Jefferson Bethke Aims to Re-Spark Christian Faith of Millennials by Revisiting Ancient Biblical Concepts
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YouTube sensation and Christian author Jefferson Bethke hopes to re-spark the faith of millions of millennials who feel Christianity has failed them with his new book, It's Not What You Think: Why Christianity Is About So Much More Than Going to Heaven When You Die, which examines first century Church practices and demonstrates how they can reinvigorate the Body of Christ in today's society.
Bethke cemented himself as a mouthpiece for millennial Christians with his 2013 viral spoken word YouTube video Why I Hate Religion, But Love Jesus, which led to an accompanying New York Times best-selling book, titled Jesus > Religion: Why He Is So Much Better Than Trying Harder, Doing More, and Being Good Enough.
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By delivering Christian Orthodox views in a seemingly rebellious and fresh way, Bethke has sent shockwaves throughout the Evangelical world and attracted a loyal following of young people.
With the release of his latest book, Bethke is using his newly gained platform to encourage people who were raised in the Church, but may have drifted away from it, to dig a bit deeper into Christian history.
Bethke closely examines biblical concepts, locations and traditions, including the Holy Sabbath, Temple and feasts, and attempts to make them relevant to a millennial audience.
The author says that many of his peers have abandoned the faith because they felt it did not live up to expectations from their youth. He hopes to re-spark their interest in Christ by explaining how forgotten concepts, once important to the first century Church, can still impact their everyday lives in amazing ways.
"If we recover what Christianity was really about [along with] these big ideas that were really important to first century people, that aren't to us, [then] I think we will give people what they've been searching for," said Bethke to The Christian Post.
"A lot of things were very cultural to them, contextually, that informed their stories, words and Scriptures. And so for us, because we're 21st century thinking Western people, we just kind of miss a lot of that stuff. The book is just a call back to that. What if we really dig deeper? If we enter into Jesus' world, then I think we can understand His words," added Bethke.
