The Evolution of One Section

Now that we're near the end of the editing, I find it encouraging to look back over the evolution of this book and see how far it has come. I thought it might be interesting to look at one section in its different stages of development. This is a section from Chapter Eight, "Growing in Grace: Vivification."

The Outline (8/26/2008)

Be Ravished by Mercy
Offer Your Body for the Worship of God
Surrender
Edwards
Wesley
Calvin
Owen
Self-denial
Calvin
Don’t be conformed
Be Transformed Through Renewing the Mind
To the heart, through the mind
Packer
Realize the good, perfect, acceptable will of God

As you can see, this is a very schematic outline of Romans 12:1-2, the passage this section of the chapter is based on. The single words in the subheadings (Surrender, Edwards, Wesley, etc.) were cues for themes to develop or quotations and illustrations to use.

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The Big Picture

Here's an ugly, informative, 95 percent final Table of Contents of the entire book, down to the subhead level. Click on the image to see the whole thing.

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Ten Ways to Kill Sin

In a previous post, Kevin talked about the need to sometimes adjust the order of subsections in a chapter. We've done this in multiple chapters, often running through two, three, or four ideas before landing on a final flow of thought. One of the benefits of (1) having a good editor and (2) having a lengthy amount of time for editing, is the gradual increase of clarity in structure and flow of thought. And, of course, the better the structure enhances the content, the better readers will be served.

Chapter seven, which was the chapter under consideration in Kevin's previous post, has gone through multiple revisions. Here is a partial (and slightly edited) e-mail exchange between Kevin and I, followed by the latest (and probably final) ordering of subsections in the book, with a brief preview of each.

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