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    The Sin of Certainty: Why God Desires Our Trust More Than Our "Correct" Beliefs
    The Sin of Certainty: Why God Desires Our Trust More Than Our "Correct" Beliefs
    The Sin of Certainty: Why God Desires Our Trust More Than Our "Correct" Beliefs
    Audiobook5 hours

    The Sin of Certainty: Why God Desires Our Trust More Than Our "Correct" Beliefs

    Written by Peter Enns

    Narrated by Tom Perkins

    4.5/5

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    About this audiobook

    With compelling and often humorous stories from his own life, Bible scholar Peter Enns offers a fresh look at how Christian life truly works, answering questions that cannot be addressed by the idealized traditional doctrine of "once for all delivered to the saints."

    Enns offers a model of vibrant faith that views skepticism not as a loss of belief, but as an opportunity to deepen religious conviction with courage and confidence. This is not just an intellectual conviction, he contends, but a more profound kind of knowing that only true faith can provide.

    Combining Enns's reflections of his own spiritual journey with an examination of Scripture, The Sin of Certainty models an acceptance of mystery and paradox that all believers can follow and why God prefers this path because it is only this way by which we can become mature disciples who truly trust God. It gives Christians who have known only the demand for certainty permission to view faith on their own flawed, uncertain, yet heartfelt, terms.
    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherTantor Media, Inc
    Release dateApr 5, 2016
    ISBN9781515973034
    Author

    Peter Enns

    Peter Enns is professor of Old Testament and biblical hermeneutics at Westminster Theological Seminary in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. He is the author of a commentary on Exodus and Inspiration and Incarnation, as well as numerous articles on the Old Testament.

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    Reviews for The Sin of Certainty

    4.5/5

    105 ratings5 reviews

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    • 1/5
      This book is so cleverly written we may miss the irony. Peter is certain about many things. The title should read, “the sin of being certain of anything Peter isn’t certain of. Jesus said, “remain in my word and you will know the truth and the truth will set you free.” Peter seems to be saying you are enslaved to sin if you trust in the Bible and you are freed when you doubt Gods word.

      Peter’s conclusions end conversations. He is so certain he is right that he encourages dismissing any challenges to his thinking. Why bother with conversations since his challengers are those who are enslaved to sin, immature people who have never faced their doubts (or any other insult he labels Bible believers with). In short, any challenge is easily dismissed, not even worth consideration…but doesn’t growth come from challenges to our thinking?

      Peter has set up a false dichotomy between trusting God and knowing God. The Bible instructs us to know God and trust Him. Knowing and trusting are not enemies as Peter portrays them.

      If our choice is to follow Jesus or Peter Enns, chose Jesus, He has the words of eternal life.
    • 5/5
      I’ve been a practicing pagan for most of my life. Recently I started to read the Bible myself for the first time, instead of listening to fundamentalists pick & choose isolated quotes. I found myself feeling vaguely betrayed that contemporary Christian American culture has painted such a picture of fire & brimstone legalese when the New Testament explicitly tells us to trust in the Holy Spirit in ourselves and others so that we no longer have to feel ashamed of our deeply human inability to keep to those laws perfectly.

      I’m now on a personal quest to understand more of how we got from a gospel of empathy & trust to a cultural narrative of damnation & sin, and “The Sin of Certainty” was helpful in that regard. It provides not only explicitly Biblical permission to re-engage our brains when feeling our way through scripture, but also some solid historical background on the political forces within the Christian church that led to such emphasis on the law. The audiobook narrator isn’t the most engaging and a little of the humor gets lost in the performative presentation, but still highly worth one’s time.
    • 5/5
      I really love this book and i love the authors take on religion.
    • 5/5
      I’m uncannily like Enns in background and experience so found this book very insightful and hopeful. It’s all about trust.
    • 4/5
      A serious and well-articulated challenge to dogmatic religionists. And an invitation to trust God when our human limits leave us in doubt and uncertainty.