Won and I met for burritos last week as we talked through the first four chapters of Eugene Peterson’s The Jesus Way. Those of you who have read Peterson know that it’s a good idea to read him slowly. Slowly because he wades into some deep waters.
In The Jesus Way Peterson sets out to differentiate the American Way with the Jesus Way. He doesn’t spend much time describing the values of our American culture; sentences like, “A consumer church is an antichrist church,” are not the norm. Rather, through the lives of biblical figures he shows what life lived on the Jesus way looks like.
The first four chapters look at the examples of Jesus, Abraham, Moses and David. Reading Peterson’s observations of these well-known people, it becomes clear that the way of Jesus will not be found in a list of correct doctrines. About Jesus he writes,
There are- and their absence is conspicuous- no summaries of his attributes, no test results of his intelligence or aptitudes, no lists of his accomplishments. Every detail is embedded in his metaphor-studded story. We are intended to enter by imagination and faith and prayer into the story, this narrative, and get a feel for what is involved, the relationships that make up the web of this way.
In the lives of Abraham, Moses and David we see how these men pursued God in haphazard but generally authentic ways. One example: Moses, according to Peterson, demonstrates the importance of God-formed language. A “healthy community” depends on a “healthy language”.
A reoccurring idea in The Jesus Way thus far is the importance of the community of God to be distinct. Distinct in the stories we tell, our robust imagination, the language we use to describe the world, etc. This of course raises a question: In your experience, are the people of God a unique community formed by our pursuit of Jesus? Or, does our life together more closely resemble our surrounding culture?
David W. Swanson 
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