Joshua Harris - Dug Down Deep: Unearthing What I Believe and Why It Matters

Praise for
Dug Down Deep

More than forty years of quadriplegia has underscored to me the matchless value of knowingreally knowingthe doctrines of the Christian faith. Dug Down Deep reveals how biblical doctrine provides a pathway to understanding the heart and mind of God. If youre looking for that one book that will push you farther down the road to faith than youve ever journeyed before, Dug Down Deep is it. I highly recommend it!

J ONI E ARECKSON T ADA , author; founder and CEO,
International Disability Center, Agoura Hills, CA

In Dug Down Deep my longtime friend Joshua Harris explains the basics of Christian theology in a way all of us can understand. He is a humble man and teaches humbly. If you are tired of hyped promises and want essential truth, this book is for you. As religious fads come and go, the truths in this book will last.

D ONALD M ILLER , author of Blue Like Jazz

When the apostle Peter says, Humble yourselves under the mighty hand of Godcasting all your anxiety on Him, he implies that humble people are fearless. They have the courage to stand up for truth humbly. I love the term humble orthodoxy. And I love Josh Harris. When they come together (Josh and humble orthodoxy), as they do in this book, you get a humble, helpful, courageous testimony to biblical truth. Thank you, Josh, for following through so well on the conversation in Al Mohlers study.

J OHN P IPER , author of Desiring God; Pastor for Preaching
and Vision, Bethlehem Baptist Church, Minneapolis

Via vivid autobiography, Pastor Harris takes readers on a personal journey into the biblical theology that, belatedly, he found he could not manage without. A humbling, compelling, invigorating read.

J. I. P ACKER , author of Knowing God

Josh says that this book is his reveling in theology in my own simple way. Having read it, I can say that it is also a popular defense of the importance of theology and, at the same time, an introduction to it. I enjoyed reading it. And my mind immediately began to go to how I could use this book. Josh has given me a new tool! It is interesting, well written, and excellently illustrated. Josh has succeeded again in giving us a book that is clear, engaging, direct, solid, easy to read, sound, God centered, balanced, humorousand it even has pictures!

M ARK D EVER , author; Senior Pastor, Capitol Hill
Baptist Church, Washington DC

Dug Down Deep is an incredible book! Its a tangible and incarnate look at theology. I would give it to any young Christian who wants to understand their faith.

L ECRAE , hip-hop artist

As two young guys who have been deeply blessed and influenced by Joshs books and example, we couldnt be more excited about Dug Down Deep and how God is going to use it to transform a generation. Its a gripping and honest read. In it we learned things about our older brother that we had never, in twenty-one years, been told before! But more importantly, we learned things about our Savior that caused us to fall more deeply in love with him and his Word. Get this book. Read it. And join us on a journey to rediscover what has always been true.

A LEX AND B RETT H ARRIS , authors of Do Hard Things

At Boundless, weve enjoyed watching young adults cultivate a fresh desire to go further up and further in as followers of Christ. Few writers fuel that desire quite like Joshua Harris. With humility, humor, and honesty, Dug Down Deep shows the difference that a foundation can makehow vulnerable you can be when its weak and how transformed you can be when youre willing to go deep.

T ED S LATER , editor, Boundless.org; Focus on the Family

To Emma Grace, Joshua Quinn, and Mary Kate

Your father loves you very much. One day when youre older
I hope youll read this book and realize that I wrote it for you.
I have no greater hope for each of you
than to see you build your life on Jesus.

MY RUMSPRINGA
Were all theologians. The question is whether what we know about God is true.

IN WHICH I LEARN TO DIG
Underneath was a deeper question: what would I build my life on?

NEAR BUT NOT IN MY POCKET
God is utterly different from me. And that is utterly wonderful.

RIPPING, BURNING, EATING
When we read the Bible, it opens us up. It reads us.

GOD WITH A BELLYBUTTON
Jesus is unique. And he came to accomplish something that no one else could

A WAY TO BE GOOD AGAIN
For too long the news that Jesus died for my sins had no real meaning.

HOW JESUS SAVED GREGG EUGENE HARRIS
How does redemption accomplished outside Jerusalem give life to a young man on a California beach?

CHANGED, CHANGING, TO BE CHANGED
Sanctification is work. But its good workthe privilege of the redeemed.

I BELIEVE IN THE HOLY SPIRIT
I longed to know that God was present, that I was doing more than singing songs to the ceiling.

THE INVISIBLE MADE VISIBLE
Gods plan has always been a group planhe reveals himself through his people.

HUMBLE ORTHODOXY
Heres what deflates my arrogance faster than anything else: trying to live the truth I have.

I TS STRANGE TO SEE an Amish girl drunk. The pairing of a bonnet and a can of beer is awkward. If she were stumbling along with a jug of moonshine, it would at least match her long, dowdy dress. But right now she cant worry about that. She is flat-out wasted.

Welcome to rumspringa.

The Amish, people who belong to a Christian religious sect with roots in Europe, practice a radical form of separation from the modern world. They live and dress with simplicity. Amish women wear bonnets and long, old-fashioned dresses and never touch makeup. The men wear wide-rimmed straw hats, sport bowl cuts, and grow chin curtainsfull beards with the mustaches shaved off.

My wife, Shannon, sometimes says she wants to be Amish, but I know this isnt true. Shannon entertains her Amish fantasy when life feels too complicated or when shes tired of doing laundry. She thinks life would be easier if she had only two dresses to choose from and both looked the same. I tell her that if she ever tried to be Amish, she would buy a pair of jeans and ditch her head covering about ten minutes into the experiment. Besides, she would never let me grow a beard like that.

Once Shannon and her girlfriend Shelley drove to Lancaster, Pennsylvania, for a weekend of furniture and quilt shopping in Amish country. They stayed at a bed-and-breakfast located next door to an Amish farm. One morning Shannon struck up a conversation with the inns owner, who had lived among the Amish his entire life. She asked him questions, hoping for romantic details about the simple, buggy-driven life. But instead he complained about having to pick up beer cans every weekend.

Beer cans?