Epic
The Story God Is Telling
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4.5 • 40 Ratings
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- $2.99
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- $2.99
Publisher Description
This dramatic retelling of the gospel illuminates the unique role we can play in the amazing story God is telling.
Sure, good things happen, sometimes beautiful things. But tragic things happen too. What does it mean? We find ourselves in the middle of a story that is sometimes wonderful, sometimes awful, usually a confusing mixture of both, and we haven’t a clue how to make sense of it all. No wonder we keep losing heart.
We need to know the rest of the story.
For when we were born, we were born into the midst of a great story begun before the dawn of time. A story of adventure, of risk and loss, heroism . . . and betrayal. A story where good is warring against evil, danger lurks around every corner, and glorious deeds wait to be done. Think of all those stories you’ve ever loved. There’s a reason they stirred your heart. They’ve been trying to tell you about the true Epic ever since you were young.
There is a larger story and you have a crucial role to play.
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
What if you were a character in the most fantastic tale ever told? Eldredge (Wild at Heart), a counselor, rearranges and condenses themes found in his book Waking the Dead while adding Epic to the growing list of evangelical Christian books that explain human history as a narrative and God as its author. Eldredge tells the story in four parts: Eternal Love (a personal God creating a personal universe); The Entrance of Evil (Satan the villain); The Battle for the Heart (God's calling humans to love him), and The Kingdom Is Restored (God, through Christ, makes all things new). As in past books, Eldredge illuminates scripture using movies (Braveheart, Apollo 13 and The Last of the Mohicans) and literature, including Yeats, the Lord of the Rings trilogy and the Chronicles of Narnia. The examples work well, with the exception of the character Jack in Titanic; considering that character's seduction of an engaged woman, Eldredge's extensive comparison of his sacrifice to Christ's may rankle some evangelical readers. Eldredge does, however, go out of his way to emphasize hell a rarity among evangelical writers. This brief primer adds little to what is becoming a shopworn analogy for the Christian message, but it is easily understood and powerful at times, especially when expressing the human longing for a happy ending.
Customer Reviews
Have I really understood the Bible?
That’s the question I asked myself after finishing this book. I love authors who can reframe overly familiar things in ways that make them seem new again. I think that’s what John Eldridge does here – in wonderful ways. After reading this, I have given away 60 copies to friends and family. Read read it yourself for new ways of framing God’s story as you pass it on to others.