OVER TWO MILLION COPIES SOLD! It's the most powerful force in the universe, our only hope for love and forgiveness, and a foretaste of eternal life: amazing, radical, life-changing grace. Millions of lives have been changed by award-winning author Philip Yancey's startling exploration of grace at street level. Grace is the one thing the world can't duplicate, the healing force we need, and the key to transforming a broken world. In this revised and updated edition of his personal and provocative book, Yancey offers true portraits of grace's life-changing power. These stories, set in the midst of life's stark realities, evoke such questions as: If grace is God's love for the undeserving, how do I get it? How well are we dispensing grace to a world that knows far more of strife and unforgiveness than it does of mercy? Can grace make a difference in the midst of such atrocities as the Nazi holocaust, and how can it withstand the brutality of hate?   With powerful stories, rich theology, and practical suggestions, Yancey challenges us to become living answers to a world that desperately needs to know, What's So Amazing About Grace?

The future of Christianity depends on how we master the art of understanding and giving grace. At the end of the twentieth century, Philip Yancey wrote his classic bestseller What's So Amazing About Grace? as a testament to the power of God's grace and as a rallying cry to the Christian church to see the acting out of grace as its single most important contribution to the world. Now, in this 6-session, video-based participant's guide (DVD/video streaming sold separately), Yancey reexamines-with fresh material and new stories-the scandalous power of grace so that groups and individuals can reflect upon, share, and extend this amazing gift of Christ in new and transformative ways. In this study, you'll discover: The extent of God's love and what it means for us. Why the church seems to have lost the gift of grace-giving and why the world apart from the church can't offer it at all. What it would look like for us to truly understand, receive, and give the gift that God gives so generously to us. Yancey offers compelling and true portraits of grace's life-changing power. He searches for its presence in his own life and in the church. He asks how Christians today can contend graciously with moral issues that threaten all they hold dear. And he challenges each of us to become living answers to a world that desperately wants to know, "what's so amazing about grace?"

When celebrating Christmas does not come easily, David Bannon offers a book of reflection, beauty, and hope. Christmas is difficult for many of us. While some are expressing joy, others are re-living painful memories and reminders of loss. This book is a journey of beauty and meditation for those for whom ordinary Advent devotionals could never help. David Bannon writes from profound personal experience. His reflections provide a way to commune with Scripture and with God. These are paired with beautiful paintings created by wounded artists, including Gauguin, Tissot, Caravaggio, Tanner, Delacroix, Van Gogh, and Durer. In their wounds, and from our own, we may once again encounter "God with us." Based on the latest research in history and grief, Wounded in Spirit also returns to where Christian art began. From mourning in Roman catacombs to works of the masters, Bannon leads us to join the world's great artists on their pilgrimages of brokenness. This is a book of hope.

An inspirational classic for more than thirty years, Where Is God When It Hurts? honestly explores pain--from physical wounds to emotional and spiritual pain--and sheds new light on God's presence in our suffering. "How can a loving God allow this to happen? God is either all-loving or all-powerful, but he can't be both." You've heard that question, and perhaps you've even asked it yourself. When a loved one dies, we receive a terminal diagnosis, or natural disasters strike, people often wonder whether God is the cause of suffering and why he doesn't immediately take away the pain or fix the situation. As a result, we become angry at the once-beloved God who betrayed us. In this Gold Medallion Award-winning book, bestselling author Philip Yancey uses examples from the Bible and from his own experiences to show us how we can learn to accept--without blame, anger, or fear--that which we don't understand. Along the way, he answers questions such as: Why is there such a thing as pain? Is pain a message from God? How should we respond to suffering? How can we learn to cope with pain? With over one million copies already sold, Where Is God When It Hurts? speaks to everyone who thinks that suffering doesn't make sense. With compassion and clarity, Yancey brings us one step closer to finding an answer when our pain, or the pain of those we love, is real and we are left wondering, where is God when it hurts? Praise for Where Is God When It Hurts?: "One of the most helpful treatments of the problem of evil that I've ever read. If I were looking around for something to give to individuals who are going through travail or difficulty, this is the book I'd recommend." --Dr. Vernon Grounds, former Chancellor of Denver Seminary

For the first time, bestselling author Philip Yancey tells the story of his coming of age in the fundamentalist South--a family drama in the tradition of Educated and Hillbilly Elegy that explores the dark side of extremist Christian faith and chronicles the journey of one of the most influential religious writers of our time.

Raised by an impoverished widow who earned room and board as a Bible teacher in 1950s Atlanta, Philip Yancey and his brother, Marshall, found ways to venture out beyond the confines of their eight-foot-wide trailer. But when Yancey was in college, he uncovered a shocking secret about his father's death—a secret that began to illuminate the motivations that drove his mother to extreme, often hostile religious convictions and a belief that her sons had been ordained for a divine cause.

Searching for answers, Yancey dives into his family origins, taking us on an evocative journey from the backwoods of the Bible Belt to the bustling streets of Philadelphia; from trailer parks to church sanctuaries; from family oddballs to fire-and-brimstone preachers and childhood awakenings through nature, music, and literature. In time, the weight of religious and family pressure sent both sons on opposite journeys—one toward healing from the impact of what he calls a toxic faith; the other into a self-destructive spiral.

Where the Light Fell is a gripping family narrative set against a turbulent time in post-World War II America, shaped by the collision of Southern fundamentalism and the mounting pressures of the civil rights movement and sixties-era forces of social change. In piecing together his fragmented personal history and his journey to redemption, Yancey gives testament to the enduring power of our search for truth and the possibility of faith rooted in grace instead of fear.

"I truly believe this is the one book I was put on earth to write," says Yancey. "So many of the strands from my childhood—racial hostility, political division, culture wars—have resurfaced in modern form. Looking back points me forward."

In 1998, What s So Amazing About Grace? was chosen as the Gold Medallion Book of the Year. Stamped with Philip Yancey s journalistic gift for inquiry and personal passion for truth, this provocative best-seller has challenged and inspired more than half a million readers worldwide with a vision of the life Experience the Impact of Grace It s one thing to talk about grace; it s another to taste its power. What s So Amazing About Grace? ZondervanGroupware takes you and your study group for interactive, gut-level encounters with radical, life-changing grace. Through candid video interviews, Philip Yancey integrates true-life faces and experiences with 10 POWERFUL SESSIONS that will rock your preconceptions, get you thinking and talking, and help you discover together why grace is more amazing than you ve ever dreamed. This Participant s Guide will help you not only gain a better understanding of what grace is and why it is so precious, but also integrate it into your life. Engaging questions, provocative Bible studies, and lively discussions are just part of the package. You ll also be challenged to look for grace where it counts the most: in your own character and personal life. If you re ready to discover grace as more than just a fluffy concept, buckle your seat belt. You re about to take a journey to the radical heart and soul of Christianity. The next life grace changes could be yours."

There is no writer in the evangelical world that I admire and appreciate more. Billy Graham Philip Yancey helps reveal what two thousand years of history covered up What happens when a respected Christian journalist decides to put his preconceptions aside and take a long look at the Jesus described in the Gospels? How does the Jesus of the New Testament compare to the new, rediscovered Jesus---or even the Jesus we think we know so well? Philip Yancey offers a new and different perspective on the life of Christ and his work---his teachings, his miracles, his death and resurrection---and ultimately, who he was and why he came. From the manger in Bethlehem to the cross in Jerusalem, Yancey presents a complex character who generates questions as well as answers; a disturbing and exhilarating Jesus who wants to radically transform your life and stretch your faith. The Jesus I Never Knew uncovers a Jesus who is brilliant, creative, challenging, fearless, compassionate, unpredictable, and ultimately satisfying. No one who meets Jesus ever stays the same, says Yancey. Jesus has rocked my own preconceptions and has made me ask hard questions about why those of us who bear his name don t do a better job of following him. "

What on earth are we missing? Philip Yancey believes we are missing the supernatural hidden in everyday life. In Rumors of Another World, Yancey investigates the natural world and discovers the supernatural hiding in plain view. He grapples with why God made the world and what our role truly is, and seeks to answer the question, "How do I live in the natural world while expressing the values of the supernatural?" Philip writes, "I have come to understand faith as the highest form of integrated encounter. Faith puts together, assembles, re-orders, accepting the entire world as God's handiwork. We live among clues, like rescuers sifting through pieces of stained glass shattered by a bomb, and only with a blueprint or some memory of original design can we begin to connect the shards, to assemble them into a pattern that makes sense of our world. "Nature and supernature are not two separate worlds, but different expressions of the same reality. To encounter the world as a whole, we need a more supernatural awareness of the natural world." Yancey invites readers to join him on a journey of discovery. He challenges us to tune into "rumors of another world," and connect the seen with the unseen. He promises that the grace-filled result will be a life of beauty, purpose, freedom, and faith.

Pain is not something that most of us would count as a blessing; however, renowned surgeon Dr. Paul Brand and award-winning writer Philip Yancey shed fresh light on the purpose of our pain. Wouldn't it be nice to never experience pain or never have to take drugs to deal with pain? Many people think so, but they're missing one key piece of information: Pain is the body's built-in warning system that something is wrong and needs to be fixed. Follow world-renowned physician and surgeon Dr. Paul Brand around the world as he shares his humble beginnings as the son of medical missionaries in India to his medical training in London during the Blitz to his groundbreaking medical research with leprosy patients in the United States and India. His work with leprosy patients is what convinced him that pain truly is one of God's great gifts to us. In these pages he shares what he's learned about pain, its purpose in our lives, the impact it has on our daily lives and overall health, and how we can better respond to it. Perfect for those in the medical field or those looking for a firsthand look into the mystery of pain, this book will give you a new perspective on the gift that none of us want and none of us can do without. You'll never look at pain the same way again. Spanish edition also available. Note: The book includes some frank descriptions of medical procedures, illnesses, and diseases.

Award-winning author Philip Yancey serves as guide and interpretive leader of ten video study sessions. In a series of in-depth interviews and explanations he covers five crucial segments of the Old Testament: 1. Job: Seeing in the Dark 2. Deuteronomy: A Taste of Bittersweet 3. Psalms: Spirituality in Every Key 4. Ecclesiastes: The End of Wisdom 5. The Prophets: God Talks Back Philip approaches each of these major segments from a different point of view--from the paradoxes of Ecclesiastes to the poetry of the Psalms--and adds additional interpretive material extending the reach of his best-selling book. He teams again with the Emmy Award-winning production team responsible for video production of the "What's So Amazing About Grace?" Zondervan Groupware. Many Christians tend to ignore the Old Testament or dismiss it as impenetrable and obscure. Philip Yancey's combination of scholarship and insight brings new light to old material and stimulates new discussion, thought, and further study.

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 isna??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 psalmistsa?? turbulent emotions and the prophetsa?? oddball rantings, Yancey paints a picture of Israela??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 shouldna??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."

We speak of grace often. But do we understand it? More important, do we truly believe in it . . . and do our lives proclaim it as powerfully as our words? In What's So Amazing About Grace?, award-winning author Philip Yancey explores grace at street level. If grace is God's love for the undeserving, he asks, then what does it look like in action? And if Christians are its sole dispensers, then how are we doing at lavishing grace on a cruel and pain-filled world? In fourteen sessions, this study guide will help you to interact deeply with Yancey's most personal and provocative book yet. If you're willing to leave your comfort zone to embrace a more vigorous, passionate Christianity--read on. And prepare to grapple with grace and "un-grace" on a personal level. You'll consider how you can contend graciously with today's tough moral issues. And you'll discover how you can become Christ's answer to a world that desperately wants to know, What's So Amazing About Grace?

Containing new material written just for this book and adaptations from his classic, What’s So Amazing About Grace, bestselling author Philip Yancey presents a one of a kind look at forgiveness: what it is . . . why it is so difficult . . why we have to choose this unnatural, scandalous act . . . and why we must approach God again and again, yielding to Him the residue of what we thought we had committed to him long ago.

We do so because the Gospel makes clear the connection: God forgives our debts as we forgive our debtors. The reverse is also true: Only by living in the stream of God’s forgiveness will we find the strength to respond with forgiveness toward others. We may speak of forgiveness often, even believing that we are a forgiving person, but do we understand the true depth of it and what it demands of us? Does our life proclaim it as powerfully as our words? We should have no illusions about forgiveness, for it may be the most demanding act in human relationships, the hardest thing we ever do. But for anyone who lives and loves imperfectly--in other words, for all of us--forgiveness offers an alternative to an endless cycle of resentment and revenge. It alone can set us free. Christians can and must reveal the forgiveness the world is searching for. A cease fire between human being starts with forgiveness--the beginning and ending of grace.