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Takeaway: Start with your own sinfulness and the other’s humanness

Next week I am going to talk to a small group of college students about how to disagree with others as Christians.  I think this is a particularly important topic.  Luckily I found this book just in time.  Coincidentally, Mouw was on Krista Tippet’s NPR show On Being last week.  The interview has a good overview of the book (although focused more on civility between Christians and non-Christians.)

Mouw quotes Martin Marty’s observation, “One of the real problems in modern life is that people who are good at being civil often lack strong conviction and people who have strong convictions often lack civility.”  This book is his attempt at trying to encourage a “convicted civility”.  Mouw’s civility is not ‘niceness’.  Civility has the root purpose of acknowledging the other person’s Imageo Dei (Image of God).

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Takeaway: The church, God’s people, are on mission, or should be.

Purchase Links: Paperback, Kindle Edition, Audible.com Audiobook

I picked up this book on a whim.  I did not know anything about the book or author.  I have been reading books on the bible and theology.  I was out of audiobooks and liked the idea of a series on Biblical Theology.  I was very surprised how good this was.  Christopher Wright is a former seminary professor in India and for the last 10 years has headed the foundation that was started by John Stott to facilitate training of international Christian leaders.

After some research I found out that Christopher Wright is best known for his monumental book Mission of God.  Mission of God was the 2007 Christianity Today Missions Book of the Year.  It tracks how the mission of God is developed throughout the bible.  Wright makes significant contrabutions on how the mission of God is developed in the Old Testament.

The Mission of God’s People builds on his earlier book by asking the next question, What is the mission of the church? Or how does God use his people for his mission?  This is a very biblically focused book that seems to build on the earlier book, but is focused on how the people of God are being used by God for his mission.  Again, Wright spends a good amount of time on the Old Testament.

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