Learning to Dream Again: Rediscovering the Heart of God

by Samuel Wells

Publisher:

Eerdmans

, 2013

Overview

Through a series of short, thoughtful meditations, Learning to Dream Again shows what true wisdom—wisdom shaped by Jesus’ earthy humility, shameful suffering, and effervescent joy—might look like for Christians today. Through the lens of this Christian wisdom, Samuel Wells addresses a number of difficult personal and social issues, including taxes, abortion, torture, hunger, and Christian engagement with broader culture in the arts, sciences, athletics, and medicine.

As he seeks to present a faithful rendering of the mind of Christ, Wells deftly ties abstract ideas to everyday Christian living. He groups his meditations thematically into these six chapters:

• Learning to Love Again
• Learning to Live Again
• Learning to Think Again
• Learning to Read Again
• Learning to Feel Again
• Learning to Dream Again

Beautifully written and extraordinarily insightful, Learning to Dream Again is both for Christians who have been to church for years but long to ponder the ambiguities and hard questions of faith and life and for new Christians who are just beginning to investigate how the Gospel connects to their most searching questions.

In the Logos edition, this volume is enhanced by amazing functionality. Important terms link to dictionaries, encyclopedias, and a wealth of other resources in your digital library. Perform powerful searches to find exactly what you’re looking for. Take the discussion with you using tablet and mobile apps. With Logos Bible Software, the most efficient and comprehensive research tools are in one place, so you get the most out of your study.

Key Features

• Shows what true wisdom might look like for Christians today
• Addresses a number of difficult personal and social issues
• Seeks to present a faithful rendering of the mind of Christ
• Ties abstract ideas to everyday Christian living

Contents

Top Highlights

“In the end, Jesus is God’s answer to this question. Jesus is the representative human being, the new Noah, the new Abraham, the new Moses, the new David, the embodiment of Israel, with whom God makes a covenant that won’t ever be broken. And Jesus is at the same time the God who won’t ever break the covenant. Jesus is the Lamb of God who in his body suffers the pain of all the broken covenants.” (Page 52)

“ Let’s consider the difference between a contract and a covenant” (Page 52)

Praise for the Print Edition

It is impossible to read this commanding book without being put on the spot and recalled to Jesus’ teaching with new authenticity. Sam Wells is a rare preacher and teacher who tugs at the heart as much as he snags at the critical intelligence of the reader who seeks for truth.

—Sarah Coakley, Norris-Hulse Professor in Divinity, Murray Edwards College, University of Cambridge

With self-deprecating humor, Wells disarms us just enough to get us to consider the most counter-cultural matters of faith—like why wisdom is unfashionable, how shame can play a useful role in our lives, and why discipline may do us more good than relentless self-expression. . . . He guides us out of our own egos and into a dazzling divine reality where learning and dreaming meet.

—Lillian Daniel, national speaker and writer

Samuel Wells has written a book so searching, so winsome, so wise that it will find your heart and dwell there. A beautiful piece of work.

—Cornelius Plantinga Jr., senior research fellow, Calvin Institute of Christian Worship, Calvin College

This very wise and moving book about renewal, identity, and the hopeful shape of the Christian life is a rare accomplishment. Wells helps us to think deeply about the ordinary round of life—relationships, marriage, work, leisure, politics, death—while at the same time encouraging us to lift our sights and to dream again, even the dream of God.

—Thomas G. Long, Bandy Professor of Preaching, Candler School of Theology, Emory University

Product Details

• Title: Learning to Dream Again: Rediscovering the Heart of God
• Author: Samuel Wells
• Publisher: Eerdmans
• Print Publication Date: 2013
• Logos Release Date: 2014
• Pages: 233
• Era: era:Contemporary
• Language: English
• Resources: 1
• Format: Digital › Logos Research Edition
• Subject: Christian life
• ISBNs: 9780802868718, 0802868711
• Resource ID: LLS:LRNNGDRMGN
• Resource Type: Monograph
• Metadata Last Updated: 2022-09-30T01:20:26Z

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.