“The first edition of The Gospel According to Jesus won wide acclaim in confronting the ‘easy-believism’ that has characterized some aspects of evangelical Christianity. Over the past 50 years, a handful of books have become true classics, revered world-wide for their crystal-clear presentation of the Gospel and lauded for their contribution to the Christian faith. These extraordinary books are read, re-read, and discussed in churches, Bible study groups, and homes everywhere. John MacArthur’s The Gospel According to Jesus is one of those books. In The Gospel According to Jesus, MacArthur tackles the idea of ‘easy believism,’ challenging Christians to re-evaluate their commitment to Christ by examining their fruits. MacArthur asks, ‘What does it really mean to be saved?’ He urges readers to understand that their conversion was more than a mere point in time, that, by definition, it includes a lifetime of obediently walking with Jesus as Lord. This 20th anniversary edition of MacArthur’s provocative, Scripture-based book contains one new chapter and is further revised to provide Christians in the 21st century a fresh perspective on the intrinsic relationship between faith and works, clearly revealing Why Jesus is both Savior and Lord to all who believe. It is now available in the Armenian language.”
This translation project completed in 2012 and has been producing much fruit in Armenia. Here is a wonderful testimony of how this book is working in instructing and encouraging brethren in Armenia:
“Please forgive me brother, as I am responding to you much later.
Approximately three years ago a brother by the name S**** came to us, he’s about 10-12 years older than me.
He said, that he repented 25 years ago and served in the church for many years. Then, as I understood from what he was saying, the elders of the church were taking advantage of him because he had a certain possession they can use.
He was telling us, that they without a proper knowledge of the true repentance they were going to peoples’ houses and making them repent according to their understanding to live a right life like, do not smoke, do not drink and do not watch TV, etc. To make a long story short, after leaving that church with a few brothers they started to have gatherings. But a few months ago when he received some of those 5 books “Gospel According to Jesus” from me, it was like a new revelation from the Holy Scripture to him.
By reading it he became very excited. He had all the believers whom he knew sit down and was reading it to them with a rejoicing heart. He was telling them how amazingly the author interprets repentance from the passages of the Holy Scriptures. In this time period he came to us at least two times and has read some passages from the book with us and was speaking about the book with excitement. He tells us repeatedly how his approach to people has completely changed.
He has asked me, if he could have some of these books to give them to the brothers as gifts, because he regarded it so important to have the brothers come together and read it together. I couldn’t deny him and gave him a few.
He came again later with two books, “Gospel According to Jesus” and “Biblical Repentance on Psalm 51” in his hand and wanted this time to read from the book on Psalm 51 Biblical Repentance, but then he said, lets read one passage from the Gospel According to Jesus and then we’ll get to the Psalm 51. So he read about what is repentance from page 185 in Gospel According to Jesus and spending a few hours of discussion on that theme. We decided, we’ll get to Psalm 51 next time.
With a great impatience he’s waiting when the books will arrive, since he has promised to give three of them to the brothers who are serving in the church. He has talked about that book so much with them, that they definitely want to have it.”