2023 Book Review #16: What's So Amazing About Grace

 

I just read this book again, after many years, with my husband Dave as we co-led a small group of fellow church members in the study (there's a study guide to go with the chapter book), from last Sept until this Spring.  We started out with 9 of us and now we are down to 6.  It's been a great study and a wonderful review of the very important often overlooked topic of grace and what that should look like for us as Believers in today's world.  Of course you just can't go wrong with Philip Yancey!

SUMMARY OF STUDY

Do we really understand the concept of grace? And more importantly, do we believe in it?  Do our lives proclaim it as powerfully as our words?

This is an exploration at grace and we look at all different kinds of situations: moral, ethical, political, social, economical, spiritual. 
"If grace is God's love for the undeserving, then what does it look like in action? and if Christians are the sole dispensers, then how are we doing at lavishing grace on a cruel and pain-filled world?"  (quote is from the back of the book). The world is seeking grace....can we help them with this or do we push them away?

There are 14 sessions of this study and 18 chapters to read in the book. 

Titles of the chapters are as follows:

1. The Last Best Word

Part One: How Sweet the Sound: 

    2. Babette's Feast: A Story

    3. A World without Grace

    4. Lovesick Father

    5. The New Math of Grace

Part Two: Breaking the Cycle of Ungrace (loved this section)

    6. Unbroken Chain: A Story (a sobering look at unforgiveness/ungrace)

    7. An Unnatural Act

    8. Why Forgive? (one of my faves)

    9. Getting Even

    10. The Arsenal of Grace

Part Three: Scent of Scandal

    11. A Home for Bastards:  A Story

    12. No Oddballs Allowed

    13. Grace-Healed Eyes

    14. Loopholes

    15. Grace Avoidance

Part Four: Grace Notes for a Deaf World (LOVED this section)

    16.  Big Harold:  A Story

    17. Mixed Aroma

    18. Serpent Wisdom

    19. Patches of Green

    20. Gravity and Grace

MY THOUGHTS

I love this book.  Now that I'm a bit more mature since reading it the first time, and after being at our church Grace Fellowship, which really knows how to dispense and model grace, I love it even more.  I've learned alot from the group members and their own experiences.  We have two former Catholics in our group, an Indian couple who are products of an arranged marriage and were both raised in India with Christian families, my husband who was raised in a Unitarian church and didn't meet Christ until his teens; and me who was raised in a legalistic church and got saved as a teen. 

This book is powerful for any Christ-follower/Christian.  It really shows us that sometimes the world only sees the bad/ugly side of Christianity as portrayed by the media but that also some of the so-called Christians in our lives, just don't know how to show grace towards people who are different from them. 

I loved all the examples Yancey uses throughout the book.  Keep in mind this was written in the 1990s so he mentions Aids, Abortion, Homosexuality, Bill Clinton, other 1990s situations in American culture.  We added to the discussion by including what we currently deal with (politics and nationalism in the church (Which we all agree should NOT be a thing); the transgender culture, the other sexual identity issues, gun violence, racism towards all kinds of people groups not just African Americans, homelessness, abuse, divorce, teenage pregnancy, etc.

I love that his writing is real and has compassion in all of the examples (many are true life stories from interviews he has given including one of Bill Clinton which I found very eye opening). 

This book will open up your eyes to the fact that we as a church ( the body of Christ across America) need to do better in dispensing grace.

In my opinion, this book is appropriate for ages 14 and older.

On a scale of 1-10, with 10 being the highest, I rate this a 10.