The Bible Jesus Read - by Philip Yancey (Paperback)

About the Book

The Old Testament is God's biography, the story of his passionate encounters with people and also a prequel to the story of Jesus. This book explores the sometimes shocking and cryptic writings in an effort to know God better.

Book Synopsis

Take a pilgrimage through some of the most challenging--and rewarding--parts of the Old Testament with bestselling author Philip Yancey.

Because it is often daunting, many Christians approach Old Testament carefully. Or avoid it altogether. But each of the books of the Old Testament--"the Bible Jesus read"--contains an essential part of the story of grace.

"The more we comprehend the Old Testament," Yancey writes, "the more we comprehend Jesus."

In The Bible Jesus Read, Yancey challenges the perception that the New Testament is more important than the Old. Writing with keen insight into the human condition and God's provision for it, he sets off on a personal journey through the parts we most like to keep at arm's length--Job, Deuteronomy, Psalms, Ecclesiastes, and the Prophets--and he asks us to bring our own questions, concerns, and our openness to the wonders of God.

We may discover that this set of writings that comprise the Old Testament is at once as mystifying and strangely satisfying as life itself--that it's worth the effort it takes to read and wrestle with. Because reading the Scriptures that Jesus so revered gives us a profound new understanding of Christ, the Cornerstone of the new covenant.

From the Back Cover

Philip Yancey has a way of confronting our most cherished but misguided notions about faith. In The Bible Jesus Read, he challenges the perception that the New Testament is all that matters and the Old Testament isn't worth taking the time to read and understand. Yancey admits that, like many Christians, he usually avoided the Old Testament. After all, why bother with writings that can be so baffling, boring, even offensive to the modern mind? But a surprising discovery awaited Yancey when he began to explore how the Old Testament related to his life today. Those seemingly irrelevant Hebrew Scriptures took on a startling immediacy, portraying a passionate relationship between God and people against the broad backdrop of human experience. Like nothing else, the Old Testament depicts the cries, the complaints, the deep, insistent questionings of the heart, the stuff of life we all must contend with. With his candid, signature style, Yancey interacts with the Old Testament from the perspective of his own deeply personal journey. From Moses, the amazing prince of Egypt, to the psalmists' turbulent emotions and the prophets' oddball rantings, Yancey paints a picture of Israel's God--and ours--that fills in the blanks of a solely New Testament vision of the Almighty. Probing some carefully selected Old Testament books--Job, Deuteronomy, Psalms, Ecclesiastes, and the Prophets--Yancey reveals how the Old Testament deals in astonishing depth and detail with the issues that trouble us most. The Old Testament in fact tackles what the New Testament often only skirts. But that shouldn't surprise us. It is, after all, the Bible Jesus read. The Bible Jesus Read will give you abundant new insights into the heart of God the Father. And as you read with a fresh eye the prayers, poems, songs, and bedtime stories that Jesus so revered, you will gain a profound new understanding of Christ. 'The more we comprehend the Old Testament, ' Yancey writes, 'the more we comprehend Jesus.'

About the Author

Philip Yancey serves as editor-at-large for Christianity Today magazine. He has written thirteen Gold Medallion Award-winning books and won two ECPA Book of the Year awards for What's So Amazing About Grace? and The Jesus I Never Knew. Four of his books have sold over one million copies. Yancey lives with his wife in Colorado. Website: www.philipyancey.com