You Are Not Your Own

The Gospel Coalition Book Awards Honorable Mention
"You are your own, and you belong to yourself."
This is the fundamental assumption of modern life. And if we are our own, then it's up to us to forge our own identities and to make our lives significant. But while that may sound empowering, it turns out to be a crushing responsibility—one that never actually delivers on its promise of a free and fulfilled life, but instead leaves us burned out, depressed, anxious, and alone. This phenomenon is mapped out onto the very structures of our society, and helps explain our society's underlying disorder.
But the Christian gospel offers a strikingly different vision. As the Heidelberg Catechism puts it, "I am not my own, but belong with body and soul, both in life and in death, to my faithful Savior Jesus Christ." In You Are Not Your Own, Alan Noble explores how this simple truth reframes the way we understand ourselves, our families, our society, and God. Contrasting these two visions of life, he invites us past the sickness of contemporary life into a better understanding of who we are and to whom we belong.

Dr. O. Alan Noble (PhD, Baylor University) is associate professor of English at Oklahoma Baptist University and a fellow for the Keller Center for Cultural Apologetics. He has published articles in The Atlantic, The Gospel Coalition, First Things, and Christianity Today and is the author of three books, most recently, On Getting Out of Bed: The Burden and Gift of Living. He lives with his wife and three children in Oklahoma City.