Jf Jeff Etchberger

I always considered myself a Christian and tried to live my life accordingly. Then beginning at age 39 (1989), a series of significant life-events led me to question whether I was a genuine believer, or a Christian in name only. Even though I knew about God, I began to know God personally through these experiences. God became real to me and I increasingly became focused on the question of how God transforms individuals into who he created them to be - genuine believers in his Son, Jesus Christ. In response, after a 20-year career in government and the private sector, I made a significant mid-life career change to earn an MDiv degree fro Fuller Theological Seminary. Previously, I was always uncomfortable hearing people describe their conversion occurring on a specific date and time, because this was not my experience. As I began to examine Scripture in depth, I realized that spiritual transformation could occur at a single moment in time or take much longer. Over time, I began to understand how God was actively directing the series of life-events I had experienced. What had started as a process to understand what5 had happened in my own life soon became a 30-year quest to understand the transformational process which God uses to transform simple belief into genuine faith as revealed throughout Scripture. Beyond Simple Belief shares the outcome of that quest.