Friendship with Christ - by John A Vissers (Paperback)

About the Book

The idea of friendship with Jesus is popular in Christianity, but what does it really mean? This book shows how friendship with Christ is central to how Christians have experienced the providential love of God throughout church history and why it matters today.

Book Synopsis

Friendship has the capacity to elevate our lives and make us better people. It plays an important role in our moral development, spiritual growth, and personal flourishing. This is true of friendship between humans, and it is also true of friendship with God in Christ. What did friendship with Christ mean for Christians in ages past, and what can it mean for us today?

In Friendship with Christ, John Vissers offers a robust biblical, historical, and theological study of friendship with God in Christ. Rooted in the "friendship teaching" of John 15, this book draws on the threefold office of Christ as prophet, priest, and king to develop a theology of divine friendship against the backdrop of the biblical record and historical tradition. Friendship with Christ, Vissers argues, is a theological truth and experience that continues to provide consolation and hope in a secular age and a suffering world.

With a foreword by Hans Boersma, this book shows that friendship with Christ has been central to the experience of the providential love of God throughout the church's history and that it still matters today. Friendship with Christ will appeal to professors and students of theology, Christology, and spiritual formation, as well as to pastors and church leaders.

About the Author

John A. Vissers (ThD, University of Toronto) is professor of systematic theology at Knox College, Toronto School of Theology, University of Toronto, in Toronto, Ontario, where he previously served as principal. He is an ordained minister and has served as the pastor of three congregations in the Presbyterian Church in Canada. He is also the author of The Neo-Orthodox Theology of W. W. Bryden.