Flourishing in Tensions: Embracing Radical Discipleship
Ebook
Following Jesus Christ presents unique challenges to disciples today. In our current climate of relativism, materialism, and consumerism, Christians are increasingly perplexed as to who they are and what following after Christ means today. Drawing on the Protestant tradition (in particular, Dietrich Bonhoeffer, Martin Luther, and Adolf Schlatter) and findings from psychology, this book offers a fresh integrative interpretation of Jesus's radical call into discipleship. This call is interpreted through a christological lens, as Jesus Christ in his role as Prophet calls us to self-denial, in his role as Priest invites us to cross-bearing, and as King demands us to follow him. Jesus's call to discipleship challenges disciples to embrace various tensions by faith and to grow and even flourish in and through them. By denying themselves, they find their true self; by taking up their cross, they find real life; and by following Christ, they find the great friend and befriend the world as the community of disciples. This book is for Christians who seek to mature in intentional self-reflection and discover practical ways of living out Christ's radical call into discipleship today.
“This book offers a rare combination of intellectual
sophistication, theological depth, biblical understanding, and
practical awareness. Books on discipleship can be facile, faddish,
or quirky. This one stands out as clear, compelling, and true to
Christ’s call to follow him. The author writes, sometimes
painfully, from within the torque of the relationship to God he
seeks to expedite. I don’t recall ever reading a better book on
this subject. It will become a go-to personal and classroom
resource.”
—Robert W. Yarbrough, Covenant Theological Seminary
“This book combines the best of German (Bonhoeffer, Schlatter, and
Luther in particular) and English-speaking (not least Australian)
Evangelical theology and psychology. It wears classical Christian
education lightly, all the better to probe, evaluate, and often
find wanting the trends of unhelpful, narcissistic thinking in
world and church today.”
—Mark Elliott, Wycliffe College, University of Toronto
“This book provides a wonderful primer in contemporary
discipleship—scripturally engaged, theologically informed, and
utterly relevant. Bräutigam invites the reader to reflect afresh
upon the deep complexities of the Christian life in the present
world, and challenges us to embrace them fully and to be
transformed radically. This is work that will appeal to mind and
heart, and deserves to be widely read.”
—Paul T. Nimmo, University of Aberdeen
- Title: Flourishing in Tensions: Embracing Radical Discipleship
- Author: Michael Bräutigam
- Publisher: Wipf and Stock
- Print Publication Date: 2022
- Logos Release Date: 2022
- Language: English
- Resources: 1
- Format: Digital › Ebook
- ISBNs: 9781666792232, 9781666792225, 9781666735291, 1666792233, 1666792225, 1666735299
- Resource ID: LLS:9781666792232
- Resource Type: Monograph
- Metadata Last Updated: 2022-11-06T03:50:15Z
Michael Bräutigam serves as lecturer and director of the Centre for Theology and Psychology at Melbourne School of Theology/Eastern College Australia. He is the author of Union with Christ (2015), and co-editor of Engaging Ethically in a Strange New World (2019) and Proclaiming the Gospel—Engaging the World (2020).