This book is a worthy read, if only for its important section about how friendship has deteriorated as a relationship in modern life, and how ancient philosophy, as well as Christianity as the philosophy of the good life, emphasized its importance. If you don't read it for any other reason, read it for this section.

Pennington argues well for understanding Jesus as the Great Philosopher by recapturing what ancient philosophy was, how far modern philosophy departs from it, and what happens when we compartmentalize Christianity apart from its role as a whole life philosophy for human flourising. Interestingly, he draws only on St. Justin Martyr and St. Augustine in his argument, with perhaps one reference to St. John Chrysostom, when much of the Patristic witness would confirm his words (cf Christopher Hall's "Living Wisely with the Church Fathers").

Is Jesus a philosopher? What would you think if you saw a big banner at your church proclaiming Jesus as our great “Immanuel, Savior, Healer, and Philosopher” (ch. 1)? It’s basically what a church in the third century did, only instead of a banner they painted Jesus on their walls, healing, teaching, and performing miracles, dressed as a philosopher. In the early second century, Justin Martyr, a Christian apologist and philosopher, saw both Jesus and the Old Testament prophets as philosophers. He explained that “philosophy is a way of finding true life,” and he had found this true life in Jesus (ch. 1). Even in 1999, George W. Bush refereed to Christ as a philosopher who had had the most influence on his life. Jonathan Pennington writes, “Christianity is not just a set of doctrines but a divine whole-life philosophy worth dying for, if need be” (I reviewed this book through NetGalley. It didn’t have page numbers, so I don’t have any for the quotes).

In chapter one, Pennington, associate professor of New Testament Interpretation at SBTS, shows the results of not thinking of Christianity as its own philosophy:

Faith is too often disconnected from other parts of our life.
We separate our life into different drawers. Just as socks, underwear, and pants go into their own drawers, we separate health, money, education, relationships, and faith from each other.
We look for other sources/alternative gurus (from Jordan Peterson to Oprah, from Marie Kondo to Nick Offerman) to advise us on hoot live the good life.
We have stopped looking to Scripture to tell us “how the world really works and how we should live in it.”
We have a book of ultimate authority and all the answers, but do we know the questions to ask? Are we asking the right questions?
What is reality?
What does it mean to be human?
Where is true happiness found, how do I get there, and what do I do when I get it?
“We have limited our witness to the world.”
Christianity needs to be big enough to make sense of your whole life, not taught in a way that divorces it from our normal life.
A Vision for Life Itself
But doesn’t philosophy just ask big, nonsensical questions without providing any answers? As Steve Martin put it, “you remember just enough” from college “to screw you up for the rest of your life” (ch. 2).

But in the ancient world, philosophy was the frame or “the vision for life itself,” helping people understand “Good and the goodness of life.” It went from meaning being wise in certain fields such as mathematics, biology, or physics, to being “a pursuit of a comprehensive understanding of all the world,” focusing “on character traits and habits that, if practiced, will result in a flourishing life and society.” Students were taught to know politics, music, and astronomy (and more) because as we see the how different aspects of the world work in harmony, we will develop a deeper inner harmony.

Four Big Questions
The philosopher was someone who had knowledge, training, years of experience, as well as virtue and integrity who could “serve as instructors and models.” These were teachers who knew the information and could teach how it fit in with the rest of life. Even the Hebrew Scriptures “actually present themselves as a philosophy of life in the ancient sense” (ch. 3). It answers the four big questions of metaphysics (what is the true nature of the universe?), epistemology (How do we know things?), ethics (what is right, and how do we live it out?), and politics (how do we structure society and institutions in the best and wisest ways?).

Jesus, the Philosopher, and the Gospels
In he early first centuries of Christianity, Jesus was depicted most often as either a king or a philosopher (just think about wise king Solomon). One of the most influential ways of writing about one philosopher teacher was through bios, “the retelling of the ‘life’ of someone famous” (ch. 5). This method was well established by the time Jesus came on the scene, and it explained the teachings, life, and dignified death of the teacher.

One way we can know the Gospels present Jesus as a philosopher is because the “form and content of the Gospels closely resemble the many Lives that were written about other ancient philosophers.” Aphorisms (short, pithy sayings), parables, and winsome arguments are a few ways we can see how Jesus functioned as a philosopher, for philosophers also regularly taught others through these styles. Jesus is “a disciple-making wisdom teacher,” and his teachings are collected into “five major topical epitomes” or blocks.

Philosophers asked what the Good was and how could we live in right accordance with it. Jesus taught the same thing, only we find the Good by looking at God who is whole, mature, complete, and perfect. Jesus teaches these truths in the Sermon on the mount, where he is a better Moses, God in the flesh, a great philosopher king giving out wise laws. John, Paul, Peter, James, and the whole New Testament in fact teaches us to imitate our great Teacher, who saved us and makes us whole, complete, and perfect.

I Got 99 Problems…
In chapter nine, Humans, We Have a Problem, Pennington writes that all humans have a problem (if you couldn’t guess). That problem revolves around “meaningful happiness.” It’s the nagging question that asks, “Does any of what we do really matter?” If it gives meaning, is it lasting? Will it make me happy? (Think Ecclesiastes.) Even in his The City of God, Augustine noted that everybody wants to be happy. However many disagree on “what this happiness looks like and how to obtain it.” Family? Food? Achievement? Religion?

According to Yuval Noah Harari in his bestseller Sapiens, are we, homo sapiens, “simply an ‘animal of no significance’”? But, concerning happiness, we often discern happiness in our lives by weighing all of our happy moments vs our bad moments instead of seeing our lives in their “entirety as meaningful and worthwhile.” We flourish through living intentionally and thoughtfully. But why do we have so many happiness gurus? Why does life feel like reading a menu at the Cheesecake Factory? Should I follow the veto diet, do CrossFit, pay it forward, do hot yoga, or (and?) journal every day?

…But Finding Happiness Ain’t One
In the end (chapter 10), Pennington points to Jesus as the one who came into the world “that they may have life, and have it to the full” (Jn 10:10). Jesus’ Beatitudes tells us what true flourishing is. We are allowed to long for happiness, and we find it fully in God himself. Psalm 1 even begins with the idea of being happy/flourishing, but certainly when you read through the rest of the psalter, it doesn’t look like very many are flourishing. But yet they are. In a covenantal relationship with God, God’s people flourish.

Recommended?
I found this to be a great book that really helped me to see another facet of Jesus, one of a philosopher, as well as what philosophy is really meant to be. I haven’t read much philosophy (from any era), but Pennington shows how Jesus and the Gospels give us the answers to happiness. Jesus answers your deepest needs. He doesn’t merely give you a list of rules to follow but changes your entire orientation to life. Pennington shows how the Bible helps us understand our emotions and how we thrive in relationship to other people. While many today don’t know how to integrate the teachings of Jesus into their new lifestyle as Christians, Pennington shows that Christianity has always wrestled with life’s important questions (despite what the new atheists say), and it offers everyone the answers to those questions.

I saved the best for last. In the last days of 2020, I began reading Jesus the Great Philosopher: Rediscovering the Wisdom Needed for the Good Life by Dr. Jonathan Pennington, Associate Professor of New Testament Interpretation and Director of Research Doctoral Studies at Southern Baptist Theological Seminary. This is a book I have wanted to read since the Fall of 1979 when I took Philosophy 101 at a small Christian college in Nashville, TN. I loved the class and the professor, but never knew how to connect my love of philosophy with living. After all, I had the Bible, right? Never mind trying to meld philosophy and theology. This was an error on my part because my philosophy professor was also a systematic theologian and the one who wrote the systematic theology for our denomination. He was also my advisor and would have gladly helped me to understand. Thankfully, Dr. Pennington filled that role.
In Jesus the Great Philosopher: Rediscovering the Wisdom Needed for the Good Life, Dr. Pennington explains what philosophy is, what philosophers do, and how that has changed over the centuries. He also shows philosophical ideas of the Bible, and how and why early Christians would have considered Jesus a philosopher. The remainder of the book covers topics of life ancient philosophers would have taught and encouraged their followers to learn and to live out: educating emotions, restoring relationships, happiness, and human flourishing. He then discusses these topics in philosophical light of what the Christian Bible, and specifically Jesus Christ taught.

One of the most helpful aspects of this structure, and the entire book, is to reveal to us where some of our philosophies and practices of life originated and how they pervade our thinking and living without our conscious acknowledgement. More helpful is his explanations of how Christianity, rightly understood, can correct our thinking and practices.

The key theme, and I would argue its most important, throughout the book is living in hope, but not “baptized optimism.” “Hope is a virtue to be cultivated. Hope is a virtue of the will that can teach us to embrace both hardships and joys, because it is more than a mere emotion.” Pennington uses the topics above to express why and how we can cultivate this hope and why it is necessary.

Clearly this is a book for our times. 2020 has tested the best in and of us and in some ways, we have been found wanting. I wish the book had been available earlier in the year, but faith in God’s timing is well placed and as Dr. Pennington explains having faith is to hope.

While this is my last book of 2020 to read, it will go with me into 2021 as I re-read it. He answered my question about how philosophy, theology and living work together, but more importantly specific questions this book raised will be answered more slowly as I examine my own life and cultivate hope.

This is the one book for 2020 that I can recommend heartily and will be giving away to others.


I received an ARC of this book from the publisher.

Jesus is the solution to mankind’s greatest problem, but He also offers the answers to mankind’s greatest questions. We would do well to consider Him, as Jonathan Pennington encourages us, as a philosopher of the ancient variety who thought and taught wisdom. Ancient philosophers quested for truth and knowledge, the right, and the good. All of us, in our own way, seek what they sought. Pennington skillfully demonstrates that our deep questions about life are not new. Nor are they unanswerable. Jesus profoundly answered them as no other philosopher could—ancient or modern. The beauty of Jesus the Great Philosopher is that it intelligently presents Christianity as the ultimate philosophy.

I do not disagree with calling Jesus a philosopher. There is no quibble from me about calling Jesus’ teaching a philosophy. As John Frame writes,

Philosophy generally is understood as an attempt to understand the world in its broadest, most general features….If one seeks to develop a truly Christian philosophy, he will certainly be doing so under the authority of Scripture and thus will be applying Scripture to philosophical questions, As such, he would be doing theology, according to our definition (85).

Philosophy and theology are closely intertwined. No question. But I do question Pennington’s claim that contemporaries of Jesus considered him a philosopher. Pennington marshals the evidence of ancient biography to show that the Gospel writers viewed Jesus as a philosopher since they used the genre of bioi. But bioi were also written about other important figures as Pennington, himself, concedes. Although there was indeed a general difference in how biographies of philosophers were written. As Burridge points out,

Lives of generals, politicians or statesmen tend to be more chronologically ordered, depicting their great deeds and virtues, while accounts of philosophers or writers are more anecdotal, arranged topically around collections of material to display their ideas and teachings (337-338).

Truth be told, when it came to Jesus, the Gospel writers were dealing with someone with great deeds and virtue along with a collection of teaching material. This point would benefit from further study. Other potential weaknesses in making the case Jesus was considered a philosopher is that none of the Gospels ever refer to Jesus as such. He is called “Lord/Master,” “Teacher” and “Rabbi.” Instead of a philosopher, these titles of address show that others viewed Jesus with respect and considered Him a teacher of Jewish law. (As far as I can tell, no one has yet written a book entitled Jesus the Great Rabbi in case someone wants to jump on that opportunity.) A case could be made that Jesus having disciples supports the claim he was a philosopher. But discipleship was also an integral component of Judaism (203). Pennington adds that the Gospels treat Jesus as a philosopher by arranging His teachings into epitomes. But, according to the Oxford Classical Dictionary, a Greek epitome is an abridgement of a long work. The material in the Gospels does not seem to fit this bill. None of the writers ever describe their material as an epitome. Did the contemporaries of Jesus consider Him a philosopher? Perhaps. But the lack of compelling evidence makes it difficult to state with anything more than conjecture. It may also be worth noting that no reference is made in the Apostolic Fathers to Jesus as a philosopher. My final point in this area of discussion is that when Jesus asks, “Who do people say that I am?”, philosopher is not one of the answers given. (Prophet was.) It’s Peter who nails what the Gospel writers wanted to communicate: “You are the Christ” (Mark 8:29).

Despite my lengthy engagement of a single point from the book, it is excellent. The message is valuable and should be shared. In a world dominated by blue-lit screens fueled by a never-ending supply of media, few of us are probably giving the big questions of life enough thought. This is a deeply encouraging book to read. It will give you a greater appreciation for who Jesus is and what He taught. By the time I reached the end, I was thanking the Lord that life has meaning and that the truly good life is found in knowing Jesus. I’m sure you can think of someone you know who would benefit from embracing this philosophy.

Special thanks to Brazos Press/Baker Academic for a free digital review copy of this book. This did not affect my thoughts so far as I know.

This is an excellent and helpful title from a brilliant author. It provides--at a very accessible level that will appeal to students, laypersons, and ministry leaders--a much needed explanation of the philosophical culture the Bible was written in and answers. I will require this for students and heartily recommend it to everyone. What a helpful, eye-opening book!

Jesus a great savior? Absolutely. Jesus a perfect shepherd? Of course. Jesus a great philosopher? Hey, wait a second.

Today, philosophy in many Christian communities is viewed with some suspicion and little necessary for the Christian faith. And it seems even more alien and scandalous to us, to say that Jesus was a philosopher. This alarmism arises from ignorance or baseless prejudices, because the truth is that Jesus is the greatest and best philosopher.

To help us come out of the shadows, and discover this impressive aspect about Jesus, we find this book entitled "Jesus the great philosopher", written by Dr. Jonathan T. Pennington, who with great skill and with a friendly and academic style, makes us see that as Christians we can confidently say that Jesus is the great philosopher and therefore he offers us the best philosophy. As the author writes “Christianity is not just a set of doctrines but a divine whole-life philosophy worth dying for, if need be”.

Therefore, it is time to know and follow Jesus and his philosophy.

In this book, the reader will find a good short introduction to philosophy, and how Christianity from its inception has promoted the true philosophy. For this, the author presents us the great philosophical ideas found in the Scriptures, particularly presenting Moses as a philosopher, who presented the life instructions to the people and how the prophets spoke of this, to finally speak of the Gospels as testimony of the life of Jesus, and of how the philosophy of Christian life is presented. All this under four criteria: metaphysics, epistemology, ethics, and politics.

Then the author takes us to a more practical part, in which he talks about emotions, relationships and happiness. Issues that directly address our understanding of the philosophy that we find in Scripture. There would be a lot more to say, especially on the approach to stoicism, which is very good. But, I encourage you to get this book.

I believe this book will challenge our understanding of who Jesus is, leading us to see our Lord as the one who shows us how to live. Only in Jesus the Messiah, we find true eudaimonia and ataraxia.