I understand why you do it.
You’ve met someone with a question, a difficulty, a problem, an objection. It might be suffering or science or sexuality or substance abuse, and you just don’t know what to say or where to start. So being the concerned Christian you are, you hopped onto the internet and read a few blog posts. Some helped, some didn’t. Others were just, well, CRAZY. But that’s the internet for you.
And then you bought a book.
Good move.
A book by a reputable publisher will have been thought about, plotted, planned, checked and reviewed, unlike many blog posts that were knocked off in under 10 minutes. So you’re going to get much better quality and sense from that. Might even get a nice cover that looks like it’s been designed in the last 10 years. You get it, you read it, you think, “Hey this is great, it answers all the questions my friend had”. But that’s where it goes horribly wrong.
You give it to them. And they HATE IT. They find it arrogant, insensitive and thoroughly irrelevant to their life, their situation, their question or their problem. Step backwards.
Most books that Christian publishers produce are for Christians. So they are filled with assumptions about what you think is important, what you believe and how you see the world. They are written in a tone that is addressing you, not your friend who may not be a Christian. And so when your friend gets the book, it will push the wrong buttons. Their assumptions are not yours. The tone that works for you, will most likely not work for them.
That’s the case with a number of books we publish. Years ago, we published a little booklet that was a tool to train Christians to explain the gospel to others. And people gave it away to their non-believing friends by the thousand!
And it’s true for one of our latest books Transgender. It’s a book that’s designed to give you—a believer—a window into where our culture’s coming from. It is written to help you have a clear understanding of what Christians believe on this subject from the Bible. It’s to start discussions with other Christians over a hundred questions that transgender issues will raise for you: What should we do if someone who is obviously transgender walks into your church? What should you do if a family member wants to transition? How do we love, respect and care for people in a way that is truly Christ-like?
If we had been writing a book for you to give away, it would be completely different.
But it is for you, not for them. If we had been writing a book for you to give away, it would be completely different.
What your friend, family member or colleague needs is not a book, but you. They need a warm, compassionate Christian friend, who knows when to say nothing and just love and support them. They need a wise believer who is able to articulate a Christian viewpoint when the moment is right. They need a church that will not treat them like a freak, but listen to them as a frail and broken human being. They need a friend who knows their Bible and is pleased to walk alongside them with understanding, and who will introduce them to Christ and the gospel.
That’s why we called the series Talking Points. Not just because the issues under scrutiny in this series are the things that people are talking about, but because Christians need to talk about them. We need to reach a better understanding of them, and know how to be wise in a complex and fallen world. That’s why we produce a discussion guide for each title that you can download. That’s why we have made them short, simple and affordable, so that whole churches can read and think through the issue together.
It’s great to have books on this and lots of other perplexing topics. But please remember that this book is not the answer… you are.
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Tim Thornborough is the founder and Publishing Director of The Good Book Company. He is series editor of Explore Bible-reading notes, the author of The Very Best Bible Stories series, and has contributed to many books published by The Good Book Company and others. Tim is married to Kathy and has three adult daughters.
