Preacher and poet John Donne wrote DevotionsDevotions in 1623, during a pandemic in his city of London, documenting a raw account of his confrontations with God. For a month he lay sick, hearing the church bell toll for others while wondering if his death would be next. From what he believed to be his death bed, the great poet wrote a triumph of literature that has given us such familiar phrases as “No man is an island…” and “Never send to know for whom the bell tolls…”
In this edition, Philip Yancey pared the descriptions of antiquated science and medicine, and streamlined Donne’s complicated syntax (one sentence alone had 234 words!). Yancey’s paraphrase of this great work has much to say to us today. Arranged as a 30-day reader based on Donne’s meditations, this new version of a classic work combines Donne’s timeless reflections with present-day commentary, offering universal truths on how to live and die well.
Philip Yancey is an American Christian author. Fourteen million of his books have been sold worldwide, making him one of the best-selling evangelical Christian authors. Two of his books have won the ECPA's Christian Book of the Year Award: The Jesus I Never Knew in 1996, What's So Amazing About Grace in 1998. He is published by Zondervan Publishing.
Yancey was born in Atlanta, Georgia. When Yancey was one year old, his father, stricken with polio, died after his church elders suggested he go off life support in faith that God would heal him. This was one of the reasons he had lost his faith at one point of time. Yancey earned his MA with highest honors from the graduate school of Wheaton College. His two graduate degrees in Communications and English were earned from Wheaton College Graduate School and the University of Chicago.
Yancey moved to Chicago, Illinois, and in 1971 joined the staff of Campus Life magazine--a sister publication of Christianity Today directed towards high school and college students--where he served as editor for eight years. Yancey was for many years an editor for Christianity Today and wrote articles for Reader's Digest, The Saturday Evening Post, Publishers Weekly, Chicago Tribune Magazine, Eternity, Moody Monthly, and National Wildlife, among others. He now lives in Colorado, working as a columnist and editor-at-large for Christianity Today. He is a member of the editorial board of Books and Culture, another magazine affiliated with Christianity Today, and travels around the world for speaking engagements.
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