This is a beautiful book, with a vocabulary that’s accessible and style that’s delectable.

It is also a brilliant book, with exquisite insightful reflections on every page that radically reframe our traditional perspectives of the Easter story, which we thought we already knew so well.

It is intentionally a subversive book, that takes the message Jesus embodied in the last week of his life, which hitherto we have felt so comfortable with, because we have thoroughly co-opted it, adapted it and adopted it to serve our vested interests, and unpacks it’s true meaning in a way that confronts us with the fact that many of us, who claim to follow Jesus, actually follow in the footsteps of Jesus Barabbas, practicing reflexive vengeance, rather than follow in the footsteps Jesus of Nazareth, practicing his revolutionary nonviolence.

This book is not only subversive, it is also transformative. In this book Jason Porterfield gently takes us by the hand, leads us through the events in the last seven days of Jesus’ life, and helps us to understand what Jesus was doing in his final days to show us how we can ‘Fight Like Jesus’ and struggle proactively for love and justice peacefully in the context of imperial political economies characterised by provocation, oppression and aggression.

‘Fight Like Jesus’ could serve as an excellent primer for Christians who were perplexed by my call to join our Muslim brothers and sisters in what I called ‘The Jihad Of Jesus’. I think this book is, without doubt, the best recent comprehensive and comprehensible scriptural exposition I have read of Jesus’ challenge to seriously engage in his ‘sacred nonviolent struggle for justice’.

‘Fight Like Jesus’ is a must-read for Lent from March 2 to April 14

Individual and congregational study resources are in the book.

Dave Andrews

AMAZON.COM.AUFight Like Jesus: How Jesus Waged Peace Throughout Holy WeekFight Like Jesus: How Jesus Waged Peace Throughout Holy Week