The Gospel of Yes by Mike Glenn is a fifteen chapter book discussing the “yes” of the gospel, Christians, Christ, and God. Most of the chapters have the word “yes” in the title. For example there is one chapter titled “The ‘yes’ of creation” and another one titled “Surprised by ‘yes’”.
The author states the purpose of his book on page 20 where he says “This book is about finding your ‘yes’ – and having the guts to live it.”
Mr. Glenn has done a great job of refocusing us on the positive verses seeing Christianity as a negative. For example on page 10 he says “Defining your life by what you oppose makes your life small, and it can fuel anger and bitterness”. I know that I can sometimes get trapped into seeing things in the light of “no” or what I am against but we as Christians are not to be defined by what we are against but who we are for.
The author understands that we will have to say “no” to some things but that isn’t the focus. He says “no” is a necessary word and he reminds us that a “yes” has a “no” side to it. When we say “yes” to something we are at the same time saying “no” to something else.
The one thing that will stay with me from this book is how I am to be defined by what I am for and not by what I am against. In some ways Mr. Glenn has imitated Jesus. Jesus says “do to others as you would have them do to you”. He speaks in a positive, active way. “Do” is an action word. If He had said “Don’t do to others what you don’t want them to do to you” it could easily turn in to a passive “I won’t do anything”. Just refraining from doing bad things to someone doesn’t mean you are going to “do” anything for them and I think this is what Mr. Glenn is striving to communicate to us.
We are called to be for Christ which means we will be against certain things but we are defined by who we are for and not what we are against.
Like any book there are things that I don’t agree with like some of the scriptures used in the book seem a bit forced in order to fit his interpretation. There is also a constant, and I think purposeful use of the feminine pronoun throughout the book. It’s as if the author is afraid to use the masculine due to the current culture. I had the feeling that the author swung to the extreme in this area. It wasn’t even like he was going for gender neutral but seemed at times to go to a feminine only position. I could be wrong on this but this is what I felt as I read the book. But even with these and other failures in the book I do think there are good things you can get from reading it.
Disclosure of Material: I received this book for free from WaterBrook Multnomah Publishing Group for this review, which requires an honest, though not necessarily positive, review. The opinions I have expressed are my own. I am disclosing this in accordance with the Federal Trade Commission’s CFR Title 16, Part 255: “Guides Concerning the Use of Endorsements and Testimonials in Advertising.”
