GOD IS
Meditations on the Character of Our God
BEN WITHERINGTON III
Who God Is: Meditations on the Character of Our God
Copyright 2020 Ben Witherington III
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Print ISBN 9781683593645
Digital ISBN 9781683593652
Library of Congress Control Number 2019956735
Lexham Editorial: Abigail Stocker, Allisyn Ma, Sarah Awa
Cover Design: Christine Christophersen
This book is dedicated in memoriam to the two men who most influenced my early thinking about God—C. S. Lewis and Dr. Bernard Boyd, my Bible professor at UNC-Chapel Hill. I was not yet a teenager in 1963 when Lewis died on the same day as John F. Kennedy, but his Mere Christianity and The Screwtape Letters made an early impact on me. Dr. Boyd also left us too soon (in 1975) after twenty-five years of being the James A. Gray Professor of Biblical Studies and guiding thousands of us toward a love for the Bible and also a ministry or career of teaching it. I was fortunate to have graduated in 1974 and to have taken all his classes. I would not be who I am today nor would I have chosen the career I’ve had were it not for these two wonderful Christian men.
Apologies to Dr. Boyd: I know you wanted me to go to Princeton, and I did do summer study there with your classmate Bruce Metzger, but I felt strongly called to go to Gordon-Conwell, and their New Testament faculty (Scholer, Michaels, Lincoln, and Fee) was second to none at the time for an evangelical like me.
A special thanks to my former TA and doctoral student, Joy Vaughan, who contributed the reflection and study questions after each chapter.
Christmas 2019
THE STARTING POINT
“The great thing to remember is that, though our feelings come and go, His love for us does not.”
—C. S. Lewis,
Mere Christianity
Something has bothered me for a long time. I’m referring to the fact that even devout Christians seem to place far more emphasis on the adjectives applied to God in the Bible than on the nouns. This is not to say that the adjectives are not vitally important—God is almighty; God is righteous; God is holy; God is merciful; God is compassionate, and so on. But frankly, ...
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About Who God Is: Meditations on the Character of Our GodDo you know who God is? What does it mean to say that God is love, light, life, and spirit? In Who God Is, world-renowned New Testament scholar Ben Witherington III explores the nature and character of the God of the Bible by focusing specifically on the nouns used to describe who God is. This rich exploration has its foundation in a deep reading of the biblical text. Reflecting on these descriptions of God gives us a fresh understanding of the beauty and uniqueness of the character of our God. |
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