[thread]

Since it was published last April, "Gentle and Lowly" has sold over 160,000 copies...with no signs of slowing down any time soon.

Since I've been aware enough to know that I am one of those strange creatures called a "Reformed evangelical," I've never known a book that captivated my theological tribe's heart and soothed as many wounds as this one. This book's work has been extraordinary.

And so I can't help but ask, "Why?"

Why has *this* book reached so many?
Why has *this* message resonated in such a way?

There are almost certainly lots of answers. But, at least within my own heart, I think I know at least one of them.

I was raised in a very conservative expression of evangelicalism. High view of Scripture. Intense opposition to sin. Resolute determination to live pure. I've known my whole life why Jesus had to die.

Somehow, though, I never actually reckoned with why he WANTED to.

Only recently have I realized that most of my life I've looked at Jesus through the lens of my sin. I've been thankful for his mercy. But I've thought of that mercy as a fund that Jesus replenishes and I regularly deplete. That's how I've FELT about how he FEELS about me.

That's why, as I was reading @daneortlund's book, I repeatedly thought: "Wait a minute, that can't be true. What he's saying is liberal, right? There's no way the Puritans believed this."

But it was Scripture! It was Thomas Goodwin and John Owen and John Bunyan!

It was not the Scripture that had changed. It wasn't the Puritans. It was me. Not only had I not believed this message, I had tuned it out well before.

Before I read this book, I had never reckoned with the love of God. And doing that broke something in me.

And that's why, in part, I think this book has borne such incredible fruit so far. I don't think I'm alone here. I think there are other theologically-serious, sovereignty-serious, holiness-serious people who've come to terms with much biblical teaching—except the love of Jesus.

And I think you can only walk with a spiritual/emotional limp like that for so long before you realize how tired, defeated, and afraid you really are. That's what I see in myself and so much of (ahem) evangelical Twitter.

We're not just divided. We are *hurt.*

So I'm very, very thankful this book is getting out to so many people. It's water for those of us on the verge of heat exhaustion. The question is: how on earth did we leave these truths behind in the first place?

/end