Amazing
Grace: God's Initiative - Our Response
by Timothy George
What
one word would
you use to sum up the message of the Bible. Timothy
George says that one word would have to be grace!
In just 126 pages, Dr. George manages to cover the
basics of the doctrines of grace and explain them
on a popular level.
Chapter
One (Our Gracious God) deals with God's foreknowledge
and will. In this day of Openness Theology it is a
welcome to relief for a professor to affirm that God
really does know all things.
Chapter
Two (The Providence Mystery) does an excellent job
of explaining the various views of God throughout
history. George briefly shows the fallacies of Deism,
Pantheism, Fatalism, and Process Theism. We are reminded
that God is a personal God who is Lord of time and
history.
Chapter
Three (Saved By Grace) bravely seeks to expound the
importance of Augustine and the heresy of Pelagius
and does an admiral job. Contrasts are made between
Luther and Erasmus, Calvin and Arminius, and Wesley
and Whitfield. The section called, Principles in Unity,
should be read and obeyed.
Chapter
Four (A Graceful Theology) proposes a new formula
for the doctrines of grace. Rather the familial TULIP
model of Calvinists, George suggests, ROSES. They
stand for:
-
- Overcoming
Grace
- Sovereign
Election
- Eternal
Life
- Singular
Redemption
Chapter
Five (Grace and the Great Commission) faces the issue
of evangelism, missions and belief in predestination.
George shows his vast knowledge of William
Carey by using him as an example of proper Calvinism
as opposed to the dead Hyper-Calvinism of his day.
The preaching of Charles
Spurgeon is examined and reveals the biblical
balance we all should have.
This
is a truly good book because it does the almost impossible.
It deals with deep and often controversial doctrines
in a brief and yet instructive way. You may not agree
with all of Dr. George's conclusions but you certainly
will have to give him an A for the effort.
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While
Baptists may
not agree on every aspect of interpretation, at the
end of the day we will submit our judgment to the final
bar of Holy Scripture ... From first to last, our warrant
is God's Word! (p.12)
The
God of the Bible is
... intimately concerned with the smallest details of
our lives. But He is also the Creator and Judge of the
world which He is infallibly guiding toward its predestined
goal. (p.39)
Augustine
rediscovered
what Paul had proclaimed: apart from the grace of God
we are hopelessly lost and can do nothing to save ourselves.(p.49)
In
some circles
this slogan is popular: "Missions unites but doctrine
divides." This statement has an alluring appeal,
but it is basically false for there is no such thing
as missions apart from doctrine. We have no message,
no gospel apart from "the faith that was once entrusted
to the saints" (Jude 3). A church with no doctrinal
moorings or with shaky theological foundations will
soon be a church with nothing to say to a lost and dying
world. (p. 63).
Amazing
Grace by Timothy George (Lifeway, 2000), paper,
125 pages.
Timothy
George is the founding Dean of Beeson Divinity School
of Samford University.
Visit
the Beeson Divinity
School Web Site
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