Reviews for Confucian Pragmatism As The Art Of Contextualizing Personal Experience And World

The average rating for Confucian Pragmatism As The Art Of Contextualizing Personal Experience And World based on 2 reviews is 4 stars.

Review # 1 was written on 2018-07-06 00:00:00 Thad Marks Eric Geiger is one of the pastors I learn from the most. He writes clearly and thoughtfully and I always benefit from his grounded perspective. In Identity, Geiger suggests that while the world offers meaning through careers, relationships, and possessions, "only in Him are we truly made whole." We have to know who we are to be able to know and live out who we were made to be. While there are a lot of identities to choose from in the Bible, Geiger uses 1 Peter 2:9-11 as his grounding text for uncovering who we are. (Mostly) from that text he pulls seven biblical identities: child, priest, bride, servant, friend, alien, ambassador. Each of these identities calls us to live in the reality of who we are in Christ: • "As a child of God, trust your perfect Father • As a priest, enter the presence of God anytime, anywhere. • As His bride, live pure be He declares you pure. • As His servant, serve gratefully. • As God's friend, enjoy being with God. • As an alien in this culture, live differently. • As God's ambassador, represent Him in this world." When we live in our identity, we are liberated to be who we were meant to be, and we honor God in our lives. Geiger's chapter on being a child of God is perhaps the best in the book. He begins by reflecting on Augustine's powerful quote in The Confessions, where he said, "our hearts find no peace until they rest in you." Geiger's reflection on David's mercy in making his enemy Mephibosheth his son is profound. Only when we know who we are as God's children, will we find contentment. We grow in trust and dependence. And we obey. Geiger reminds us that, as the bride of Christ, sin is no minor offense, it is "cheating on God." And Geiger has us consider that being a servant of God is not degrading. On the contrary, "The master served the servant by adopting him as a family member. The expression of love forever marked the servant. The servant agreed to be marked externally because he was already marked internally through the relationship to his master." Geiger tells us that if we truly believe we are God's friend, then our prayer life will change, "Instead of listening, our prayers are often long run-on sentences with no commas and no pauses. God speaks to us, wanting to share His thoughts, but we often talk over Him. As His friend, listen." At the heart of identity is transformation. Geiger says we too often "confuse information with transformation." And "Your life should be a statement of the gospel, a walking billboard of God's transforming power." I love Geiger's final words, which remind us that the ending of our story will be the completion and fulfillment of our identity in him. He says, "Will you live the reality of who God has made you to be? Because of the beginning (God's mercy), will you live out the ending (God's glory)? Live the ending." I commend Geiger's book to you. The only two weaknesses of Geiger's book are the (somewhat) arbitrary collection of identities he focuses on. There are many other identities in scripture that I would have loved to hear Geiger explore. The only other weakness is that Geiger doesn't explore our communal identity (our identity in relation to the people of God) at all in the book and at least one chapter (bride) which is made for such a reflection is individualized in its bent. For more reviews see www.thebeehive.live.

Review # 2 was written on 2014-07-03 00:00:00 Jim Bellman I'm so glad for this mentorship I am a part of. In "Identity", Eric Geiger tells us how we find ourselves in God using scripture and life experiences. He shows us how we seek God, what the bible tells us who we are as Christians and when we realize the truth about ourselves, just exactly how freeing it is to be a Christian. This book was amazing. It helped me heal some of the old wounds I had towards people. It even caused me to reach out to an old friend and recommend this book to her on her own road to recovery. And because of that, we're speaking again. This book was what I needed.