In his 89-year lifetime E. Stanley Jones published 28 books. Baltimore-born and Asbury College educated, the man gave his life to the King and his Kingdom. Jones was a confidant to Franklin D. Roosevelt and friend to Mahatma Gandhi. He wrote a biography of Gandhi that inspired a young Baptist minister named Martin Luther King, Jr. to adopt the means of non-violent protest as a change agent. That’s a pretty good legacy.Just before his death in 1973, E. Stanley Jones published The Unshakable Kingdom and the Unchanging Person, which proved to be his summary of life in Christ and how to live for the Kingdom. I found this book while I was still a college student--it charged me with a passion for the King and his Kingdom and ruined me for anything else.
“I’ve been shedding labels all my life,” he told a group of students in 1969. “I hope to shed them all except one: ‘he was a Christian in the making.’” Page after page of The Unshakable Kingdom and the Unchanging Person rings with wisdom and challenge. It’s the kind of book that should take a month to read and a lifetime to apply.
In an age when many believers have been inoculated against the Gospel of the Kingdom, Jones caught the virus like a man overcome with AIDS. The echoes of his voice have now died away. Few in our day have even heard the name E. Stanley Jones, and fewer still have been exposed to his contagion for Jesus. In my opinion every serious student of Jesus should catch the same Kingdom fever that consumed E. Stanley Jones. The Unshakable Kingdom and the Unchanging Person will infect you for life.
Your thoughts on The Unshakable Kingdom will matter far more than mine, but I whole-heartedly agree. I've been influenced a lot by George Elden Ladd on the Kingdom, but Jones has an understanding of the Kingdom that will not allow us to relegate it to the future. Again, I'm only saying what you've already said, but this is a great recommendation.
ReplyDeleteI'm glad you liked the recommendation--anyone who agrees with me is obviously a very discerning person :-)
ReplyDeleteYou are spot on regarding Jones' relentless focus on the now. I suspect that a lifetime of ministry in Indian trained him to consider the current impact of the gospel. When the poor hear the gospel, they are keenly interested in the now, and the Almighty is fully able to meet that interest!
Thanks so much for sharing this post. I didn't read it at first because I was like who is E. Stanley Jones and there are SO many books out there! But I came back to this post yesterday and I have been pondering it since then. Your thoughts on the legacy he left and the quote from his final book that you shared have inspired me to focus my life EVEN MORE on not was is seen...and to possible read this book and delve deeper into the wisdom of a man who could influence without having to make his own name great....what a challenge!! Thanks again!
ReplyDeleteLindsey: It's my pleasure indeed to share a post like this. I'm so blessed that you would return and give it a second thought. And you're right--so many books, so little time, and so much life to live.
ReplyDeleteI visited your very joyful website, and saw that we also share a love of Ann Voskamp's excellent work. Blessings to you, Arno, and Patches.
Thanks so much for sharing this post. I didn't read it at first because I was like who is E. Stanley Jones and there are SO many books out there! But I came back to this post yesterday and I have been pondering it since then. Your thoughts on the legacy he left and the quote from his final book that you shared have inspired me to focus my life EVEN MORE on not was is seen...and to possible read this book and delve deeper into the wisdom of a man who could influence without having to make his own name great....what a challenge!! Thanks again!
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