Author Mike Stair reveals nine new and challenging ways to look at these familiar verses. They provoke us to not limit our understanding of them to well known poetic maxims, but rather to see them as statements charged with the very secrets of life, death, heaven and hell.
The writing style is direct, controversial, and thought-provoking. Concise research is presented in an efficient smooth flowing style allowing the reader to pause, process, and return to the text as and when insight, understanding is accomplished.
The book reads easily, and because of it, thoughts proceed fluently prompting -- questions of self, as well as cultural examination. Although scholarly, the book is not an academic paper. It asks the reader to consider its arguments with reason as well as examining the documentation.
One of the main recurring themes in the book is the comparison of a “beattitudinal lifestyle” with life in contemporary America. American readers will find these correlations uncomfortable, as the gulf between the American values and Jesus’ recommendations is fully revealed. It will be shown that we Christians living in America today have a very long way to go to get back on “the road to heaven.”
The book is an enjoyable read in that the ideas presented are fresh and original. Troubling also is that the book leaves the reader with a haunting feeling that personal examination may have to be done. The work provides rich material for Bible study leaders seeking to dare their members to take a confessional stand against contemporary culture.
