Frank T Griswold – författare

Encountering the living Word in the words of the Bible 

When we read Scripture, we learn about God. When we pray the Scriptures, we experience the mystery of Jesus Christ and inhabit his life. 

In this book, Mark McIntosh and Frank Griswold bring to bear their decades of combined experience in both the church and the academy to introduce and explore the idea of praying the Scriptures. As McIntosh and Griswold demonstrate, this contemplative approach to the Bible integrates theology and spirituality and fosters genuine hope by bringing us into an encounter with the living Word. 

After first laying the foundation of what it means to pray the Scriptures, the authors guide the reader through vital biblical passages from different points in the church year, showing how the seasons of the liturgical calendar provide the soil in which the seeds of the Gospel can be nourished by the Holy Spirit, yielding in time a harvest of hope.

A spiritual introduction to Christian theology 

Christian belief can be understood neither entirely through doctrine nor entirely apart from it. Doctrine is the starting point, the seed of faith, from which springs forth flourishing life in the fellowship of the church. But that growth occurs only when theology and spirituality are held together in a relation of reciprocal influence. 

With decades of combined experience in both the church and the academy, Mark McIntosh and Frank Griswold prioritize the life-giving relationship between theology and spirituality in this immersive introduction to the Christian faith. Drawing inspiration and guidance from Christianity’s greatest mystical theologians—including Augustine, Maximus the Confessor, Thomas Aquinas, Bonaventure, and Catherine of Siena—McIntosh and Griswold unfold essential doctrines and illuminate the transformative power of Christian belief. The result is a book that propels readers beyond abstract knowledge to an experience of the living mystery who is God.

Frank Griswold writes out of his understanding that “all things have the potential to reveal the Divine and the mystery of love that lies at the heart of the universe . . . ” Though a teacher, preacher, recognized ecumenical and interfaith leader, and former head of the Episcopal Church, he describes himself as a seeker still, “a person under construction.” Griswold’s opening words set the tone: “These pages are the fruit of my effort to gather up fragments from what I have learned along the way about myself, about love and longing, about God and God’s ways with us. If you are drawn, as I have been, to follow lines of spiritual motion, perhaps the stories and reflections in these pages will be an encouragement along the way. You may discover revelatory moments in your own life you have overlooked because they seem so ordinary and mundane . . . ”

Though not a memoir, the book includes autobiographical material to give readers a sense of the writer as a friend and companion who shares their journey. It also illustrates and brings to life various teachings drawn from the Great Tradition as well as contemporary authors and spiritual guides.