Matthew Lee Anderson - The End of Our Exploring: A Book about Questioning and the Confidence of Faith

Doubt has become very popular in the last few years. Many times though, doubt never takes the doubter anywhere for answers. Matt shows us how to question well and actually let our doubts take us to God.

DARRIN PATRICK, lead pastor of The Journey St. Louis, author of For the City and Church Planter

I wish I had read this book a long time ago! Learning to question well is one of the most important things we can teach young people to do. I will be recommending this book to the many young people I work with every day.

SEAN MCDOWELL, educator, speaker, author of Apologetics for a New Generation

Finally a book that encourages us to doubt our doubts! Well, not exactly, but Anderson does a good job of discerning the various types of questions and doubt we experience. The goal is not to celebrate doubt but to help us learn to ask the questions that lead to an increasingly mature and dynamic faith.

MARK GALLI, editor of Christianity Today

Never mind the hand-wringing about young evangelicals. Read Matthew Lee Anderson and youll feel much better.

JOHN WILSON, editor of Books & Culture

This is a personal, extended meditation on the question, which is to say that it does not try to be hip or current in any way whatsoever. This very quality, its calm, patient perusing, yields the gifts that the book will give to the reader who pushes through the first question (why should I read this?) and simply decides to go exploring with Matt.

TYLER WIGG-STEVENSON, author, The World Is Not Ours to Save and Brand Jesus

Christians are often accused of being unwilling to ask the hard questions. Matthew Anderson not only embraces asking the hard questions as core to the Christian life, but equips the reader with the tools necessary to effectively engage in this practice in a manner that refines our ability to think, understand, and live for the gospel.

PAUL SPEARS, director of Torrey Honors Institute, Biola

In a world where dialogue and conversation are buzzwords but rarely well practiced, and where doubt and questioning seem to be more about a scene than a search for truth, Matthew Lee Andersons The End of Our Exploring comes as a breath of fresh air. Clearheaded, personal, witty, and wise, Andersons book presents a sensible framework for epistemology that is sorely needed today.

BRETT MCCRACKEN, author of Hipster Christianity: When Church & Cool Collide and Gray Matters: Navigating the Space between Legalism & Liberty

Over the years, Ive realized that my wisest, most interesting, most enjoyable friends share at least one common trait: they all ask good questions. Theyre curious, openhearted, aware of all the vistas they havent yet explored, seeking out truth, goodness, and beauty in places they havent yet discovered. Matthew Lee Andersons new book explains why I find this trait so attractive in my friends (hint: its the virtue of hope), and he explains how I can cultivate that quality for myself while avoiding its pitfalls. After closing his book, Im better equipped to heed Jesus simple command, Ask.

WESLEY HILL, author of Washed and Waiting: Reflections on Christian Faithfulness and Homosexuality

In The End of Our Exploring, Matt Lee Anderson recovers a lost artthat of questioning well. If you have questions about faith, life, or pain, then this book will equip you to ask questions to challenge and guide you. He describes how questioning can be a pathway to beauty, love, and redemption. Relevant and engaging, Andersons work has personally changed the way I ask questions.

PETER GREER, president and CEO of HOPE International, author of The Spiritual Danger of Doing Good

For years, Matt has challenged me to ask the right questions. This practice has deepened my love for God and the gospel and greatly helped me approach the countless nuances of both ministry and personal life. He has eloquently captured the essence of this helpful practice in The End of Our Exploring. As usual, Matt is brilliantly engaging and humbly transparent as he illuminates the importance of thoughtful exploration and the dangers of asking the wrong questions. I highly recommend everyone reads this book.

STEPHEN MILLER, worship leader, author of Worship Leaders, We Are Not Rock Stars

A thought-provoking, question-stirring book that opens the windows of the mind and allows fresh air to blow through our debates and discourse. You may never look at a question the same way again.

TREVIN WAX, managing editor of The Gospel Project, author of Clear Winter Nights, Gospel Centered Teaching, and Counterfeit Gospels

Matt Anderson has questions. But he also has answers. But he also has questions about those answers, and answers about where our questions come from, where they take us, what they reveal and conceal, how they work, what kind of people we questioners are, and what our questioning is for. Open your mind for this book the way you would open your hands for a gift, so you can grab onto something solid at last.

FRED SANDERS, associate professor of theology, Torrey Honors Institute, Biola University

Matt Anderson excels at asking good questions. In this book, he thanks several people who he says are responsible for teaching him to question well. Im glad they did. Matt understands and describes in this book how faith can be big enough for doubt, and how questions are better than answers sometimes. Even more important, Matt understandsunlike many in his generationthat the goal of questioning is truth, or more accurately the God who is Truth and is big enough for our questions.

JOHN STONESTREET, speaker and author for Breakpoint and Summit Ministries

Matthew Lee Anderson challenges us to examine the heart behind our inquiries and embrace the God-glorifying design of asking questionsto see them as opportunities to edify and encourage, to grow in our faith. The End of Our Exploring is a wonderful gift to readers of all stripes; I cant recommend it highly enough.

AARON ARMSTRONG, author of Contend and Awaiting a Savior; blogger, bloggingtheologically.com

Andersons style exhibits a tenderness for his subject and his reader that can only have come from the constant practice of his books ideals. He isnt shouting, Question! Discuss! like many contemporary reformers do. Rather, he invites the church to ask questions using a tone that fits with question-askingthat is, he invites us with patience, love, good faith, and wonder.

PETER DAVID GROSS, executive director of Wheatstone Ministries, editor of The Examined Life

The End of Our Exploring is a book questioning our questions, taking us through our doubts and struggles to a richer faith. Matthew Lee Anderson brings his needed perspective into the idea that we can and should question well. For those wondering where their questions fit in a life of faith The End of Our Exploring is a cant-miss book.

TYLER BRAUN, author of Why Holiness Matters: Weve Lost Our WayBut We Can Find It Again