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God Looks Like Jesus: A Renewed Approach to Understanding God
Rediscover the God who inspires passion in our hearts.
In the past several decades, a grassroots global movement has people rediscovering a Jesus-looking God who is raising up a Jesus-looking people to transform the world in a unique, Jesus kind of way.
This accessible introduction to understanding the character of God outlines what it means to be a Jesus-centered Christian and a Jesus-centered church. Authors Gregory A. Boyd and M. Scott Boren lay out the radical truth at the heart of this the conviction that God looks like Jesus. In other words, in the life and ministry of Jesus Christ, we see the embodiment of God’s very essence—a love that is humble, other-oriented, and self-sacrificial. This truth is the heart of the gospel. If we think it through thoroughly and live it out consistently, this truth has the power to transform the church and, through the church, the world.
Open these pages to encounter the freedom of a God who looks like Jesus and join the larger movement of the Spirit to reignite the church with Jesus at the center.
In the past several decades, a grassroots global movement has people rediscovering a Jesus-looking God who is raising up a Jesus-looking people to transform the world in a unique, Jesus kind of way.
This accessible introduction to understanding the character of God outlines what it means to be a Jesus-centered Christian and a Jesus-centered church. Authors Gregory A. Boyd and M. Scott Boren lay out the radical truth at the heart of this the conviction that God looks like Jesus. In other words, in the life and ministry of Jesus Christ, we see the embodiment of God’s very essence—a love that is humble, other-oriented, and self-sacrificial. This truth is the heart of the gospel. If we think it through thoroughly and live it out consistently, this truth has the power to transform the church and, through the church, the world.
Open these pages to encounter the freedom of a God who looks like Jesus and join the larger movement of the Spirit to reignite the church with Jesus at the center.
- GenresFaith
120 pages, Paperback
Published May 27, 2025
19 people are currently reading
64 people want to read
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Displaying 1 - 12 of 12 reviews
January 28, 2026
Wow, Greg Boyd distilled his life message into this little book. He could have written an academic 3 set volume. However, he wrote a digestible call to the church. You want to see and know God, then look at Jesus. There is no way around this, as Boyd masterfully demonstrates.
August 23, 2025
This would be a good book to discuss in a small group. It discusses looking at the New Testament and the Old through the redemptive work of Jesus.
January 20, 2026
Summary: In the life, ministry, teaching, and crucifixion of Jesus, we see the embodiment of the what God is like.
Sooner or later, many parents have to answer, first, the question of “Where is God?” and then, often, the question of “What is God like?” This latter question is one many of us grapple with all of our lives, consciously or subconsciously. How we answer that question is vitally important. It shapes not only how we worship but how we live. Some may live under a cloud of guilt while others angrily deny God’s place in their lives because they don’t like what they believe God is like. Yet, still others live in the joyful security and outward facing generosity of believing they are God’s extravagantly loved children.
Gregory A. Boyd and M. Scott Boren advance a simple but profound assertion in this book. God looks like Jesus. If you want to know what God is like, God has definitively revealed himself in his Final Word, Jesus. This Jesus, incredibly, both fully God and man, humbled himself to live under human constraints. This includes the ultimate constraint of death on the cross. Indeed, all of his life was formed by and toward the cross, to bear the sins of a lost humanity. The authors call this cruciform life the “center of the center.” This leads them to propose that we read all of scripture with “cross-tinted glasses.” Thus, they would contend that all of scripture is about an points toward Christ.
But this raises the question of how we deal with scriptures in which God sanctions violence. Part of the answer is that we see in the cross God taking upon God’s self, the Incarnate Son, the violence and evil of the world to reconcile the world to himself. But this doesn’t erase the herem passages from scripture. Commendably, the authors neither rationalize nor try to minimize the actual extent of herem. Rather, they argue that Moses misunderstood God and commanded herem in God’s name. He cites Exodus 23:28-30 and Leviticus 18:24-25 to indicate God’s intent to gradually displace the Canaanites. But God’s non-violent plans were too radical for Moses, who didn’t get it and commanded violent conquest. In the end, God in God’s humility accommodates this. Thus, the authors preserve the loving, humble God revealed in Christ.
To me, this seems a bit of fancy exegetical footwork. It dodges the plain meaning of the texts. I appreciate the effort, because these are among the most troubling texts in scripture and they seem to contradict the portrait of the loving, humble servant God we see in Jesus. Yet, I think this portrait becomes a Procrustean bed that does violence to these violent texts. I continue to wrestle with these texts personally. The best treatment I’ve found is L. Daniel Hawk’s The Violence of the Biblical God (reviewed at: https://bobonbooks.com/2019/08/05/rev...). Hawk accepts that God-sanctioned violence is one of the “voices” in scripture and must not be glossed over but which ultimately (as the authors of this work also argue) takes violence upon himself and thus signals its end.
The authors move on from this to discuss the kingdom Jesus proclaims, and how cruciform love shapes it. Enemies are loved and love is extended in broadly inclusionary fashion to all those society, and often the church, would marginalize. They also argue that instead of the classical notions of God’s unchanging nature, the loving God we encounter in Jesus has passions and suffers. Finally, our ultimate hope is in a renewed creation where God does right by all that moves us to exercise God’s love for it in the present.
I found much to commend in this compact book. Especially, I commend the focus on Christ and his cross as central to the gospel message and our rubric for understanding all of scripture. And to understand experientially that the Christ we encounter in scripture reveals the God we may worship joyfully in Spirit and Truth–that is a gift! While I differ in the authors’ attempt at theodicy, I affirm the courage to address the signal objection to their thesis. I would commend Hawk’s approach, not cited by the authors. But above all, for those who struggle with what they think the God they believe in is like, this book cuts through the verbiage and says “look at Jesus and you will see what God is truly like.”
_______________________
Disclosure of Material Connection: I received a complimentary copy of this book from the publisher for review.
Sooner or later, many parents have to answer, first, the question of “Where is God?” and then, often, the question of “What is God like?” This latter question is one many of us grapple with all of our lives, consciously or subconsciously. How we answer that question is vitally important. It shapes not only how we worship but how we live. Some may live under a cloud of guilt while others angrily deny God’s place in their lives because they don’t like what they believe God is like. Yet, still others live in the joyful security and outward facing generosity of believing they are God’s extravagantly loved children.
Gregory A. Boyd and M. Scott Boren advance a simple but profound assertion in this book. God looks like Jesus. If you want to know what God is like, God has definitively revealed himself in his Final Word, Jesus. This Jesus, incredibly, both fully God and man, humbled himself to live under human constraints. This includes the ultimate constraint of death on the cross. Indeed, all of his life was formed by and toward the cross, to bear the sins of a lost humanity. The authors call this cruciform life the “center of the center.” This leads them to propose that we read all of scripture with “cross-tinted glasses.” Thus, they would contend that all of scripture is about an points toward Christ.
But this raises the question of how we deal with scriptures in which God sanctions violence. Part of the answer is that we see in the cross God taking upon God’s self, the Incarnate Son, the violence and evil of the world to reconcile the world to himself. But this doesn’t erase the herem passages from scripture. Commendably, the authors neither rationalize nor try to minimize the actual extent of herem. Rather, they argue that Moses misunderstood God and commanded herem in God’s name. He cites Exodus 23:28-30 and Leviticus 18:24-25 to indicate God’s intent to gradually displace the Canaanites. But God’s non-violent plans were too radical for Moses, who didn’t get it and commanded violent conquest. In the end, God in God’s humility accommodates this. Thus, the authors preserve the loving, humble God revealed in Christ.
To me, this seems a bit of fancy exegetical footwork. It dodges the plain meaning of the texts. I appreciate the effort, because these are among the most troubling texts in scripture and they seem to contradict the portrait of the loving, humble servant God we see in Jesus. Yet, I think this portrait becomes a Procrustean bed that does violence to these violent texts. I continue to wrestle with these texts personally. The best treatment I’ve found is L. Daniel Hawk’s The Violence of the Biblical God (reviewed at: https://bobonbooks.com/2019/08/05/rev...). Hawk accepts that God-sanctioned violence is one of the “voices” in scripture and must not be glossed over but which ultimately (as the authors of this work also argue) takes violence upon himself and thus signals its end.
The authors move on from this to discuss the kingdom Jesus proclaims, and how cruciform love shapes it. Enemies are loved and love is extended in broadly inclusionary fashion to all those society, and often the church, would marginalize. They also argue that instead of the classical notions of God’s unchanging nature, the loving God we encounter in Jesus has passions and suffers. Finally, our ultimate hope is in a renewed creation where God does right by all that moves us to exercise God’s love for it in the present.
I found much to commend in this compact book. Especially, I commend the focus on Christ and his cross as central to the gospel message and our rubric for understanding all of scripture. And to understand experientially that the Christ we encounter in scripture reveals the God we may worship joyfully in Spirit and Truth–that is a gift! While I differ in the authors’ attempt at theodicy, I affirm the courage to address the signal objection to their thesis. I would commend Hawk’s approach, not cited by the authors. But above all, for those who struggle with what they think the God they believe in is like, this book cuts through the verbiage and says “look at Jesus and you will see what God is truly like.”
_______________________
Disclosure of Material Connection: I received a complimentary copy of this book from the publisher for review.
August 11, 2025
Viewing and understanding the Bible through Jesus’ life, death and resurrection is not a new idea for Mennonite and Anabaptist Christians.
In “God Looks Like Jesus,” authors Boyd and Boren suggests that understanding that Jesus is the full revelation of God liberates us to “grow into the fulness of life that God intends for us.”
The book wrestles with difficult scriptures, and paradoxes implicit in Jesus’s actions. While Jesus agreed that all scripture was divinely inspired, he also rejected some Old Testament teachings.
Just as Jesus is the centre of Scripture, the cross is the lens through which we must understand Jesus’s life and ministry, and the entire Bible.
Jesus’s cross-centered, self -sacrificial view of power redefined how we should view true power, humble and other-oriented.
The authors urge readers to consider the book of Revelation as first-century readers would have understood it. Viewed through that lens, the authors write, “these violent images become violently anti-violent.”
A lengthy examination of how we should understand violent depictions of God in the Old Testament is thoughtful and helpful. God stooping to accommodate people’s non-ideal circumstances should not be seen as condoning their actions. Rather than approval, this reflects “a profound act of divine humility and love.”
The book argues the need to renounce the Old Testament violence and “every other sub-Christlike portrait of God.
“God Looks Like Jesus” provides useful insights into many difficult questions. It is best read and reflected on a bit at a time. Well worth reading.
In “God Looks Like Jesus,” authors Boyd and Boren suggests that understanding that Jesus is the full revelation of God liberates us to “grow into the fulness of life that God intends for us.”
The book wrestles with difficult scriptures, and paradoxes implicit in Jesus’s actions. While Jesus agreed that all scripture was divinely inspired, he also rejected some Old Testament teachings.
Just as Jesus is the centre of Scripture, the cross is the lens through which we must understand Jesus’s life and ministry, and the entire Bible.
Jesus’s cross-centered, self -sacrificial view of power redefined how we should view true power, humble and other-oriented.
The authors urge readers to consider the book of Revelation as first-century readers would have understood it. Viewed through that lens, the authors write, “these violent images become violently anti-violent.”
A lengthy examination of how we should understand violent depictions of God in the Old Testament is thoughtful and helpful. God stooping to accommodate people’s non-ideal circumstances should not be seen as condoning their actions. Rather than approval, this reflects “a profound act of divine humility and love.”
The book argues the need to renounce the Old Testament violence and “every other sub-Christlike portrait of God.
“God Looks Like Jesus” provides useful insights into many difficult questions. It is best read and reflected on a bit at a time. Well worth reading.
August 16, 2025
Again!
Greg Boyd has been communicating the love of God, as demonstrated in Jesus - as Jesus is the definitive revelation of God - his whole ministry life.
His attempts to bring us back to Jesus, who Jesus was/is and then portray God as Jesus’ all-loving character. Following this approach has brought me personally back to why I became a Christian in the first place - realizing that God loves me. I was so attracted, I love back!
This is the latest, easier-to-read version of this same message of an all-good, all-loving God, who looks like Jesus, that does really reflect Gospel - the good news. The news that the Jews were waiting for, that some embraced through the early church, that we have unfortunately distorted in centuries since, but that we so desperately need in today’s world.
Greg Boyd has been communicating the love of God, as demonstrated in Jesus - as Jesus is the definitive revelation of God - his whole ministry life.
His attempts to bring us back to Jesus, who Jesus was/is and then portray God as Jesus’ all-loving character. Following this approach has brought me personally back to why I became a Christian in the first place - realizing that God loves me. I was so attracted, I love back!
This is the latest, easier-to-read version of this same message of an all-good, all-loving God, who looks like Jesus, that does really reflect Gospel - the good news. The news that the Jews were waiting for, that some embraced through the early church, that we have unfortunately distorted in centuries since, but that we so desperately need in today’s world.
January 18, 2026
A brilliant look at the theological implications of what Jesus and the New Testament writers claim, i.e. that Jesus is the exact representation of the Father. There are countless verses in the New Testament regarding this truth and yet we still seem to take all the monstrous depictions of God in the Old Testament as literal and we remain ok with the complete contradictions in our cognitive dissonance. Boyd provides a blueprint for reading the scriptures via a cruciform lens and provides plenty of scriptural evidence for this being the primary way to interpret scripture. This is definitely a thought provoking read and I highly recommend it.
March 14, 2025
A worthwhile read. I found many more reasons on why Jesus is so wonderful! Also loved the wording choices for the chapter titles, 'Cross-tinted glasses', 'The Jesus Looking Kingdom'. The authors have presented a very valuable addition to the existing titles on the person and role of Jesus! A must read! Indeed, 'all scripture is about Jesus'.
August 9, 2025
Loved this book...but,
I love Greg and know that he doesn't arrive at an opinion without being well researched, thought out, and prayerful, but I couldn't disagree more with his radical environmental approach to the current climate data. Be good stewards yes; be a climate activist, no.
I love Greg and know that he doesn't arrive at an opinion without being well researched, thought out, and prayerful, but I couldn't disagree more with his radical environmental approach to the current climate data. Be good stewards yes; be a climate activist, no.
November 5, 2025
While I'm not sure if I am wholly on board with some of Greg Boyd's theology, I sure appreciate that he wrestles with the tough stuff in an intellectually honest way. I am totally convinced that God looks like Jesus, and that makes massive implications for my freedom to draw near to God: a love-based, not fear-based relationship.
July 29, 2025
"Far from hoping to be raptured out of our hurting world, imitating Jesus requires us to live in solidarity with it. Love doesn't abandon people in their pain, it moves towards them, as Christ moved toward us."
July 19, 2025
Excellent
July 30, 2025
God does look like Jesus!!
Thank you again Greg Boyd for opening my eyes to the true and loving character of God. This book adds to a rich catalogue from Greg.
Thank you again Greg Boyd for opening my eyes to the true and loving character of God. This book adds to a rich catalogue from Greg.
Displaying 1 - 12 of 12 reviews