Reviews for A Spirituality of the Road

The average rating for A Spirituality of the Road based on 2 reviews is 4.5 stars.

Review # 1 was written on 2011-06-26 00:00:00 Stephane Gauthier A helpful, touching book that addresses the weaknesses felt by those involved in overseas service in their spiritual lives. It takes Paul's 2nd letter to the Corinthians as the model of a spirituality of service, and showed how Paul could combine the paradoxical qualities of human insufficiency with Christ's sufficiency in himself. He was weak, but Christ is strong. Missionaries usually fail on the field because they forget one of these two messages. Bosch counsels us to combine them together, not in some sort of poor compromise, but in taking each one to the extreme and being able to be grateful in our own weakness while taking on the full power of Christ's strength. The book is broader than this, but I think that that description and the following quote really sum up the tone of the message it is getting across: "The answer lies, once again, not in the right balance between callousness and oversensitivity, but rather in giving ourselves wholeheartedly, as if everything depends on us, while at the same time casting all our concerns on the Lord as if everything depends on Him. We should neither attempt to rationalize away all our responsibility and involvement nor allow ourselves to be so crushed by the unbearable burden of what we think we ought to do but cannot accomplish. Our good works are a sign and a proof of our faith, but it is ultimately by faith, not by all our good works, that we are justified. We may therefore indeed cast all our weaknesses and even our failures on the Lord." - page 73-74

Review # 2 was written on 2008-01-03 00:00:00 Curtis Waller I'm not sure that this would have received five stars from me at a different season of life, but at this particular point on "the road," it does. At first glance, one would wonder what insight Bosch has to offer today's missionary: he was a white South African. Yet Bosch addresses even his background in his study of 2 Corinthians. Despite A Spirituality of the Road's short length (90 pages), it is filled with insights into the life of Paul and his relationship with the church at Corinth. Most helpful to me was Bosch's rebuke of the common belief of Christian leaders that they are not allowed to have weakness, sin, or other struggles to their ministry, pointing quite clearly to the unnamed thorn in Paul's side. I wholeheartedly recommend this book for those who want to learn about pursuing sustainable ministry.