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Book review
Author: Vincent Chiedu
Title: 100 things Jesus did not say
Pages: 382
Publisher: Xulon Press
Year: 2015
Reviewer: Ada Anioji
In the Holy Bible, a warning is given to all who would use and read the bible and notably those who are Christian: do not distort the text.
It is precisely because this charge which has been very difficult to achieve through generations that has propelled the teacher and evangelist, Vincent Chiedu into writing this book.
100 things Jesus did not say is a most intriguing text. But it gets on straight to the point, demolishing ill-digested facts and half-truths that have been bandied around for a long time about what Jesus had been credited as saying or meant even as he said what he said.
Some of these are on money, family headship, sexuality, heaven, leadership, the devil, sleep, death and salvation, race, gender, emotions, miracles, secular authority, angels, mercy, politics, evangelism, evil and the environment.
Others are the reading culture, his mission on earth, tithing, doctrinal unity, killing, borrowing, meekness, isolation, science, love, wealth, the heavens, the better life, the military, faith, self-esteem, fasting, curses, prayer, dreams, destiny, promotion, goodness, immortality, intellectualism, the old covenant, humour and the apocalypse.
A most assertive personality, Chiedu neither spares any captives nor endures any distortions of the word that ‘was once delivered to the saints.’ His approach is methodical and precise. He itemises the distortion, describes it and goes on to use bible text and reference to outline and elaborate on the details of the identified fallacy.
In Chiedu’s court, the reader is allowed to carefully follow and corroborate or refute the arguments of the judge-prosecutor. You are permitted to, like the Bereans, take your Bible along. However, to get maximum mileage out of this ‘labour of faith and love,’ you will also be encouraged to ask the Holy Spirit to guide you through your reading. This is because you are very likely to come across arguments in the text that you may have hitherto had another view of. And like we know in matters of the Christian faith, it is singularly the Holy Spirit that must point us to the truth that we must believe and observe.
Mr Chiedu has definitely taken out a lot of time to work on this text. And it is a book that would surely send you back to the pages of the bible, which indeed may very well be what the Lord was encouraging when he had commanded in Joshua 1 that ‘this book of the law must not depart from you!’ You may not agree with all of his arguments, but at the least, you would have found them out for yourself and through diligent bible study, do have an opportunity to engage the expositions on the hallowed turf of the spirit. This reviewer therefore has no hesitation in highly recommending it for all who would know and embrace the truths about what Jesus really said and meant.
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