WHAT JESUS MEANT: The Beatitudes and a Meaningful Life

Though they are fundamental to Christian devotion and practice, the New Testament Beatitudes can become so familiar to the faithful as to seem almost bland. Writing with a barely banked passion for personal and social transformation, psychotherapist and minister Kolbell aims to restore the Jewish roots and subversive edge of these blessings uttered by Jesus. Kolbell, the former Minister of Social Justice at New York's Riverside Church, evinces an enthusiasm for his subject matter that is scarcely restrained by his rich and allusive prose. In the process of elaborating the essence of Jewish law, Kolbell argues, Jesus urged his listeners to seek the intention behind the words, and to let that intention lead to action. "This king who loved the loveless, who washed their feet and raised their dead and taught their children and healed their wounds and forgave their sins, whose ministry was very much lived on the outer edge, has called us here, to the sacred responsibility of an eccentric life, and all the blessings and costs that that will entail." This slim volume of reflections on how to live out such difficult virtues as self-denial and forgiveness is enhanced by the author's willingness to share his own experiences and by his close acquaintance with the Old and New Testaments. In his insightful and heartfelt approach to some of the most challenging verses in the Gospels, Kolbell offers modern readers an interpretation of the Beatitudes as timeless as it is up-to-date. (May)