God Has a Name - by John Mark Comer (Hardcover)

About the Book

New York Times bestselling author John Mark Comer invites readers to rethink many prevalent myths and misconceptions about God and weigh them against what God actually tells us about himself. After all, what we believe about God will ultimately shape the type of person we will become.

Book Synopsis

What you believe about God sets the foundation of the person you will become.

In God Has a Name, pastor and New York Times bestselling author John Mark Comer invites you to rethink many of the prevalent myths and misconceptions about God and weigh them against what God actually tells us about himself. After all, what you believe about God will ultimately shape the type of person you become.

We all live at the mercy of our ideas, and nowhere is this more true than our ideas about God. The problem is many of our ideas about God are wrong. Not all wrong, but wrong enough to form our souls in detrimental and disheartening ways.

God Has a Name is a simple yet profound guide to understanding God in a new light--focusing on what God says about himself in the Bible. This one shift has the potential to radically alter how you relate to God, not as a doctrine, but as a relational being who responds to you in an elastic, back-and-forth way.

John Mark Comer takes you line by line through Exodus 34:6-8--Yahweh's self-revelation on Mount Sinai, one of the most quoted passages in the Bible. Along the way, Comer addresses some of the most profound questions he came across as he studied these noted lines in Exodus, including:

• Why do we feel this gap between us and God?
• Could it be that a lot of what we think about God is wrong? Not all wrong, but wrong enough to mess up how we relate to him?
• What if our "God" is really a projection of our own identity, ideas, and desires?
• What if the real God is different, but far better than we could ever imagine?

No matter where you are in your spiritual journey, God Has a Name invites you to step into a fresh and biblically rooted vision of who God is that has the potential to alter your life with God and shape who you become.

Review Quotes

"What is God like?" is the question one must answer. The Bible itself quotes Exodus 34v6-7 constantly. John Mark Comer's contemplations will assist you to ponder what it teaches. Your mind, spirit, and heart will be transformed.--Gerry Breshears, PhD, Professor of Theology at Western Seminary, Portland

Across the Western world, there is a growing band of neighborhoods, cities, and towns that hold tightly to their progressive identities, resisting and rejecting Christianity as, at best, passé and, at worst, oppressive. John Mark Comer pastors from such a city---Portland---encouraging us to live a faithful, deep, and devoted life of discipleship. His is an important voice, one that helps us flourish as followers of Christ in contexts in which even the name of God is contested.--Mark Sayers, senior pastor of Red Church in Melbourne, Australia, and author of Disappearing Church and Strange Days

After the first few pages of God Has a Name, I threw both fists in the air. After the third chapter, I felt like chest bumping everyone in the coffee shop. By the end of the book, I was Jack Black in the end credits of School of Rock. This book is electrifying! I'm not sure who will find this book more earthshaking---the jaded skeptic or the longtime religious! Either way, get this book.--Evan Wickham, artist, worship leader, and church planter, San Diego, California

Despite the growing popularity of atheism, the vast majority of people say they still believe in God. But this "God" is often just a projection of their own values, morals, and ideas. This book is a simple yet profound guide to what God has said about himself. Who he says he is. And his true identity and character are both far different and far better than we could ever imagine.--Skye Jethani, author of With and former editor at Christianity Today

In an age when everyone thinks Jesus is on their team, baptizing their agenda, getting behind their ideologies, we have become a people orthodox unto ourselves. "I am the measure of truth," everyone seems to be saying, "and dissenters are to be burned at the stake." By the pen of John Mark Comer, we have a book that will pop our bubbles of arrogance. In the end, it provokes us out of our self-aggrandizement and beckons us into the throne room of worship. Recommended without reservation!--Dr. A. J. Swoboda, pastor, professor, and author of The Dusty Ones

John Mark Comer is a master communicator. More important, he loves the Bible, listens to the Bible, and has learned from the Bible so deeply that what he teaches and preaches is soaked in the Bible. For that reason alone, John Mark has become an important voice in the American church. In God Has a Name, we are treated to nothing less than a panorama of the Bible's understanding of God on the basis of one of the most important---and often neglected---passages in the whole Bible. This book will bless your life because it will lead you straight to God!--Scot McKnight, PhD, Julius R. Mantey professor of New Testament at Northern Seminary

John Mark Comer is a wise and stimulating guide who points out just how much we've underestimated the endless mercy of God in the Old Testament. Prepare to have your deepest assumptions about God's character challenged in the best possible way.--Dr. Tim Mackie, co-creator of The Bible Project

John Mark Comer's God Has a Name is not just a book; it's an experience. This book is more than just a nutritious delicacy; it's an aesthetic experience full of passion and power, truth and imagination. He's one of the few Christian writers who makes me want to read more (good) books and watch less Netflix.--Dr. Preston Sprinkle, New York Times bestselling author and president of The Center for Faith, Sexuality, and Gender

The best way to describe God Has a Name is if A. W. Tozer's The Knowledge of the Holy and Rob Bell's What We Talk About When We Talk About God had a love child who rebelled against her parents.--David Lomas, lead pastor of Reality San Francisco and author of The Truest Thing about You

There aren't many questions in life that if you find the answer to them, it can change everything. But asking who God is and what is he like are two of those questions, and John Mark Comer brilliantly answers them in this book.--Jefferson Bethke, author of It's Not What You Think

Using his unique voice, wonderfully disarming humor, and knack for theological paraphrase, John Mark Comer has crafted another challenging work that we pray will impact readers as significantly as it has our community in Portland.--The elders of Bridgetown Church