Review: How to Argue Like Jesus

Sometimes I receive a book I request for a review and wonder “Why did I ever request this book?!” Such was my feeling when I opened the packaging for How to Argue Like Jesus by Joe Carter and John Coleman (Crossway, 2009). I expected another book that carefully explained how the views of Jesus happened to coincide with the views of the particular author and now the reader should spread these views a bluntly and confrontationally as possible.

Happily, I was very much surprised by this work. Carter and Coleman focus on the art of communication in this book. They spend the majority of the work, exploring the rhetoric of Jesus in the gospel accounts, and locating his rhetoric within the context of Aristotle’s analysis. For example, they discuss the concepts of pathos, ethos, and logos and cite several examples from Jesus’ teaching that reinforce these concepts. The authors also use Jesus’ discussions with opposing religious officials to highlight their usage of various rhetorical fallacies.

After their focus on Jesus’ logical argumentation, Carter and Coleman turn their attention from building the message to spreading the message and explore several contemporary examples of how churches follow the example of Jesus. Jesus engaged in discipleship, using his own material, and developing the first concept of cell groups. We should do the same. Following this section the authors include a couple of case studies of rhetorical analysis and a glossary of terms.

This is a helpful book, one that would be a nice addition for any preacher or teacher who devotes time to speaking in front of people. I recommend it. (But I would’ve changed the title. How to Communicate Like Jesus would’ve been a better one.).