Philip Yancey

I began this, wondering what more could be said about Jesus? Werent we all familiar with every incident in the Bible?
It's an absolutely BRILLIANT read !
Yancey raises all kinds of questions: beginning with the Sunday school portrayal of him - a "sweet Victorian nanny" urging children to be nice. "But how?" he asks, "would telling people to be nice to one another get a man crucified?" How come sinners so liked to be around him- yet today often feel unwelcome in a church?
Yancey considers events show more in Jesus' life: the Temptation: "In the dark about the Incarnation, Satan did not know for certain whether Jesus was an ordinary man or a theophany or perhaps an angel with limited powers like himself"...he views their encounter as "single combat warriors" who "treat each other with a kind of wary respect,, like two boxers circling one another in the ring.". The Beatitudes (how can the poor be "blessed"? and the sheeer impossibility of the exhortation to "be perfect" (arent we doomed to fail?)
The miracles: Why did Jesus at Cana rebuke his mother "my time has not yet come" but then decide to turn water to wine anyway? Yancey imagines him deciding that his time HAD come- the start of his ministry, the celebrity as news of his powers got out..."A clock would start ticking that would not stop until Calvary".
And Death, Resurrection, Ascencion ("Why? Would it not have been better...if Jesus had stayed on earth?"

I think the overwhelming message that came through was FREEDOM ; God wanting us to willingly follow Him. "Consistently Jesus refused to use coercive power. He knowingly let one of his disciples betray him and then surrendered himself without protest to his captors."
Yancey ponders God's kingdom: it "has no geographical borders...it lives and grows on the inside of human beings. Those of us who follow Jesus thus possess a kind of dual citizenship...an external kingdom of family, cities and nationhood, while at the same time belonging to the kingdom of God."

This is just a brilliant book, and I'm going to re-read it immediately and take notes. (and I dont normally do that!) HIGHLY recommended. show less

Philip Yancey's previous books have captured my attention and made me think carefully about my faith and how I communicate it to others. "The Jesus I Never Knew" and "Finding God in Unexpected Places" were refreshing reminders that God will never be contained within the limits of human understanding: He's big and He's good and He loves in ways we'll never grasp this side of Heaven.

While "Where the Light Fell" is a memoir rather than a thematic nonfiction work, it was a challenge to find much show more light. It's an engaging page-turner. I was glued to the account of a single mom bringing up two boys in the South in the 50's and 60's under the influence of unfriendly and unyielding churches that valued good behavior over grace. Reviews and publicity compare it to "Educated," and the two accounts are similar in many ways.

Late in the book, we discover how the heavy and hurtful events that split his family eventually led Philip to genuine faith, forgiveness, and healing. Even so, I'm afraid the accounts of overbearing churches and their overzealous members will discourage faith-seekers to explore what it means to be part of a healthy (albeit imperfect) local church.

We know from his other books that Philip discovered joy and peace through a genuine relationship with Jesus. If you'd like to help an unbelieving friend to discover it for himself, I'd suggest loaning him one of those. show less

Philip Yancey offers us a rare opportunity to travel the world as his companions, searching for what happens when faith “confronts the real world”, in his latest work "What Good is God?: In Search of a Faith that Matters". This illuminating book follows Yancey as he treks, both as a writer and a speaker, to ten different locations across the globe, from Green Lake, Wisconsin, where he spends time with professional sex workers and those trying to help them find another way of life to show more Mumbai, India in the midst of the 2008 “26/11” attacks, in which ten coordinated terrorist attacks shook the country to its core.

As an avid reader and an admitted admirer of Yancey, based on the book’s title, I admit that I still expected a rote pain-in-a-box essay on Christian suffering. This guy, however, seldom delivers the “expected”. Once again, I caught myself in a wonderful literary surprise! "What Good is God?" is a blessed peek into Earth’s pain and joy! Yancey takes us to places like a humorous (in hind-sight) conservative Bible college in the 1960’s to the vulnerable, yet saving, grace of addiction. All the while, he does so with a poignant, relevant description of the history surrounding the locale, coupled with a Jesus-centered (spoken) message to its inhabitants. The combination is Yancey at his best.

Each of the author’s ten venues is a captivating glimpse into what it means to build His Kingdom in our own part of the world―about what it means to live on a planet covered by a grace we can’t comprehend. In fact, “grace” is God’s theme, witnessed by people here in the States and those fifteen time zones away. Yancey covers the seemingly impossible growth of the Church in China, the world’s most populous nation. He delves into Mao’s “Cultural Revolution”, in which almost all Christian missionaries were evicted from the country. Decades later Christianity has not only survived, this author has seen, but flourished beyond any one’s imagination. And Yancey delicately describes the tension, and winds of change, that exist between the West’s capitalism and the East’s tradition.

We’re also invited to visit the Virginia Tech campus after Seung-hui Cho’s 2007 senseless killings. And South Africa during the redemption of apartheid. One of my favorite stops was at the University of Cambridge in the United Kingdom, where Yancey reflects on the profound impact C.S. Lewis personally had on him.

For a journey into the depths of God’s grace, and His mind-blowing work around the world, Philip Yancey covers the globe in "What Good is God?" His wisdom and understanding of Jesus’ work on Earth, both historically and biblically, is a trip into the unknown for most Westerners. Yet its familiar strain of God's grace will ring true to all believers who have witnessed His transforming power in their everyday lives. show less

Reading Philip Yancey’s work is like sitting down with a wise, sensitive friend who opens himself up with vulnerable transparency, as a fellow sojourner rather than a spiritual expert. As I read "Prayer", my clumsy attempts to commune with my Creator and the insecurities that hang over me as I search for intimacy with God faded into earthly insignificance. Yancey weaves a poignant picture of a loving God who craves relationship with me in all my utter humanity. As I read the last couple show more sentences of this book, I knew I had received a precious gift: a deeper understanding of what it means to be a friend of God.

Yancey begins with an insightful discourse on “Keeping Company with God” and continues to wax eloquently about the mysteries, the language and the practice of prayer. He also boldly delves into prayer dilemmas. Each topic is sprinkled with nuggets of Truth and revelations that had me jotting notes, smiling, crying, and sometimes singing praises to Jesus.

Surprisingly, some of this book’s most profound insights don’t come from its author. In each chapter, Yancey generously shares a variety of blessed “inserts”—myriad short stories, poems, and testimonies about prayer written by others. The honest cries of other souls yearning for connection with our Maker often left me breathless, humbled and a little less lonely. Furthermore, Yancey shows no fundamentalist bias in his selections, with contributions from across the globe, as diverse as Christ-followers themselves.

"Prayer" is full of wonderfully enlightening analogies, Biblical references, and quotes. I loved the author’s likening of confession—an especially difficult concept for me in light of God’s omniscience—to the healing that comes after asking a spouse for forgiveness about a sin they are both acutely aware. Another of my favorite sections was “Battering the Gates”, full of familiar Bible stories: the widow nagging the judge for justice; the guest incessantly banging on his neighbor’s door for some decent hospitality; the years Hannah spent begging for a child. These reminders gave me renewed passion for those requests I’ve been presenting for many, many years, seemingly without a response from God.

Not only is this book the single best piece I’ve ever read on prayer, it may be one of the best books I’ve ever read on Christian spirituality. So clearly did I see God’s longing for me to be with Him as I read "Prayer", that I repeatedly paused with the book open on my lap to carry on a conversation with my Lord. show less