Do not bother with this book if you are hoping for neat answers to your favorite burning moral issues, along the lines of 'What does the Bible say about...?' Not only does Peter Gosnell not set out to give simple answers to a range of ethical questions, he also challenges that whole approach to using the Bible. Wanting a rule for every situation, to keep or not to keep - preferably with suitable penalties for the latter - is the way of the lazy, the legalist and the fundamentalist. Rather, Paul urges us to 'be transformed in the renewing of our minds,' which means that we actually have to do some thinking. What Gosnell offers is to guide our feet and our brains on a wonderfully illuminating journey through the Bible. All along the way he points out how different major sections of the Old and New Testaments address the question of what it means to live well in this broken world - to advance what is good and resist what is evil and harmful - and why we should do so. As you follow his lead through the rich panorama of texts he surveys, you will undoubtedly begin to 'get answers' to that difficult ethical issue you are concerned about, not because you found one verse that solved it but rather because you have thought it through in the light of the whole biblical witness to God and the purposes of God in creation, redemption and new creation. The book is delightfully easy to read, but its simplicity floats on reassuringly deep waters of thorough biblical scholarship. It is reliable, readable, well resourced and relevant.
-Christopher J. H. Wright
