New Book Calls Christians Back to Love and the Heart of the Gospel

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE   |  August 15, 2026

WAKE FOREST, N.C. —

Doxa Theos Ministries announces the release of For the Love of God: By This All People Will Know That You Are My Disciples, a new book by author and lay evangelist Paul T. Barham that calls Christians back to what the author describes as the first and last command from God: to love.

“As Christians, we’ve lost our central focus,” Barham said. “God’s commandment to us is to love first, love last, and let love guide everything we do. We’re called to imitate God — Jesus is our only role model — and that should be evident in how we live. Instead, Christians today are divided along political, ideological, and social lines just like everyone else. When you look closely at people’s lives, their actions, their speech, it’s often hard to tell who’s a Christian and who isn’t.”

Barham argues that the world’s influence — what Scripture calls the sway of Satan as “the prince of this world” — has shaped Christians’ thoughts, actions, and speech more than God’s Word has. The book calls for a conscious return to the two greatest commandments: to love God above all else, and to love our neighbor as ourselves.

“We need to refocus — to renew our minds on loving first,” Barham said. “Paul tells us in 1 Corinthians 13 that it doesn’t matter what else you do as a Christian. You can prophesy, you can do all these other impressive things, but if you don’t do it with love, it has no value. It means nothing.”

The book also takes direct aim at legalism and judgment within the Church. “We’re not supposed to be legalistic. We’re not supposed to be judging others, being critical of others, sitting up on a throne casting stones,” Barham said. “We’re supposed to be down in the trenches, loving first.”

Written primarily for a Christian audience, For the Love of God is structured as a journey outward — from understanding God’s love, to loving God, loving ourselves rightly, loving our families, loving fellow believers, loving our neighbors, and even loving our enemies. Throughout, the book returns to a single measure of Christian life: not what we believe or say, but what we love enough to actually do.

The book draws on the well-known account of the Apostle John in his final years, who — according to early church tradition — was carried into the congregation again and again in old age, able to say only four words: “Little children, love one another.” When asked why he always repeated the same words, John is said to have replied that it was the Lord’s command, and that if only this were done, it would be enough.

“That’s the whole book, really,” Barham said. “If we get nothing else right, we have to get this right.”

Barham is a bi-vocational lay evangelist and software engineering executive who has previously written Salvation 101: A Guide to Faith, the Gospel, and Following Jesus. He and his family live in Wake Forest, North Carolina.

“My hope is that everyone who reads this book receives a blessing from it,” Barham said. “I hope it renews their interest in returning to God’s Word and seeking first how we are to love — especially as the world around us grows more evil by the day. There is nothing more important than that. Love, love, love — there’s nothing more important than that.”

For the Love of God is available in paperback and Kindle on Amazon.