Book Reviewed
by Bill Coates,
Gainesville, GA
The Disturbing Galilean
By Malcolm Tolbert
Smyth & Helwys, 2009.
The greatest faith of all is the faith we have even when the hoped for and prayed-for miracle does not occur.” This is vintage Tolbert. In this case the reference is to Jesus’ own faith as he cried out in utter loneliness from the cross, and Tolbert is doing what he does best: connecting us with the biblical text. This is what he does for one hundred twenty-four pages in The Disturbing Galilean, a collection of essays about Jesus. Ever the master teacher, and sometimes the provocateur, Tolbert helps us see Jesus beneath all the layers of cultural and ecclesiastical condition. These essays are his own personal and passionate reactions to twenty-three vignettes about Jesus selected from the four Gospels and covering a wide variety of topics and questions we often find ourselves discussing.
What about the unforgivable sin? Faith healing? Marriage and divorce? Whose side is God on? What about those texts and predictions regarding the second coming? Tolbert, never one to shy away from a hard subject or a theological problem, wades thoughtfully and confidently into these matters and causes the reader to ask himself, “Why wasn’t this already apparent to me?” This is Malcolm Tolbert’s genius, to create a tapestry of rationality and faith, of common sense about life and uncommon trust in the inspiration of Scripture.
This is Tolbert’s ninth book, and the obvious fact in this one, as in the previous works, is that he writes as both scholar and pastor. As I read each essay in this collection, I heard the voice of Tolbert, my Professor of New Testament Interpretation when I was a student at Southeastern Seminary thirty years ago. I could also hear Tolbert, the pastor who preceded me at First Baptist Church, Gainesville, Georgia, even before that. Each essay on a specific teaching or episode on the life of Jesus reveals the Greek academician who masterfully relates Jesus’ words to the issues believers engage here and now. At eighty-five, Tolbert has done it again. Read this book for enlightenment and enjoyment, but prepare to be disturbed and challenged by the Galilean most insightfully revealed in its pages.
