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DON’T HOLD BACK:
Leaving Behind the American Gospel to Follow Jesus Fully
By David Platt
A Multnomah Hardcover | On Sale 2/28/2023
 
“David Platt never holds back. This book casts a vision of the sort of gospel that cannot be manipulated, marketed, or mobilized, but, rather, can shake away all the nonsense and nihilism, leaving us with Jesus. Don’t hold back; read this book.” - Russell Moore, Editor in Chief, Christianity Today

Pastor and author David Platt’s powerful new book Don’t Hold Back: Leaving Behind the American Gospel to Follow Jesus Fully (Feb. 28, 2023, Multnomah) prompts the question: What if we’ve gotten really good at following a really bad gospel?

In 2010, David Platt burst onto the publishing scene with his debut blockbuster book Radical: Taking Back Your Faith from the American Dream. In Radical, Platt’s message was to help Christians see how they’ve let the pursuit of the American Dream take priority over God’s calling in their lives. Radical rocked the Church and proceeded to spend 120 weeks on the New York Times Bestseller List and attained more than a million copies in print.

Now, a dozen years later and serving as a pastor in the nation’s capital, Platt is rethinking some of what he wrote in Radical. In the introduction to Don’t Hold Back, he says: “…A decade ago, I wrote about the need for Christians to take back our faith from the American dream. But years later, having moved to the capital of my country and having experienced up close and personal the unhealth of the American church, I’ve come to a clear conclusion: The problem is not just an American dream that has consumed our lives but an American gospel that has hijacked our hearts.”
 
The American Gospel, as defined by Platt, encourages the elevation of comfort, power, politics, and prosperity over the biblical gospel that exalts God above everything in this world. With this framework, instead of Christians coming together around the gospel, we find ourselves more divided. Don’t Hold Back provides a thoughtful and practical understanding of how we can reclaim a biblically grounded gospel by beginning the work with ourselves and allowing that application to spread beyond us.
 
“It’s as if we in the United States have looked at God as a means to all these other ends instead of seeking and being satisfied in God as the end. …I believe this is one of the primary reasons—if not the primary reason—the American church is in its current state. For far too long, an American gospel has fueled desires for all sorts of things other than the one thing—or, more appro­priately put, the One—we most need. And I believe this means our greatest need moving forward—over and above everything else—is simply to cry out in individual and col­lective desperation for God and God alone as the prize of our lives.” —David Platt, Don’t Hold Back: Leaving Behind the American Gospel to Follow Jesus Fully
 
Don’t Hold Back is every bit as timely as Radical was a decade ago. Platt is vulnerable in this new book on where he hasn’t always gotten it right and casts a bold vision of how we as the Church can do better together united around God’s truth. He calls Christians to take inevitable risks and find unimaginable rewards as we:
·       work for—not against—one another, especially when we disagree
·       turn the tide on centuries of racial division in the church
·       trust all of God’s Word with conviction, and love everyone with compassion
·       do justice with kindness, and discover the good life according to God
·       play our part in spreading the gospel to all nations

Platt makes the argument that the American gospel and the gospel of Jesus are two fundamentally different invitations, and we can’t choose both. With urgency, he presents the options as: ·        Either we unite as the bride of Christ around the gospel of Christ and the authority of his Word, or we unite as a social club around our country’s ideals and our per­sonal positions.
·        Either we bridge the ethnic divide that Christ has abolished, or we deepen this divide that our country has perpetuated.
·        Either we elevate God’s truth or our thoughts as supreme
·        Either we share God’s truth with compassion, or we repel the next generation.
·        Either we spend our lives doing justice and loving mercy, or we spend endless hours debating justice and ignoring mercy.
·        Either we reach the unreached with passion to make disciples of all nations, or we ignore the unreached with passion to make our lives in our nation great.
·        Either we pursue God as the prize of our lives now and forever, or we prostitute God for prizes that will all fade.
 
Platt empowers readers to lean in and learn from their experiences. With practical guidance, Scripture, and personal storytelling, Platt analyzes the state of kindness, conviction, racial division, justice, and other sensitive issues experienced within and outside of the Church. Readers are left with the hope that we can experience the full wonder of Jesus and otherworldly beauty of his Church in our day and the recognition that something needs to be different, starting with us. He encourages, “With the gospel in our hearts and God as our prize, let’s press on and don’t hold back.”
 
For more information, visit www.waterbrookmultnomah.com  

ABOUT THE AUTHOR: David Platt is the author of the new book Don’t Hold Back: Leaving Behind the American Gospel to Follow Jesus Fully and three New York Times bestsellers, including Radical. He is a pastor in metro Washington, D.C., and founder of Radical Inc., an organization that equips Christians to be on mission from where they live to the ends of the earth. Platt received his master of divinity (MDiv), master of theology (ThM), and doctor of philosophy (PhD) from New Orleans Baptist Theological Seminary. He has been featured in such outlets as The New York Times, Christianity Today, and The Gospel Coalition. David lives in metro D.C. with his wife and their children. www.radical.net
Twitter: @plattdavid  (380.2K) @followradical (33K) Instagram: @plattdavid_(53.5K)  @followradical (44K) Facebook: David Platt (240K) @followradical(70K)
 

Don’t Hold Back: Leaving Behind the American Gospel to Follow Jesus Fully
By David Platt
A Multnomah Hardcover | $25.00 | On Sale Feb. 28, 2023
ISBN: 9780735291447 | e-ISBN: 9780735291454

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