A Study in the Words of Jesus

Every Christian, in every church, agrees that Jesus is the center. This book is built on that one point of agreement. It asks a single question about everything Christians are taught: does this start with him?

Over two thousand years, a great deal has grown up around the center: letters, creeds, councils, traditions, denominations, movements and media. Some of it grew from faithful attempts to understand him. Some of it took on purposes of its own. Each lesson tells that history honestly, prints the words of Jesus in full, and then measures the teaching against him.

Be ready for some hard news. If Jesus is truly first, then some of what many of us were taught does not hold up, and this book will say so plainly when it does not. That is not an attack on your faith. It is the oldest instruction in it: "This is my beloved Son. Listen to him."

Each lesson takes about twenty minutes. Read slowly, check every verse in your own Bible, and give yourself room to write and pray at the end.