The Jesus I Didn't Know I Didn't KNow (Tim Reddish) - A Review

THE JESUS I DIDN’T KNOW I DIDN’T KNOW: Reflections on the Identity of Jesus. By Tim Reddish. Eugene, OR: Wipf & Stock, 2021), xxi + 89 pages.

                Who is Jesus? There have been several quests for the historical Jesus, and most of those quests have been dead ends. That is, we tend to seek the historical Jesus but run into ourselves because we want Jesus to be like us. That being said, we may find the process of seeking an answer to the question concerning Jesus' identity difficult, but for most of us, it is a journey worth taking. As a preacher, I have been tasked over the years with speaking to this question of Jesus' identity. The fact is, after nearly a half-century of study and teaching and preaching, I'm still learning new things about Jesus. I hope that we all continue seeking answers to the question of Jesus' identity. We're never too old to learn new things.

                One person who has undertaken the task of venturing a response to the question of Jesus’ identity, while affirming that the journey is likely lifelong, is Tim Reddish. The title of his new book---The Jesus I Didn't Know I Didn't Know---may sound as if the publisher mistakenly doubled a line, but it raises a point of importance. While we may recognize that there are things we don’t know, are there things we didn’t know that we didn’t know? In making that claim, Reddish simply reaffirms the need to continue asking questions as to the identity of Jesus.

                Tim Reddish is a preacher like me. What distinguishes him from me, besides him being a Canadian and a Presbyterian, is that in a former life, before going to seminary he spent several decades teaching physics at a university. Currently, he serves as the minister at St. Andrew’s Presbyterian Church in Amherstburg, Ontario. He is the author or editor of several books including Does God AlwaysGet What God Wants? (Cascade Books, 2018). Reddish is also active in the Open and Relational Theology movement (as am I). I should note that I read the book first in manuscript and offered an endorsement of the book.

                This very brief exploration of the identity of Jesus is rooted in Reddish’s preaching. As is true for many preachers, it has been in the course of his preaching that he continually encountered things about Jesus that he didn't know he didn’t know. From these experiences, Reddish, rightfully, points out that preachers should continue learning new things. But to say that there are more things to learn (beyond seminary) is not to admit failure on the preacher’s part or the part of the seminary professors, only that the Gospel is rich in potentially life-changing/life-enhancing messages that can only be discovered with time. As the Gospel of John reminds us, “there are also many other things Jesus did; if everyone one of them were written down, I suppose that the world itself could not contain the books that would be written” (Jn. 21:25). Even what has been written can reveal new things as time goes on.

                Regarding what Reddish didn't know he didn’t know, he writes that "what I didn't realize is how much an underlying purpose of the Gospels is to reveal the identity of Jesus." With that in mind, he offers his own take on this question of identity by walking us through the story of Jesus in conversation with the New Testament writers. He invites the reader to join him in the journey so that we might also discover new things about Jesus, perhaps things Reddish hasn’t discovered as yet (p. xvi).

                As I noted above this is a brief book of less than a hundred pages. That makes it a quick read, but also a most helpful one. The point here is not to give a detailed description of the many things one can find in the Gospels. Rather it’s an invitation to dive into the Gospels to learn new things about Jesus and his identity. What Reddish does, then, is provide an outline of sorts, giving us a guidebook that will aid us in our journey. As we might expect, he begins with the birth stories.  and then continues on through the baptism and temptations of Jesus, and then he focuses more on specific topics—the titles of Jesus, the claims of Jesus, and the politics of Jesus (yes there's politics involved in Jesus' ministry). Finally, he speaks of the connection of Jesus to the Temple, and more specifically the New Testament picture of Jesus being the Temple of God. That is, just as the Temple in Jerusalem is understood to be the dwelling place of God, the New Testament writers envision Jesus as the Temple in which God dwells. Finally, there is a chapter on the supremacy of Jesus.

                In the a chapter on supremacy, Reddish takes up the challenging topic of the Trinity. While he acknowledges that the doctrine is not fully revealed in the New Testament (and the word is not found there), he finds the foundations for the doctrine present in the New Testament. Thus, he closes with a conversation about the Christian struggle to make sense of the confessions of Jesus's humanity and divinity. You won't find everything you need to know here, but as with the other chapters, what the author wants to do is pique our interest so we will join him in discovering new things we didn't know we didn't know. As a result, we can grow in our faith.

                As a preacher, I try to keep in mind the question on the minds of so many: who is this Jesus? That has become an increasingly important question as fewer people sitting in North American churches have a deep background in Scripture. There are many enquiring minds out there who are wondering what to make of this Jesus whom Christians say they follow. They also want to know what they learn about Jesus has to do with their lives and the world in general. As the Gospel of John reminds us, if we were to write down everything that can be said about Jesus the world couldn’t hold the books. Nevertheless, in just a few pages Tim Reddish, a Presbyterian pastor with a Ph.D. in physics offers us a helpful guidebook, that points us in the right direction. From one preacher writing about another preacher, I found the book insightful, and I think you will as well, as you ponder with the Rev. Tim Reddish The Jesus I Didn't Know I Didn't Know.