Handle with Care: How Jesus Redeems the Power of Touch in Life and Ministry

by Lore Ferguson Wilbert

Overview

Whether it’s fearful side hugs on one side or sexual abuse on the other, both the culture and the church aren’t doing very well with touch. Singles are staying single longer, dating is wrought with angst over purity, and marriages struggle to not interpret all forms of touch as sexual. Even the Bible seems to have endless rules about not touching things. There is simply no place where touch doesn’t seem threatened or threatening. 

But a curious thing happens when Jesus comes into His ministry: He touches. Jesus touches the sick and the outcast, the bleeding and the unclean. 

What could it mean for families, singles, marriages, churches, communities, and the world to have healthy, pure, faithful, ministering touch? Somewhere in the mess of our assumptions and fears about touch, there is something beautiful and good and God-given. As Jesus can show us, there is ministry in touching.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781535962322
Publisher:	B&H Publishing Group
Publication date:	02/04/2020
Sold by:	Barnes & Noble
Format:	eBook
Pages:	264
File size:	3 MB
Age Range:	3 Months to 18 Years

About the Author

Lore Ferguson Wilbert has lived all over the United States but will always be most at home in the Northeast. She holds a degree in English from Lee University. She has been published by Christianity Today, Fathom Magazine, LifeWay Leaders, LifeWay Voices, The Gospel Coalition, Revive Our Hearts, The Ethics & Religious Liberty Commission, and more, on spiritual formation, faith, culture, and theology in life. She also teaches writing and edits on the side. You can read more of her work at Sayable.net. She and her husband live with their Wheaten, their books, their gardens, and a stocked tea box at all times.

Table of Contents

Introduction 1

Chapter 1 Using Our Hands to Live 11

Chapter 2 Speaking the Same (Love) Language 33

Chapter 3 Broken Bloodlines 51

Chapter 4 Touch of Self 85

Chapter 5 The Loving Life of Singleness 111

Chapter 6 Opposites Don't Always Attract 127

Chapter 7 True Love Doesn't Wait to Touch 145

Chapter 8 Subjects and Objects in Marriage 169

Chapter 9 Let the Little Children Come 191

Chapter 10 Remember, Remember 207

Afterword: A Letter to Those Who Have Been Abused 233

Questions for Reflection or Conversation 239