Book Report - Unpacking Forgiveness

First of all let me confess that I have failed to keep up with my book reports. I don’t have any excuses. I want to be faithful to what I said I would do.

I have been reading though, and I want to offer my thoughts on a book I finished several weeks ago. I have already mentioned in a couple of weeks ago and used a definition I found in the book in one of my sermons. But I wanted to explain a little more why I loved this book and why you should read it.

The book is Unpacking Forgiveness by Chris Brauns. I could go on for a 1000 words about why this book is so helpful and life-changing. Instead, I want to give you a succinct and hopefully compelling summary.

Here is the book in a nutshell: biblical forgiveness matters and few of us know what it is or how to do it. I think the most challenging part of his book is teaching that forgiveness is conditional upon repentance. I know when I heard that, I paused and considered ditching it because it didn’t sound right.

Brauns lovingly reminded me though that true Christian living is not based on my ideas or feelings of right and wrong, but solely on God’s word. As he laid out the biblical teaching on forgiveness, all my objections fell… hard. Forgiveness is about extending God’s grace to those who have hurt/offended/sinned against us. But forgiveness is only one part of God’s grace. Forgiveness has a very narrow and specific purpose: reconciliation.

God does not forgive our sins and leave us unreconciled with Him. Forgiveness and reconciliation go together like regeneration and faith. One logically precedes the other but in essence they happen simultaneously. You can’t have one without the other.

So, I learned that I did not understand biblical forgiveness. Now, I see that in order for reconciliation to happen (eliminating alienation and restoring a relationship to a right standing), the offender must be repentant. Repentance means that the offender recognizes his offense and turns from it. This is what Jesus requires of us, and we forgive as He forgave.

Whew! Heady stuff. But the church needs to hear this desperately. We offend each other all the time and if we do not have a biblical understanding of forgiveness then we will not be united and more importantly we will not display forgiveness to the nations.

I highly recommend this for every believer. It will point you to Christ’s grace in the word and will answer many practical questions on forgiveness as well.