The Difficult Words of Jesus Devotional: A Beginner's Guide to His Most Perplexing Teachings

by Amy-Jill Levine

Publisher:

Abingdon Press

, 2021

Jesus provided his disciples teachings for how to follow Torah, God’s word; he told them parables to help them discern questions of ethics and of human nature; he offered them beatitudes for comfort and encouragement. But sometimes Jesus spoke words that followers then and now have found difficult. He instructs disciples to hate members of their own families (Luke 14:26), to act as if they were slaves (Matthew 20:27), and to sell their belongings and give to the poor (Luke 18:22). He restricts his mission (Matthew 10:6); he speaks of damnation (Matthew 8:12); he calls Jews the devil’s children (John 8:44).

In The Difficult Words of Jesus, Amy-Jill Levine shows how these difficult teachings would have sounded to the people who first heard them, how have they been understood over time, and how we might interpret them in the context of the Gospel of love and reconciliation.

This collection of 40 daily readings is drawn from Levine’s teachings on The Difficult Words of Jesus. Containing additional stories, insights, and lessons from the author, the readings further wrestle with and illuminate Jesus’s hardest sayings.

Product Details

• Title: The Difficult Words of Jesus Devotional: A Beginner's Guide to His Most Perplexing Teachings
• Author: Amy-Jill Levine
• Publisher: Abingdon Press
• Print Publication Date: 2021
• Logos Release Date: 2020
• Language: English
• Resources: 1
• Format: Digital › Ebook
• ISBNs: 9781791009182, 1791009182
• Resource ID: LLS:9781791009182
• Resource Type: Monograph
• Metadata Last Updated: 2022-09-29T20:54:24Z

About Amy-Jill Levine

Amy-Jill Levine is E. Rhodes and Leona B. Carpenter Professor of New Testament Studies at Vanderbilt University Divinity School, Department of Religious Studies, and Graduate Department of Religion. Holding a B.A. from Smith College, an M.A. and Ph.D. from Duke University, and honorary Doctorates from the University of Richmond and the Episopal Theological Seminary of the Southwest, Levine has been awarded grants from the Mellon Foundation, the National Endowment for the Humanities, and the American Council of Learned Societies. She has held office in the Society of Biblical Literature, the Catholic Biblical Association, and the Association for Jewish Studies. Her most recent publications include The Misunderstood Jew: The Church and the Scandal of the Jewish Jesus; the edited collection, The Historical Jesus in Context; and the fourteen-volume series, Feminist Companions to the New Testament and Early Christian Writings. She has recorded “Introduction to the Old Testament,” “Great Figures of the Old Testament,” and “Great Figures of the New Testament” for the Teaching Company’s “great lectures” series. A self-described “Yankee Jewish feminist who teaches in a predominantly Protestant divinity school in the buckle of the Bible Belt,” Levine combines historical-critical rigor, literary-critical sensitivity, and a frequent dash of humor with a commitment to eliminating anti-Jewish, sexist, and homophobic theologies.