatic fashion. However, he then fell into his culture-specific speaking style. He should, in the future, realize that his audience reaches far beyond the culture of his own congregation and city and adjust his writing accordingly.
This is an intellectual book written in an unintellectual manner. Because it has strong arguments that the church should hear, I would like to refer it to it to a few friends. I believe the book's message is important. However, I am not sure that they will read a book that does not appear to be serious in the beginning section. They might give up and put it down.
Irresistible counts as a selection for the 2019 Christian Reading Challenge as a book that was a 2018 bestseller. I would have rated it 5 stars for the thought content but due to the writing problems I can only give it 3 out of 5 stars.
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