The Contemporary Christian (with study
R215.00
1 in stock
The Contemporary Christian is John Stott’s definitive and passionate plea to the church. Before we attempt to teach or evangelize, he urges, we must listen to God’s Word and God’s world. Only then will we be able to communicate the authentic gospel effectively. John Stott himself models this ‘double listening’ as he tackles five key questions:
* Amid scepticism inside the church as well as outside, what is the authentic gospel?
* In a world torn by pain and need, what characterizes the obedient disciple?
* Now that the Bible is often set aside as culturally irrelevant, how can we relate it with integrity to contemporary society?
* Given the church’s general lack of credibility, what is her calling and how can she fulfill it?
* In a pluralistic society and a hungry world, what is the church’s mission?
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This book can largely be summarized in his introductory idea on “double listening”—our need to listen to God’s Word and stay true to its ultimate truth while at the same listening to our world and making sure that the Truth we proclaim is done so in a relevant and contemporary way. There is obviously a lot to this idea and Stott wisely unpacks how that effects many different aspects of Christianity.
I found (and I agree with most, if not all, his conclusions) that often his suggestions in each chapter came as the middle ground between two extreme sides. It’s an interesting observation in a world so polarized on many things that the best stance us contemporary Christians should take is often the moderate position—rather than reacting to the extreme of the opposition.