David Limbaugh Discusses His Book: The Resurrected Jesus

RUSH: My brother David, well-known author and agent for many highfalutin personalities and celebrities, as well as lawyer. And he’s the author of… This is probably the book that he was intended to write his whole life. This is the one he’s been building up to.

CLAY: Welcome back in. You just heard Rush Limbaugh there bringing us in, and we are indeed about to be joined by David Limbaugh. His new book is The Resurrected Jesus. It’s the latest book in David’s Jesus series, explores the church and the New Testament. David, you wrote the book with your daughter, Christen, I believe, who’s the oldest of your five kids. So, congrats. I’m sure that was a real cool experience. But we thought we’d let Rush have the honor of asking the first question of you.

RUSH: If I may say, folks, this book is rewarding, it is confidence inspiring, it’s heartwarming, and it’s impossible to explain it in a half hour on the radio. It’s an amazing piece of work. … [T]his is a pretty risky subject. You’re dealing with people’s faith here, and, in many cases, faith is all people have to sustain them. One of the refrains is that it can’t be proved. That’s the test. So why’d you decide to do it? Why’d you decide to write the book?

LIMBAUGH: Am I cued up here now?

BUCK: Yes.

CLAY: Ready to have you roll.

LIMBAUGH: Thanks for having on, you guys. Rush was referring to my first Christian book, Jesus on Trial. This book is the fifth in the series, and as you guys mentioned, I cowrote this with my daughter, Christen Bloom, and the last book, Jesus is Risen ,was about the Book of Acts, the history of the early church and Paul’s first six epistles. This book is — the Resurrected Jesus is — about Paul’s final seven epistles, his prison epistles that he wrote while in prison in Rome under house arrest, and three of them are the pastoral epistles he wrote to his colleagues and understudies.

We wrote these books — I have written these books and now I’m writing this with Christen — to bring people closer to the Bible, to go through the Bible, these books of the Bible chapter and verse and help people understand, interspersed commentary and insight on a lay level. They don’t have theology and doctoral degrees in biblical studies. But I believe that I was situated where new believers are or skeptics are, and I wish someone would have written these kinds of books for me, and I just want to help other people, and so does Christen. We also add interactive prayers that Christen primarily wrote in addition to her contributions to the text, that we believe help people interact with the text and with scripture. The ultimate goal is to inspire people to go to the Word of God, the Bible itself.

BUCK: We’re speaking to David Limbaugh, brother of Rush. His latest book is The Resurrected Jesus, and, David, Rush often spoke about your books over the years, and I know you talked to him about it on air many times. And one thing that he often pointed out was how easy your books are — you think so this — for laymen to read and digest, ’cause this can be pretty intimidating, pretty heady subject matter, right? I mean, faith and God and our relationship with Jesus Christ. You yourself were a former skeptic. How did you arrive where you are today in terms of your belief and the desire you have to share that belief with others?

LIMBAUGH: Well, we don’t have time for me to tell you the whole thing but let me just abbreviate it by saying that I was a skeptic and then I started studying the Bible. I was introduced to the Bible being the inspired Word of God. All the Bible is God breathed, it’s inerrant, despite what people say about the alleged the contradictions. But once I realized through studying the biblical prophecies and other proofs for Christianity’s truths, I was convinced that I was holding in my hands the Word of God, and that was an epiphany. That was a goosebump experience because before I just thought the Bible was stories of people.

It was a holy book, but it was nothing special, as I ultimately came to believe. When I realized I was holding the Word of God in my hand, that God is directly speaking to me and anyone else who reads it, it blew me away. And so I developed a voracious pattern of reading as much as I could and reading about it as much as I could, inhaling theology books and commentaries. And then I would get into teaching Sunday school and felt like I had a facility for helping people understand primarily because I came from a perspective of doubt.

So I wanted to address people who were intimidated by the Bible and tell them — if they give it a chance and if they listen and read things about it — they might be inspired to read it themselves. And if they do read it themselves and they haven’t found God, they will find God. They will find Jesus Christ. And if they have found God and they’re still intimidated, if they learn a little bit about the Bible — and we hope we can help them overcome some of this intimidation — then they’ll start to read it and then God will have been them in their lives and it will change their lives dramatically.

CLAY: David, you have five kids. My middle son turned 12 today; so, we had a celebration this morning for him. Your oldest helped write this book with you. As a parent, I imagine that had to be an incredible experience, also the first book you published since Rush passed.

LIMBAUGH: Yeah.

CLAY: What did you find the writing experience to be like with your daughter as a parent? And also, what was writing a book like post-Rush for the first time? Did that feel different?

LIMBAUGH: Yes. Well, I asked Christen to join me because she is very spirit-filled and a prayer warrior, and I wanted to add a lot of prayers in this book. I hadn’t done that before, and she’s so good at this and she’s so good at writing. She writes op-eds for Fox News on Christian themes. And so when I asked her, she was elated, and I thought how gratifying it would be to be able to work with one of my kids on a book. She loves writing. Give her a jump-start into book writing.

I certainly never would have made it in the commentary world or in the book-writing business or even agenting and representing people in entertainment law, if Rush hadn’t opened those doors for me. And I wanted to help her. Nepotism, I guess you could call it, but it’s what you do with it after you get those doors open. But I’m here first to tell you that I wouldn’t have been able to get in the door without Rush. I’m eternally grateful to him for that, and I always was, which is why I dedicated the book to him and his audience. Writing this book after he died?

You know, I’ve been more contemplative since he died, a hole in my heart, very sad. You know, I really actually… I don’t want to say I was clinically depressed, because it’s not chemical or anything, but situationally very depressed after he died. And time passes and you cope with it better. I’m not looking for sympathy, but I know his audience adores him and adores you guys. You guys, everybody, you’re one big family. And that’s so gratifying to me, to see that. We’re all in this struggle together. And so, yeah, I had him on my mind a lot.

I watched him with admiration how he handled that evil disease and how he grew closer to God and Christ during the time of it and how he shared his faith and how he said, “Every day on the air, I’m happy to be alive. I’m grateful to God for every day I breathe. My beating heart gets bigger with every day, and I love you all who listen.” You know, he loved them so much that he went to work. He wanted to go to work every day.

People don’t realize how much he was physically suffering. He was physically suffering. I heard it. He tells me… He never complained! He didn’t even complain to me, but he was honest about his suffering. Chemo’s brutal. It’s better than the alternative, it extended his life, but it was hard. It was hard on him, and I think he was sacrificial in the sense that he really lived for his family and his audience, and I think people could see that.

BUCK: The Resurrected Jesus is the book. David Limbaugh. David, please come back again. We really appreciate you spending some time with us today, and best of luck with the book.

LIMBAUGH: Thank you, and I appreciate you guys carrying the torch.

CLAY: Thank you very much.

BUCK: We’re doing the best we can, sir.

LIMBAUGH: Thank you for everything you do. Thanks for having me on. Thank you.