There is one more book I’d like to bring to your attention. It is a very different kind of book from that of Selmanovic. It is a work of New Testament theology and it is not racy and inviting. But if you like the Gospel of John, the content is worth line by line meditation as it unfolds the theology of the Gospel and its practical implications for faith today. The book I have in mind is The Word of Life: A Theology of John’s Gospel (Grand Rapids, MI: Eerdmans, 2008), by Craig R. Koester.
    According to Craig Koester, to read the Gospel of John theologically is to ask a series of questions. “Who is the God about whom Jesus speaks? Who does the Gospel say that Jesus is? And how does the Gospel understand life, death, sin and faith?” Koester finds these issues coming up again and again in the narrative of John’s Gospel, each time disclosing a fresh dimension of these themes. So he tackles each theme in the book in light of the Gospel’s message as a whole. While it is always a useful exercise to compare Bible texts with similar texts throughout the Bible, Koester tries to understand John through the words of John alone. He lives with the book and its author until he might have missed if “distracted” by the perspectives of a Paul or a Moses. So this book offers a unique and refreshing perspective on the message of John, the best book I have read on the subject.
    The book is elegantly written, a model of clarity and organization. I don’t mean to suggest that the book is light reading. It is not. But Koester has thought deeply about scores of recognizable themes in the Gospel and has brought fresh wording and insight to bear on them. In the process he has a knack for contemporary analogies that clarify inner connections within the Gospel without over-simplifying. Koester uses an economy of language, saying much in a few words. While the writing is understandable, it is not suitable for speed reading! To put it in other words, the more you know about the Fourth Gospel, the more you will appreciate this book. Koester repeatedly illuminates connections and themes in this book in a way that made me marvel that I had not seen things that way before. You could say he points out the obvious, except the obvious wasn’t obvious before he pointed it out. Biblical theology doesn’t get any better than this.
    The power of Koester’s language is better experienced than described. In my next blog I will share a few gems. If you are interested in a summary of the book’s chapters, see the full review on the Armageddon web site (www.thebattleofarmageddon.com).  A third blog recounts Koester’s surprising outline of how John’s Gospel treats the human condition in death. In a final blog I want to share Koester’s amazing perspective on the implications of John’s Gospel for faith in a secular world. I have been so moved by this that I think I might write a whole book on it some day. The title I have in mind is The Challenge of Faith: Penetrating the Silence of God.
    As one who has written a couple of books on the Gospel of John, I find Koester’s scholarship impeccable. As one who loves to blur the line between scholarship and popular devotional writing, I was deeply nourished by this book. For those who appreciate the combination of great scholarship and great writing, this book will be a challenging read but an extremely rewarding one.