God in the Whirlwind: How the Holy-love of God Reorients Our World Author: David F. Wells | Language: English | ISBN:
B00HDHUU0S | Format: EPUB
God in the Whirlwind: How the Holy-love of God Reorients Our World Description
Building on years of research, writing, and cross-cultural ministry, renowned author and theologian David Wells calls our attention to that which defines God’s greatness and gives shape to the Christian life: the holy-love of God.
In God in the Whirlwind, Wells explores the depths of the paradox that God is both holy and loving, showing how his holy-love provides the foundation for our understanding of the cross, sanctification, the nature of worship, and our life of service in the world. What’s more, a renewed vision of God's character is the cure for evangelicalism’s shallow theology, with its weightless God and sentimental gospel.
Written by one of evangelicalism’s most insightful minds, this book will help you stand firm in your faith despite the changing winds and raging storms of the modern world.
- File Size: 458 KB
- Print Length: 272 pages
- Publisher: Crossway Books (January 31, 2014)
- Sold by: Amazon Digital Services, Inc.
- Language: English
- ASIN: B00HDHUU0S
- Text-to-Speech: Enabled
X-Ray:
- Lending: Enabled
- Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #37,160 Paid in Kindle Store (See Top 100 Paid in Kindle Store)
- #61
in Kindle Store > Kindle eBooks > Nonfiction > Religion & Spirituality > Christianity > Reference > Theology
- #61
in Kindle Store > Kindle eBooks > Nonfiction > Religion & Spirituality > Christianity > Reference > Theology
Introduction
I know generalizations can sometimes be unhelpful and someone can always point out an exception, but I think it’s fair to say that the expression of Christianity in the West in this day and age is often shallow; moralistic therapeutic deism commonly masquerades as the Christian faith, and God is seen as a cosmic Santa Clause and/or “buddy Jesus.” David Wells firmly believes that what has been principally lost in the evangelical Church is a biblical understanding of God’s character – a character that has weight; a character Wells sums up in his latest book as “holy-love.” In five previous interconnected volumes (1. No Place for Truth: Or Whatever Happened to Evangelical Theology?; 2. God in the Wasteland: The Reality of Truth in a World of Fading Dreams; 3. Losing Our Virtue: Why The Church Must Recover Its Moral Vision; 4. Above All Earthly Pow’rs: Christ in a Postmodern World; 5. The Courage to be Protestant: Truth-Lovers, Marketers, and Emergents in the Postmodern World), Wells answered from a cultural perspective the question of what accounts for the loss of the Church’s theological character. In this new book, God in the Whirlwind, he has shifted his focus to the “Christ” part of the Christ-and-culture issue.
Overview
Wells begins in chapter 1 by declaring that “[o]ur destination is the character of God. We are taking a journey into ‘the Father’s heart,’ as A.W. Tozer put it” (15). Our goal in life is to know God, enjoy God, love God, serve God, glorify God. In this book, Wells takes us on a journey into God’s character, which he sums up as holy-love. Then he highlights two challenges to knowing God – culture and distractions.
I usually make a few notes when reading a book for review. While reading, “God in the Whirlwind,” I found myself making notes from almost every page. It was then I knew I was reading an exceptional book. In fact, after making so many notes, I finally just decided to “highlight” what I thought were important parts. Yes, that ended up being most of the book!!
David Wells spells out so clearly what I have “felt” for a long time but have been unable to put into words. There is something wrong in the churches and in Christianity today. In the book, Mr. Wells explains that we no longer understand God’s character, his Holy-Love. Today we hear a lot about God’s love but not much about his Holiness. In fact, the author states:
“We have become inclined to think of God as our Therapist. It is comfort, healing, and inspiration that we want most deeply, so that is what we seek from Him. That too, is what we want from our church experience. We want it to be comforting, uplifting, inspiring, and easy on the mind. We do not want it to be something that requires effort or concentration. We want God to be accepting and nonjudgmental.”
This is not what God calls us to be and to do. We are not to be served, but to serve God and others. We are to take up our cross and follow Jesus. Our culture says “God is Love - He won’t send anyone to Hell”:
“Love is the only attribute of God we can come close to understanding. We don’t really comprehend eternality, omnipresence, omniscience, and omnipotence. But we think we understand love, our love and God’s love”. (But the author says our assumptions are wrong.) “We are beginning not with who God has revealed Himself to be, but with our intuitions as to who we think He is. We are making projections from ourselves.
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