Hi ~

Today I sent out Untwisting Scriptures to Find Freedom and Joy in Jesus Christ: Book 5 Brokenness and Suffering to my Book Launch Team for them to read and review.

If you’re part of that team (thank you!), then in that book you’ll be reading my full perspective on what the Bible teaches about “brokenness.” So think of this email as a teaser.

If you’re not part of the Book Launch Team, here you go!

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Anyone who’s been around evangelical Christianity for a while has surely heard references to “brokenness.” Possibly things like this:

• We are all broken.
• We should ask God to break us.
• God wants to break us.
• We should live brokenness as a lifestyle.
• And we are all always broken and supposed to be broken. (If you say you aren’t broken, the implication is, you must be proud.)

For as long as I’ve been hearing these teachings, they’ve been making me say “Hmmmm.”

I understand that physical issues can certainly make us feel broken in body.

I understand that we can feel broken in spirit when we go through great grief.

I understand that we can be brokenhearted over our own sin or someone else’s.

But but but . . .

Is being broken all the time supposed to be part of the “normal” Christian life that Jesus promised?

Does the woman who broke the jar to pour perfume on Jesus indicate that we are to break ourselves?

Does Jesus breaking the bread from the little boy’s lunch indicate that God wants to break us?

Does David’s broken heart over his sin in Psalm 51 indicate that we’re supposed to have a broken heart over our sin all the time?

These are things we’re taught regularly in evangelical Christian circles. Are they really supposed to represent our lives?

Hmmm . . . So many questions.

Back when I wrote my first Untwisting Scriptures book, I undertook a comprehensive Bible study on the word translated “bitterness,” in both Hebrew and Greek. What I learned was earth-shaking to me (and to some who’ve read that book).

In the second book, one key word I looked at in Scripture was “authority.” In the third book, one of the topics I looked at throughout Scripture had to do with “gossip.” In the fourth book, I looked through the Bible at the idea of “wickedness.”

And for this book, Untwisting Scriptures Book 5, I looked up every use of the word break and its variants.

What I found was almost as surprising as the “bitterness” study. Like, that “break” in the Bible isn’t primarily about breaking people—with one very notable and consistent exception.

And when you look at broken things, this from Jeremiah 2:11-13 should be enough to convince anyone that “brokenness” is not the standard for righteousness in the eyes of God:

Be appalled, O heavens, at this;

    be shocked, be utterly desolate, declares the Lord,

for my people have committed two evils:

they have forsaken me,

    the fountain of living waters,

and hewed out cisterns for themselves,

    broken cisterns that can hold no water.

I also saw what the Lord does for those who have been broken. What a wonderful Lord He is.

I saw more too, but this email is getting long, so I’ll quit for now and let you see what I discovered when you read the book, which is scheduled to come out in September. Which, of course, is exciting!

Why do so many Christian leaders want us to stay broken? Why don’t they want us to walk in the spiritual wholeness offered to us by the Lord?

It’s mystifying, but as pursuers of truth, we want to find what the Lord has actually said, in truth. That’s what the Untwisting Scriptures series is all about.

With you in that journey and joy of seeking Him in truth,

Rebecca