Death by love - book review

Book Review: Death by Love – Letters from the Cross

Reading the introduction of this book, fourteen pages of academic explanation of doctrine of substitutionary atonement, it absolutely shocked me and brought me to tears. Even as a Christian since I was born, Driscoll's Gospel explanation ignited my heart with humbling wonder and awe at what Jesus Christ did for us. I'm really glad Driscoll started this book talking about Jesus’ work on the cross, because it is that unbelievable atoning work that is discussed through the rest of the incredibly diverse twelve stories (letters) in this book.
Death by love is a book made in a unique way which I found very interesting. There are twelve chapters, each one telling different real stories about people who Pastor Driscoll has counseled. Each chapter begins with a brief description of each person and their case, and then he shares a pastoral letter exposing aspects of biblical theology of the cross in concrete situations within the human dramas and existentialism affected by sin in reality. This brings wise and clear balance between theology of the normative aspect (learning, knowledge) to the existential and situational aspects (affections, emotions and ethics with practical life) in the style of Puritan doctrine to connect the Christian life, which is, the biblical ideal. Each letter features a different aspect of what Jesus did for us on the cross, for example, redemption, justification, reconciliation, atonement, reconciliation, etc. To conclude each chapter, there is a question and answer section in which Driscoll's co-author Gary Breshears directly answers some of the tough questions that may have arisen during Driscoll's letter, what for me, I thought was really helpful.
The chapters (letters), talked about situations of our common lives that can happen everywhere in the world and it can be with people outside of the church or even with people raised in a Christian family. There were a lot of stories that I