Chapter summaries

Chapter 1: We Focus On God’s Love Far Too Much.

The author says the modern church talks about ‘God loves us’ so often that it becomes the default answer to almost any hard biblical teaching. He asks readers to guess what percentage of New Testament verses explicitly say God loves us, then reports he surveyed 28 people on that question. He argues that even low guesses are still too high compared with what he later counts, and he claims this over-emphasis dulls conviction, weakens evangelism, and makes people resistant to warning passages.

Chapter 2: God Is Love – 1John 4:8

This chapter argues that the statement ‘God is love’ (1 John 4:8) is true but often misused. The author says it describes God’s nature, not a permission slip to make ‘God loves you’ the main slogan of preaching. He stresses that Scripture holds love together with holiness, justice, wrath, and discipline, and that the Bible’s own teaching priorities should control what we emphasize.

Chapter 3: Names of God

The author looks at names and titles and argues they reveal what Scripture wants us to notice about God and Christ. He points to a list of 480 names/titles/character descriptions of Jesus and argues that very few of these function like ‘the God who loves you’ as a primary label. His point is not that love is absent, but that the naming patterns highlight authority, holiness, lordship, judgment, and mission more than modern ‘love-first’ messaging.

Chapter 4: Angels Declarations in Heaven

He examines worship and declarations of angels in heaven and argues that heavenly language most often highlights God’s holiness and glory rather than repeatedly announcing ‘God loves you.’ He treats this as a clue about what the spiritual world itself centers on: God’s otherness, majesty, and worthiness. The author uses this to challenge the idea that love should be the dominant headline in Christian speech.

Chapter 5: OT Prophecies Concerning Messiah

This chapter tests the author’s thesis against Old Testament messianic prophecy. He notes that many claim there are over 300 prophecies fulfilled in Messiah, yet argues those prophecies do not mainly predict a Messiah who will come preaching a constant message of ‘God loves you.’ Instead, he says the prophetic picture emphasizes kingship, justice, judgment, suffering, covenant fulfillment, and the coming kingdom.

Chapter 6: NT Prophecies Of Coming Messiah

He repeats the test with New Testament prophecies about the coming Messiah and end-time realities. The author argues that these prophetic texts emphasize repentance, accountability, judgment, and readiness, rather than making God’s love-for-us the main recurring prediction. The chapter’s function is to show that prophecy does not set up the modern love-centered slogan as the key expectation.

Chapter 7: John the Baptist’s Preaching

Here the author uses John the Baptist as a ‘preview’ of the Messiah’s public message. He argues John’s preaching is dominated by repentance, warning, and preparation, not by reassurance that God loves the audience. The chapter concludes that the forerunner’s tone does not match modern preaching patterns.

Chapter 8: Jesus’ First Words Of His Ministry

The author looks at Jesus’ first recorded public message and argues it centers on the kingdom of God, fulfillment, and repentance, not on an opening theme of ‘God loves you.’ He treats the beginning of Jesus’ ministry as programmatic: it sets priorities. The claim is that Jesus’ initial framing matches prophetic urgency more than modern comfort messaging.

Chapter 9: Jesus’ Inaugural Sermon On The Mount

This chapter argues that the Sermon on the Mount is not mainly a ‘God loves you’ sermon. Instead, it is a demanding call to righteousness, integrity, and real obedience, with warnings about judgment and hypocrisy. The author uses the sermon to argue that Jesus’ teaching style is often confrontational and reforming rather than primarily affirming.

Chapter 10:  Jesus’ Teaching

Broadening beyond one sermon, the author surveys Jesus’ teaching themes and argues the dominant notes are discipleship, repentance, the kingdom, judgment, and exposing false religion. Love is present, but he says it is not presented as a repeated crowd-facing refrain. The chapter’s bottom line is that modern preaching often describes Jesus differently than the Gospels do.

Chapter 11: Was Jesus Mostly Tender & Kind?

The author challenges the popular picture of Jesus as ‘mostly tender and kind’ in the sense of being emotionally reassuring in most encounters. He offers a rough categorization of Jesus’ interactions: 11% warm, 28% stern, and 61% neutral or unclear, and asks how that fits the modern stereotype. His goal is to show that Jesus frequently confronts, corrects, and warns, and that this should shape how we preach and disciple.

Chapter 12: Was Jesus Always Kindly To The Sick

He focuses on Jesus’ interactions with sick and needy people and argues that compassion does not equal constant emotional softness or unconditional reassurance. The author says Jesus often commands, redirects, tests faith, or challenges motives even while healing. The point is to resist reading modern therapeutic expectations back into the Gospel narratives.

Chapter 13: Does Jesus Run To Help Us?

This chapter challenges the idea that Jesus ‘runs to help’ in the way modern Christians often assume. The author argues that Jesus sometimes delays, withdraws, or refuses crowd demands, and that his priorities are set by mission and the Father’s will. He uses this to warn against turning God into a predictable helper who exists mainly to improve our comfort.

Chapter 14: What Did Jesus Come To Do?

The author collects statements about why Jesus came and argues they focus on saving, calling sinners, proclaiming the kingdom, fulfilling Scripture, and giving his life. He says the Gospels do not summarize Jesus’ mission as ‘to tell you God loves you’ as a primary purpose statement. The chapter aims to reset mission language to what the texts explicitly say.

Chapter 15: Jesus’ Instructions To The Seventy

He examines Jesus’ instructions to the seventy and argues they provide a model for how the message was carried into towns. The author notes the emphasis on announcing the kingdom, dealing with rejection, and warning about judgment, rather than making ‘God loves you’ the core outreach script. The chapter supports his claim that the Bible’s evangelistic pattern is more urgent than sentimental.

Chapter 16: John 3:16

This chapter targets John 3:16, arguing it is often used as a detached slogan rather than read in context. The author stresses that the verse is tied to God’s saving action in sending the Son and is embedded in a larger discussion about belief, condemnation, and light versus darkness. He also notes that ‘so’ can be heard as ‘in this way,’ which pushes readers to focus on God’s method (giving the Son) rather than turning the verse into a stand-alone sentimental headline.

Chapter 17: The Love The Father Lavishes On Us

Using 1 John 3, the author argues that ‘the love the Father has given us’ is connected to identity and holiness: being God’s children means a life of purification and obedience. The chapter’s claim is that love language in this passage is not meant to produce complacency, but to drive transformation. In simple terms: the text ties love to becoming like Christ, not to feeling safe while staying unchanged.

Chapter 18: God Loves Everyone?

Here the author disputes the blanket slogan ‘God loves everyone’ if it is meant as an identical, unconditional stance toward all people in all conditions. He argues that Scripture also speaks plainly about wrath, judgment, and God’s opposition to evil, and that love must be defined in ways that do not cancel those texts. The goal is to force more careful theological language.

Chapter 19: Unconditional love of God

This chapter argues that ‘unconditional love’ is often stated without definition and can clash with the Bible’s frequent covenantal logic: warnings, commands, and consequences. The author says that if people insist on the phrase, they must qualify it so that it does not deny passages about discipline, judgment, or conditional promise. He treats sloppy unconditional language as a driver of false assurance.

Chapter 20: Great Commission

The author examines the Great Commission and argues it frames the church’s mission as making disciples, baptizing, and teaching obedience under Christ’s authority. He notes that the commission does not foreground ‘preach God loves you’ as the stated task. The conclusion is that the church’s assignment is larger and more demanding than modern love-centered evangelism often suggests.

Chapter 21: Any NT Books Written On This?

He asks whether any New Testament book was written mainly to teach ‘God loves us’ as its purpose. The author argues that the NT letters and books were written to correct, warn, teach doctrine, strengthen perseverance, and guard against false teaching, even when love is included. His point is about purpose statements: the documents’ stated aims do not match modern preaching ratios.

Chapter 22: Any NT passage With This Title?

The author uses editorial passage headings as a rough index of what subjects get highlighted. He reports that the NET Bible has 653 New Testament headings and only 2 about God’s love (~0.31%), and that the ESV has 907 headings and only 3 about God’s love (~0.33%). His conclusion is that, even by this coarse measure, ‘God’s love for us’ is not presented as the dominant headline topic.

Chapter 23: Total Verses Saying ‘God Loves Us?’

This is the book’s main counting chapter. The author reports 7,942 total New Testament verses and says he found 87 that explicitly speak of God’s love for us, about 1.1% of the NT. He then argues that Jesus’ public preaching and the sermons in Acts do not use ‘God loves you’ as a repeated crowd-facing formula, and that the epistles teach love with theological weight rather than as a constant slogan.

Chapter 24: Holy Spirit’s Work

The author surveys descriptions of the Holy Spirit’s work and argues the Spirit’s agenda in the NT is framed around conviction, sanctification, empowerment, gifts, and guiding into truth. He says the Spirit is not presented as mainly telling people ‘God loves you,’ even if love is a fruit and command. The chapter reinforces his claim that the NT’s main levers are holiness and truth, not reassurance.

Chapter 25: Acts Preaching

Looking at preaching in Acts, the author argues the apostles proclaim Jesus’ resurrection and lordship, call for repentance, and warn of judgment while offering forgiveness. He says the public sermons do not center on ‘God loves you’ as the core evangelistic refrain. The chapter uses Acts as a model for what early gospel proclamation sounded like.

Chapter 26: Paul’s ‘Important Points’ – Gospel

This chapter argues that Paul’s ‘main points’ (as Paul himself frames them) revolve around Christ crucified and risen, repentance, faith, obedience, and the coming judgment. The author says Paul’s letters include love, but do not present love-for-us as the primary rhetorical engine. The point is to align modern preaching priorities with apostolic priorities.

Chapter 27: Basic Doctrines Of Hebrews 6

Using Hebrews 6, the author notes that the text lists ‘elementary teachings’ such as repentance, faith, resurrection, and eternal judgment. He argues that ‘God loves you’ is not included as a basic doctrine in that list. The chapter is used as another index of what the NT treats as foundational instruction.

Chapter 28: Early Church Fathers

The author brings in early church writers as a historical check. His claim is that early Christian teaching and warnings emphasize holiness, repentance, and doctrinal fidelity, and do not show a dominating pattern of ‘God loves you’ slogans. He uses this to argue that modern love-centered preaching is not simply ‘the historic Christian norm.’

Chapter 29: Church History

Surveying church history, the author argues that major movements of serious Christianity often stressed repentance, holy living, and the fear of God more than comfort messaging. In this chapter he also quotes several alarming assessments (author-cited, not verified in this summary): Barna is cited as saying as many as 65% in pews may not be born again; Billy Graham is cited as saying only one in four who came forward at crusades were truly saved; A. W. Tozer is cited as saying as many as 90% of church members were unsaved; and Leonard Ravenhill is quoted as saying he does not believe 5% of Christians in America are born again (and he extends that claim to England and Australia).

Chapter 30: Satan’s Aims Described In The Bible

This chapter argues that Satan’s strategies in Scripture commonly involve deception, pride, and distortion of truth, and the author suggests that over-emphasizing ‘God loves you’ can fit that pattern if it breeds complacency. The claim is not that love is false, but that imbalance can be used to produce a counterfeit Christianity that feels safe while ignoring warnings. He treats this as a spiritual warfare issue, not just a preaching-style debate.

Chapter 31: Any Prophecy Of This To Come?

The author asks whether the Bible predicts end-time conditions that resemble the current Western church environment. He argues that passages about deception, apostasy, and compromised churches can be applied to a culture that wants comfort and dislikes correction. The chapter’s point is that a drift toward ‘nice messages only’ is not surprising if biblical warnings are true.

Chapter 32: Are We Fulfilling These Prophecies?

He then argues that the Western church is actually living out those warnings now, shaped by culture, consumer expectations, and a desire not to offend. The author claims that the message has been softened and that people become less responsive to sin, repentance, and holiness. He presents this as a serious diagnostic: the church can become strong in sentiment but weak in discipleship.

Chapter 33: The NT Already Has An Over Emphasis On God’s Love

This chapter makes a sharper argument: the author suggests the New Testament itself already brought a stronger emphasis on love compared with earlier contexts, to correct legalism and fear, so modern churches should be cautious about pushing the emphasis even further. In other words, he claims the NT has a purposeful balance, and the modern West has moved past that balance into excess. The goal is to warn against amplifying a true theme into a distortion.

Chapter 34: Depth Of Deception

The author argues the deception is not only about sermon topics but about the listener’s entire ‘God picture.’ If people are trained to think of God as only affirming, then holiness, wrath, discipline, and judgment become psychologically unacceptable and are filtered out. He portrays this as a deep re-shaping of conscience: the person can no longer hear many biblical texts without rejecting them.

Chapter 35: Consequences Of This Deception

Here he focuses on consequences inside the church: shallow conversion, moral compromise, false security, and a refusal to accept biblical warnings. The author argues that when love is treated as the controlling lens, people reinterpret or dismiss passages about sin, hell, discipline, and judgment. He also cites and interacts with other writers (for example, he references D. A. Carson’s work on the love of God) to argue for more careful, multi-textured teaching about love.

Chapter 36: What Should We Do?

This chapter is the practical remedy section. The author calls for rebalancing preaching and discipleship toward the themes he believes Scripture itself prioritizes: repentance, holiness, obedience, endurance, and the fear of God. He argues that the church must accept that much biblical teaching is meant to confront and correct, not simply comfort, and that spiritual health requires hearing the hard parts.

Chapter 37: Last Word

In his final word, the author restates the warning that a ‘love-only’ message creates a different god than the Bible’s God. He argues that the real God is loving, but also holy and just, and that the Bible repeatedly calls people to repentance and serious discipleship. The closing emphasis is that biblical Christianity is meant to produce resilient, obedient people, not merely reassured people.