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NONFICTION
BOOK INDEX |
What
should the world see when it looks at us? Christ. But we've
come up with hundreds of principles and thousands of rules
attempting to be Christlike. It's
too complicated to wrap our minds around. And Christ gets
buried under lists, rules and formulas.
John 1:14 boils down for us what it means to be Christlike. It
means to be full of only two things: Grace and Truth. Instead
of a dozen, this gives us just two balls to juggle. It's
succinct, a two point checklist of Christlikeness. Everything
we do can and should be measured by the test of grace and
truth.
Christlikeness means living by grace and truth, extending both
to others. Instead of the world's apathy and tolerance, we
offer grace. Instead of the world's relativism and deception,
we offer truth.
If we minimize grace the world sees no hope for salvation. If
we minimize truth, the world sees no need for salvation. To
show the world Jesus, we must offer full-orbed, unabridged
truth and grace, magnifying both, never downsizing or
apologizing for either.
The grace question:
Why did sinners want to be around Jesus, but don't want to be
around us?
The truth question:
Why did sinners crucify Jesus, but have no problem with us?
Truth without grace breeds a self-righteousness legalism that
poisons the church and pushes the world away from Christ.
Grace without truth breeds moral indifference and keeps people
from seeing their need for Christ.
Truth is quick to post warning signs and guardrails. Yet it
fails to empower people to drive safely, to avoid plunging off
the cliff, and fails to help them when they crash. Grace is
quick to post ambulances and paramedics at the bottom of the
cliff. But without truth, it fails to post warning signs and
build guardrails, and therefore encourages the very
self-destruction it attempts to heal.
Grace without truth deceives people, and ceases to be grace.
Truth without grace crushes people, and ceases to be truth.
Any attempt to "soften" the gospel by minimizing truth
ultimately keeps the world from grace. Any attempt to
"toughen" the gospel by minimizing grace keeps the world from
the greatest truth—His redemptive work on man's behalf. Christ
went to the cross, in the ultimate act of grace, because He
would not ignore the truth of His holiness and our sin. Grace
never ignores or violates truth—rather, it offers restitution
and joy by satisfying Truth's demands. ("Go and sin no more.")
Like a binary star consisting of two suns that revolve around
each other, truth and grace are equal and inseparable. Luther
said the devil doesn't care which side of the horse we fall
off of—as long as we don't stay in the saddle. A saddle has
two stirrups. To stay in the saddle, the church needs to mount
the horse with one foot solidly in the stirrup of truth, and
the other solidly in the stirrup of grace.
Grace and truth make us live in such a way that there is no
human explanation for our lives—in the absence of human
explanation, people turn to God as the reason behind what they
see. Our children, our neighbors, and we ourselves long for
Jesus—we can offer Him only by offering His grace and truth. |
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Reader Responses |
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This book (The Grace & Truth Paradox) is an amazing delight that brings together grace and truth in a way that makes it crystal clear and puts it in a new perspective! Randy Alcorn has an incredible way of explaining these two crucial descriptions of Jesus. It will help you in reaching the unsaved, the make-believer, the legalistic, the "seeker sensitive," the confused and those who are burdened, or discouraged. I have never seen such clear truths in a book presented in such a fabulous way. There is not one shred of anything remotely unbiblical. Refreshing to read something so right on and helpful. I keep reading it over and over. A must-read. -K. B. |
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Endorsements |
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"Reading a Randy Alcorn
book is like opening a treasure chest. This is truth seasoned
with grace and presented with excellence. A jewel you dare not
pass up!"
- Hank Hanegraaff, host of The Bible Answer Man, author of
The Covering
"The Grace and Truth Paradox may very well be to our
generation what Francis Schaeffer's Mark of the Christian was
to his."
- The Right Books
"I'm not a big fan of very short and easy reads, since in my
experience most are as superficial as their size suggests, but
Randy Alcorn's The Grace and Truth Paradox (Multnomah, 2003)
is simple but elegant in its succinct presentation of the
mighty truth that grace and telling the truth work together."
- Marvin Olasky, editor-in-chief, World magazine, May 3,
2003
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