I found reading Speechless : living in awe of God’s disruptive grace by Steven Curtis Chapman and Scotty Smith, a slightly difficult read. First, because of the strong musical context this book was written in (which obviously came about because Steven is a professional musician) and second I had trouble relating to the strong male perspective coming from two male writers. However the biggest difficulty was the subject matter.
It is difficult writing about grace. (I know, I do it a lot!) It is something that as Christians we think we know all there is to know since we have heard about it all our spiritual lives. The inclination is to skip over further teaching on the subject. Yet often our understanding only scratches the surface. Steven and Scotty attempt to take people further in their understanding by relating stories from their lives and others which shows the “disruptive” nature of God’s grace. Yet the stories are very personal, God treats us as individuals and sometimes what is very meaningful to one person can be lost on others.
Yet, despite these difficulties, I found it was a worthwhile read. The book emphasises our need of grace and our tendency to fall back into legalism and other strategies to minimise our need of it. The authors were highly encouraging as they inspired, exhorted and urged their readers to discover the depths of God’s grace for themselves.
A good read.
