Book Review: Beautiful Outlaw

John Eldredge’s newest book, Beautiful Outlaw, flies in the face of conventional wisdom.  A trip to the local art museum features pictures of Jesus looking sad and pensive; almost effeminate.  He certainly does not look like someone with whom we would choose to hang out.  But a careful reading of the Gospels paints a totally different picture of Jesus – a Jesus who was playful yet fierce, humble yet powerful, approachable yet shocking.  This is the Jesus that John Eldredge paints in Beautiful Outlaw.

John shows that, if you read between the lines, the Jesus of the Bible has an incredible sense of humor.  And why not?  Did he not invent humor?  For example, the incident right after Jesus’ resurrection where he appears on the road to two disciples and does not reveal himself until dinner that evening;  the very moment these two guys recognize Jesus, he basically says “See ya!” and disappears.  When you think about it, this is actually is very funny.  You have to think that Jesus might have disappeared and then reappeared elsewhere laughing hysterically – a real “Did you see the look on those guys’ face?” moment. 

Or what about the story of the Samaritan woman at the well?  This was an incredibly fascinating exchange that Jesus orchestrated.  Here is a Jewish rabbi stopping to talk alone with a Samaritan woman with a tarnished reputation.  And her responses to Jesus are, as John Eldredge puts it, downright snarky.  Her opening line to Jesus is the first century equivalent of standing with one hand on her hip and her head cocked to one side answering Jesus with, “What! You talkin’ to me?”  She boldly went toe to toe in a verbal sparing match with the Creator – and won.  Because, rather than reprimanding her for being so bold, Jesus rewards her by making her the very first person to whom he directly reveals his true identity. 

While the incident of Jesus driving the money changers out of the temple is always used to show Jesus’ boldness and anger at those who defile God’s holiness, John Eldredge points out the deliberateness of Jesus’ rage.  The Gospel of John says that Jesus made a whip out of cords.  This was not some instant flare-up of anger on Jesus’ part.  It took quite a while to fashion such a whip, and his actions in preparation for the cleansing were slow and deliberate.  Such actions are not the normal human response to anger.  They are the actions of a man driven by a holy zeal.

We sometimes think of Jesus as super-human, when in fact that is not what the Bible teaches at all.  We feel that it was easy for him to do the things he did simply because he was Jesus.  Yet we forget that Jesus was very much human.  It was not as if he was Rembrandt sitting in on a kindergarten finger painting session and pretending to be a beginner.  He was not faking it when he agonized in the garden over his upcoming crucifixion.  Nor was he faking it when he fell asleep in the bow of a ship, exhausted after a day of ministry.  Jesus had all of the human weaknesses that we experience, yet he conquered them all.  The Jesus that John Eldredge paints in Beautiful Outlaw is extremely human, yet still divine.  He laughed, cried, got angry, experienced frustration, died and rose again.  He is much more interesting and shocking than we ever imagined.  Jesus truly is the Beautiful Outlaw.

For more information on this book, click here.