Book Review: "The Inner Life of Christ"

This book is the first in a 3-volume series by Joseph Parker. Mr. Parker was a Congregationalist “pastor” in England in the late 1800s.

The Inner Life of Christ is a series of 28 sermons preached by Mr. Parker covering the first 7 chapters of Matthew. (Volumes 2 and 3 cover the rest of Matthew, and I plan on reading and reviewing them in the near future.)

This was a hard book to figure out. One one hand, the book was very deep and detailed. Many times an entire sermon, seemingly, was based upon one phrase, instead of the entire text. Also, Parker must have been an intelligent man, because the language is very deep and in many places it is almost impossible to follow.

On the other hand, the book makes you think. It does take some work to get through one of his sermons, but there are some quotable quotes and some interesting insights. This is especially true on the final two pages of the book, where he speaks of preachers in his day. The words he says sound as if they were written just yesterday, but they are over 100 years old.

All in all, if you can find this book for a reasonable price and you enjoy reading sermons, this book will be a good fit. Obviously, you won’t agree with everything Parker says (including, “Calvanism is right”), but you will find yourself thinking. And, when you are reading, that’s always a good thing.