Eric Metaxas - Everything Else You Always Wanted to Know About God (But Were Afraid to Ask)

E VERYTHING E LSE Y OU A LWAYS W ANTED TO K NOW A BOUT G OD
( BUT WERE AFRAID TO ASK )
P UBLISHED BY W ATER B ROOK P RESS
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All Scripture quotations, unless otherwise indicated, are taken from the Holy Bible, New International Version. NIV. Copyright 1973, 1978, 1984 by International Bible Society. Used by permission of Zondervan Publishing House. All rights reserved. Scripture quotations marked ESV are from The Holy Bible, English Standard Version, copyright 2001 by Crossway Bibles, a division of Good News Publishers. Used by permission. All rights reserved. Scripture quotations marked KJV are taken from the King James Version.

ISBN 978-1-4000-7102-9
eBook ISBN: 978-0-307-45729-5

Copyright 2007 by Eric Metaxas

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Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Metaxas, Eric.
Everything else you always wanted to know about God (but were afraid to ask) / Eric Metaxas. 1st ed.
p. cm.
Includes bibliographical references.
ISBN 978-1-4000-7102-9
1. God (Christianity) I. Title.
BT103.M477 2007
231dc22

2007003704

Cover design: Mark D. Ford
Cover image: Jupiter Images

v3.1

To everyone still childlike enough to have questions

Though it is usually difficult to understand precisely how one is influenced, it can also, in some cases, be embarrassingly easy. On the better parts of this book and its predecessor, the influence of the Reverend Tim Keller of Manhattans Redeemer Presbyterian Church is probably so obvious to some that it hardly needs mentioning. For his unwitting participation in these pages, I am exceedingly grateful. I wish also to express my gratitude for the expert editing of Ron Lee, without whose patience, skill, and knowledge this book would not be much of a book at all. It is no small thing to see ones work influenced and improved by others, and I am grateful for that influence and improvement not just in this book but in the book to which this is a sequel.

I f youve seen a book I wrote a few years ago, Everything You Always Wanted to Know About God (but were afraid to ask), you will probably see right away that this is a continuation of that earlier conversation. I suppose you could call this book a sequel or part two. If youre French, you could call it part deux.

But I have to say up front that the title of this book gives me hives. I dont want to start off on the wrong foot, but as the authorand, yes, Ill be your author for the rest of the bookI feel compelled to let you know that I cant possibly deliver on it. Everything Else You Always Wanted to Know About God? The title implies that every question that didnt make it into the first book will appear in this one and that after you finish this book, youll know every single thing about God youve ever wanted to know. Something tells me thats not going to happen. Book titles can be funny that way, except as the author Im not even snickering. If you were here, you could hear me not snickering. Or not hear me snickering. Either way.

The whole thing reminds me of when a friend told me about his grandmothers going to see the movie Dances with Wolves. She was hugely disappointed because in the whole picture the main character didnt dance with more than one wolf! Maybe two at the most. My friends grandmother felt shed been cheatedand hadnt she? She had been looking forward to the main character dancing with a whole mess of wolves! And understandably so, because the titleahemhad raised that expectation rather explicitly. She wasnt insisting on any particular kind of dancing, but, yes, she had quite been expecting a lot of dancing with a lot of wolves, and that hadnt been the case at all. Perhaps she had pictured a big ballroom filled with wolves twirling elegantly or maybe some kind of big production number. Thats what I feel you might be expecting nowand all Im offering is the theological equivalent of a single gimpy wolf limping to a polka. You were expecting the Ziegfeld Follies, and all you got was the lupine version of The Lawrence Welk Show.

Well, theres not much I can say at this point. Ill call the printer and see if we cant fix it before too many get printed. In the meantime ana-one-a, ana-two-a

Where God Came from; What to Call Him;

How He Differs from Us (and Barry Manilow)

T he world-famous New Testament scholar N. T. Wright says that when he was a young man he served as the chaplain at a university. He often encountered students who would tell him right off the bat that they didnt believe in God, hoping to be rid of him for the next four years. But Wright wouldnt let them off the hook so easily. Which God dont you believe in? he would ask. This usually took them by surprise and got them to think for a minute. Most of them then described the God they didnt believe in. Almost always this non-God was something of a dyspeptic, white-bearded curmudgeon who sat on a cloud and hurled thunderbolts at anyone who seemed to be having fun. Wright would listen to their description and then respond that he didnt believe in that God either. A conversation often ensued in which the idea of who God really isand who God isntwas more deeply explored.