Saturday, October 6, 2012

Simple to read, simple to understand, simple to apply



Published by Thomas Nelson, Sept 11, 2012 - 240 pages

I like Max, he never fails to write a good book. If you are familiar with Max Lucado’s books, this one is no different; with that comes the good and the bad.

The good:

Max does a fabulous job illustrating Grace through biblical passages, world events, and personal stories. It's a simple read that anyone can pick up, and quickly understand what grace is without perhaps any past understanding of it. The topic is an important one that all believers, and non-believers need to hear and understand. A counselor, David Seamands, puts it simply “We read, we hear, we believe a good theology of grace. But that’s not the way we live. The good news of the Gospel of grace has not penetrated the level of emotions.” I don’t know about you but I can attest that to be true. I know very little people that get excited and emotional about grace – but we should! This book leads us into the right direction, it attempts to do just that: penetrate the level of our emotions.

The bad/ why this book is not for everyone:

The reason it isn't for everyone is because everyone is on a different spiritual path. If you are looking for a deeper theological, more biblical passage based book that investigates the topic of grace then this book is probably not for you. This is a simple look at grace – many times that's all that people need ‘have a child’s faith’ right? But unfortunately I think we miss out on a lot if we stop at the simple interpretation. There are many other wonderful books on grace and my particular belief is that if you want to study grace, please go ahead and read this book, but don't stop there! I would HIGHLY recommend Philip Yancey’s book ‘What’s so amazing about grace’. With at least these two you may get a better image of grace and not simply Max’s take on it. Don't get me wrong, I like Max’s take but having more than one view is integral to understanding anything.
I just want to thank booksneeze for giving me a copy of this book to review. The thoughts expressed in this review are my own, and I did not have to give a positive review of this book