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Lucky: How the Kingdom Comes to Unlikely People

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You might not realize that a book simply called "Lucky" actually covers as much as this great book does. Reading "Lucky" made me recall my seminary days, as I rediscovered some of the essential truths about the Kingdom-focus of Jesus' message, something that we can so easily lose track of. For those who haven't been to Seminary, this book will be great exposure to parts of Jesus' message that, though often neglected, are essential to understanding God's work in creation. However, unlike my seminary professors, Packiam has the great ability to explain this simply and easily - without doing it any injustice.

More importantly, though, is that "Lucky" doesn't just expose its reader to lofty theological principals. Instead, it makes them real for our lives. Its main point is promise. There is so much to be hopeful for, so much to be grateful for - we are, after all, very lucky. Even if you are poor or lowly or rejected by the world's standards, God accepts you and blesses you. Further, being blessed - lucky - is a promise that changes the way we live. Since, the world's standards no longer matter, being lucky means that we can reject the world while still engaging it.

I recommend this warm and encouraging book. You will find it easy to read, but it is also deep and engaging. Most importantly, though, it teaches us directly from Scripture. "Lucky" reminds us of the central truths of Jesus message about the Kingdom, and those who belong in it (we, the unlikely).

*I recommend it both for individual reading or for a book study group.

This book is spectacular and from one of the best young writers I know. Read it and consider how God is involved with you and me when all is well and when all is broken. We are indeed a blessed people, a fortunate tribe, a lucky generation.

Packiam has done a great job with this easy to read book based on Jesus' sermon on the plain from Luke 6. The main thesis is that God's kingdom comes to the most unlikely and unexpected people..namely, the poor, the hungry and those who weep.

Chapter 3, THE GOD-DEPENDENT, is absolutely brilliant and for me the best chapter the book.

The author makes so many great observations throughout the book, but I'll just mention two:
that all our efforts have limits(79-81).. that to hunger for God is.."much deeper than a craving for an experience. It is to meditate on Him, on His life and His words. It is to take Him into us so that we become what we eat." (103)

Highly recommended!

As I began to read about Bud in Glenn's book "Lucky" I began to relate to Bud in many ways. As a believer, I have witnessed many people like Bud who seem to get really lucky in life and wonder why the Lord has me where I am in life. I am not poor in the world's standards, but I feel like I am. I wished on many occasions that I would get "lucky" and be successful and have a ton of resources at my disposal. After these thoughts linger I hear Jesus speaking to my heart the Beattitudes and realize I am right where the Lord has me and I am reminded that if I have Jesus, I have all I need! Thanks Glenn for your book and for teaching us the we do truly have all we need.

There are lots of ways to study scripture. But two ways have been bouncing around in my head as being particularly important for me. One is the serious academic study of a text, long or short. Investigation into what the language researchers say about it, what the cultural anthropologists know about the culture it was written in, what the comparative literature people know about other texts that might have been written in a similar time or culture, what the historians that can talk about how that passage has been read and interpreted over time, etc. I think that type of reading and study of scripture is very important. I do not do enough research into scripture like that. (The Lost World of Genesis One is one of the recent books I have read that is along those lines.)

But the second type of scripture work is illustrated quite well by this book. The author does a lot of the type of study that is part of the first type of study, but the focus is not the study, but the retelling. The author's research is to understand the text deeply, so that she or he can tell others about the text in a way that is modern and appropriate for the culture and people that are hearing it. And even more important, to use the "Theological Imagination" (as Eugene Peterson puts it) to help those of us that have heard the scripture before rediscover it in new ways. Some Christians look down on this type of work, but it is the essential work of teaching. Teaching takes an idea and learns to communicate it in a way that is understood, and hopefully can be acted upon.

Glenn Packiam a pastor in Colorado takes on the first part of the Sermon on the Mount from Luke, the "Blessed are the..." statements. In Luke there are four of these statements. The first couple of chapters of Lucky are background and story to set the stage for why Packiam thinks that these statements could be properly translated as "Lucky are the..." in modern English.

Packiam wants the reader to see that Jesus really is trying to turn our understanding of the world on its head. For me the point where my understanding was most turned on my head was a section about want and desire. It was in the midst of the "Blessed are those who hunger...". The author tells a story about riding in a cab. The Cabbie tells of his recovery from alcoholism and Packiam is profoundly moved by the change, but the continued struggle. I get understood that, but the following lines...."When you've been eating junk, hunger can be a good thing. For the addict, hunger is proof that he is recovering"

It is difficult in a prosperous country to understand that lack, can actually show growth. If I was a runner or enjoyed exercise I might understand the joy that comes from the pain of exercise (I really don't like running so I don't understand that joy that comes from that type of pain.) Intellectually I get it, but being open to the pain and struggle that show growth is tough. But that is the way the gospel works. Those things that are true are not always easy.

This is a very good retelling of the sermon on the mount. But even more important is the epilogue that encourages us not just to hear, but to be changed and to then go out and do likewise.
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Originally published on my blog at [...]

I just finished reading "Lucky" by Glenn Packiam and happy to report that I enjoyed it. I found it refreshing in its presentation of the message of Jesus in the Sermon on the Plain from Luke's Gospel (Luke 6:17-26). As refreshing as the presentation was, I also found it faithful and honest to the contextual and traditional interpretation of the passage and this is important to me. In as much as the sermon on the plain is directed to us personally, Packiam helps the reader to understand that the Gospel message isn't "all about me."

As Packiam teaches about this Sermon on the Plain, he simultaneously teaches the historical application of the message while interpreting it in our contemporary setting addressing some of the major social issues of our day (human trafficking, poverty, hunger, and creation-environmental care to name a few). As accurate and engaging a job as the author does with teaching this passage of text, he explores several layers deeper by sharing the original stories of the Hebrew people, so the reader might further engage and connect with the irony of the Christ's words as he proclaims how lucky they are when they are poor, reviled, hungry, and persecuted.

In addition to the well-researched and explained context of the passage, Packiam also engages the reader with stories from his personal experience and integrates them seamlessly into the overall message of the book. This is an art form in itself; sometimes the retelling of personal stories can come off as somewhat indulgent and gratuitous, but in this instance that is not the case at all. It seemed each of Packiam's personal narratives were timely and relevant.

One of my favorite quotes from the book follows:

"By filling ourselves with whatever we can find in this world, we have buried a deeper hunger, one that reveals what we truly need. C. S. Lewis argued that God finds our desires not too strong but too weak. We are too easily pleased. We're like a man starving in the desert, content to stuff his mouth with the sand within his grasp when a royal banqueting table is just a few yards ahead. We need a hunger that is not so easily filled, a hunger that comes from repeatedly turning down the things that others are filling up on. This is a good kind of hungry. But to be hungry at all is uncomfortable. Maybe that's just it: To be empty on the world requires a certain willingness to not get too comfortable here." (pg 99-100)

I have no criticism of the book and think it will appeal to a wide demographic. I've read quite a few books wedded to the social justice movement in recent years, so I felt a little tired in my reading at some point. I don't think there is anything new in this book, but what is there is important and it has been presented afresh. I think most people reading it will enjoy it and might be inspired and challenged to live more aware of their "luckiness."

I just finished Lucky: How the Kingdom Comes to Unlikely People by Glenn Packiam. And honestly, I'm feeling very lucky to have read the book.

When I first picked up the book, I was apprehensive. I thought that this was just another attempt to use a popular, relevant word to convey biblical truth. And "lucky" is probably my least favorite of all words.

However, God spoke to me through Packiam's book at the right time in my life.

Taking the Sermon on the Plain found in Luke 6, Packiam lays out what it truly means to be lucky. "[Jesus] knows it takes more than changing your conditions and surroundings to make you lucky. It takes more than money or comfort or success. It takes the arrival of the Kingdom of God." (25).

Generally, books on Jesus' most famous sermon leaves me wanting: Either authors portray the Sermon as unattainable living, showing us how badly we need God's grace, or they talk about how we can live like Jesus talks about in this sermon if you just try harder. Either extreme leaves me thirsting and wanting more.

Packiam, however, takes a third road. He examines how we are truly blessed (lucky) and therefore our lives should reflect such lucky conditions. But he also examines how even in spite of our lowly ways and unlucky conditions, we are still lucky BECAUSE God wants to live out his Kingdom through us.

Early on, he makes the point that really no one feels lucky. They see everyone else (the guy who wins the lottery, or the family with 4 kids at Harvard) as being lucky. But not me. Certainly, not me.

But I am lucky simply because of what God has done for me.

I was moved to orient my life more completely on the Kingdom of God because of this book. Not because of guilt, but because of how lucky I truly am to be a luck-bearer of the Kingdom of God.

In my favorite chapter, "Luck-Bearer," Packiam asks: "What if we understood that we have not been made lucky for the sake of ourselves, but for the sake of the unlucky?"
Read this book. Experience and understand what being lucky truly is.

Are you looking for a book on The Kingdom of God?
Are you done with the daily grind and desiring to live sold old for Jesus?
Do you call yourself a disciple of His?
Do you hunger to be used by Him for His glory?

If you answered YES to one of all of the above then get yourself this book! Glenn will dive into famed Sermon on the Mount teaching and bring new life and perspective to the coming of God's kingdom, it's reciepients, and what are we doing with our time here.

While I see where Glenn was going in Lucky through the first chapters- building up to the climax- if you read nothing other than the last two chapters you'd have your socks blessed off! Your view of life and living would be transformed eternally. You would never want to wake up and walk out to greet the day with anything less than sheer joy.

My prayer is that for those who are seeking to know more on 'the bigger picture' of kingdom work, true faith being evidenced in works, and how to see a world transformed through love that you will find a great talk in this book to go along with what the Lord is teaching you in His Word and calling you to live out through your hands. You are meant for such beautiful and magnificent purpose it will rattle the belive to the core and cause waves of love to go out like a tsunami and drown nations in love one heart at a time.

Do yourself a favor. Buy this book. Pray before you open it every time to read. Ask the Lord to open your eyes, heart, and hands to the plans He needs for Y-O-U to live out daily so that we can see this kingdom and the one to come pulled right into one!

In Lucky, Glenn Packiam, a pastor at New Life Church in Colorado Springs and a songwriter, takes a fresh look at the good news of the coming of God's kingdom through an exploration of the four beatitudes of Luke 6. His reflection, as the title makes plain, centers around rethinking the familiar (and probably too-familiar) term "blessed," instead asserting that those to whom the kingdom comes are "lucky" (he gets some impetus for this move from Eugene Peterson's effective use of the term in the Message). He nuances the term nicely, to point out that though it may have the connotations of a random chance occurrence, it also caries the sense in modern usage of one who is fortunate, one for whom good things have happened. And it makes for a powerful restatement of the beatitudes that helps to convey their sense.

So what is the sense of the beatitudes? Packiam briefly explores some of the historical approaches to what this list signifies, but spends the bulk of his time crafting an approach to the four beatitudes in Luke that focuses both on the sense in which Jesus is declaring that the unlikely and unlucky people described by them (the poor, the hungry, the mourning, the rejected) have become lucky precisely in the fact that the kingdom has come, and in the sense in which this goes beyond just the physical conditions described to the conditions of heart that these conditions may help to create. That means he constantly keeps his exposition tied to the historical setting of Jesus' address even as he allows for a fuller spiritualized sense that doesn't leave behind the concrete setting but works it out more fully.

I really enjoyed Packiam's approach to the beatitudes, and I think it does a great job of giving a readable and informed approach to this well-known but often-misunderstood passage of Scripture. He uses the metaphor of "luck" to great effect to explore the nature of the kingdom of God and its application in our lives, both as recipients of this overwhelming luck and as bearers of God's luck to an unlucky world. I have come to recognize afresh that I am lucky because of God's great work in Jesus Christ, and further, that I'm called to participate in spreading that luck to the world. I expect I will refer back to this book frequently when thinking about the kingdom of God or the beatitudes, and I also think the metaphor of "luck" is pregnant with possibilities for translating the Christian message to an unlucky world.

Glenn Packiam's new book, Lucky: How the Kingdom Comes to Unlikely People, joins the ranks of his two other books Secondhand Jesus: Trading Rumors of God for a Firsthand Faith and Butterfly in Brazil: How Your Life Can Make a World of Difference. In this book, Glenn unpacks the context of the word blessed in Luke's depiction of the beatitudes, Luke 6.20-23. The English translation uses the word blessed, but Glenn says that Jesus didn't use a religious word, he chose a street word that had the idea of the good, fortunate, or as Glenn says of a word we might be more likely to choose, lucky. The hard part for me in reading this book and even some now as I write this review is getting passed thinking of lucky as random or chance. Even if I can't help myself from thinking that, I think about why we're lucky, and it's because of God and nothing that He does is random or chance. The poor, hungry, sad, and persecuted people that Jesus was talking about are ones that you wouldn't consider as being the lucky ones, but they were exactly the ones that Jesus sought after and wanted to spend time with. Glenn says this,

"Jesus took an inherently nonreligious word, a word from normal, everyday, conversations, and filled it with divine implications. It turns out the ones we ought to call 'lucky' are the ones that God is blessing with the arrival of His kingdom. In doing this, Jesus redefined who the lucky ones are. They are not the ones culture lauds as successful, not the ones we secretly aspire to be. He turned our appraisal of the good life on its head. There is a great reversal that is coming; indeed, it has already begun. And the ones who are receiving and participating in the kingdom of God are the ones who are truly lucky, deeply blessed."

Where this really begins to hit home is when I, and you, begin to think of how much an unlikely person I am to be receiving the kingdom of God. But because of the death and resurrection of Christ, we have become rich through Him, He satisfies our hunger through time with Him and His Word, we need not weep because we have strength in His joy, and no matter what happens in our life on this earth we have a treasure awaiting us in heaven. As we come to realize that we are the lucky ones, at the end of the book, Glenn challenges us to become the luck-bearers. Because the kingdom has come to us it can go through us to others.

* Lucky are the God-dependent, for they will enjoy and participate in God's rule.
* Lucky are those who are empty on this world, for they will be filled with Jesus and feast with Him in the age to come.
* Lucky are those whose best life is not now, for what is coming is better than what is.
* Lucky are those who are rejected by the world, for they are a threat to it and their reward is from a kingdom not of this world.