Jesus’ teaching has changed the world. Yet his sayings can often seem cryptic and hard to understand.
In Love Is His Meaning, Keith Ward explores the various figures of speech and images that Jesus used, and finds they are all ways of expressing and evoking the self-giving love of God, manifested supremely in Jesus’ life. They communicate spiritual truths, often not in a literal but in a poetic way. They encourage us to take our own moral decisions with sensitivity and care for others. They show that God’s love will never abandon anyone, and that it extends to everyone in the world without exception. And they promise a fulfilment of our hopes for a just and peaceable world that surpasses anything we might describe or imagine.
Putting aside literalist, authoritarian, legalistic, judgemental and divisive presentations of Jesus’ teachings, the author shows that what remains is the gospel of a divine love – a love stronger than death, and the only power that can and will redeem our disordered world.
Jesus’ teaching has changed the world. Yet his sayings can often seem cryptic and hard to understand.
In Love Is His Meaning, Keith Ward explores the various figures of speech and images that Jesus used, and finds they are all ways of expressing and evoking the self-giving love of God, manifested supremely in Jesus’ life. They communicate spiritual truths, often not in a literal but in a poetic way. They encourage us to take our own moral decisions with sensitivity and care for others. They show that God’s love will never abandon anyone, and that it extends to everyone in the world without exception. And they promise a fulfilment of our hopes for a just and peaceable world that surpasses anything we might describe or imagine.
Putting aside literalist, authoritarian, legalistic, judgemental and divisive presentations of Jesus’ teachings, the author shows that what remains is the gospel of a divine love – a love stronger than death, and the only power that can and will redeem our disordered world.
Offers a positive and creative interpretation of Jesus' teachings for today
Keith Ward is Professorial Research Fellow at Heythrop College, London, and was formerly Regius Professor of Divinity at the University of Oxford. He is a priest of the Church of England, a fellow of the British Academy, and one of the world’s most distinguished theologians.
Keith Ward has long represented some of the most distinctive
traditions of British theology at its best – a strong and lucid
philosophical basis, a keen and informed engagement with natural
science and a style of relaxed clarity which makes complex matters
readily accessible.
*Rowan Williams, Master of Magdalen College, Cambridge*
Ward is an excellent storyteller
*Ministry Today*
[On THE PROMISE] A very refreshing approach to the Pentateuch
*Baptist Times*
Keith Ward convincingly shows how weak the fundamentalist case is
when it comes to Scripture
*thegoodbookstall*
[On THE WORD OF GOD] This book is a feast of good things
*Methodist Recorder*
Professor Ward's impassioned contribution to the debate on the
authority of scripture . . . is bound to infuriate and delight in
equal numbers
*Publishing News*
[On CHRISTIANITY: A GUIDE FOR THE PERPLEXED] Useful, informative
and inspiring
*The Tablet*
These 50 short chapters . . . wear their scholarly competence
lightly
*Church Times*
a very helpful introduction for a new Christian
*Church Times*
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