Category Archives: books

books, recommend

Reading Recommendations

Leave a comment

I have a lot to read for my classes this semester.  Most of it is very important and informative and some of it is very interesting.

I also try to mix in some books of interest amid my required reading.  I just got two books that look very intriguing.

I have heard a lot about Same Kind of Different as Me. Not only does it come highly recommended, the description is riveting.

Switching back and forth in short segments, two narrators portray authors Hall and Moore in memoirs that begin in distant walks of life and intersect in a homeless shelter. In the charming accent of an unschooled black man with a deep, scratchy voice, narrator Barry Scott recounts Denver Moore’s life of hardship and misfortune, starting on a Louisiana plantation. In contrast, the subtle Southern accent of Dan Butler speaks for co-author Ron Hall, an educated white gentleman of comfortable means. The narrators play their parts of the drama so well that listeners will believe they are hearing the men who lived the story. In the end, the two individuals form an unlikely friendship resulting from charity and challenged by tragedy.

I loved reading Tim Chester’s Total Church and I highly anticipate his newest work, You Can Change. Chester has a readable and interesting style.  He is able to communicate in a straightforward and clever fashion.  Because of his single-minded focus on the gospel of Jesus Christ, Chester is able to tackle many topics with the big picture in mind.  I am looking forward to reading a book about sanctification and victory over sin that focuses on Christ rather than faddish avoidance strategies.

books, christian life, discipleship, jesus

Admirer of follower?

2 Comments
The Jesus Paradigm

In responding to Jesus’ call to follow him, I must ask myself what it is I can do to get serious about kingdom-focused living.  Am I really willing to seek the lower place at the table rather than the place of preeminence and respectability (Luke 14:1-11)?  Am I really willing to give to the poor out of my abundance (Luke 19:8)?  Am I really willing to touch sinners (Luke 7:36-39)?  Am I really willing to proactively use my possessions for the good of God’s kingdom (Luke 6:38)?  Everything in me balks at this kind of love and sacrifice.  I recoil at the thought of forsaking the world and its values — whether religious, political, social, educational, or vocational.  To be “sentenced to death,” to become a “spectacle to the world,” to be “fools for Christ’s sake,” to be “held in disrepute,” to go “hungry and thirsty,” to be “poorly clothed,” “persecuted,” “slandered,” “the rubbish of the world,” “the dregs of all things” — the apostle Paul might endure such suffering (1 Cor. 4:8-13), or maybe Ethiopian Christians.  But I, Lord?  Yet if I , as a Christian, do not practice what I preach, if I continue to major in the minors, if “poor in spirit” remains but a meaningless platitude in my own life, then I am merely an admirer of Jesus and not a true follower.

— David Alan Black

books, recommend, resources

Schmorgesborg of Reading Recommendations

Leave a comment

Right now I am reading through several books.  I am finishing up Brevard Childs’ interesting study of the book of Isaiah in which he explores The Struggle to Understand Isaiah as Christian Scripture.  This book is part touches on issues of Biblical theology, hermeneutics, patristic theology, history, philology, exegesis, and much more.

On a more practical level, I picked up Michael Lawrence’s newest publication, Biblical Theology in the Life of the Church:  A Guide for Ministry. Due to my current course of study, Iam interested to see just how Lawrence treats this important subject.  Further, I am planning on attending The IX Marks conference at Southeastern Baptist Theological Seminary on this very topic in the fall.

I am also getting a chance to sit down with Dave Black’s The Jesus Paradigm. He is one of my favorite professors and bloggers and I expect to be thoroughly challenged as I read this work.  While I’m at it, I’d encourage you to pray for Dave and his wife, BeckyLynn, as they travel to Ethiopia.  You can read more about their work in Ethiopia at his website.

books, church, ministry, recommend

Sermonic A.D.D.

Leave a comment

What kinds of ministers does such a culture produce?  Ministers who are not at home with what is significant; ministers whose attention span is less than that of a four-year-old in the 1940s, who race around like the rest of us, constantly distracted by sounds and images of inconsequential trivialities, and out of touch with what is weighty.  It is not surprising that their sermons, and the alleged worship that surrounds them, are often trifling, thoughtless, uninspiring, and mundane.  It is not surprising that their sermons are mindlessly practical, in the “how-to” sense.  It is also not surprising that their sermons tend to be moralistic, sentimentalistic, or slavishly drafted into the so-called culture wars.  The great seriousness of the coming judgment of God, the sheer insignificcance of the present in light of eternity — realities that once were the subtext of virtually every sermon — have now disappeared, and have been replaced by one triviality after another.

— T. David Gordon

books, resources, review, theology

Do You Know How to Read?

Leave a comment

There is a profound difference between reading information and reading texts.  The former permits a disinterest in the question of how the matter is composed; its interest is only in the content…

When people do read today (and they don’t read often), they read almost exclusively for information or content; they almost never read for the pleasure obtained by reading an author whose command of language is exception.  Many ministers, for instance, will read the occasional book about history.  But with few exceptions, the interest in historical writing resides in the events narrated, not in the skillfulness of the narration…

[Modern readers ask what a] passage is about?… but they don’t raise questions about how the passage is constructed.

— T. David Gordon

I have, both anecdotally and formally, observed this to be the case in reference to the Bible.  Most teachers of the Bible are concerned only with the words and principals of the sacred text.  There is little concern for the syntax and grammar.  Word studies abound with no interest in paragraph structure or the flow of discourse.  This sort of textual myopia is further encumbered by a faulty view of much of Scripture regarding the importance of events recorded in the text.  John Sailhamer has been influential in cogently explaining the necessity of viewing the intentionally constructed text of Scripture in its final form as the only element worth interpreting.  Whatever so-called “event” might “lie behind” the inspired text is of no importance to the Christian interpreter.  Rather, one must spend their time understanding how the text of Scripture is intentionally constructed to communicate a message.

books, review, theology

O Me of Little Faith (review)

Leave a comment

I must commend Jason Boyett for catching that most illusive of literary prey — readability.  His book (O Me of Little Faith:  True Confessions of a Spiritual Weakling) is both interesting and enjoyable.  It is pleasant to read.  He combines vulnerability, humility, and self-disclosure with brief (possibly too brief) discussions of Christian apologetics.  All the while he tells interesting stories and provides funny illustrations.

This book provides a personal, ongoing journey through valleys of doubt and peaks of faith.  Along the way it provides wonderful gems of Biblical, cultural, and spiritual insight while also running into a few logical and Biblical potholes.

Boyett has a knack for observing the inconsistencies of modern American “churchianity.”  He rightfully notes that many of the intellectual and pragmatic objections to Christianity are answered unsatisfactorily by Christians (so-called).  For example, he notes the false god of “American evangelical Christian religion” who is “totally cool with the money we spend on concert lighting in the worship center while the widow down the block has a hole in her roof” (p. 129).

One of Boyett’s greatest strengths is also one his greatest weakness.  The reader is deeply empathetic with his doubt struggles and particularly interested in the answers he has found to deal with his rollercoaster of faith and doubt.  Unfortunately he either refuses to give answers by hiding behind the “I’m no theologian/scholar” excuse or giving examples of unsatisfactory responses he has found (e.g., Lee Strobel and Josh McDowell are not at the top of my list of credentialed, well-researched, exegetically qualified, and philosophically sound apologists).

Boyett takes issue with a hard deterministic view of God’s sovereignty, the philosophical “problem of evil,” and purely rational (as opposed to presuppositional) apologetics.  While this book cannot answer every philosophical issue of Christianity, I would have hoped Boyett could have offered a few alternative Christian views on these subjects.  The only intense objection I have with this book is the conflation of the Biblical perspective of doubt with Boyett’s personal doubts.  In the Bible various characters doubt the trustworthiness of the promises of God, but Boyett is doubting (it appears) the very existence of God.  I cannot find a Biblical character doubting the existence of God.

All-in-all reading this book is like sitting down for a drink with a close friend.  You are never exactly sure where the conversation will take you (e.g., church history, liturgy, sin, existentialism, apologetics, etc.) but you will be glad you had a chat.  Along the way you will be challenged and maybe even frustrated.  You will learn some good spiritual lessons and you will be encouraged to give voice to the questions and doubts with which you wrestle.

books, education, resources

Books, books, books…

Leave a comment

As usual I am continually buying and borrowing books.  I feel it important, as a Christian, to constantly be reading and learning.  One of my goals is to build a modest library as a resource for my faith community.  I am always willing to lend out books and other resources I have to those who are interested.  Here are few books I have just recently acquired that I am planning to read in the next few weeks.

I recently was the winner of a Dave Black online contest.  As a result I am promised a copy of his book, The Jesus Paradigm. Dr. Black (who insists that we call him “Dave,” or “brother”, or something Biblical like that) has been a challenging influence in my life.  He is constantly encouraging others to serve Jesus in every area of their life.  I am always amazed by his intelligence, humility, godliness, and missionary lifestyle.

Sitting on my shelf is also a copy of Kevin Vanhoozer’s The Drama of Doctrine:  A Canonical Linguistic Approach to Christian Theology. This book was very useful to me in seminary.  I am looking forward to having my own copy and reading it in its entirety.

Zondervan has been kind enough to send me an advanced copy of Jason Boyett’s newest book, O Me of Little Faith:  True Confessions of a Spiritual Weakling, for review.  After reading the introduction and first chapter I already have mixed feelings about the work.  On one hand I find the vulnerability and honesty admirable, on the other hand there are already serious methodological, theological, and philosophical flaws.  I do not want to come to any premature conclusions, so after I finish reading it, I will post a some thoughts.

Another book on my immediate reading list is Christian Smith’s treatise on young adult spirituality, Souls in Transition:  The Religious and Spiritual Lives of Emerging Adults. I am hoping this book will provide some cultural insight into current trends in spirituality.  My goal is to gain tools to understand and communicate the gospel to young adults.

Finally, I am giving in to the myriad of recommendations and reading T. David Gordon’s Why Johnny Can’t Preach:  The Media Have Shaped the Messengers. I have read recommendations for this book from David Nelson, Kevin DeYoung, J. D. Greear, and many others.  I figured I might as well peruse this little paperback and see what all the fuss is about.

books, church, culture

Analyzing the Church

Leave a comment

But have you noticed the categories we have used in this discussion of what ails the church in the West?  They are all sociological, historical, occasional, demographic, economic, psychological, medical.  They are all performance-related, circumstance-related.  There is nothing about the Devil — and nothing about God…

I am certainly not suggesting that there is nothing to be learned from sociological and demographic analysis…

But if all of our analyses are restricted exclusively to such categories, the huge danger is that our solutions will be cast in such categories too.  Our answer will be superficially sociological because we do not probe deeply enough to analyze the cosmic tension between God and the Devil.  And then, quite frankly, we do not really need God.  He could get up and walk out, and we would not miss him.  We have got this thing taped; our analyses are quantifiable.

— D. A. Carson, Scandalous

bible, books, discipleship, jesus

“Take Up Your Cross”

1 Comment

Today I received a wonderful little volume by D. A. Carson entitled Scandalous:  The Cross and Resurrection of Jesus. I figured this to be an appropriate exegetical supplement to the passion narratives that I read at this time of the year.  It didn’t take Dr. Carson long, however, to deliver a powerful body-blow to my spiritual apathy when he described the calling of Jesus to the disciples.  Read for yourself:

It is at this juncture that Jesus universalizes the principle that is at stake:  “If anyone would come after me,” he says, “he must deny himself and take up his cross and follow me.  For whoever wants to save his life will lose it, but whoever loses his life for me will find it” (vv. 24-25).  This expression “to take up one’s cross” is not an idiom by which to refer to some trivial annoyance — an ingrown toenail, perhaps, or a toothache, or an awkward in-law:  “We all have our crosses to bear.”  No, in the first century it was as culturally unthinkable to make jokes about crucifixion as it would be today to make jokes about Auschwitz.  To take up your cross does not mean to move forward with courage despite the fact you lost your job or your spouse.  It means you are under sentence of death; you are taking up the horizontal cross-member on your way to the place of crucifixion.  You have abandoned all hope of life in this world.  And then, Jesus, says, and only then, are we ready to follow him.

— D. A. Carson