Dane Ortlund, Senior Pastor at Naperville Presbyterian Church, has written a book with 23 short chapters which investigates the question of ‘Who is Jesus?’.  This book, entitled ‘Gentle and Lowly: The Heart of Christ for Sinners and Sufferers’ looks not primarily at what Jesus has done, but investigates what is his heart’s position towards his people. Ortlund relies heavily on the works of Calvin, Bunyan, Edwards, Goodwin, Owen, Sibbes & Warfield to examine 23 passages of scripture which speak about different aspects of God’s heart towards his people.  He goes beyond the surface of these well known verses and challenges the reader to fully understand the implications of what each is saying.  He encourages those who read this book to not fall into the trap of agreeing & understanding on an intellectual level what it means that God loves us, while failing to live out of the reality of this truth.  

The particular audience for this book, according to the introduction, are those who are discouraged, frustrated, weary, disenchanted, cynical or empty.  And while this book does certainly address those problems, I would encourage every Christian who wants to know more about the character of God to read this book and use it as a jumping off point to spend the time meditating on the truth of scripture.  Challenge your preconceived notions of who God is and how he loves us and live your life in the joy  that comes from truly understanding how much God loves you.

~ Karin Foster