Publisher Description
One of the ambitious dreams that Reclaiming Adoption and its authors share with the Apostle Paul is that when Christians hear the word adoption, they will think first about their adoption by God. As it now stands, Christians usually think first about the adoption of children. Reclaiming Adoption sets out to change this situation by providing breathtaking views of God’s love for and delight in His children — views that will free you to live boldly in this world from God’s acceptance, not in order to gain it.
Reclaiming Adoption begins by examining Jesus’ Parable of the Prodigal Son because it ultimately puts God the Father’s love on display — a love that embraces the younger son with uninhibited joy (Luke 15:20) and goes out to entreat the self-righteous older son to come join the celebration (Luke 15:28). The book is premised on the belief that behind the Parable of the Prodigal Son(s) is Scripture’s teaching on adoption. The story of the Bible is that God the Father sent his only true and eternal Son on a mission, and that mission was to bring many wayward and rebellious sons home to glory (Hebrews 2:10) in order to adopt them into His family.
That is the Story behind the story of the Prodigal Sons. It is the only story that gives our stories any meaning or significance.
Dan Cruver and his co-authors are convinced that if Christians learn to first think about their adoption by God, and only then about the adoption of children, they will enjoy deeper communion with the God who is love, and experience greater missional engagement with the pain and suffering of this world. That’s what this book is about. What the orphan, the stranger, and the marginalized in our world need most is churches that are filled with Christians who live daily in the reality of God’s delight in them. Reclaiming Adoption can transform the way you view and live in this world for the glory of God and the good of our world’s most needy.
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"Received this as a gift - and it IS a gift - to the Church!Adoption is central to understanding our relationship to God as Father and the template for our mission and engagement as families and a Church community towards the orphan, widow and maligned.
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Al (5 out of 5 stars)
About the Authors
Dan Cruver is the director
of Together for Adoption, an organization that provides gospel-centered
resources to mobilize the church for global orphan care, and a parent of a
multiethnic family. He is a frequent conference speaker and writer. He has an
MS in Counseling and is working toward a PhD in theology. Prior to directing
Together for Adoption, he was a college professor of Bible and theology and a pastor
of Family Ministries.
John Piper (DTheol, University of Munich) is the founder and teacher of DesiringGod.org and the chancellor of Bethlehem College and Seminary. He served for thirty-three years as the senior pastor of Bethlehem Baptist Church in Minneapolis, Minnesota, and is the author of more than fifty books, including Desiring God, Don’t Waste Your Life, This Momentary Marriage, A Peculiar Glory, and Reading the Bible Supernaturally.
Scotty Smith is the founding pastor of Christ Community Church in Franklin, Tennessee. He is the author of several books, including Speechless with Steven Curtis Chapman and Unveiled Hope with songwriter and musician Michael Card. He is a graduate of Westminster Seminary and is adjunct instructor of practical theology for Covenant Seminary in St. Louis.
Richard D. Phillips was raised in
an Army family and grew up on posts around America. After graduating from the
University of Michigan, he followed his father and grandfather by serving as a
tank officer. While in graduate school in Philadelphia, his mother urged him to
start attending church again, so he visited the Tenth Presbyterian Church. The
message he heard that night changed his life, a sermon from the Old Testament
book of Hosea about God’s redeeming love for sinners through the cross of Jesus
Christ. He quickly became active in Officer’s Christian Fellowship during the
years he was teaching leadership at West Point. He began leading a Bible study
for students and was then asked to write a daily devotional before finally
starting to preach at Christian meetings. Through these experiences, he
concluded that God was calling him into a full-time pulpit ministry, so he left
the Army and embarked on fulfilling God’s call to the ordained ministry. He now
serves as senior minister of Second Presbyterian Church in downtown Greenville,
South Carolina. He frequently speaks at conferences on the Bible and theology
and is active in overseas missions, especially in East Africa. He likes to
spend time with his wife and children and is a loyal follower of his alma
mater, the Michigan Wolverines, as well as an avid fan of the Boston Red Sox.