Menu
Location
My Account
Login
The Command

Learning to Love Like Jesus

by Bruce Manners

Why is it that we remember the “thou shalt nots” of the 10 Commandments in the Old Testament better than the four “thou shalts” of Jesus in the New Testament?

The commands "Love the Lord your God with all your heart", "Love your neighbour as yourself", "Love one another", "Love your enemies"... the over-arching command is to love.

The Command imagines what kind of people we would be if we took Jesus’ commands seriously. 

In His life and ministry, Jesus modelled what love looks like and that is where Bruce Manners picks up. Rich with stories that show the commands in practice and questions to challenge your thinking, this book is a call to learn to love like Jesus. After all, that’s what He told us to do.

Adventists have a vital interest in the Ten Commandments, particularly, the Sabbath command. However, we should also recognise the four commands Jesus gives in the gospels: To love God; our neighbour; our fellow disciples; and our enemies. We’re commanded to love. Like Jesus.

Love was the winning force that brought people to Jesus in the pre-Christian world and it can do the same in our post-Christian Western world. That’s our challenge. And it’s something every Adventist can do. No training is needed, just a heart for people and for God.

We’re commanded to love. The Command is about what that can look like.

  • This book is written in an accessible style with a personal story beginning almost every chapter. 
  • Chapters end with a case study story illustrating the main emphasis of the chapter.
  • Each chapter also features seven questions for group discussion.

Contents:

People-centred God

It’s much bigger than being right

1 GOD IS . . .

  • Unconditional love—really?
  • What about the “Old Testament God”?
  • The compassionate God

2 JESUS AND THE WHOEVERS

  • It’s unbelievable
  • Jesus’ birth
  • In the temple
  • Fully human, fully God
  • Ministry
  • The 12 disciples
  • The women
  • The sinners

3 GRACE? IT REALLY IS AMAZING

  • Let’s talk about grace
  • Two heretical extremes
  • Discovering grace—it’s personal
  • Grace in the temple
  • Responding to grace

4 THE LOVE-SHIFT CHALLENGE

  • A year of living biblically—really?
  • Jesus’ four love commands
  • The love shift
  • Biblical love types in percentages

5 COMPASSIONATE CHRIST—COMPASSIONATE CHRIST-IANS

  • A compassionate Christ
  • Jesus and women
  • Jesus and the untouchables
  • Jesus and His enemies
  • Jesus, Peter and Judas
  • Jesus and those who didn’t count

6 A “LOVE REFORMATION”

  • “i” before “u”?
  • It’s about us
  • Paul’s message to a difficult church
  • The need for a “love reformation”
  • What’s the temperature in your church?

7 ADVENTISTS AND THE LGBTQIA+ COMMUNITY

  • Some realities
  • Learning experiences
  • Storying the pain
  • Is there a Jesus example?
  • But don’t we have some kind of policy about this?
  • Time for compassion
  • Being Jesus

8 THE DISCIPLE JESUS LOVED

  • What kind of love?
  • Would the apostle John make a good Seventh-day Adventist?
  • The disciple Jesus loved
  • Did we need another gospel?
  • John and Mary
  • John’s letter calls for love
  • 1. Jesus is our example
  • 2. God loved us first
  • 3. Love for fellow Christians

9 BEING THE MESSAGE

  • Things have changed
  • People with a message
  • Contagious Christianity
  • 21st-century Christian challenge

10 ENEMY LOVE

  • The impossible sermon?
  • First-century hearers
  • Twenty-first-century Christians
  • Martin Luther King Jr’s response
  • Love on Hacksaw Ridge

11 FORGIVEN FORGIVERS

  • God forgives
  • Jesus forgives
  • Jesus was serious about our forgiving
  • Finding freedom in forgiveness
  • Forgiveness and what we don’t like to talk about
  • Working through abuse
  • Forgiveness brings hope

12 WHILE WE WAIT

  • Lesson from Martin Luther
  • Finding love in the doctrines
  • While we wait
  • The parable of the three servants
  • The final judgment
  • Milk, meat and prophecy
  • God’s command

13 CHRISTIANS MAKING A DIFFERENCE

  • Christianity making a difference
  • Christians who made a difference
  • Adventist churches making a difference
  • Blythe Central Seventh-day Adventist Church
  • Adventists making a difference
  • The impact of the command
$22.95

Publisher: Signs Publishing

ISBN: 9781922373359

Format: Paperback

STATUS: AVAILABLE TO ORDER (item is either in stock or quickly/soon obtainable from supplier)

Pages: 160

Reviews and Endorsements

[Endorsement]
“Eminent theologian Karl Barth was once asked to summarise the message of the Bible in a couple of sentences. Barth replied thoughtfully, ‘Jesus loves me, this I know. For the Bible tells me so.’ In The Command, Bruce Manners has articulated some of the practical implications of this eternal reality. And he has done it in a way that may well both comfort and disturb you. Thank you, Bruce, sometimes we need a good shake!” —Dr Barry Oliver, former president, South Pacific Division
[ Bookshelf Review ]
How do you write a book about something as complex and vast as the love of God? The simplest way is to focus on Jesus, and Dr Bruce Manners—now retired but long-time editor, writer and pastor—does a brilliant job of this in his new book, The Command. At the heartbeat of Adventism is the life and ministry of Jesus, but it’s so easy to lose our focus. The Command helps us hear that heartbeat again.
Through the use of personal anecdotes, including a number from his own pastoral experiences, Dr Manners makes the teachings of Jesus take on real-life application in a parabolic kind of way. The Command is written with an ease of tone and a lightness that is compelling. I found that once I started the first chapter it was hard to put this book down, and I couldn’t help but skip ahead and skim stories from later chapters in the book, such is his engaging style.
Along with personal anecdotes, there are other easy-to-understand illustrations that make real-life application simple, even while challenging us deeply. There were many times I found great content for my own Bible studies or sermons. The thought-provoking questions at the end of each chapter makes this an incredibly versatile book, great for family worship, small-group Bible studies or even personal devotions. If you’ve been asked to take worship or lead a group at church, this is a resource you should definitely add to your library.
I especially love the chapter on “Being the Message” as a relevant and timely call to what it means to be a Christian in what is becoming an increasingly hostile environment. Dr Manners isn’t afraid to deal with some of the tougher challenges we face in loving others, at the same time as maintaining our integrity and understanding of Adventist teaching. These conversations are becoming increasingly important in our ever-changing world and The Command makes a valuable contribution to help us make progress together on “learning to love like Jesus.”
—Lyndelle Peterson, Director of Personal Ministries. Sabbath School and Stewardship, Australian Union Conference

Write a Review!

✪✪✪✪✪

Please register or log in to your account to leave a review.

 



What's Popular: 

 $250 voucher giveaway 

Free Shipping Offer FaithStream TV