Jared C. Wilson

Rather than treating the gospel as a required add-on to the typical sermon or worship service, Jared Wilson is convinced that its dimensions – its heights, lengths, and depths – should be searched and studied. Believers should marvel at the “deep and rich. And beautiful. Multifaceted. Expansive. Powerful. Overwhelming. Mysterious. But vivid, too, and clear. Illuminating. Transforming. And did I mention big?” gospel (17). A lifetime of study could never uncover all of that it show more contains.

Yet many churches in evangelicalism are completely missing the multifaceted beauty of the gospel because they have diminished it to a transaction. They’ve turned the gospel into the thing one hears just before they become a Christian. “The central problem with the evangelical church’s mostly truncated gospel (or its simply transactional gospel formula) is that it misses out on these depths” (19).

In response to his growing concern of this lack, and out of his own experience as he “awoke” to the gospel (see Gospel Wakefulness), the author attempts to lift high this wondrous gospel and examine its wonders, examining it one piece at a time, each facet in light of the whole, until the reader experiences the same sense of elation and amazement that prompted the book in the first place.

And he succeeds in this endeavor.

Wilson’s admiration of the splendor of Christ is contagious. Each chapter traces an aspect of the glories of the gospel of Christ through the pages of Scripture and draws the reader to worship. Soon, the reader discovers, the gospel is something much bigger than an eternal transaction. The gospel is the air we breathe. The gospel is the love that with which God loves us. The gospel is the promise of the restoration of the cosmos. The gospel is the atoning, sacrificial work of the eternal second-person of the Triune God who, by his death, burial, and resurrection, who propitiates God’s wrath, expiates sin, sanctifies the believer, and promises to bring that sanctification to completion in the last days.

One concern, however, that began to develop as I read this book was the semantic width of the term, “gospel.” How do we define the gospel? And if, in defining the term, one includes the demonstration of man’s need for the “gospel,” and utilizes the entirety of the Biblical witness to reveal and explore this need, where do we draw the line of distinction between “gospel” and “Scripture”? Should such a line exist in the first place?

I fear that lost in the gospel-centered movement (which I’m for, by the way) is any sense of distinguishing the gospel from the Biblical witness as a whole. Where does the gospel end? Does it?

My fear is that by losing such a distinction, the term gospel could actually become useless. If it can mean everything and refer to every text, then why use it at all. That would be akin to referring to the texts in Scripture that are written with words. In order to make the gospel explicit, in order to experience its depths and place it at the center, this task will need to be taken up.

With that concern raised, Gospel Deeps is a brilliant endeavor to explore and marvel at what God has done, and to encourage the reader to experience anew the wonder of their salvation and their great big God. show less

I jumped at the chance to review this book because Book of Ruth is one of my favorite books of the Bible. Ruth's devotion to her mother-in-law and her willingness to go with Naomi to a foreign land has always touched me but we have to remember that widowed Naomi was risking a lot to take a pagan daughter-in-law back to her homeland. We know that in the end, both Naomi and Ruth were blessed beyond measure. Naomi once again had a family and Ruth found a godly husband, and it is from Ruth's show more marriage to Boaz that the bloodline of David began.

In his introduction to Ruth: Redemption for the Broken, author Jared C. Wilson reminds us that "if you belong to Jesus by faith, Ruth is your family story. It is your spiritual heritage, more personal and true and lasting than if you had discovered an old scrapbook in your grandmother's attic." In eight lessons, Wilson helps us to better understand our spiritual heritage and I liked that he is consistent in his teaching plan. In each lesson he uses the same elements: a summary of the main point of the lesson; Bible Scripture; his own thoughts; a discussion; an exercise or lesson, with a space to jot down your answers; and a wrap-up and prayer. He also shares Leader's Notes at the end of the book to give us even more instruction.

This book would be considered short by many standards but in its 111 pages there is a wealth of information! I recommend Ruth: Redemption for the Broken for both personal study or for an organized group study.

I received this book from New Growth Press but there was no obligation to write a positive review. These are my own opinions. show less

Jared Wilson is one of those people who can just flat out write. Whether it's on his blog, his many books, or his strange obsession with Tom Brady on twitter, his writing is always full of snarky remarks, but also deep insights into the gospel. His new book The Story Telling God is no exception. In it he takes on the parables of not only Jesus, but the rest of the bible as well.

Wilson reflects on the parables that goes beyond them being sermon illustrations, and instead shows us that they show more contain the deep truths of the Kingdom of God. He reminds us

"When Jesus teaches a parable He is not opening a copy of Chicken Soup For the Soul, or a fortune cookie but a window to the hidden heavenlies. He is revealing a glimpse of eternity crashing into time, a flash photo of His own wisdom brought to bear."

Rather than teaching the parables as moralistic fables, Wilson shows us the the meaning of parable is to explode the truth of the gospel into our hearts and minds. The literal meaning of parable in the Greek is just that, to come along side of. They run along with the teachings of Jesus and get down into our hearts and mind and expose the truth in immediate ways.

He also encourages us to not spend too long looking for every hidden meaning. What kind of lily did Jesus mean? What kind of rock was the rocky soil? Igneous or sedimentary? We make two main errors in parables, he says. When we simply believe they are religious illustrations, or simple allegories, we miss the point. We miss the point as well when we think of them as a Magic Eye hidden picture, where if we stare at it long enough we will see the hidden picture. This is, in my opinion, just a form of Gnosticism, where only a elite few can really get the point of the parables.

Leaving the parables of Jesus, Wilson walks us through some of the major parables of the Old Testament as well. He shows us that an oft overlooked point of the Bible is that God is a God of stories. He quickly goes through several prominent OT parables, like Nathan before David, the broken garden in Isaiah 5, and the prophet Ezekiel, whose whole book is almost one big parable.

The book shows us that we cannot understand how the kingdom works without someone showing us.

"Time and time again we think we know how this thing works, but time and time again we are wrong. Jesus' disciples thought they knew how revolution would come; you bring it by sword. But this is not how the revolution came, and Jesus rebuked those who tried to bring it with physical violence. Time and time again the church thinks we know how people change. We tell people to get their act together, of course. And then we are surprised when this doesn't seem to work. Why can't we just nag someone into spiritual maturity?"

This book is not what I thought it would be when I picked it up. I thought it would be a word by word walk through the parables, in commentary fashion. But I was pleasantly surprised when Wilson took time to guide us through to see that when Jesus point to "real life" scenarios He is showing us there is "realer life" to be had. Wilson's strong dependence on the grace of God and amazement at the way God works moves me to behold the working of God in new light.

I encourage anyone to read this book who is looking to understand some of the parables that Jesus teaches through. But Wilson shows not only what it means, but why it means it, and how we can see God in them show less

Do you feel like you don't measure up? Do you feel like your life is a disappointment? Does it seem like you just can't get your act together? Do you wonder if your sin is too strong, your repentance too weak, your discipline too sporadic, for God to love you?

Jared writes in his 1 1/8 page hope-giving conclusion, "You are not the sum of your spiritual accomplishments and religious devotion. You are a great sinner, yes. But you have a great Savior."

Jared writes with great warmth - you'll feel show more like you're sitting down over a cup of coffee with a guy who gets you - and as you consider all your well-rehearsed self-condemnation, he blows you away with the Gospel of a God who receives sinners. No, not just receives - loves sinners. His candor about his own life and the acceptance of God will not fail to encourage you.

If you are tempted to despair - if discouragement has hold of your heart - grab this book and let the fresh, sweet-fragranced breeze of the Gospel blow in your soul and awaken hope in an all-sufficient Savior. show less