Nicholas Bitterling’s Reviews > Practicing the Way: Be with Jesus, Become Like Him, Do As He Did > Status Update
Nicholas Bitterling
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This is hard to read. I want to mark-up every page. It feels like a discontent Protestant Christian who doesn’t understand systematic theology (particularly justification) found mysticism and Eastern Orthodoxy and thinks that he has discovered a lost gospel. The problem is, the lost gospel is all about what we do (apprenticeship) and not at all about what Christ has done and is doing. Self-righteousness repackaged.
— Dec 30, 2025 06:43AM
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Nicholas Bitterling
is on page 15 of 288
I’m already very skeptical. He has a helpful perspective on the importance of actually following Jesus, not just checking a box and saying the sinners prayer. But in the introduction he claims, “There is no problem in human life that apprenticeship to Jesus cannot solve.” I plan to write an article on this, but apprenticeship is a human work and doesn’t solve our problems. Christ’s work does that.
— Dec 10, 2025 06:57AM
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Merry Ashlyn
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Dec 30, 2025 09:18PM
I feel like this is a little harsh. Shouldn’t all of us (even us Protestants) be in apprenticeship to Jesus? I don’t think Comer is saying that practicing the spiritual disciples saves us per se-although they should sanctify us. But these are just my thoughts. I’ve found practicing the spiritual disciplines to be very edifying.
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A call to apprenticeship isn’t the problem. The problem is Comer fundamentally shifts the focus of the gospel from God’s gracious work to man’s achievement. Apprenticeship is the active, grateful human response to the gospel, which is Christ’s saving work in us and applied to us. Comer flips the core of the gospel. He specifically mentions that apprenticeship brings life, joy, and the solutions to our problems. According to him, “every problem in the human life… is solved by apprenticeship to Jesus.” You want a better life? Be better at following Jesus. If this was as far as he went, I’d think this book is a lesser form of various other resources, but he goes one step further and obfuscates the gospel. He repeatedly mentions that apprenticeship is the same thing as the gospel. He rejects any distinction and in this work and in others he criticizes the “John 3:16 gospel” which doesn’t include the human response of apprenticeship. In summary, Comer conflates the gospel (God’s work to save us) with the believer’s proper and inevitable response to the gospel, apprenticeship. The are related. Every believer should gratefully respond in obedience and seek to be with Jesus, be like Him, and do as He did. But, apprenticeship to Jesus does not save because it’s a work and works cannot save us. The gospel and apprenticeship are inseparable but not identical. In ignoring this distinction, Comer stands particularly athwart the heart of the Protestant tradition which he claims to defend.
