You’re Only Human: How Your Limits Reflect God’s Design and Why That’s Good News
Digital Logos Edition
Overview
Work. Family. Church. Exercise. Sleep.
The list of demands on our time seems to be never ending. It can leave you feeling a little guilty--like you should always be doing one more thing.
Rather than sharing better time-management tips to squeeze more hours out of the day, Kelly Kapic takes a different approach in You’re Only Human. He offers a better way to make peace with the fact that God didn’t create us to do it all.
Kapic explores the theology behind seeing our human limitations as a gift rather than a deficiency. He lays out a path to holistic living with healthy self-understanding, life-giving relationships, and meaningful contributions to the world. He frees us from confusing our limitations with sin and instead invites us to rest in the joy and relief of knowing that God can use our limitations to foster freedom, joy, growth, and community.
Readers will emerge better equipped to cultivate a life that fosters gratitude, rest, and faithful service to God.
This is a Logos Reader Edition. Learn more.
- Explores the theology behind seeing our human limitations as a gift rather than a deficiency
- Provides a path to holistic living with healthy self-understanding, life-giving relationships, and meaningful contributions to the world
- Invites readers to rest in the joy and relief of knowing that God can use our limitations to foster freedom, joy, growth, and community
- Have I Done Enough? Facing Our Finitude
- Does God Love . . . Me? Crucified . . . but I Still Live
- Are the Limits of My Body Bad? Praise God for Mary
- Why Does Physical Touch Matter? Images, Trauma, and Embodied Worship
- Is Identity Purely Self-Generated? Understanding the Self in Context
- Have We Misunderstood Humility? Joyful Realism
- Do I Have Enough Time? Clocks, Anxiety, and Presence
- Why Doesn’t God Just Instantly Change Me? Process, Humanity, and the Spirit’s Work
- Do I Need to Be Part of the Church? Loving the Whole Body
- How Do We Faithfully Live within Our Finitude? Rhythm, Vulnerability, Gratitude, and Rest
Part 1: Particularity and Limits
Part 2: Healthy Dependence
Written with beauty and clarity, You’re Only Human is a library of wisdom and virtue, drawing from the best sources, both human and divine, and applying these with grace and skill. This book isn’t just about the limits of being human—it’s a celebration of being human.
—Karen Swallow Prior, research professor of English and Christianity and culture, Southeastern Baptist Theological Seminary; author of On Reading Well: Finding the Good Life through Great Books
Kelly Kapic’s You’re Only Human is medicine that provides an antidote to some of the worst effects of the ill-conceived modern project of the self. It has been developed in the company of masters of the theological and pastoral sciences. But it is also the fruit of many personal conversations and shrewd observations, all bearing the hallmarks of Professor Kapic’s evident appreciation of, and love for, others. No hastily prepared, cheap-fix antidote, You’re Only Human is the product of years of reflection and concern, the work of a mature Christian theologian and a fine teacher. It belongs among the books Francis Bacon famously said should ‘be chewed and digested; . . . read wholly, and with diligence and attention.’ It is a love gift to the church. Those who take Dr. Kapic’s prescription, and finish the course, will surely begin to experience soul cure.
—Sinclair Ferguson, Chancellors Professor of Systematic Theology, Reformed Theological Seminary
With characteristic wisdom rooted deeply in Scripture and experience, Kelly Kapic addresses a vital yet neglected topic. As this book helped me to see the manifold ways in which we live in denial about the goodness of limits, I made fresh commitments to seek new, healthier habits. I cannot value and recommend a book more highly than that.
—Daniel J. Treier, Gunther H. Knoedler Professor of Theology, Wheaton College; author of Introducing Evangelical Theology