Power and Passion: Six Characters in Search of Resurrection

by Samuel Wells

Publisher:

Zondervan

, 2009

Overview

Samuel Wells vividly paints the stories surrounding Jesus’ cross and resurrection. We see the weakness of Pontius Pilate and Barabbas, and the compromised character of Joseph of Arimathea and Nicodemus. We discover the subtle power of Pilate’s wife. And in Peter and Mary Magdalene we find the true power of resurrection, bringing forgiveness and ending the stranglehold of death, thus transforming all human passion. Through close readings of the gospel texts, Wells demonstrates the significance of these characters for faith and life today. In this book, structured with one chapter for each week of Lent, Wells guides us from the deathly power that put Jesus on the cross to the new power brought by Jesus’ resurrection. The book offers opportunities at the end of each chapter for prayer and discussion. The Archbishop of Canterbury has selected Power and Passion as his Lent book for 2007.

Product Details

• Title : Power and Passion: Six Characters in Search of Resurrection
• Author: Wells, Samuel
• Publisher: Zondervan
• Publication Date: 2009
• ISBN: 9780310863472

About Samuel Wells

Sam Wells graduated from Merton College, Oxford, with an MA in Modern History, from Edinburgh University with a BD in Systematic Theology, and from Durham University with a PhD in Christian Ethics. Before training for ordination, Sam was a community worker in inner-city Liverpool. From 1991–2005 he served in parish ministry in the Church of England. He was assistant curate in Wallsend, North Tyneside and in Cherry Hinton, Cambridge, before being incumbent at St. Elizabeth’s, North Earlham, Norwich, and then St. Mark’s, Newnham, Cambridge. While in Norwich he helped to establish—and was for several years vice chair of—the North Earlham, Larkman and Marlpit Development Trust, the first organization in the East of England devoted to community-led urban regeneration. He also established a non-profit organization offering disadvantaged children opportunities to discover wonder and joy through creative play.

In the summer of 2005, Wells became dean of Duke University Chapel and research professor of Christian ethics at The Divinity School. Sam’s responsibilities include preaching at the majority of the 11 a.m. Sunday services, leading worship, interacting with and praying for all levels of the university—leaders, faculty, administrators, students and staff. His work also entails lifting up the connections between Christian faith and theology and the pressing issues of the day, and making the Chapel and the poorest neighborhoods of Durham visible to one another. He is married to Jo Bailey Wells, who is a former dean of Clare College, Cambridge and is now director of Anglican Studies at Duke Divinity School, and they have two children.