Books in Review: Letters from a Skeptic

I remember being quite curious when I heard about this book for the first time. I was in my fourth year of college and was enrolled in a reading course on apologetics, which meant that I had a long list of books I had to pick to read during the semester. I picked this one because the title sounded interesting, but I found this book to be so much more than I anticipated. I loved the premise and the sincere nature with which the content is presented. Even almost 10 years after reading it, I still think fondly of my experience reading it and what I learned from it. This review happens to be based on the book report I wrote for that college course. If you want to have a sincere and honest dialogue with skeptics in your life, I highly recommend this book ~ Bethel

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In his book Letters from a Skeptic, Dr. Gregory Boyd takes a very unique premise in addressing the major questions of the Christian faith. Instead of just presenting theological arguments from the start, this book contains the correspondence between Dr. Boyd and his father Ed, a man who was a true skeptic of Christianity at the time. Dr. Boyd told his father to ask him any question he had about his faith and his father gladly accepted. Ed had many questions burning in his mind for a long time and many of them were legitimate questions of honest struggles, everything from the loss of his wife and the nature of suffering to the reliability of the Bible and everything in between. Their conversation was very civil, for Ed never told his son he was wrong and Greg was always patient and understanding with his father’s questions. Greg was hopeful that his father would someday come to understand this truth for himself. After about two years and a half years of writing these letters, Ed decided to give his life to Christ and he was transformed into a different person for the last 10 years of his life.
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This is a wonderful book with one of the most unique approaches to this subject I have seen. It was incredible to see how Dr. Boyd was so clear and concise with the way he explained things to his father. His father could hardly argue with him. The honesty of the struggle on the part of Ed Boyd was also incredibly insightful. Seeing the struggles of someone unsure of who God is in a real-life situation was incredibly helpful. Greg’s persistence with helping his father see the truth of salvation in Jesus Christ was inspiring. This is a wonderful resource for apologetics, which I read entirely. I would definitely recommend this to anyone who wants to defend their faith to a skeptic and possibly lead to them to Christ in the process.

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Personal Rating. This book gets 5s all across the board.

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To read my review of the apologetics classic Mere Christianity, click here

To learn more about my latest book, Are You Ready to Take Communion?, click here