Seven Softcover

Cook does an incredible job of not just giving another play by play of "do's" and "don'ts" in his overview of the seven deadly sins. Anyone who is skeptical that this is just another run-of-the-mill scant on the virtuous right-christian hypocrisy typical of any such subject should look twice at the motives surrounding this incredible work. Cook does an amazing job of peeling away the dogmatic layers surrounding this once cliche topic to examine the truth posits at the very core of Jesus' message, the outplay of these specific beatitutes and sins, and, truly, the very core of a humanity in need of a healing and transforming God. Highly recommended!

Jeff lays out a great comparison/contrast of the life in the Kingdom of God versus the 7 sins that bring death. While highlighting, the 7 (really 8) beatitudes in contrast to the 7 Deadly Sins, the author uses the rest of the Sermon on the Mount to bring insight into this way of life. Jeff's book reads like a novel and will be one you will not be able to put down. Jeff - a college philosophy teacher and pastor of an emergent church - is both scholarly and down to earth as he conveys the path that brings life. I especially liked how the author explains in the context of the day Jesus' command to turn the other cheek. I highly recommend Jeff's book. (The only way it could have been better if it came with a CD of his old ska band - Trump Mother Jones.)

Okay, so I am not objective... but here is a true story. With two toddlers I don't have a lot of time for meditation, but on occasion I am forced into introspection usually due to my bossy/crappy/angry parenting style that creeps in when I feel too busy or too tired. A few days ago I felt at the end of my rope, and really heart sick with all the meanness that seems to crowd my life. I was feeling interior. Isolated. I wanted something to speak to my life right then. And it occurred to me--- the chapter on Wrath & Peace makers. I have read Seven (through a year of various re-drafts) probably 30 times. I have never really felt the need to read it again. I have seen this work for so long as a project, one that I could barely step outside of... and yet it was the one source that I thought of that could actually speak some sense into that place right away. It wasn't Jeff's job, it wasn't a clever way for the Cook family to pay our bills. It wasn't a book written by my husband any longer, it was a salve that I knew offered something to me, personally and immediately. There was something real in Seven that was talking to me in a way I hadn't heard like this anywhere before. I understood, maybe for the first time, the soul eating, life crushing, relationship killing void left by my anger... and that the peacefulness that I longed for was "not pacifist pomp. This is not wishful thinking or an impossible course. Any watering down of these prescriptions is a rejections of Jesus' own death. It was Jesus who when struck turned his other cheek, who when asked for his shirt gave his coat as well... in his revolutionary meekness, Jesus inherited everything (144-5)." And what was I inheriting with wrath ---or leaving for my sons--- with my anger? Nothing. Nothingness. I think I will never be over getting mad, or hurting because of it, but that day I felt normal, loved, understood. I felt like there was a way out. I didn't mean to find that in Seven but I did. Friends and family that buy Seven because, well frankly, we make them end up commenting to me how this book spoke to them in their marriage, in their debt, in their envy, in their self loathing and in their desire to belong to a community that won't let them down. Seven opens a better door for many of us. I am proud of you Jeff, not just for writing a book, but for writing THIS book, and for quietly teaching the most stubborn person you know.

Highly recommended. This book has great insight and has a unique way of comparing the 7 deadly sins with the beatitudes from the Sermon on the Mount.

As 21st century Christians search for ways to grow spiritually, they often become frustrated by the sheer number of titles and authors in the business. In Seven, Jeff Cook challenges the exhaustive genre with something it hasn't seen in a while: A true and insightful commentary. Seven is not a book for Christians who wish to be affirmed, it is a book for Christians who wish to be challenged and exhorted by Christ's oft-repeated and cryptic list of ironies that precede the sermon on the mount. By pairing each with an extremely well researched analysis of each of the seven deadly sins, the reader receives the exhortations of Christ in the desperate and revolutionary context they were originally delivered. More than once I found myself seeing my Savior through new lenses that clarified his desires for God's Kingdom and his hopes for its weariest citizens.