"The Gospel-Driven Life"

WTS Books is offering Michael Horton's new book, The Gospel-Driven Life: Being Good News People in a Bad News World (Baker), for 45% off. The offer is good for the next week and a half.

This book is a sequel to Christless Christianity, moving from "the crisis to solutions, in the hope that we will see a new reformation in the faith, practice, and witness of contemporary Christianity."

Here are some excerpts:

"Unique among all religious claims, the gospel is an announcement about certain historical events. At its heart, then, Christianity is not a resource for spirituality, religion, and morality, but a dramatic story at the heart of which is the claim that during the reign of Tiberius Caesar, Jesus was crucified for our sins and, after three days, was raised bodily from the dead. As we will see, the arguments for his resurrection are eminently reasonable—more reasonable, in fact, than alternative explanations. The apostle Paul told the Corinthians that if Christ was not raised, then we are not saved. No other religion makes its validity wholly dependent on a historical fact….

"It is interesting that the biblical writers chose the word “gospel.” The heart of most religions is good advice, good techniques, good programs, good ideas, and good support systems. These drive us deeper into ourselves, to find our inner light, inner goodness, inner voice, or inner resources. Nothing new can be found inside of us. There is no inner rescuer deep down in my soul; I just hear echoes of my own voice telling me all sorts of crazy things to numb my sense of fear, anxiety, and boredom, the origins of which I cannot truly identify.

"But the heart of Christianity is Good News. It comes not as a task for us to fulfill, a mission for us to accomplish, a game plan for us to follow with the help of life coaches, but as a report that someone else has already fulfilled, accomplished, followed, and achieved everything for us. Good advice may help us in daily direction; the Good News concerning Jesus Christ saves us from sin’s guilt and tyranny over our lives and the fear of death. It’s Good News because it does not depend on us. It is about God and his faithfulness to his own purposes and promises."


--Michael Horton, "The Gospel-Driven Life: Being Good News People in a Bad News World," Baker Books, a division of Baker Publishing Group, © 2009.

HT: Justin Taylor