Shane Hipps - Selling Water by the River: A Book about the Life Jesus Promised and the Religion That Gets in the Way

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All rights reserved. In accordance with the U.S. Copyright Act of 1976, the scanning, uploading, and electronic sharing of any part of this book without the permission of the publisher constitute unlawful piracy and theft of the authors intellectual property. If you would like to use material from the book (other than for review purposes), prior written permission must be obtained by contacting the publisher at permissions@hbgusa.com. Thank you for your support of the authors rights.

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First e-book edition: October 2012

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ISBN 978-1-4555-2207-1

The unique thing Ive seen Shane do time and time again is take a truth with all of its complexity and edges and implications and capture it in a metaphor Its really, really profound and really helpful and really inspiring. This book is no exception: Its packed full of these tight little stories and examples and images and pictures that youll be turning over in your mind and heart long after youve closed the book.

Rob Bell, author of Love Wins

There are, in Hippss SELLING, a sturdiness and brilliance and simplicity of theology and an accessible and God-drenched grace that make it the humblest, clearest, most comfortably compelling statement yet of the difference between religious Christianity and the Jesus way. In sum, this is one of the most instructive and pastoral books I have read in the last ten years and, Lord knows, one of the most needed.

Phyllis Tickle, lecturer on religion in America and author of Emergence Christianity: What It Is, Where It Is Going, and Why It Matters

Shane Hipps brings us news that is too good not to be true: that what we thought we had to wait for, work for, strive for, reach for, fight for, die for, earn, learn, master, or attain is actually already a gift fully given in the present of this moment, graciously and freely ours if only we would awaken to it. This book not only offers us this good news with great clarity and delight; it also helps usgently, wisely, simply, and profoundlyto be roused and raised into that blessed state of awe and awakening.

Brian D. McLaren, author of Why Did Jesus, Moses, the Buddha, and Mohammed Cross the Road? (www.brianmclaren.net)

Masterfully weaving story, metaphor, and scripture into a tapestry, Shane Hipps puts his finger on something we all long for: a connection with the Divine. SELLING WATER BY THE RIVER will be a wonderful discovery for the many people who feel that true spirituality has been corrupted by culture and religion.

Tony Jones (tonyj.net), theologian and author of many books, including The New Christians

This book is one of the flare-ups from that religionless Christianity that more and more is breaking out in our world. Some of us will flee from what Shane Hipps tries to tell us in this book. Others will find what he has to say helpful in their efforts to live out the Jesus lifestyle in the landscape of a post-modern world. Whatever your reactions might be you will find the words on these pages cannot be ignored.

Tony Campolo, Eastern University

Shane Hipps manages to take your beliefs and assumptions about God and the Bible and artfully, yet mercilessly wrings them out, leaving behind whatever drips to the floor, (the things that never belonged in there anyhow), then shakes them out and shows them to you again now free from what had clung to themand before you is something beautiful, true, new and familiar.

Nadia Bolz-Weber, founding pastor, House for all Sinners and Saints

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