With a week left to go before we begin, I wanted to remind you of the next Reading Classics Together. One week from today I will begin reading a classic Christian book and I’d love it if you’d read along with me (and with several hundred others).
The book we will be reading is The Cross of Christ by John Stott. Here is a brief description:
The work of a lifetime, from one of the world’s most influential thinkers, about the heart of the Christian faith. “I could never myself believe in God, if it were not for the cross… . In the real world of pain, how could one worship a God who was immune to it?”
With compelling honesty John Stott confronts this generation with the centrality of the cross in God’s redemption of the world- a world now haunted by the memories of Auschwitz, the pain of oppression and the specter of nuclear war. Can we see triumph in tragedy, victory in shame? Why should an object of Roman distaste and Jewish disgust be the emblem of our worship and the axiom of our faith? And what does it mean for us today?
Now from one of the foremost preachers and Christian leaders of our day comes theology at its readable best, a contemporary restatement of the meaning of the cross. At the cross Stott finds the majesty and love of God disclosed, the sin and bondage of the world exposed. More than a study of the atonement, this book brings Scripture into living dialogue with Christian theology and the twentieth century. What emerges is a pattern for Christian life and worship, hope and mission.
We will be reading the book one chapter per week over 13 weeks. And we’ll do it beginning next Thursday. If you would like to read it with us, simply find yourself a copy of the book and read chapter 1 (and the introduction, foreword, preface, etc.) prior to August 18. Then, on that date, drop by the site and there will be an article here that allows us to discuss that week’s reading. It’s that easy.
If you’d like to preview the book, you can do so at Google Books. Also, if you visit Westminster Book’s product page, you can download the table of contents, the foreword and the first chapter.
Here are some places you can get yourself a copy. This is probably a good book to buy in hardcover and keep for a lifetime. However, CBD does have it available in paperback if you want to save some money; meanwhile, ChristianAudio is offering the audio book at a nearly irresistible price:
- Amazon ($17.16 Hardcover, $17.95 MP3 Audio)
- CBD Reformed ($8.99 Softcover, $16.99 Hardcover, $16.98 MP3 Audio, $19.99 Audio CD)
- Westminster Books ($16.90 Hardcover, $20.87 Audio CD)
- ChristianAudio ($2.98 MP3 Audio with coupon code CH0811CC)
