Books Archives | Philip Yancey

The Bible Revealed

Philip Yancey — Mon, 29 Sep 2025 18:45:47 +0000

A 365-Day Guided Journey Through God’s Word *** To be released Nov 11, 2025; Pre-Order discounts available NOW *** Discover the Bible As Never BeforeThe Bible may seem big and intimidating. What’s the best way to read it, and where should you even start? The Bible Revealed guides you chronologically through the Bible’s grand story, ... Read more

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What Went Wrong?: Russia’s Lost Opportunity and the Path to Ukraine

Kyle Vamvakas — Sun, 25 Feb 2024 02:07:17 +0000

The fall of the Berlin Wall in 1989 ushered in a tumultuous period for Russia and Ukraine. The Soviet Union broke apart, Communism was exposed as morally bankrupt, and Russian leaders turned to the West for help. In an astonishing development, Mikhail Gorbachev and Boris Yeltsin invited a group of American evangelicals to give advice on restoring morality to Russia. The nation was moving toward democratic and religious freedoms until, one decade later, Vladimir Putin abruptly reversed course.

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Undone: A Modern Rendering of John Donne’s Devotions

Kyle Vamvakas — Fri, 13 Oct 2023 13:12:27 +0000

In 2020, as the world entered a long dark night of the soul, I returned to a nearly 400-year-old manuscript for guidance. In it, I found a trustworthy companion for living through a pandemic ̶ or any other crisis. The words leaped out at me from the very first page of John Donne’s Devotions…nothing had prepared me for his raw account of confrontations with God.

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What’s So Amazing About Grace?

Kyle Vamvakas — Fri, 13 Oct 2023 13:05:44 +0000

I had originally conceived a book called What’s So Amazing About Grace and Why Don’t Christians Show More of It? in order to speak to the growing enchantment of American Christians with right-wing politics. Christians were becoming known mainly for what they were against: pornography, homosexuality, abortion, etc. That disturbed me, as I see grace as one of the great, often untapped, powers of the universe that God has asked us to set loose.

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Where the Light Fell: A Memoir

Kyle Vamvakas — Sat, 03 Dec 2022 15:47:52 +0000

In Where the Light Fell, I reveal the details of my impoverished upbringing in the South and a secret that set me on a search to understand the truth of my family and the culture in which I was raised. It’s a kind of prequel to everything else I’ve written, the story of my widowed mother finding security and purpose in a strict fundamentalist faith that fought against everything: integration, Communism, the social changes of the 1960s, her wayward sons. By reading this previously untold story, you’ll understand why my books have so often centered on the themes of suffering and grace.

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Fearfully and Wonderfully: The Marvel of Bearing God’s Image

Kyle Vamvakas — Thu, 01 Dec 2022 17:03:44 +0000

We live in divided times. Politically, racially, and religiously, the United States is experiencing a severe strain on its unity. Similar factiousness has spread around the world. Although Fearfully and Wonderfully Made and its sequel, In His Image were published over 30 years ago, we still have much to learn from Dr. Paul Brand. This fascinating man studied medicine during World War II, when virtually the entire world was at arms. He then began his medical career during a cataclysmic event in India that caused more than a million deaths and created fourteen million refugees. Brand’s insights come not as sermons, but as observations of how cells work together in community and what we can learn from them.

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Vanishing Grace: Bringing Good News to a Deeply Divided World

Kyle Vamvakas — Wed, 09 Nov 2022 16:36:51 +0000

“Why does the church stir up such negative feelings?” I have found that this question is more relevant now than ever. In a twenty-year span starting in the mid-nineties, research shows that favorable opinions of Christianity have plummeted drastically—and opinions of Evangelicals have taken even deeper dives. Yet while the opinions about Christianity are dropping, interest in spirituality is rising. Why the disconnect? Why are so many asking, “What’s so good about the Good News?”?

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Prayer: Does It Make Any Difference?

Kyle Vamvakas — Mon, 07 Nov 2022 16:57:15 +0000

Prayer can be frustrating, confusing, and fraught with mystery. I probe such questions as: Is God listening? Why should God care about me? If God knows everything, what’s the point of prayer? How can I make prayer more satisfying? Why do so many prayers go unanswered? Do prayers for healing really matter? Does prayer change God? I began with a list of such questions, then I studied all 650 prayers in the Bible and interviewed scores of people about their own experiences with prayer.

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The Jesus I Never Knew

Kyle Vamvakas — Sun, 06 Nov 2022 16:59:06 +0000

How does the Jesus of the New Testament compare to the “new, rediscovered” Jesus—or even the Jesus we think we know so well? Thousands of books have been written about Jesus, and yet still he remains an elusive historical figure.

For several years I taught a class on Jesus that relied on movie depictions of his life. Out of that class came this book, for teaching it gave me a new and different perspective on his work—his teachings, his miracles, his death and resurrection—and ultimately, who he was and why he came. In this book I emphasize the relational and personal rather than the scholarly.

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Disappointment with God

Kyle Vamvakas — Sat, 05 Nov 2022 14:14:58 +0000

After writing one of my first books, Where Is God When It Hurts, I got letters from readers who said something like this: “Thanks for your reflections on physical pain. My situation is different, though. My child has severe disabilities, and I face a constant battle with depression. Prayer doesn’t seem to help my emotional pain. When it comes to God, I feel something like betrayal.” I settle on three questions, “Is God unfair? Is God silent? Is God hidden?” and scour the Bible methodically, looking for clues.

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