Book Review: "Handle with Care: How Jesus Redeems the Power of Touch in Life and Ministry" by Lore Ferguson Wilbert

Having grown up during the height of “purity culture”. “true love waits”, “side hugs”. and the subsequent assumption that if you so much as pat a guy on the back then you like him, I was itching to read this book as soon as it was sent to me to review!

The reality is that we in the church often have just as much a screwed up view and understanding of touch as the world does – just to a different extreme, perhaps.

While the world will tell you anything goes between a boyfriend and a girlfriend, the church will often tells you nothing does – don’t hug for longer than two seconds, don’t hold hands, don’t, don’t, don’t. And while truly Biblical standards are undoubtedly important, the reality of what has happened is that we have commonly taken Biblical standards and run with them, thereby becoming as the Pharisees and adding on a whole bunch of extra rules where there weren’t any before.

That is the problem in one extreme sector of the church. Then we have another, far different though just as damaging problem, too, and that is the issue of rampant abuse in the church that is going by largely unaddressed.

Inappropriate touch between pastors and girls/women in their congregations, lewd comments about women’s bodies, cases of physical abuse in marriages taking place in a church congregation being ignored, and the list goes on.

Needless to say, we in the church desperately need the wisdom found in Lore Ferguson Wilbert‘s new book, “Handle with Care: How Jesus Redeems the Power of Touch in Life and Ministry“.

This book is refreshingly balanced and thoroughly Biblical. Lore has no patience for legalistic rules that are hurting our brothers and sisters in Christ, nor does she say anything goes. Instead, because she has a respect for the human body as being the temple of the Holy Spirit and made by God, she rejects extremes for the balanced and Biblical approach to touch instead.

With chapters on navigating church relationships as brothers and sisters in Christ, singleness, marriage, children, and more, every possible question, concern, topic, and common teaching regarding touch is addressed in a humble, Biblical, thorough fashion.

If you are finding it hard to navigate the waters of touch, want a Biblical understanding of how and why Jesus used touch so powerfully and so often as an important part of His public ministry, want to know how to use touch as God intended it in all the various areas of life, this book is a must-read for you! You will come away equipped, encouraged, and edified as never before in this incredibly important topic of touch and the role it should play both in and outside of the church! I highly, highly recommend it!

*I received a complimentary copy of this book in exchange for my honest review!