You Need a Better Gospel - by Klyne R Snodgrass (Paperback)

About the Book

A senior New Testament scholar shows that the church will never be what it is supposed to be without a recovery of the gospel.

Book Synopsis

Too often, the church hasn't done justice to its own gospel because it has neglected how much the New Testament message is about deep involvement in life with God. Senior New Testament scholar Klyne Snodgrass offers a corrective, explaining that the church will never be what it is supposed to be without a recovery of the gospel.

This brief, accessibly written, and timely book shows that the biblical message is about attachment to Christ, participation in his death and resurrection, and engagement in his purposes. Snodgrass demonstrates that understanding and appropriating the gospel of participation conforms with what the church's great thinkers have emphasized throughout history and enables the church to recover its true identity.

This book brings the notion of participation in the gospel to a wider church audience. While other studies on this topic focus mostly on Paul's writings, You Need a Better Gospel shows that participation is the emphasis of the entire Bible, including the Old Testament. The real gospel, which offers participation in life with God, is astounding in its beauty and its power for life.

From the Back Cover

"A needed corrective to the simplistic gospel on offer in too many quarters of the church"

New Testament scholar Klyne Snodgrass shows that the church will never be what it is supposed to be without a recovery of the gospel.

"Here is an impassioned and accessible plea for union with Christ as the center of Christian faith and life. Drawing on a wide swath of Scripture and Christian tradition, You Need a Better Gospel will be a boon to clergy and lay people who yearn for a deeper, livelier, and more transformative faith in the reality of the good news."
--Susan Eastman, Duke Divinity School

"To have eternal life is to participate in the family of God--in the Son, through the Spirit--with other adoptees. Snodgrass rightly asks evangelicals--'gospel people'--to recover the New Testament understanding of faith, which is considerably more rich, dramatic, and self-involving than merely signing on the doctrinal dotted line."
--Kevin J. Vanhoozer, Trinity Evangelical Divinity School

"The robust gospel of transformative participation recovered and expounded in these pages is a needed corrective to the simplistic gospel on offer in too many quarters of the church. A must-read for pastors and lay people as well as professors and scholars."
--Michael J. Gorman, St. Mary's Seminary & University; author of Participating in Christ

"With pastoral concern, academic rigor, and godly wisdom, Snodgrass provides a helpful resource for a wide range of readers. The gospel--good news--continually gets debated and at times truncated, but Snodgrass shows that a robust gospel is not about a ticket to heaven but about humans fulfilling their ultimate purpose through participation in Christ."
--Dennis R. Edwards, North Park Theological Seminary

About the Author

Klyne R. Snodgrass (PhD, University of St. Andrews) is professor emeritus of New Testament studies at North Park Theological Seminary in Chicago, Illinois, where he taught for more than forty years. He is the author of several books, including the influential Christianity Today Book Award Winner Stories with Intent A Comprehensive Guide to the Parables of Jesus. Snodgrass formerly served as the editor of Ex Auditu: An International Journal of the Theological Interpretation of Scripture for twenty-five years.