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Curveball

When Your Faith Takes Turns You Never Saw Coming (or How I Stumbled and Tripped My Way to Finding a Bigger God)

Audiobook (Includes supplementary content)
0 of 1 copy available
Wait time: About 6 weeks
0 of 1 copy available
Wait time: About 6 weeks

"Peter Enns is brilliant at taking the big topics, those Christian ideas that usually scare us or intimidate us or worry us, and then make those very places a meeting place with a God who is bigger and wilder and more wonderful and trustworthy than we ever could have guessed."—Sarah Bessey, author of Out of Sorts and Jesus Feminist

The author of How the Bible Actually Works and The Bible Tells Me So explains how our model of God and faith must evolve as our understanding of the world deepens—just as the Bible describes it should.

Life throws us "curve balls"—from devastating personal losses to world tragedies. These events often leave us doubting God, the Bible, and our faith. But instead of pushing away our reservations, we should embrace them, Peter Enns argues. A leading biblical scholar and Christian mentor, Enns has never been afraid to question the Bible or Christian beliefs. Such thoughtful inquisitiveness, he argues, is part of God's plan. He wants us to question, because doing so actually leads to a stronger, lasting faith.

By reframing how we see these events, we allow ourselves to see how the Bible itself showcases this very process and that "treating curve balls as the enemy" is not only counterproductive but thwarts God's goal of helping us become mature and wise. Enns shares a number of curve balls he's encountered in his own life and the questions he has pondered. Does God care about the millions of people who never heard the gospel? Could I relate to a God who has created a universe this big? If God is so relatable, constant, and caring, how do we explain quantum physics? He reveals how particular biblical passages have helped him find wisdom, and how they can do the same for us.

As Curveball persuasively shows, God is bigger and more mysterious than anyone's expectations. We need a faith that can grow just as deeply.

Supplemental enhancement PDF accompanies the audiobook.

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    • Publisher's Weekly

      January 9, 2023
      In this refreshing treatise, biblical scholar Enns (How the Bible Actually Works) proposes a faith that can handle the “curveballs” of life. Drawing on his own life and an arsenal of scriptural and historical examples, Enns explains the importance being able to “adjust” one’s faith in response to doubts. He argues that the Bible isn’t a “step-by-step field guide” but rather “a messy, complex, dense mine of wisdom,” and, as such, demands flexible interpretation. Taken this way, he explains, revisions to one’s understanding of God or religious identity are “evidence of a growing faith.” This plays out in the Bible, he writes, citing the story in which God commanded Jonah to go to Nineveh and tell the Assyrians—a historical enemy of the Jewish people—to repent. While Jonah (and the Jewish people) might have been dismayed to offer an enemy mercy, they “adjusted understanding of God” to accommodate his compassion. Enns sets up believers for a faith that’s informed by their individual challenges and questions, which are themselves “a gift to help us see a bigger...God.” It amounts to a convincing, accessible argument for facing religious uncertainty head-on, and will leave readers with insights about using doubt to enrich one’s faith. Believers will appreciate this 21st-century approach to faith.

    • AudioFile Magazine
      Author and narrator Peter Enns--theologian, professor of biblical studies, and cohost of a popular podcast, THE BIBLE FOR NORMAL PEOPLE--once dreamed of being a major league pitcher. An injury, what he calls a curveball, destroyed those dreams. In his customary colloquial style, Enns recounts his experiences with moving away from baseball and from a rigid fundamentalist Christian perspective to one that is based on a broader interpretation of scripture and on love more than rules. Enns's approachable, often humorous, delivery enlivens the gravity of what he sees as the series of curveballs that influence everyone's life choices. A pdf of the notes from the print edition enhances Enns's narrative. S.G. © AudioFile 2023, Portland, Maine

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