A More Christlike God

A More Beautiful Gospel

By: Bradley Jersak

Narrated by: Tim Welch

Length: 10 hrs and 51 mins

Publisher's summary

What is God like? A punishing judge? A doting grandfather? A deadbeat dad? A vengeful warrior? "Believers" and atheists alike typically carry and finally reject the toxic images of God in their own hearts and minds. Even the Christian Gospel has repeatedly lapsed into a vision of God where the wrathful king must be appeased by his victim son. How do such "good cop/bad cop" distortions of the divine arise and come to dominate churches and cultures?

Whether our notions of "God" are personal projections or inherited traditions, author and theologian Brad Jersak proposes a radical reassessment, arguing for a more Christlike God and a more beautiful Gospel.

If Christ is "the image of the invisible God, the radiance of God's glory and exact representation of God's likeness", what if we conceived of God as completely Christlike - the perfect incarnation of self-giving, radically forgiving, co-suffering love? What if God has always been and forever will be "cruciform" (cross-shaped) in his character and actions?

A More Christlike God suggests that such a God would be very good news indeed - a God who Jesus "unwrathed" from dead religion, a love that is always toward us, and a grace that pours into this suffering world through willing, human partners.

©2015 Plain Truth Ministries (P)2019 Plain Truth Ministries

Finally! A view of God who looks just like His Son.

Brilliant, fun, depth, and freeing, Brad's interpretations of our Father look just like Jesus. I've seen and heard Him for years. Now, I know Him in a deeply loving and freeing new way; a way discovered by many others, many centuries before. Who would have thunk?!

Wonderful book for the recovering Evangelical

I loved the book and it has been so helpful in the reconstruction of my faith and understanding of God.

my only critique is that the reader while he is a lovely reader, reads in "fire and brimstone" to e which is not like the message and not like Brad Jersak and this was very distracting for me and made the message more difficult to grasp.

A Theological "Must Read"

This is perhaps the most theologically challenging book I've read, but well deserving to be read. It tackles important theology in a way very well communicated - simply but deeply. Perhaps I may agree to 90%, yet I give this book 5 stars because Jersak deserves it! Too well done to be ignored. I have read the word since my childhood, digging into it for many many hours of personal study. At many points, I felt the truth he was communicating was truth I have seen so vital to understanding the nature of the kindness of the heart of God revealed through scripture. I highly recommend this book to theologans and to those who find problems in Christianity. Great narration and great thinking!

Great content, but I struggled with the narrator

The content of this book from Bradley Jersak was really good, but I found myself repeatedly frustrated with the narrator, who has great vocal quality, but mispronounced words every few minutes to the point where it became distracting.

great read!

what a blessing to the church. wish all would read and rethink there "foundational" truths.

Great teaching!

Thank you Brad for helping us understand God!
I love this book!
Janet from Colorado

Brad needs to narrate

This is a great book and has a lot of contemplating information. I have heard Brad Jersak speak multiple times are podcasts in his and personal voice brings such warmth, humor, and gentleness that I don’t find with the current narrator. Brad Jersak is one of those riders that really needs to read his works so that we hear the heart and passion clearly.

solid

A must listen/read for any church attending christian who has been indoctrinated in the western traditions.

Great book, didn’t care for the narration

This is a great book by Brad Jersak and incredibly important for the church today. I really disliked the narrators voice and rhythm of speaking. I wish Brad would have narrated the book himself.

What if God is more like Christ than we're taught?

This is a good introduction to the more Eastern understanding of soteriology and atonement theory. Christ provided many differing analogies of the deep mystery of our salvation but never provided formulas. The West (Rome and her Protestant Children who came after her) continue to concentrate on only the Juridical analogy. Some like Calvin and Edwards have further pushed that into an atonement theory which is completely that of a vengeful and wrathful god seeking retribution, where we are in Edwards words "sinners in the hands of an angry god." This is the perversion which occurs when we take one metaphor out of context and make it into a methodology we force on a god of our own design.

What if God were less like John Calvin and more like Jesus Christ? What if the True God can also be understood as a healer and restorer? What if instead of purposefully creating some for destruction, God so loves the world that he desires that all would be saved? What if rather than punishing the disease of sinfulness in our lives, the Great Physician came to heal us of our malady, cure us from our physical/mental/spiritual illness of fallenness and separation from God, and create in us a clean heart, renew a right spirit in us, and heal and restore us prodigals to a loving relationship with a Father who both gives us the freedom of will to reject Him and yet runs towards us with rejoicing when we return?

What if we are not sinners in the hands of some petty and angry god, but rather prodigals in the arms of a Father rejoicing in our return?