The Grace and Truth Paradox: Responding with Christlike Balance | Randy Alcorn

The Grace and Truth Paradox: Responding with Christlike Balance | Randy Alcorn | Powerful but Brief!!!

books:

The Grace and Trut...

	The Grace and Truth Paradox: Responding with Christlike Balance Randy Alcorn Multnomah Books, 2003 - 96 pages average customer review:based on 19 reviews view larger image
	for more information click here

highly recommended

Super Book

Randy Alcorn really gives you a great understanding of what it's like to be a "balanced" Christian. Not just full of Grace at the expense of Truth or vice versa but that it takes dependence on the Holy Spirit to provide discernment at that moment of decision to dispense truth and/or grace as required.
Mr. Alcorn really cut to the heart of the matter in letting us know that being a Christian means dispensing Truth and Grace in the relativistic society that we live in.

Powerful but Brief!!!

Randy Alcorn has written a small treatise on grace and truth, and while using Scripture and personal examples, he appeals to Christians to pursue balance between the both. In one chapter after another, he focuses first on grace and then truth, and contends that the balanced Christian life must have both, and with a truth-centered Christianity, one runs the risk of being legalistic, but in a grace-centered Christianity, one also runs the risk of being overly nice, with the truth taking a back seat.

It is a nicely woven theme, and can be read in one sitting, although the reader might want to chew on one chapter at a time. A powerful treatise, though, and it's right to the point!!

Highly recommended!!!

for more information click here

DON'T LET ITS SIZE FOOL YOU - ONE OF THE MOST IMPORTANT BOOKS IN CHRISTENDOM

What's the problem with most Christians today? Either they're gung-ho on Truth or they're gung-ho on Grace. What was wrong with the religious Jews of Jesus' day? Either they were gung-ho on Truth (the Pharisees) or they were gung-ho on Grace (the Sadducees). But John 1:14,17 says that Jesus Christ was full of Grace AND Truth. You can't have one without the other and be like Christ.

Randy Alcorn does a masterful job at fleshing out what is probably the biggest problem with the church today - why we're not more like Jesus - and he does so with the smallest number of words (only 92 pages) in the smallest amount of space (only 6.5" x 4.75" size book). It doesn't take long to read, but there's enough meat there to meditate on for an entire year, and to spend the rest of your life trying to master.

But it's really pretty simple: Grace + Truth = Christ-like love. If it's so simple, how come we keep missing it? Using examples from scripture, his own ministry, and popular as well as church culture, Randy examines this question and helps us come up with an answer that works. My favorite part of the book is his discussion of the song "Amazing Grace" - where it came from (a former slave trader) and the impact it's had on countless lives (especially blacks).

This book will have an impact on your life as well. It's small enough not to intimidate yet loaded enough to satisfy even the most voracious spiritual appetite. Plus, it's inexpensive enough to make a perfect gift. This is one book that ought to be on every Christian's bookshelf, and its message needs to be in every Christian heart.

Waitsel Smith

for more information click here

A VERY VITAL RIGHT BALANCE: Love/GRACE and Truth...

Randy Alcorn has written a wonderful little teaching book on
how to recognize the right and righteous balance between the
vital and CHRISTLIKE attributes of Grace *and* Truth. - To be
an effective ambassador for Christ and His Kingdom we must learn
to discern AND WALK IN both areas of divine concern. This little
masterpiece is as helpful as any you will likely ever read on "the
divine balance" between these two *seeming* paradoxes to GOD's
nature and ministry to a fallen world. highly recommended.

Short, Concise, Good

"In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God... And the Word became flesh and dwelt among us, and we have seen his glory, glory as of the only Son from the Father, full of grace and truth" (John 1). Jesus, our Lord and our God, was and is full of grace and truth. We, his people, have far too often been anything but. It is this paradox, the paradox between grace and truth, that is the subject of a small book by Randy Alcorn (only 96 pages), part of the "Lifechange Books" series.

Alcorn says, "People had only to look at Jesus to see what God is like. People today should only have to look at us to see what Jesus is like. For better or worse, they'll draw conclusions about Christ from what they see in us. If we fail the grace test, we fail to be Christlike. If we fail the truth test, we fail to be Christlike. If we pass both tests, we're like Jesus." And our world is in desperate need of Jesus, and the fullness of His grace and truth.

There sometimes seems to be a conflict between grace and truth. So many Christians appear to emphasize one or the other but so few seem to be able to maintain both. Alcorn teaches balance, but not a balance of 50 percent grace and 50 percent truth, but a Christlike balance of 100 percent grace and 100 percent truth. The Grace and Truth Paradox examines how we can resolve the apparent contradiction between these two ideals. The model is, of course, Jesus, who never sacrificed perfection in either grace or truth. He never emphasized one at the expense of the other.

The solution the author provides is biblically sound. He shows that we can be filled with grace while never compromising the truth. He shows that grace and truth are, in reality, inseparable, for often withholding truth is tantamount to withholding grace. He shows that, ultimately, the grace and truth paradox is also a paradigm - a way of looking at and understanding life. People need the direction of truth to know where to go and the empowerment of grace to get there. Anything less than both grace and truth is neither.

I enjoyed this book and found it challenging to my faith. In fact, the only real problem I had with the book was that Alcorn turned to the old, tired, sad cliché of contrasting Mother Teresa and Hitler as the pinnacles of good and evil. Surely we can do better than that! Still, this is a biblical and satisfying book and one I am glad to recommend.

for more information click here

reviews: 1, 2, page 3, 4

products you might be interested in