About the Book:

What would our common life be like if Christians were known not only for speaking truth, but also for demonstrating mercy? Marvin Olasky, best-selling author and editor in chief of World Magazine describes this kind of salty Christianity in a far-ranging collection of columns from World.

As Dr. Olasky comments on world events and also shares his personal interactions, readers will be encouraged to bring both grace and truth to every encounter. While deeply committed to standing for biblical truth in the public square, Olasky is just as interested in Christians living out the biblical virtues of humility, kindness, and mercy in all of life. His call for biblical values to include both truth and grace, makes his voice stand out in a world that often falsely divides those goals and settles for a poor imitation of the robust Christianity he calls readers to.

Curated collection of World columns that offer the best of Marvin Olasky. Sets forth a much needed vision for how Christians can speak truth and demonstrate mercy at the same time. A wonderful collection that all readers of World Magazine will want to have for their own library and an extra copy to share with a friend.

Why I Choose this Book:

I’m trying to expand my own worldview – learning more about what’s happening around me in the world today, as well as studying the recent past and learning from it. (As opposed to just focusing on the distant past.) Plus, our family has subscribed to World for a long time, so to read a book composed of World articles sounded interesting.

What I Thought about this Book:

 

Folks, this book is not one to sit down and read quickly. Most of the time I read the books I get for review rather fast – partly because I like to read fast, and also because having a deadline forces me to do so. I was able to take ten days to read this book (and just spent the last hour finishing it), but if I could have read it at my own pace, I think I would have taken several weeks, or even several months.

There are over 50 articles in this book – ranging over a period of about twenty years. It was so interesting for me to read articles that he wrote in the 1990s, and realize that these were the things going around in our country/the world when I was a small girl running around barefoot without a care in the world.

I don’t actually remember reading any of his articles in World, although that will be changing now that I’ve been introduced to his writing via this book. I was happily surprised at how unapologetic and yet grace-filled he was when sharing the truth. He didn’t bash, stoop, or condemn, but he stood strong and eloquent. He wrote his articles with grace and truth – just as the tagline on the book states.

With this being such a wonderful book, why did I wish I could have read it over a longer period of time? Because the articles were quite thought-provoking and deep. I’m pretty good at skimming and still getting the meat of what I read, but this book required my whole attention, as well as reading every word on the page. I also wanted to be able to sit back and mull over his thoughts, to turn them about in my brain and let them marinate. He has a lot of good stuff to say, as well as talking about issues that I’m not very familiar with. In addition to all that, some of his examples and vocabulary were foreign to me, and therefore I want to have more time to study them out and gain a better knowledge of what he was talking about.