In 212 pages, John MacArthur sets out to present The Jesus You Can’t Ignore in response to the cries of Emergent theologians and pastors for conversation instead of conflict. MacArthur sets out to do this by means of highlighting Jesus’ interactions with the Pharisees throughout the Gospel accounts, laying down an odd blend of a systematic/biblical theology of conflict for truth. While I agree, in the main, with MacArthur’s aim to inspire and equip people with the knowledge that the defense of the Gospel is mandated by Scripture, MacArthur has some assumptions and “facts” that make his argument problematic.

The first problem is his understanding of Jewish sects. While it is typical to see the Sadducees, Essenes, Pharisees, and “Fourth Philosophy” as hard-and-fast categories with statements of faith and confessions that they respectively hold to, it’s important to recognize that these sects are much broader than today’s denominations. The Pharisees could well be compared to modern-day Protestantism in many respects, having several core beliefs and practices, but a broad diversity on interpreting and applying them. This necessarily makes his insistence on the nature of Jesus’ relationships to these groups questionable.

The second problem is his identifying the Pharisees as Jesus’ strongest opposition, even going so far as to identify “the scribes” in the Gospels as synonymous with Pharisees (a claim for which there is no Biblical or historical basis). A careful reading of Jesus’ interactions with the Pharisees, particularly as Luke portrays them, will show that his conflict with them is much more family-like. Jesus, like a Pharisee, argues with Pharisees, not as enemies, but as brothers. His conflict with the Sadducees/chief priests and scribes is much more pronounced, since they deny the Scriptures, deny the Living God, and live for their own power and glory.

Finally, MacArthur’s ecclesiology and history ultimately hurt his argument. Insisting that the ecumenical creeds that preserved the Gospel are shabby and unable to unite Christian, and imposing a standard that only reformed believers can uphold, and all the while insisting that’s all that Scripture and history have, ultimately discredits his goal. The Jesus we aren’t able to ignore said that the promised Holy Spirit would lead the Church into all truth, to be our Teacher. No one church or tradition has it all, and the reformers themselves acknowledged that only the invisible body of Christ contains all truth, as Jesus promised.

If you want to learn about conflict and its place in Christian discipleship, read the Gospels and Acts. Study the epistles. In fact, try putting a notebook together on how Jesus and the apostles confronted problems. Write down whether they were confronting a doctrinal or practical issue. Note whether they took it head on or handled it with subtlety. See where their correction was effective. The Jesus we can’t ignore died for us while we were still sinners and now reigns over all creation, and will one day make things new. The Jesus You Can’t Ignore isn’t effective at pointing us to him as much as it is to pointing to a subset of Christians who feel threatened by the world’s philosophies, and rather than putting their confidence in the Revelation of God, have taken up swords to fight with flesh and blood.