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Compassion: A Reflection on the Christian Life

Donald P. McNeill, Douglas Morrison, and Henri Nouven, Image Books, Garden City, NewYork, 1983, 141 pages, $5.95, paper.

Reviewed by Jerry Connell, pastor of the University Adventist Church, Michigan State University, East Lansing, Michigan.

"All-pervasive competition reaches into the smallest corners of our relationship and prevents us from being truly compassionate." To the authors, com passion is the ultimate sign of the grace of God working in us. In a society where self-worth is derived from comparing ourselves with others, we take a critical look and recognize that competition and not compassion is often our main motivation in life.

The reader senses the challenge from Jesus to abandon our fearful clinging to the fake identity based on our competitive lifestyle. We are pointed to Christ, who, being in the form of God, did not consider equality something to be grasped, but took on the form of a slave.

God's form of compassion is in serving as Christ served. Based mainly on Philippians 2:6-8, this book is divided into three sections (1) the compassionate God who came to serve; (2) the compassion ate life that places believers where God wants them; and (3) the compassionate way of patience and prayer that leads to action. This compassion is a by-product of a deep prayer life and the test of one's genuineness.

Those who desire to grow in their Christian experience will appreciate this book and it is an excellent source for sermon material. It will change both its reader and those with whom the reader shares it.


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Reviewed by Jerry Connell, pastor of the University Adventist Church, Michigan State University, East Lansing, Michigan.

June 1988

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