Grace

The invitation to write this foreword brings back happy memories of hearing Dick Tripp preaching many years ago when I was a teenager growing up in Christchurch. One occasion I remember clearly was a sermon in the course of celebrations on the 25th anniversary of our parish church where Dick had been a former vicar. Dick preached the gospel, for he was and is an evangelist – something of a rarity, it has to be said, in Anglican circles – and on that occasion, as always, was a winsome and faithful servant of the gospel of our Lord Jesus Christ.

 

Many years later Dick is still preaching the gospel, notably through the written word in his series of Exploring Faith Today books. That gospel has always been the gospel of grace, the promise and assurance of new life in God through the death and resurrection of Jesus Christ, freely and generously made available to all humanity who are invited to respond in faith to the graciousness of God. Here in this book, God’s Amazing Grace, we find a comprehensive account of the grace of God as ‘the only foundation for Christian living’. But it is more than a comprehensive account, it is also a very attractive and moving explanation of the nature of divine grace, the role it plays in our lives as Christians in general, as well as the dramatic way in which many individuals’ lives have been transformed when touched by God’s amazing grace.

 

I like the way in which Dick writes graciously about grace! A number of authors he cites, for instance, are the subject of some swirling controversies about this or that aspect of their theological proposals. But Dick offers no criticism or negativity towards these authors, instead he appreciatively mines their writings for that which is indeed good, pure, and true in their understanding of the gospel of grace.

 

There are many facets of grace on display here, and I will delay the reader for just one moment more from admiring them for themselves by noting one that is especially important to me: grace is the real and substantive difference between the Christian faith and other religions (p. 62ff). May this and other vitally important aspects of God’s amazing grace be better understood as a result of this book.


Peter Carrell

 

Ministry Educator, Diocese of Nelson

Registrar and Teacher, Bishopdale Theological College, Nelson