Two chapters into Andy Stanley’s The Grace of God and I wasn’t sure I was going to be able to finish. Even this book and word lover (and Andy Stanley fan) was finding ALL THE WORDS awfully boring. I am of the sort which cannot not finish a book though so I determined to move on. About halfway through the book I found the rhthym to the writing and idea behind each chapter. Towards the end I hit the chapter “Filled By Grace” and I knew that was the reason I’d read the book. Powerful chapter about relying on God’s grace to fill us.
Beth Moore says on the front of the book that “Andy Stanley has captured grace with a wide-angle lens.” Practically what that means is this book uses each chapter to retell the Bible in chronological order, choosing a Biblical character for each to draw out how grace was woven into God’s story from the beginning.
After having just read the Bible through at the beginning of the year I have to admit that a lot of it was redundant. However, perhaps because I had just read it I could appreciate the additional history behind each story. How come I didn’t remember that Matthew was a hated tax-collector named Levi? Why didn’t I remember that after Nicodemus went to visit Jesus at night, he was there for his burial after the resurrection? Little things like this and even bigger things like political and cultural facts surrounding each story helped me understand these Biblical stories and gave me a greater understanding of God’s grace in each of them. More than that, it was a great reminder that I’m a lot more like the Jews than the Gentiles and I a lot to work on where grace is concerned.
I think for many this book has the capability to completely change your viewpoints on Biblical stories and grace. For me, it wasn’t one I will call my favorite but I definitely had some takeaways and think it was worth the read.
I was provided Grace of God by BookSneeze in exchange for this blog post. All thoughts and opinions are my own.