This is a captivating book. It would be enough to say that it achieves its aim of expounding its sub-title, ?God?s role and our role in the pursuit of holiness?. It goes farther than that in opening up questions that many people have but have never had resolved. As you would expect of someone who has authored ?Transforming Grace?, ?The Pursuit of Holiness? and ?The Gospel for Real Life, it is a vigorous and rigorous examination of the many aspects and dimensions of the doctrine of grace. The writer, Dr Jerry Bridges skilfully weaves bible interpretation and application with true life examples, many of them personal, and does not shy away from the practical difficulties of living a consistent life against biblical teaching. It is a well argued and constructed book with latter chapters on the disciplines of dependence, commitment, convictions and making choices of particular benefit for bible study groups. I personally liked two things about this book: its acknowledgement from its preface that the pursuit of holiness has to be motivated by an increasing understanding of the grace of God or it becomes oppressive and joyless and secondly, its reference to classic Puritan writings and understanding. The acknowledgement of John Owen, Jonathan Edwards and George Smeaton as key writers and people such as Charles Hodge as skilful interpreters is refreshing as much literature on spiritual formation seems to be response centred rather than Bible centred. The bible texts and passages are explained well here and the themes of discipline, holiness and practical living are treated sensitively but also actively challenge the reader to set their standards by a gospel inspired life. This is a book that I will turn to, share with others, recommend to bible study groups and endorse to pastors and outreach workers on building their understanding of imparting the doctrine of grace appropriately. I would have liked to have seen an Index but a ?Notes? section at the end of the book serves a similar purpose.
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