The Promise Restored: Rediscovering the Ten Commandments in an Uncertain World

By T. Wyatt Watkins

A pastor and scholar discusses the ethical and moral dilemmas of the twenty-first century, exploring the relevance of the Ten Commandments in today's uncertain world and suggesting that their... This description may be from another edition of this product.

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 157731204X
• ISBN13: 9781577312048
• Release Date: January 2002
• Publisher: New World Library
• Length: 305 Pages
• Weight: 0.75 lbs.
• Dimensions: 8.8" x 1.0" x 5.8"

Customer Reviews

Ethical Guidelines for Community

While "wandering around" among the books in my personal library and next to a book I wrote entitled "Radical Voices in the Wilderness," I came upon this book by the pastor of the church I attend in Indianapolis. I had reviewed another of his books so I knew that I had to refresh my memory and review this one. Soon I remembered why I had put it on the shelf of books that were not part of my downsizing. For one thing, it had been autographed for me on May 1, 2002. The author didn't give it to me as a birthday present but I always imagined that he knew my birthday was May 5 and had! The gift of his insight in this book was and is a present I cherish. Watkins plays these commandments with the same care he demonstrates when he is playing his violin in the Indianapolis Chamber Orchestra. He interprets them for this "uncertain world." I can't reproduce the entire book in a review. I can just give you a taste of what is here. In the chapter on "remembering the sabbath day," he writes about those who pick up violin and bow for the first time feeling that they have found their long-lost appendages. The passion with which he writes about these "ethical guidelines" makes you feel like you have lived with them all your life, attached to you. Not just guidelines. They are part of what makes you want to be part of the orchestra that sees its work as reaching for maturity and perfection in community. I like Philip Gulley's comment, this book "is a promise made and kept -- a fresh and helpful take on an ancient text." Words and writings and books are just tools to make an ancient text fresh and helpful. But that is what this book does. Read it for yourself!

God's word in today's world

This is a very fun, helpful and ambitious book. Watkins, a long time pastor who has written charming books about the foibiles (sp?) of his flock and ministry, pulls it all together here--each chapter focuses on another commandment and intersperses Bible text, commentary, quotes from all over, and modern day stories that illuminate and elaborate on the points made in the other sections. Watkins is an engaging writer who involves you with his characters and brings you face to face with the living God who still has a meaningful word to us in this modern world. The structure of the book is evocative of Godel, Escher, Bach, but the reading is much easier! (and the content is more important--as interesting as artificial intelligence is, interacting with the author of life and intelligence in a productive way is much more important). A great book for pleasure reading--with the added benefit of good teaching built right in, or for a small group study.

Rigid rules, often ignored in modern times

T. Wyatt Watkins' The Promise Restored surveys the Ten Commandments and their meaning to modern society. Rigid rules, often ignored in modern times, are considered in a title that encourages understanding the importance of the commands to modern life and events. Packed with intriguing insights.

the promise restored

It is a popular belief among many that if only the Ten Commandments were posted in every school, every courthouse and other public buildings, jail houses and abortion clinics would lose the majority of their clientele.What would a child, seeing the first commandment, "Thou shalt have no other gods before me", posted on the wall of his schoolroom, envision as a forbidden god? Some strange-looking little doll?In his third book, The Promise Restored, T. Wyatt Watkins presents a realistic concept of teaching and living the moral and religious precepts found in the Ten Commandments. Relating stories of everyday experiences with his four children, the author, as father, leads them in their inevitable ethicalconfrontations with problems inherent in contemporary life. From the baptism of a new-born cousin on the deck of a missile cruiser to the covetous temptations in a family shopping trip to a mall the principles delivered to the Israelites in the wilderness are finely nuanced and appealingly portrayed for contemporary readers.In an unusual but very convincing format the tales are skillfully told, interspersed with pertinent Scriptual excerpts and brief quotations from notable writers, old and new, in a deceptively casual style that builds toward a fascinating and climactic poignance which ends each narrative.Watkins is a natural, a fine story teller and, as in his first two books, he again proves that the tenets of a life of faith can be conveyed as well or better in story than in much sermonizing.

Then and Now

What a refreshing "now" approach! Watkins has detached the Ten Commandments from the stone and has overlaid them upon the human heart. First we see the context of their application in the Hebrew community. Often wrongly presented as restrictive laws, these commandments were meant as life-giving parameters within which the community could thrive in grace. The author then fast-forwards us to "real time" where we observe how these commandments play out in the everyday life events of men, women, and children. This book helps us examine our own behaviors and attitudes in order to discover our better selves.