Bob Roberts Jr. - Bold as Love: What Can Happen When We See People the Way God Does

PRAISE FOR BOLD AS LOVE

Bold as Love is a moving expression of Bob Robertss lifes work in breaking down barriers and promoting greater understanding and reconciliation among Christians, Muslims, and Jews.

Jimmy Carter, 39th President of the United States and founder of the Carter Center

In Bobs new book, Bold as Love, he lays out a masterful practical guide on a revolution of love taught by Jesus of Nazareth. Loving like Jesus transcends all cultures and religions. Bob proves by his experience that it works. It is a must read.

David M. Beasley, former governor of South Carolina

What an inspiring, practical, life-changing book! Bob Roberts shows Christians how to stop being awkward around those of other faiths and instead engage in respectful, honest, and authentic friendships. This book challenges what we may believe about others as well as what we think we know about ourselves.

Dale Hanson Bourke, author of Embracing Your Second Calling

Bob Roberts is willing to take hits to do what God has commanded us to do: Love those not like us. Read and digest this book. Its from a front-line practitioner who is crazy about Jesus and all the people of the world.

Dave Gibbons, founder of Newsong, HopeMob.org, and Xealots.org

This is a book bouncing with energy and brimming with hopewith wise truths jumping off every page. Bob Roberts shows how you can have deep differences with people and also deep love for them, how you can fundamentally disagree with their faith while finding great beauty in it, and that learning about another tradition only helps you grow in your own.

Eboo Patel, president and founder of Interfaith Youth Core and author of Sacred Ground

In Bold as Love Bob Roberts invites us to join him on a journey of courageously loving people no matter what their belief, nationality, or religion. Bob is a world traveler and a brilliant student of culture and I can think of no one better to write such a book. If you are daring enough to learn how to love people different from you, read Bold as Love.

Dave Ferguson, lead pastor of Community Christian Church and lead visionary of NewThing

Bold as Love is not only for evangelical Christians but for Muslims, Jews and people of faith (and also none) interested in the whole arena of multi-faith engagementinterfaith dialogue with action. Reading this, I felt not only my own faith, resolve and perspective strengthened, but I felt a greater sense of solidarity and contentment, because Bob Roberts was finally articulating all that I had been thinking about.

Amjad Saleem, the Cordoba Foundation

Bob Roberts pioneers a way for us to engage the increasingly multi-faith, multi-cultural context we call earth. But this is no mere theory for Bob. In Bold as Love this wonderful, brave, courageous, winsome Texan actually shows us the way by putting his life on the line for the Gospel. Go Bob!

Alan Hirsch, author of The Forgotten Ways and The Permanent Revolution

You have done what each one of the great spiritual masters like Zarathustra, Confucius, Moses, Krishna, Buddha, Jesus, Muhammad, Nanak, Bahaullah and other great masters have done, that is doing your share in building a cohesive America, where no one has to live in apprehension, discomfort, or fear of the other.

Mike Gouse, president of America Together Foundation

Bold as Love is a true contribution to multi-religious dialog and understanding. Bob Roberts is a bold man who represents who Jesus is. I embrace his urgent wisdom of moving from fear to love.

Tom Dine, senior policy advisor, Israel Policy Forum; former executive director for AIPEC

Bob Roberts is a rare and unique modern missionary. Remaining deeply rooted in his Christian faith, God has given him the gift of engaging people from all over the world. His is a ministry of love and respect. Bold as Love is his Second Half story.

Bob Buford, author of Halftime and Finishing Well

Bold as Love is for everyone to read: Your church. Your friends and neighbors, but also the others in your life. Bob will challenge and inspire you to see, and eventually love, others the way God does. The book is fun, witty, and full of wild adventure that will not allow you to put it down. Read it then recommend it.

Carl Medearis, author of Muslims, Christians, and Jesus

BOLD
as
LOVE

2012 by Bobby Gene Roberts, Jr., a/k/a Bob Roberts, Jr.

All rights reserved. No portion of this book may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any meanselectronic, mechanical, photocopy, recording, scanning, or otherexcept for brief quotations in critical reviews or articles, without the prior written permission of the publisher.

Published in Nashville, Tennessee, by Thomas Nelson. Thomas Nelson is a registered trademark of Thomas Nelson, Inc.

Published in association with the literary and marketing agency of C. Grant & Company, Wheaton, Illinois.

Thomas Nelson, Inc., titles may be purchased in bulk for educational, business, fund-raising, or sales promotional use. For information, please e-mail SpecialMarkets@ThomasNelson.com.

Unless otherwise noted, scripture quotations are taken from THE ENGLISH STANDARD VERSION. 2001 by Crossway Bibles, a division of Good News Publishers.

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Roberts, Bob, 1958

Bold as love : what can happen when we see people the way God does / by Bob Roberts.

p. cm.

Includes bibliographical references.

ISBN 978-1-4002-0420-5

1. Christian life. 2. GlobalizationReligious aspectsChristianity. 3. Evangelistic work. 4. Roberts, Bob, 1958 I. Title. BV4501.3.R6256 2012

248.4dc23 2012025339

Printed in the United States of America

12 13 14 15 16 QG 6 5 4 3 2 1

To Prince Turki al-Faisal of Saudi Arabia: You represent your faith and your part of the world in an exceptional way. With love, respect, and admiration. I will always be grateful for our friendship. You have made me a far better Christian by causing me to think deeply about what I believe and challenging me to reach over to those who believe differently than me, not just around the world, but right in my home of Fort WorthDallas, Texas.

To my close Jewish, Muslim, Christian, and secular friends in the Nyon Process, all twenty-eight of you. To my Muslim friends in particular, this book contains all I have told you both publicly and privately; the message is the same. I love you all deeply and pray for you regularly, as some of you do for me.

Finally, to my Imam Zia at the Irving Islamic Center. I love you with the love of Jesus and I know you love me as well. You have been a friend and have experienced as an imam much of what I have as a pastor in this regard.

CONTENTS

ONE
BOLDLY LOVING ALL MY NEIGHBORS

And behold, a lawyer stood up to put him to the test, saying, Teacher, what shall I do to inherit eternal life? He said to him, What is written in the Law? How do you read it? And he answered, You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your strength and with all your mind, and your neighbor as yourself. And he said to him, You have answered correctly; do this, and you will live. But he, desiring to justify himself, said to Jesus, And who is my neighbor?

Luke 10:2529

Nikki, my wife, and I drove all over DallasFort Worth looking for kosher or halal meat. We barely knew what it was and didnt have a clue what made it different, but we had to have it, and time was running out.