What's So Amazing About Grace?

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Gold Medallion Book Awards Winners". Evangelical Christian Publishers Association . Retrieved August 14, 2015. a b c d e f g h i Callaway, Phil (April 1998). "If Grace Is So Amazing: Philip Yancey". Presbyterian Record. Vol.122, no.4. Toronto. p.18. ProQuest 214350907. In What's So Amazing About Grace? award-winning author Philip Yancey explores grace at street level. If grace is God's love for the undeserving, he asks, then what does it look like in action? And if Christians are its sole dispensers, then how are we doing at lavishing grace on a world that knows far more of cruelty and unforgiveness than it does of mercy? The scene from John 8 rattles me because by nature I identify more with the accusers than the accused. I deny far more than I confess. Cloaking my sin under a robe of respectability, I seldom if ever let myself get caught in a blatant, public indiscretion. Yet if I understand this story correctly, the sinful woman is the nearest the kingdom of God. Indeed, I can only advance in the kingdom if I become like that woman: trembling, humbled, without excuse, my palms open to receive God's grace. We use the word to describe various things. We use the word to describe what we do before a meal: “Say Grace.” We use it to describe a dancer’s fluidity: “She is so graceful.” We use it as a name: “We named our daughter Grace.” Although these are okay, the essence of grace isn’t captured in any of these.

a b "Success ... From Failure". The Herald. Dublin. February 20, 2008. p.16 . Retrieved June 22, 2015.

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This book has honestly changed my perspective on Christianity, religion, politics and my own relationship with Jesus.

The modern Western Christian church is long on judgment and short on grace. As grace is the very virtue that is to set us apart from the rest of the world, this is a huge issue. In this book, Yancey shines a light on our collective failures in this regard, while also highlighting some smaller scale successes in the demonstration of grace and love to the world at large. We have so much room fro improvement, but we’re not without hope. In 2021 Philip released two new books: A Companion in Crisis and his long-awaited memoir, Where the Light Fell. Other favorites included in his more than twenty-five titles are: Where Is God When It Hurts, The Student Bible, and Disappointment with God. Philip's books have won thirteen Gold Medallion Awards from the Evangelical Christian Publishers Association, have sold more than seventeen million copies, and have been published in over 50 languages. Christian bookstore managers selected The Jesus I Never Knew as the 1996 Book of the Year, and in 1998 What’s So Amazing About Grace? won the same award. His other recent books are Fearfully and Wonderfully: The Marvel of Bearing God’s Image; Vanishing Grace: Bringing Good News to a Deeply Divided World; The Question that Never Goes Away; What Good Is God?; Prayer: Does It Make Any Difference?; Soul Survivor; and Reaching for the Invisible God. In 2009 a daily reader was published, compiled from excerpts of his work: Grace Notes. I believe Jesus gave us these stories to call us to step completely outside our tit-for-tat world of ungrace and enter into God’s realm of infinite grace. Detweiler, Craig (2008). A Purple State of Mind: Finding Middle Ground in a Divided Culture. Harvest House. ISBN 978-0-7369-2460-3.

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the proof of spiritual maturity is not how 'pure' you are but awareness of your impurity. That very awareness opens the door to grace. Putting Faith in Doubt: The Editors Interview Philip Yancey". U.S. Catholic. Skokie, Illinois. 66 (2): 18. February 1, 2001 . Retrieved August 10, 2015. Robert was a country boy, who couldn’t stand working in a tight space in the midst of urban chaos - and he soon quit his job, before three months were out. Philip Yancey Discusses 'What Good is God?' ". Express & Star. Wolverhampton. June 3, 2011 . Retrieved July 30, 2015. Regarding his previous and wretched spiritual condition, Newton said, “I was capable of anything. I had not the least fear of God before my eyes.… I not only sinned myself, but made it my study to tempt and seduce others.” 3 Surely, being redeemed out of such a wretched spiritual state, as the hymn described it, helped Newton see and appreciate the matchless grace of God. Later he wrote, “I needed someone to stand between me and a holy God who must punish my sins and blasphemies. I needed an Almighty Savior who would step in and take my sins away.… I saw that Christ took my punishment so that I might be pardoned.” 4

One China expert estimates that the revival in China represents the greatest numerical increase in the history of the Church. In an odd way the government hostility ultimately worked to the church’s advantage. Chinese Christians devoted themselves to worship and evangelism - the original mission of the Church - and did not much concern themselves with politics. They concentrated on changing lives not changing laws. a b c Carrigan, Henry (November 3, 1997). "What's So Amazing About Grace?". Publishers Weekly. New York City. 244 (45): 85. ProQuest 197002471. This book gloriously reverses that trend. Yancy argues that "grace", which he defines as forgiveness (albeit more thoroughly), is the salvation not only of humans as individuals, but of communities and civilizations as well. He offers countless examples of how our human instinct for vengeance (and justice?) poisons and destroys humanity, whereas an enlightened preference for forgiveness preempts the cycle of "ungrace" and leads to peace and, one is tempted to infer, the aforementioned round of kumbaya (though Yancy is too humble to say it himself).Grace—Visual Edition: An artist/designer approached me and said, “We like your books, but truthfully many in the younger generation won’t read a serious book of length. Too much like homework. Would you mind if we took some of the content, mostly the stories, and designed a graphic-heavy book around that content?” He did just that, and I must admit that images convey grace in ways that words cannot. In Galatians chapter 5, Paul lists love and kindness as two of the fruits that should be seen in a believer’s life through the influence of the Holy Spirit. Kindness, mercy, and love are part of what it means to be a Christian; they are part of the evidence of the Holy Spirit’s work in a person’s life. This is Yancey’s indictment of the Christian church—that it too little embodies these kinds of virtues. The church needs to be less judgmental, less negative, more loving. We should pause here to admit that it is exceedingly dangerous to say anything in opposition to an argument like that. One cross word about it, and the reviewer unwittingly condemns himself as a judgmental, unloving negativist, and legitimizes the complaint of the book. So I suppose we must begin with the premise that pointing out error, and that even with some gusto, is not necessarily a bad thing. Jesus, the Apostle Paul, and even Philip Yancey all do it quite frequently. In the final analysis, when compared to the absolute holiness of God, we all fall far short of His holiness and stand as wretched sinners who are separated from God, spiritually dead and without life (Eph. 2:1, 5), and under the condemnation of the moral Law of God. This moral Law (which we have so foolishly removed from the walls of our schools) reveals all the world guilty as sinners (Rom. 3:19), as separated from God, and in need of reconciliation and redemption (Rom. 5:10; 2 Cor. 5:18-20; Col. 1:20-22).

This book contains a good exploration of the concept of grace, not from a heavy theological perspective but a simpler, practical one, by presenting many modern examples of grace in action along side Biblical references. Some of these were very compelling to me and some fell kind of flat for me, just based on the kinds of stories that interest me.Mark Earley". The Washington Post. Washington, D.C. October 25, 2001. p.A25 . Retrieved August 9, 2015. If John were to be asked, 'What is your primary identity in life?' he would not reply, 'I am a disciple, an apostle, an evangelist, an author of one of the four Gospels,' but rather, 'I am the one Jesus loves.'" Brennan Manning Churches Unite 'To Present Something That is Good' ". Herald Express. Devon. August 25, 2011. p.57 . Retrieved August 16, 2015.