Book Review- Bold As Love by Bob Roberts, Jr.

Bold As Love by Bob Roberts, JR was a really good reminder. “As Christians, we’re called to love our neighbors- ALL our neighbors…” Roberts aptly demonstrates through his own experiences, outreaches and candid conversations that we can. I’m not normally a non fiction kind of girl, but our church has recently been talking quite a bit about reaching out more into our communities; not so that we can gain more members but so that we can serve and build relationships. That is exactly the premise of this book. Roberts attests that you cannot truly love your neighbors until you know them on an intimate level. He states that when you have relationships based solely on friendship and not converting you are better able to love them because then you are demonstrating the unconditional love Christ has shown for us. After all it is not you or I who brings another person to salvation, it is the Holy Spirit. In light of this fact then we shouldn’t enter a relationship with another person with that as our end goal. We should enter a relationship with the goal of learning how best to love them. Roberts gives several examples of how he has done this on both a global and local level. The only issue I take with the book is that he doesn’t really give the ‘newbie’ a starting place. Not everyone is aware of what other faiths are represented nor would they know where to start in building those relationships, especially if they are not in a leadership role. It would have been great for him to have given a starting point. All in all it was a good book and a fairly easy read given the content. I’d give it 4 stars.