The Jesus Who Surprises: Opening Our Eyes to His Presence in All of Life and Scripture

The Jesus Who Surprises is a wonderfully complete Bible study .  It includes not only 6 weeks of Bible study, with lessons for 5 days each week but also lots of supplemental material.  Each week's lesson begins with a teaching from the author, Bible teacher Dee Brestin.  There is also an optional video testimony on Dee's website for each week as well as a suggested sermons on YouTube from well-known pastors such as Tim Keller and R.C. Sproul for those who want to take an even deeper dive into the material. 

Dee starts the book off with a chapter on how to use the book and study and even includes an optional Get-Acquainted study for groups who want to schedule that before they jump right into the study.  She ends the book with more extra material for leaders or group facilitators. Brestin even gives different ideas for a group prayer time each week. Really, this book includes both a leader's and member's manual right in one handy package.

But all that is just pretty packaging if the study isn't solid.  No fear with that here!  This is good stuff!  I love the topic: opening our eyes to the presence of Jesus in all of life and Scripture.  I'll talk about the Scripture aspect first.  The main passage for this study is from Luke 24, where Jesus appears on the Emmaus Road after his resurrection to 2 disciples.  They don't recognize him at first so he breaks down the Old Testament to them, showing them passage by passage how he is the Messiah. Dee also takes us through the Bible, passage by passage, showing us Jesus.  First in the first 5 books of the Bible, then in the Psalms and Isaiah. 

At the same time, Brestin teaches us to look for Jesus in all of our own lives with a method called God Hunt, intentionally looking for signs of Jesus in our everyday lives. This is a concept I learned and practiced years ago through a Bible study by Karen Mains.  It was a gift to me then and I'm certain would be a blessing again.

I have not yet done this study with a group, but am excited to do so.  There is some wonderful, substantial Biblical teaching here that I am certain would enrich the lives of those who commit to the study.  I did receive an Advanced Readers Copy of this book from the publisher in return for my honest review.