Available February 7, 2023

CURVEBALL

WHEN YOUR FAITH TAKES TURNS YOU NEVER SAW COMING*

*or How I Stumbled and Tripped My Way to Finding a Bigger God

BY PETER ENNS

God is bigger and more mysterious than anyone’s expectations.

We need a faith that can grow just as deeply.

“Peter Enns is brilliant at taking the big topics, those Christian ideas that usually scare us or intimidate us or worry us, and then make those very places a meeting place with a God who is bigger and wilder and more wonderful and trustworthy than we ever could have guessed.”—Sarah Bessey, author of Out of Sorts and Jesus Feminist

The author of How the Bible Actually Works and The Bible Tells Me So explains how our model of God and faith must evolve as our understanding of the world deepens—just as the Bible describes it should.

Life throws us “curve balls”—from devastating personal losses to world tragedies. These events often leave us doubting God, the Bible, and our faith. But instead of pushing away our reservations, we should embrace them, Peter Enns argues. A leading biblical scholar and Christian mentor, Enns has never been afraid to question the Bible or Christian beliefs. Such thoughtful inquisitiveness, he argues, is part of God’s plan. He wants us to question, because doing so actually leads to a stronger, lasting faith.

By reframing how we see these events, we allow ourselves to see how the Bible itself showcases this very process and that “treating curve balls as the enemy” is not only counterproductive but thwarts God’s goal of helping us become mature and wise. Enns shares a number of curve balls he’s encountered in his own life and the questions he has pondered. Does God care about the millions of people who never heard the gospel? Could I relate to a God who has created a universe this big? If God is so relatable, constant, and caring, how do we explain quantum physics?He reveals how particular biblical passages have helped him find wisdom, and how they can do the same for us.

As Curveball persuasively shows, God is bigger and more mysterious than anyone’s expectations. We need a faith that can grow just as deeply.

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ABOUT THE AUTHOR

PETER ENNS

Ph.D., Harvard University

Peter is Abram S. Clemens professor of Biblical Studies at Eastern University. He has taught undergraduate, seminary, and doctoral courses at numerous other schools, including Princeton Theological Seminary, Harvard Divinity School, and Temple University. Pete speaks and writes regularly to diverse audiences about the intersection of the ancient setting of Bible and contemporary Christian faith. He is a frequent contributor to journals and encyclopedias, and has written, edited, and contributed to nearly 20 books, includingThe Sin of Certainty: Why God Desires Our Trust More than Our “Correct” Beliefs; The Bible Tells Me So: Why Defending Scripture Has Made Us Unable to Read It, Inspiration and Incarnation: Evangelicals and the Problem of the Old Testament,andThe Evolution of Adam: What the Bible Does and Doesn’t Say about Human Origins. Enns resides in suburban Philadelphia with his wife Susan.