Daniel Montgomery, Pastor of Sojourn Community Church in Louisville, KY, on the grace of God.
Daniel, what was your purpose is writing yet another book on the sovereignty of God? There are a lot of those, you know. What makes yours different?
What makes PROOF different is that we want to take the sovereignty of God conversations out of a sectarian framework and put them in a declarative framework. A lot of conversations and books about the sovereignty of God have an attitude that says, “Here is where we stand against other positions.” Those discussions are important, but by using a declarative framework we want to emphasize the good news of God calling us to himself. In doing so we put an emphasis on mission, because apart form the mission of God the sovereignty of God makes no sense and has no real traction in our daily lives. We emphasize community because the sovereignty of God abstracted from real communities of faith is just another religious philosophy.
We’re calling people to mystery because whatever we have to say about God’s sovereign grace should always lead us to worship in doxological praise, which is what Paul does in Romans 11 after talking about election and mission in chapters 9 and 10. And we also emphasize paradox; Soren Kierkegaard said, “One should not think slightingly of the paradoxical; for the paradox is the source of the thinker’s passion.”
We want thinking that results in passion! Instead of merely arguing for truth, which is important, we want to highlight the beauty and joy of coming under the influence of God’s intoxicating joy of irresistible grace. In the process, PROOF highlights both divine sovereignty and human responsibility, God’s plan and our participation, God’s mission and our ministry.
Yeah, but, can I pass this book off to my …
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