Grace
By: Philip Yancey
This visual edition takes the text of the Gold Medallion Award-winning original What’s So Amazing about Grace, and illustrates its themes and message with provocative full-color photography and illustrations. You’ll "experience grace" as you interact with its engaging visual content.
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andArno ld books
v i s uA l ed i t i o n
Ph i l i p Ya n c e y
m a r k a r n o ldcreative direction by
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ZONDERVAN
Grace
Copyright © 2003, 2010 by Philip D. Yancey and SCCT
Previously published as What’s So Amazing about Grace Visual Edition 2003
Text based on What’s So Amazing about Grace
Copyright © 1997 by Philip D. Yancey and SCCT
This title is also available as a Zondervan ebook. Visit www.zondervan.com/ebooks.
Requests for information should be addressed to:
Zondervan, Grand Rapids, Michigan 49530
ISBN 978-0-310-29319-4
All Scripture quotations, unless otherwise indicated, are taken from the Good News
Translation, Second Edition. Copyright © 1992 by American Bible Society. Used by
permission. All rights reserved.
Any Internet addresses (websites, blogs, etc.) and telephone numbers printed in this
book are offered as a resource. They are not intended in any way to be or imply an
endorsement by Zondervan, nor does Zondervan vouch for the content of these sites
and numbers for the life of this book.
All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a
retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means—electronic, mechanical,
photocopy, recording, or any other—except for brief quotations in printed reviews,
without the prior permission of the publisher.
Creative direction and design by Mark Arnold, andArnold Books.
Printed in the United States of America
10 11 12 13 14 /SBM/ 20 19 18 17 16 15 14 13 12 11 10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1
We would like to hear from you. Please send your comments about this
book to us in care of the address below. Thank you.
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Introduction to Visual Edition
by philip yancey
I must admIt, it took me a while to warm up to the idea of someone messing
with my book! As I thought about it, though, I realized that people encounter grace
in ways other than words. As I have written, I experienced grace first through nature,
music, and romantic love, and only later found words to interpret and express what
I had felt. Why not let some very skilled designers select passages from my book and
interpret them visually? (Okay, I secretly hope that if you like this book you’ll look
up the full-text version of What’s So Amazing about Grace? It may seem boring in contrast
to this edition, but it may also fill in some gaps.)
Almost a million copies of my book have been sold, which says something about
our thirst for grace. I have received thousands of letters from readers, some grateful,
some desperate, some furious. One of my favorites thanks me profusely for my book
What’s So Annoying About Grace? I’m sure, from the tone of the letter, that the reader
meant to write “Amazing” and typed “Annoying” by mistake. Many other letters,
however, come from readers who truly do find grace annoying.
Must we forgive everyone? Shouldn’t people have to pay for their mistakes?
Would God forgive Saddam Hussein or Hitler? What about justice and fairness?
How can you keep people from taking advantage of grace? These are some of the
questions readers have tossed back at me. I imagine some readers will find this visual
edition even more annoying because it presents the scandal of grace more directly,
more “in your face.”
I cannot claim that grace is fair. By definition, it’s unfair: We get the opposite
of what we deserve. I wrote my book to make a simple point, the same point a slave
trader named John Newton made several centuries ago. Grace is amazing—the most
amazing, perplexing, powerful force in the universe, I believe, and the only hope
for our twisted, violent planet. If you catch a mere whiff of its scent, it could change
your life forever.
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PHOTO: Rain on a windshield at n ight
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like me.
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like me.
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like me.
like me.like me.
like me.
like me.like me.
like me.like me.like me.
like me.like me.
like me.like me. like me.
like me.
like me.like me.like me.
like me.like me. like me.
like me.like me.
like me.like me.
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like me.
like me.like me.
like me.
like me.
like me.
like me.like me.like me.
like me.like me.
like me. like me.
like me. like me.like me. like me.
like me.like me.
like me.like me.
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like me.
like me.like me. like me.
like like me.like me.
like me.like me.
like me.
like me. like me. like me. like me. like me. like me. like me. like me. like me.
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like me.
me. like me.like me.like me.
like me.
like me.
like me. like me. like me. like me. like me. like me. like me. like me. like me. like me. like me. like me.
like me.
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“Jesus did not identify the person with his sin, but rather saw in this sin s o m e t h i n g a li en , something that really did not belong to him, something that merely chained and mastered him and from which he would free him and bring him back to his real self. Jesus was able to love men because he loved them right through the layer of mud.” –––H e l m u t t H i e l i c k e
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SpAiN. GAiLiCA. Santiago Cathedral. A group of ex-drug addicts arrive at the Cathedral after fifteen days walking. On arrival they are given a letter from their parents and family; the letter is unexpected and most of them burst into prolonged crying. The group is part of Encorde 98, a charity based in Valencia who run a one-and-a-half-year program.
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“A p
ro
st
itu
te
ca
me t
o m
e in
wret
ched
stra
its, h
omele
ss,
sick,
una
ble t
o bu
y foo
d fo
r her
tw
o-ye
ar-o
ld d
augh
ter.
Thr
ough
sobs
and
tear
s, sh
e tol
d m
e she
had
bee
n re
ntin
g out
her
da
ught
er–t
wo ye
ars o
ld!–
to m
en in
tere
sted
in k
inky
sex.
Sh
e mad
e mor
e ren
ting o
ut h
er d
augh
ter f
or a
n ho
ur th
an sh
e cou
ld ea
rn o
n he
r own
in a
nigh
t. Sh
e had
to d
o it,
she s
aid,
to su
ppor
t her
own
dru
g hab
it.
I cou
ld h
ardl
y bea
r hea
ring h
er so
rdid
stor
y. F
or o
ne th
ing,
it
mad
e me l
egal
ly lia
ble –
I’m
requ
ired
to re
port
case
s of c
hild
abu
se.
I had
no
idea
wha
t to
say t
o th
is wo
man
. At l
ast I
ask
ed if
she
had
ever
thou
ght o
f goi
ng to
a ch
urch
for h
elp. I
will
nev
er fo
rget
th
e loo
k of
pur
e, n
aïve
shoc
k th
at cr
osse
d he
r fac
e.
‘Chu
rch!
’ she
cried
. ‘W
hy w
ould
I ev
er go
ther
e? I
was a
lread
y fee
ling
terr
ible
abou
t mys
elf. T
hey’d
just
mak
e me f
eel w
orse
.’ ”
Wh
at s
tru
ck m
e ab
out
my
frie
nd’
s st
ory
is t
hat
wom
en
muc
h li
ke t
his
pros
titu
te f
led
tow
ard
Jesu
s,
not
aw
ay f
rom
him
.
t
he w
orse
a p
erso
n f
elt
abou
t he
rsel
f, t
he m
ore
like
ly
she
saw
Jes
us a
s a
refu
ge.
Has
the
chu
rch
lost
tha
t gi
ft?
evi
den
tly
the
dow
n-a
nd-
out,
who
flo
cked
to
Jesu
s w
hen
he
live
d on
ear
th,
no
lon
ger
feel
wel
com
e am
ong
his
foll
ower
s.
Wha
t ha
s ha
ppen
ed?
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PART O N E , I N 1 8 9 8
D A I s y was born into a working-class
Chicago family, the eighth child of ten. The father barely
earned enough to feed them all, and after he took up drinking,
money got much scarcer. Daisy, closing in on her hundredth birthday
as I write this, shudders when she talks about those days. Her father was a
“mean drunk,” she says. Daisy used to cower in the corner, sobbing, as he kicked
her baby brother and sister across the linoleum floor. she hated him with all her heart.
One day the father declared that he wanted his wife out of the house by noon. All ten kids
crowded around their mother, clinging to her skirt and crying, “No, don’t go!” But their father
did not back down. Holding on to her brothers and sisters for support, Daisy watched through
the bay window as her mother walked down the sidewalk, shoulders adroop, a suitcase in each
hand, growing smaller and smaller until finally she disappeared from view. & some of the children
eventually rejoined their mother, and some went to live with other relatives. It fell to Daisy to stay
with her father. she grew up with a hard knot of bitterness inside her, a tumor of hatred over what
he had done to the family. All the kids dropped out of school early in order to take jobs or join the
Army, and then one by one they moved away to other towns. They got married, started families,
and tried to put the past behind them. The father vanished—no one knew where and no one
cared. ) Many years later, to everyone’s surprise, the father resurfaced. He had guttered
out, he said. Drunk and cold, he had wandered into a salvation Army rescue mission
one night. To earn a meal ticket he first had to attend a worship service. When the
speaker asked if anyone wanted to accept Jesus, he thought it only polite to
go forward along with some of the other drunks. He was more surprised
than anybody when the “sinner’s prayer” actually worked. The
demons inside him quieted down. He sobered up. He
began studying the Bible and praying. For the
first time in his life he felt loved
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a n d accepted. He felt clean. , And now, he told his children, he was looking them up
one by one to ask for forgiveness. He
couldn’t defend anything that had happened.
He couldn’t make it right. But he was sorry,
more sorry than they could possibly imagine.
The children, now middle-aged and with families
of their own, were initially skeptical. Some
doubted his sincerity, expecting him to
fall off the wagon at any moment. Others figured he would soon
ask for money. Neither
happened, and in time the father won them over, all except Daisy. ( Long ago Daisy had vowed never to speak to her father—“that man” she called him—again. Her father’s
reappearance rattled her badly, and old memories of his drunken rages came flooding back as she lay in bed at night.
“He can’t undo all that just by saying ‘I’m sorry,’ ” Daisy insisted. She wanted no part of him. * The father may have given up drinking, but
alcohol had damaged his liver beyond repair. He got very sick, and for the last five years of his life he lived with one of his daughters, Daisy’s sister. They lived, in fact, eight houses down the street from Daisy, on the very same row house block. Keeping her vow, Daisy never once stopped in to visit her dying father, even though she passed by his house whenever she went grocery shopping or caught a bus. + Daisy did consent to let her own children visit their grandfather. Nearing the end, the father saw a little
girl come to his door and step inside. “Oh, Daisy, Daisy, you’ve come to me at last,” he cried, gathering her in his arms. The
adults in the room didn’t have the heart to tell him the girl was not Daisy, but her daughter Margaret. He was hallucinating grace. continued on page 58
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