Given: The Forgotten Meaning and Practice of Blessing - Softcover

Boesch, Tina

Softcover

ISBN 10: 1631469738 ISBN 13: 9781631469732

Publisher: NavPress, 2019

Synopsis

How do we express the good that God wants for those we love? How do we experience blessing through pain and suffering? Why would we bless even enemies? How do we keep spoken blessings in sync with God’s will? And how do we integrate blessing, a concept woven throughout the entire Bible, into the fabric of our everyday lives?

In Given, you will journey outside of your comfort zone, into a world of blessing as a relational calling―as a way God relates to you and a way you’re called to relate to others. You will travel across countries, cultures, and centuries of church history to expand your paradigm of a word ripe with significance. Along the way, you’ll be inspired to begin the essential Christian practice of being given by God as a blessing.

Journey with author Tina Boesch to discover your calling to a meaningful way of living and relating to God and others, inspired by Christ, who gave himself on the cross so that we could fully experience God’s blessing.

About this title

From the Back Cover

Begin to Live
We all have a deep ache to be blessed by God and to be a blessing. How do we bless those we love? How do we bless our enemies? How do we speak blessing into―and out of―pain and suffering? How do we keep the blessings we speak in sync with God’s will?

Living overseas, where blessing flowed freely through everyday conversations, Tina Boesch realized she had never learned its language. As you journey with Tina across countries, cultures, and centuries of church history, you’ll expand your understanding of a word that is ripe with significance.

Includes a reading and reflection guide that will equip you with tangible ways to begin the practice of giving yourself to others as a blessing.

Tina Boesch is a writer, an editor, and a designer and serves as an advocate for Baptist Global Response. She earned an MA in theology at Regent College in Vancouver, British Columbia, where she studied Christianity and culture. She has lived in seven countries on three continents. For fourteen years, Tina, her husband, and their three children called Istanbul, Turkey, home. They currently reside in Louisiana.

Review

Given is a book that should not be ignored. In it, Tina Boesch explores the biblically significant notion of “blessing.” Rejecting both the prosperity gospel’s reduction of “blessing” to economic success and many evangelicals’ reduction of it to some sort of vague future hope, she argues that the ultimate expression of blessing is the Cross, where Christ gave himself on our behalf, blessing us so that we could bless others―even our enemies. In a delightful and surprising manner, Given not only explores the richness of biblical teaching but also takes the reader on a journey through history and across the globe. Highly recommended. (Bruce Ashford, dean of faculty at Southeastern Baptist Theological Seminary)

Given brings back the soul songs we should’ve been singing to each other for centuries. It’s like a deep breath that pulls the reader into a place of rest, a place where God himself and his goodness is enough―a place where we live to share that goodness with others. (Grace Thornton, author)

What the next generation looks for is legacy. How do the decisions we make today affect their tomorrows? In this book, Tina talks about what’s obvious and not-so-obvious in the legacy of blessing that we offer to those in our lives. Her perspective is practical and demonstrated through history and personal experience. If we’re able to extend that hope to others, we hold a gift few fully comprehend. (Reggie Joiner, founder and CEO at Orange)

Our efforts to express blessing to others often become routine and trite. However, reading this book will awaken the spirit to the power of words of blessing. (Gary D. Chapman, author of The 5 Love Languages)

I started reading Tina Boesch’s book like a freight train rushing to its destination. Instead, I found myself on a slow hike, immersing myself in the words that caused me to observe Scripture and principles of blessing in a new way. Her words left me captivated with a desire to be like Jacob and wrestle with God until receiving a blessing. (Kelly King, manager at LifeWay Christian Resources)

Tina tells the biblical story with great attention to narrative detail and has chosen her examples astutely. Interwoven with all this are many wonderful stories from her own and others’ lives, which illuminate the themes she’s trying to get across. (Iain W. Provan, Marshall Sheppard Professor of Biblical Studies at Regent College)

In our day, “blessing” has sadly been reduced to a hashtag, frequently used in a shallow or braggadocio way. But in Given, Tina Boesch unpacks the richness of the biblical meaning of blessing. Her writing is exquisite, poetic, and rooted in the biblical narrative. In the truest sense of the word, Tina has richly blessed the family of God with her book. I highly recommend! (Susie Hawkins, speaker and author)

Tina Boesch can bless in a wide range of modes: artist, art scholar, tour guide, theological teacher, evangelist, hostess, daughter, sister, friend, wife, mother, and more. This beautiful book comes from a heart ready to bless, a mind brimming with good things, and a mouth able to put things fitly, “like apples of gold in a setting of silver” (Proverbs 25:11)―all bundled with a strong back, capable hands, and a quick smile. Come and be blessed! (John G. Stackhouse, Jr., Samuel J. Mikolaski Professor of Religious Studies at Crandall University)

A year or so ago, I was led to Tina Boesch’s blog and soon found myself binge-reading her posts. She has a tremendous way with the English language―her prose is redolent, Christ centered, even pungent at times, but always winsome. And this book is no exception. I have long thought that blessings and benedictions are a lost art among evangelicals, and Tina’s book is the very thing we need to recover a vital part of our heritage. May it be widely read, appreciated, and put into practice! (Michael A. G. Haykin, professor of church history at Southern Baptist Theological Seminary)

Edition details

• Publisher: NavPress
• Publication date: 2019
• ISBN 10: 1631469738
• ISBN 13: 9781631469732
• Binding: Paperback
• Language: English
• Number of pages: 272