{"id":9839,"date":"2022-03-07T00:00:00","date_gmt":"2022-03-06T16:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/dumc.my\/tm\/book-review-the-good-and-beautiful-god-by-james-bryan-smith\/"},"modified":"2022-03-07T00:00:00","modified_gmt":"2022-03-06T16:00:00","slug":"book-review-the-good-and-beautiful-god-by-james-bryan-smith","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/dumc.my\/tm\/book-review-the-good-and-beautiful-god-by-james-bryan-smith\/","title":{"rendered":"Book Review: The Good and Beautiful God by James Bryan Smith"},"content":{"rendered":"
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Posted by Dr. Hannah Pillay \u2022 Mar 07, 2022<\/p>\n\n\t\t<\/div>\n\t<\/div>\n

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Who is God to You? What is God like? What is God thinking when He looks at you?<\/p>\n

If you have been asking or been asked these questions and are not sure how to respond to these questions, then this book might help you explore these questions.<\/p>\n

The aim of this book is to help us discover the God that Jesus knew, talked about, and revealed through the Gospel narratives. As Christians, we may know a lot about<\/em> God, but do we know Him as we would know a flesh-and-blood person? It seeks to explore our beliefs or narratives about God which often are unspoken and compare them to the narratives of Jesus.<\/p>\n

Each chapter takes a particular belief i.e. God is good. Smith then explores questions we may have had in mind, like “When we are confronted with suffering, do we wonder what the person has done to deserve it?”, <\/em>or “God is an angry God who judges”, <\/em>or “If you do well, you will be blessed; if you sin, you will be punished”. <\/em>The narrative of a “punishing \/ blessing”<\/em> God was also prevalent in the days of Jesus. In John 9:2-3, the disciples asked Jesus the same question of a blind man they encountered “Rabbi, who sinned, this man or his parents, that he was born blind<\/em>?<\/p>\n

Each chapter has several questions for us to think about when reading, and questions to reflect on at the end. There are soul training exercises provided, which are activities we can do to build a deeper relationship with God. This is so that what we learn does not just remain academic knowledge, but become heart knowledge.<\/p>\n

Jesus said to love the Lord your God with all your heart, with all your soul and with all your mind. This book is a step in the direction of making the heart, soul, and mind connection because if we are to love God we must first know how good and beautiful our God is.<\/p>\n

This book was designed to be read by a community of believers who desire to know their God. Our faith was meant to be practiced, built and nurtured in community. At the end of the book, there is small group discussion guide, with helpful questions. But if you can’t find a community, it is also worthwhile to explore this book alone.<\/p>\n

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The Good and Beautiful God by James Bryan Smith is available at RM41 from the DUMC Office at a discounted price here<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Jesus said to love the Lord your God with all your heart, with all your soul and with all your mind. This book is a step in the direction of making the heart, soul, and mind connection because if we are to love God we must first know how good and beautiful our God is.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":9840,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"om_disable_all_campaigns":false,"_mi_skip_tracking":false},"categories":[177],"tags":[181],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/dumc.my\/tm\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9839"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/dumc.my\/tm\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/dumc.my\/tm\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dumc.my\/tm\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dumc.my\/tm\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=9839"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/dumc.my\/tm\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9839\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dumc.my\/tm\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/9840"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/dumc.my\/tm\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=9839"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dumc.my\/tm\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=9839"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dumc.my\/tm\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=9839"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}