Why I Follow Jesus (by Adrian Plass)

(Amazon UK link)

I have liked everything I have read by Adrian Plass. He is one of my all-time favourite writers, and has produced quite an array of different kinds of book. He is best known, probably, for his humorous ‘Sacred Diary’ series, but he has written some more serious books as well. So when I saw ‘Why I Follow Jesus’ at a church book sale, I had no hesitation in acquiring it.

It’s not a long book - only 130 pages - so thought it might be an evangelistic work. Indeed, that's probably why I had not bought or asked for this book years earlier. It sat on my to-be-read shelf for a few months, but finally I decided to read it a couple of weeks ago. It turned out to be a very enjoyable read. There was much that was thought-provoking, and although it’s quite light-weight, I didn’t read more than about ten pages per day.

It’s divided into about 35 little sections, each no more than four or five pages long. The first one is simply entitled, ‘Why I follow Jesus’, and is an overview, and the second one talks about being with his friends forever, so could perhaps be mistaken for an evangelistic message. But there’s no preaching. Plass talks not about his friends, those he cares for the most, and those he doesn’t care for so much. He makes the point that, if we want to spend eternity with people of every shape, size and tendency, it would be a good idea to be friends with them now.

Some of the other headings are ones I might have come up with myself, but each time the content includes something unexpected. Adrian Plass has a gift for making people think, often through self-deprecating humour, or acknowledgement of his own mistakes or frailties. He is honest about himself and shares relevant anecdotes about friends and family, to make his excellent points.

Other headings are less predictable. I was a tad surprised, for instance, to read ‘I follow Jesus because he’s so good at judo’. The point being not that Jesus is into martial arts in a literal sense, but that he uses people’s strengths and weaknesses. I think my favourite heading, however, was ‘I follow Jesus because he doesn’t ask me to adapt as much as Saint John of the Cross would have had to if he’d been booked to address the West Fittlewick Over-Sixties Interdenominational Ladies’ Afternoon Club at three o’clock on a wet Thursday afternoon in November.’ The section below enlarged on this somewhat, and was quite amusing, but the title really said it all.

I found myself agreeing with almost everything in this book, and appreciated the way it was all written. There were places that made me smile, although this isn’t Plass at his most humorous. There are places that are quite moving, too, as he opens his heart and shares incidents from his life to make a point. The writing - as I expect - is excellent, and I’m glad I read it.

Definitely recommended.

Review copyright 2019 Sue's Book Reviews