Philip Yancey ?

I've read most of his books. He looks at every topic he writes on from an angle I'd never thought of, but he does a great job in conveying his thoughts in a very intriguing manner.

He definitely makes you THINK!

I think my favorite is "What's So Amazing About Grace?"

All of them are good though, and generally when I see a new one by him I grab it!

 

Excellent Christian author, one of the best!

 

I read, "The Jesus I Never Knew" this winter. It was very good, he is an excellent writer, though once in awhile you catch some 'facts' that are not quite right.

 

I have a few of his books, I am not all that keen, yet I acknowledge that he is a very good author and no doubt many christians would benefit from his books.

What I did not like was his book "dissapointment with God" and when he had a look at the book of Job, he seemed to portray God in a bad light and did not really do alot to answer the questions that he had raised which I feel in cases can be lazy writing.

 

I have not read any of the books, but am somewhat wary. Check out this article:

http://www.takeheed.net/YANCEY%20&%20lasciviousness.htm

 

Don't take someone elses word for it...read his books and form an opinion based on your own reading.

 

Yes, dont' base on someone else's word . .. however, also don't just blindly read a book assuming it's ok because people you trust say it is . . . even people we have trusted all our lives can be wrong sometimes.

Someone did recommend the grace book to me and I still may read it. I haven't honestly had time or interest in looking into it yet.

 

Margo, I understand what you are saying...I just do not buy anyone's thoughts on any book, article, etc unless they have actually read it for themselves. I think we are cheating ourselves and the author if we do it any other way. There is nothing wrong with reading authors and topics you do not agree with to gain an understanding. I have what I jokingly call a "heretic" shelf in my library. I cannot talk with credibility about it unless I have read it for myself. And it really bothers me to hear people run down a book or an author and then come to find out they have actually never read it personally. They have only been told or read someone else that read them.

 

Here is an interesting article where Philip Yancey is interviewed by the Christian group Sojourmers for there magazine.

http://snipurl.com/dmoj

 

I read "The Jesus I Never Knew" as an assigned reading for a theology course at Southern Seminary...and it was the most beneficial read i had in either block of theology that i took (BTW...it was under Craig Blaising who i think is now at SWBTS).

I have one other book of his that i was given a couple of years ago, but i have not had a chance to read it yet but hope to shortly.

So, from what i read of Yancey, i do recommend him.

 

All my shelves are "heretic shelves," Pastor SBC! Just kidding . . . But according to some Christians, yeah--especially with fiction because, though a great tragedy, most of the Christian fiction in existence has been written by wishy washy sots, and it rots. It's a grave shame.

But I know what ya mean. I guess I just have to be more careful with instructional/theology books because I'm easily confused or taken in at times.

 

Ben W,

That article kind of concerns me? He states "that the world is basically a happy place", is he living in the same world I am living in? For me to get involved with a book, I have to believe and trust the author. Why fill your mind with information thats faulty? I don't have time to log books that I don't believe in.

No Phillip Yancey titles for me. Theres already enough misinformation in the world.


jman

 

The Bible Jesus Read was really good. It did not cover the whole OT, but it gave me much food for thought.

 

Philip Yancey is excellent. I have read most of his books, but not the ones about Paul Brand and his work on leprosy. I need to get those. Next to C.S. Lewis, he is probably my favorite writer.

I think that it should go without saying that ANY book must be read critically. An author can make some good points, but that never means they are right on all points.

For example, I appreciate the writings and commentaries of John MacArthur. But I also realize that, over the years, he has become more and more strident about his Calvinism to the point that he does not believe that God loves all men with a saving love and that God wants all men to come to salvation. So, I still listen to him and read him, but always with a grain of salt.

Yancey is a Wheaton "evangelical," not a Bob Jones "fundamentalist." Just keep that in mind.

 

These were the first I read; kinda like setting the hook in a bass' mouth, I was hooked .

Excellent books!!

 

Well, it is interesting how we can come to such different conclusions. I have read his column for years in Christianity Today and have read a number of his books. I greatly admire Mr. Yancey's writing. Whatever context your quote comes from, I just don't see it representing what he thinks at face value. If anything, over and over, he writes about hard questions. If you had listed a series of quotes and authors, I would NEVER have selected that one for him.

Karen

 

I may be wrong, but if the intended quote [the word is basically a happy place...]is from the interview in Sojo, it is actually:

"I discovered that the world is actually a smiling place, not a scowling place; that God wants me to have a full life, not a half life, not a two-thirds life. It has taken me a long time to be able to make this statement: I truly believe the Christian way of life is the best for us, not just so that God can say, "I made them jump through hoops. I kept them from having a good time."

On a side note, he did write a column in Christianity Today entitled "Doubting the Doomsayers" [http://www.christianitytoday.com/ct/2004/005/23.88.html] where he contends that the world is not as bad a place in many respects (literacy, hunger, disease, poverty) as it used to be.