Returning to Conversations About God

Yesterday the Seventh-day Adventist Church completed a quarter-long series of adult Sabbath School lessons on the book of Revelation. My former student, Ranko Stefanovic, helped to author the main lessons studied around the world and I helped to author the Teachers’ Edition. Through this blog, last quarter, Ranko and I were able to share with the world the editorial changes that occurred after we turned our manuscripts in. I believe this has led to a number of insights into what at least some in church leadership are thinking about Revelation today.

This week I return to a project that I began a couple of years ago, sharing the content of an upcoming book entitled Conversations About God. The book will be based on a series of twenty lectures by Graham Maxwell, each followed by a back and forth discussion with Lou Venden, then pastor of the Loma Linda University Church. I find this material inspiring, enlightening and comforting. As I prepared these “conversations” for print, I sought to retain Graham Maxwell’s unique voice while adding clarification and references to Scripture.

I have shared the first ten chapters on this blog site from April 2017 through the end of that year. I then suspended these postings to share material on Revelation, homosexuality and the political issues in the Adventist Church last Fall. I then posted summaries of the first ten chapters to refresh the blog audience in December 2018 before beginning the series on the adult Sabbath School lessons referenced in the first paragraph above. It is time now to complete posting of the Conversations About God with chapters 11-20. These will be posted in bite-sized pieces roughly every other day until the series is completed.

It is my hope and prayer that you will find this material life-changing as well as stimulating thoughts and questions. If travel permits, the first posting will occur on Tuesday, April 2 with the introductory portion of Chapter Eleven entitled “God’s Emergency Measures.”

7 thoughts on “Returning to Conversations About God

    1. Jon Paulien Post author

      I’m afraid I don’t. The final processing is more complicated than I expected. I should be done editing the proofs in a week or two, then everything gets type-set and then I have to go through it again. Best guess is early summer, but I was way off before, so I can’t say for sure. I will certainly announce it here when it happens.

  1. Philip castetter

    I will be anxious to follow the material about Graham Maxwell. I have all the recordings via Pine knoll.

  2. Valerie

    Thank you for all the work you do, I am particularly grateful for the translation of the “Conversations about God” by Graham Maxwell and I would like to know where you are in this project. Has the book already been printed ? Sorry if I missed something but I find it difficult to follow the information on your blog, because I can’t find a classification other than by dates …)
    Thank you very much for your answer.

    1. Valerie

      Sorry I wrote “translation” but I meant “written version” of the Conversations about God…

    2. Jon Paulien Post author

      Blog archives are messy. I just received chapters 1-14 of the final proofs from the publisher. I will check to make sure that corrections were understood and rightly handled. My guess is that things should be ready for the printers by the end of June. We are hoping before summer is over the book will be available. It will be beautiful. Lots of color pictures and beautiful design.

      1. Valerie

        Thanks a lot for you reply. I definitely want a copy (or more) of the book, can you already tell me where it will be on sale ? (I live in Europe)

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