Grace Abounds
God’s Abundance against the Fear of Scarcity
- Biblical Studies & Commentaries
- Publisher: Westminster John Knox
- Published: 2024
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Publisher's Description
In Grace Abounds: God’s Abundance against the Fear of Scarcity, Walter Brueggemann explores our human struggle of having a smallness of mind that breeds competition and envy against God’s prompting to move beyond our small selves to trust in God’s ultimate provision and to extend ourselves to others openhandedly. The Walter Brueggemann Library brings together the wide-ranging and enlivening thought of popular biblical scholar Walter Brueggemann over his storied career. Each volume collects previously published work on a biblical theme that has deeply informed Brueggemann’s scholarship, in an accessible digest for readers who want to freshly engage his prophetically minded but approachable writing on the topic. The Bible often associates God’s grace with abundance. While it is sometimes equated with forgiveness, more often grace is described much more broadly in the texts of ancient Israel: as the divine self-giving that stands against various forms of scarcity.We are bombarded daily with the idea that there is not enough of anything—housing, jobs, resources. By contrast, the Bible shows again and again how God meets our needs abundantly but in such a way that unveils our profound ongoing need for God and for one another. The first part of Grace Abounds lays out fundamentals of biblical grace by focusing on some of our most basic needs—to eat, to use land, to find shelter—and four different types of responses from people in Scripture struggling to survive experiences of exile and forced migration. In the second part of the book, Brueggemann advocates for specific biblical practices that are appropriate to the reality and experience of God’s grace and grace-full relationships with fellow creatures: keeping Sabbath, making doxology, bestowing blessing, offering forgiveness, and realizing reconciliation. Questions for reflection are included at the end of each chapter, making this book ideal for individual or group study.
Endorsements (5)
“A biblical witness to the fullness of life. Brueggemann has gifted us with an antidote to many sins of our present economy. Grace Abounds offers people of faith a way forward and an invitation to take part in the still unfolding story of God’s creative abundance.”
“Walter Brueggemann is a legend. He is one of the most influential biblical scholars of the past century. Few people have inspired me more than Brueggemann, especially as we try to understand what it means to be God’s peculiar people in the belly of the empire. This series is sort of like the ‘best hits’ album of one of the world’s greatest theologians.”
“Do not miss the opportunity to use this powerful resource to spur life-changing conversation among people of faith. We are living in a moment when scarcity seduces us, permitting us to cling to our privilege and rendering us unable to see how the narrative of scarcity harms not just us but the neighbors we are called to care for. Here Brueggemann offers us the text and the witness of our faith to insist that we reject the fear and despair around us and tenaciously embrace the abundance and grace by which people of faith are invited and called by God to move through this world. This is a treasure!”
“If you have about had it with the Bible, or if you preach to people who feel the Bible does more harm than good, Walter Brueggemann’s Grace Abounds is the medicine you need. It rescues us from the all-too-common and all-too-shallow ways the Bible is typically quoted and wielded like a weapon; it gently leads us down into the Bible’s deepest currents—currents that challenge many of our most deeply-held paradigms and ultimately liberate us from them.”
“With profound biblical insight and sensitivity to the needs of the world, Walter Brueggemann reminds us why his voice is one of the most important pastoral voices of this generation. In Grace Abounds , we are re-introduced to an imagination offering the abundance of grace even in the most broken of worlds.”
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