The God of Yes: How Faith Makes All Things New

Pastor of a Las Vegas church that is one of the largest and fastest growing congregations in America, Wilhite (Pursued) fulfills a longtime desire to write a book on Ecclesiastes that draws on a text from the Apostle Paul: “For all of God’s promises have been fulfilled in Christ with a resounding ‘Yes!’ ” (2 Cor. 1:20). This book is part of the sizeable subgenre of Christian self-help that reads like a sermon series put into print, and one could wonder if it were not better to hear rather than read the material. Readers have come to expect these pastor-written sermon-ish books to include many personal stories, rather than straight-line exposition about Bible texts, and one quality that distinguishes Wilhite is his willingness to be vulnerable and self-disclosing. Of his own quick-tempered outburst at a homeless person for complaining about food that had been served, Wilhite says, “Not exactly what Jesus would do.” For readers who enjoy conversational, anecdotal discussion of Bible texts, this is an affirmative read. (Feb.)