God Is Disappointed in You
“God Is Disappointed in You” (which is the perfect title for this book). Because if I had to condense the Bible down to a single phrase, that would be it.
If you had to boil the Bible down to one phrase, what would it be? Mark Russel has a suggestion.
In “God Is Disappointed in You” Russell paraphrases Scripture, condensing each of the Bible’s 66 books down to just a few pages. While his work on occasion captures the sense of a text, often it is a highly sarcastic, irreverent, and at times outright vulgar retelling of Scripture. According to one review, the work is for “people who would like to read the Bible, if it would just cut to the chase.”
Russel, who had grown up reading the Scripture, spent three years “reading the Bible from front to back twice, constant editing, and revision, and hustling PhD candidates for free advice.” “This would become a quest, to not make this just a collection of Bible stories,” he explains, “but to really understand the book on a meaningful level, to give some insight on this ubiquitous but somehow unknown holy book.”
Listen to the concluding lines of his work:
“Once we agreed to publish the book with Top Shelf, the first question to come up was, “What do we call it?” After a few aborted suggestions, all of which I’m glad we turned down, we all started to focus in on “God Is Disappointed in You” (which is the perfect title for this book). Because if I had to condense the Bible down to a single phrase, that would be it. . . I don’t claim this book is a benefactor of divine intervention, though there were moments when it sure felt like it. Or maybe divine intervention is simply what we call our hard work, hand-ringing, and the hope that we somehow got it right.”
“God is disappointed in you” is in no way the central theme of the Bible. Divine inspiration is not our hard work, hand-ringing, and the hope that we somehow got it right. It is the story of the hard work, hand-piercing, and hope of Jesus Christ.
Key Texts
John 20:31
but these are written so that you may believe that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of God, and that by believing you may have life in his name.
2 Timothy 3:15–17
15 and how from childhood you have been acquainted with the sacred writings, which are able to make you wise for salvation through faith in Christ Jesus. 16 All Scripture is breathed out by God and profitable for teaching, for reproof, for correction, and for training in righteousness, 17 that the man of God may be complete, equipped for every good work.
Hebrews 4:12
For the word of God is living and active, sharper than any two-edged sword, piercing to the division of soul and of spirit, of joints and of marrow, and discerning the thoughts and intentions of the heart.
Key Topics
Bible, grace, mercy, God’s wrath, God’s love, salvation
Source
Russell, Mark. God Is Disappointed in You. Illustrated by Shannon Wheeler (Marietta, GA: Top Shelf Productions).
–