Common Grace : How to Be a Person... | Buy

Summary

In the Christian world, there is Special Grace, which is knowledge of God through the life and teachings of Jesus Christ. On the other hand, Common Grace is what a person can know of God through everyday life-experiences with family and friends, observance of the natural world. This is a book about the spiritual and moral pathways that can inform one's everyday life. With the natural skills of a gifted preacher, Anthony Robinson connects stories and anecdotes to biblical wisdom and offers up valuable, useful, and inspiring lessons for life. Common Grace is divided in thirds: first he address the personal, the individual, the self. Next, he relies on the notion that a person is a person because of other people, and he moves to the next concentric circle of family and personal relationships. The third part of the book is about being a person in the world, interacting and contributing to the institutions and make up a society.Anthony Robinson is a preacher who hails from the intellectual (not the dogmatic) branch of Christian thinking and practice. From that perspective he offers up thoughtful considerations on being a parent, the power of the blessing (and how that simple social grace has been somewhat abused lately), the moments that remind us that we don't just move through this life alone, the significance of forgiveness (and how to do it in case you have forgotten), how selfishness (another form of gluttony) has become a popular lifestyle. He even has some wonderful-and not the usual-words about Christmas.Robinson is a charismatic and deeply thoughtful preacher (indeed, he teaches other preachers how to preach). This isn't a book of sermons, but the he brings the tools of good preaching to the printed page with effective results.

Introduction

PART ONE: ON FAITH

I Believe in Believing

(7)

Faith and Its Distortions

(8)

On Grace

(5)

The Other Side of Grace

(7)

Revelation

(4)

Dreams

(5)

Gospel: Problem and Paradox

(6)

Beware of Perfection

(4)

The Other Face of Perfection

(7)

Suffering

(8)

Get a Way of Life

(4)

The General Dance

(5)

Christmas

(6)

Blessing

(6)

PART TWO: ON RELATIONSHIPS

A Person Is a Person Because of Other Persons

(6)

The Blessed Trial: On Being a Parent

(6)

Hyper-Parenting

(6)

Being a Grown-Up

102

(6)

The Prayer My Father Taught Me

108

(4)

Friendship

112

(7)

Marriage: What's the Point?

119

(8)

Singing of Sex: Re-Reading the Song of Songs

127

(3)

Social Medicine: Forbearance and Forgiveness

130

(10)

What Are Fathers For?

140

(5)

Death Diminished

145

(9)

PART THREE: ON SOCIETY

Notes of a Field-Based Scholar: A View of Ministry

154

(5)

Community

159

(5)

The Problem of Pluralism

164

(7)

Grievance Gluttony

171

(3)

Jesus and Darwin

174

(4)

Citizens or Taxpayers?

178

(5)

Prophets: True or False?

183

(6)

Race and Repentance

189

(6)

In a Time of War

195

(6)

The Gay Divide

201

(6)

Technology and Human Values

207

(6)

Holy Stories

213

(6)

Who Are Those Christians?

219

(7)

At the Hinge of History: Postmodernity

226

(13)

Endnotes

239

Supplemental Materials

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