From Eternity to Here

I just finished up Frank Viola's latest book From Eternity to Here: Rediscovering the Ageless Purpose of God. Frank is also the author of Reimagining Church: Pursuing the Dream of Organic Christianity and co-author of Pagan Christianity?: Exploring the Roots of Our Church Practices. He is also a big proponent of organic house churches.

Nonetheless, his latest book is an interesting summation of the story of God and from Genesis to Revelation and how the story continues even today. Viola spends a lot of time highlighting and connecting metaphors in scripture and Hebrew history to God's larger plan and purpose for the universe. If you are one who finds the metaphor connections between the Old Testament and New Testament, you'll enjoy this work a lot.

To risk overusing another metaphor, this book helps you fly over Christianity at a 40,000 foot view to see how all of the stories in scripture are connected with a greater purpose. Most of my life consisted of me growing up in the details of each story and drawing application from them individually. What I like about the way Viola tells the story is the way all of those details point to a single story that is much larger and gives greater meaning to our lives. As you start to read it you might find it odd or weird, but the longer I stayed with it the more thought provoking it became.

It's these kind of books that will help those who have a negative perception of God and Christianity. When someone begins to understand God's story they can relate better to him. Even growing up in the church, I needed to hear the story in this kind of way to continue reminding me of "who God is" rather than "what God is."