Monday, September 30, 2013

Every Body Matters: Strengthening Your Body to Strengthen Your Soul, by Gary Thomas

****

An excerpt from a review recently posted on Schaeffer's Ghost:
[...] We know from Scripture that Christians’ bodies are ‘the temple of the Holy Spirit.’ We are not our own; we were bought with a price. It follows, therefore, that we are to honor God with our bodies. After all, everything we have—including our bodies—was entrusted to us by God for the purpose of glorifying Him and enjoying Him forever. It is our chief end. But all too often we act like our purpose is to dishonor Him (or glorify ourselves), and enjoy bacon forever. Our gods are our stomachs, and we alternate between expanding them by our indulgences and making an effort to undo those indulgences and shrink them down again. We enjoy our Doritos (or our flat abs) more than we enjoy our sovereign creator who loves us and redeemed us. Like the servant entrusted with one talent, we are crummy stewards, and thereby tell the world that the Master we claim to serve really isn’t worth respecting. [...]
Full review available here

Wednesday, September 25, 2013

Crazy Busy: A (Mercifully) Short Book About a (Really) Big Problem, by Kevin DeYoung

****

These days, it seems that 'Busy' has replaced 'Fine' as the stock answer to casual 'How are you?' inquiries. Everyone we know is busy busy busy, and we ourselves are no exception. But how should we as Christians think about our hectic and sometimes over-scheduled lives? Is our frantic pace a good thing--an indicator of our dedication to Kingdom Matters? Or is it a bad thing--a failure to 'Be still and know that I am God'? What of the spiritual reality behind our perpetual busyness? What's really going on when we're so all-fired busy all the time?

Pastor and author Kevin DeYoung takes on these questions, and many more, in his new book Crazy Busy. As the longish subtitle indicates, the book is no tome: it clocks in at around 120 pages in paperback format, or right around 3 hours if you opt for the audiobook version, as I did. In other words, you should have time to read (or listen to) this book, even if it's only in short increments while running errands, exercising, or while on the throne. DeYoung writes concisely and clearly, and the audiobook narration makes it easy to listen to and absorb. (DeYoung's voice is not quite as universally familiar as, say, John Piper or Mark Driscoll or even David Platt or Matt Chandler, so the shock of hearing his words read by someone else is much less jarring here.) However, as with any audiobook, retention can be a problem--you can't just underline particularly convicting or helpful passages (of which there are many) for future reference.

Monday, September 23, 2013

To Live Is Christ, To Die Is Gain, by Matt Chandler

**

An excerpt of a review recently posted on Schaeffer's Ghost:
Near as I can figure, this ‘new’ book is really just his 2009 Philippians video/DVD sessions (with accompanying study guide) repackaged in book format. I don’t know why it’s been repackaged as a book, but then I guess it doesn’t hurt to put out another gospel-oriented book on Philippians. 
Chandler is at his best when he describes real-life anecdotes applying the truths he’s learned—specifically, the health struggles endured by himself and his family. Discussions of ‘rejoicing in all circumstances’ really gain credibility when the author relates, for example, the horror of watching an ambulance speed off to an unknown hospital, his seizing infant son and worried wife inside. His discussion of his own harrowing and spiritually challenging experiences resonated with me a lot more than his attempts to ‘fill in’ the narrative details of biblical stories.
Full review available here.

Wednesday, September 18, 2013

UP (2009)

****

An excerpt of a review recently posted on Schaeffer's Ghost:
The lessons of UP are of particular moment in our modern culture. To the young—the self-obsessed younger generations who are absolutely convinced that we in our wisdom have finally figured out the answers to the world’s problems, and who dismiss the elderly as irrelevant and inconvenient obstacles in the way of all the wonderful changes we mean to effect—to us, UP encourages us to value and respect our elders, to benefit from their wisdom, to cultivate and appreciate their love and affection, and to empathize with the sorrows the joys they’ve experienced (even when those experiences predate our own by several decades). To the elderly, UP offers a challenge not to let love of (or disappointment in) the past prevent us from investing in the lives of others today so that they may live lives that honor God tomorrow and for years to come. And to childless and widowed men (and women) in the church, UP serves as a reminder that we live in a world full of fatherless children. Some may have been physically orphaned or abandoned, but many who have fathers in the nominal sense may be lacking a fully present father-figure to love them, to teach them the gospel truths they so desperately need—someone to model for them what it means to be a godly man today (Titus 2:2). UP and the Bible are in agreement on these matters: When the young respect and care for their elders and the elderly instruct the young in the Lord and invest in them, everybody wins (Prov. 17:6).
Full review available here.

Monday, September 16, 2013

Clear Winter Nights: A Journey into Truth, Doubt, and What Comes After, by Trevin Wax

**

Would-be church-planter Chris Walker is having a crisis of faith. The recent discovery of his estranged father's repeated infidelity has left him reeling. Between his father's hypocrisy and his own conflicting ideas of truth, religion, and morality, Chris doesn't know where to turn. Before he knows it, he's broken off his engagement to Ashley and is considering backing out of the church plant he's been involved with. Then, on New Year's weekend, he finds himself on the doorstep of his recently bereaved grandfather, a retired Baptist minister currently recovering from a stroke. Over the course of their many conversations, Chris begins to work through his doubts and questions about faith, truth, sin, and forgiveness.

For some time now, I've enjoyed reading Trevin Wax's posts on the Gospel Coalition blog. So when the opportunity arose to review his new work of fiction, Clear Winter Nights, I was pretty stoked. Unfortunately, as is often the case with Christian fiction, good theology does not always walk hand in hand with good storytelling.

Wednesday, September 11, 2013

Ella Enchanted, by Gail Carson Levine

****

An excerpt of a review recently posted on Schaeffer's Ghost:
The curse of obedience is represented as a violation—Ella is being forced to do things, and this interferes with the autonomy that is so highly valued in modern day America (well, in America pretty much on down the line). And indeed, this independence dovetails nicely with the religious idea of ‘free will.’ How do you explain the existence of evil in the world? ‘God didn’t want a bunch of automatons; He had to leave people free to choose sin, and some of them do. What can you do?’ How about salvation? ‘God gives us a choice whether to follow Him; if He interfered with or influenced our choice, then we would be mindless slaves.’ The idea of a bunch of puppet-people walking around following orders whether they want to or not is revolting to us; free will is the only acceptable alternative. [...] 
This idea of autonomy and freedom of thought stands in striking contrast to the Biblical teaching on free will. In The Freedom of the Will (which Coyle Neal blogged about recently), theologian Jonathan Edwards argues, quite persuasively, that our ‘will’ is at the mercy of our ‘desires’—that we can only will what we want. This makes a lot of sense—I may be physically free to choose between, say, a peanut-butter-and-jelly sandwich and a slug-and-cat-hair sandwich, but if there’s nothing in me that wantsthe slug-and-cat-hair sandwich, then my ‘freedom’ to choose it is of little use to me. Functionally, I am only free to choose the things that are, in some sense, desirable to me.
Full review available here.

Monday, September 9, 2013

Sherlock Holmes and the Needle's Eye: The World's Greatest Detective Tackles the Bible's Ultimate Mysteries, by Len Bailey

**

Sherlock Holmes and the Needle's Eye, by Len Bailey: In which Jesus (code name: K2L2, for 'King of Kings and Lord of Lords') hires Sherlock Holmes to 'investigate' various biblical mysteries. By time-traveling him to Bible times via a doodad called 'the needle's eye', which Holmes built using schematics he stole from Professor Moriarty. See, Moriarty wanted to travel at the speed of light (for nefarious purposes), which is obviously impossible. Instead, the whatsit he invented enables the user to travel back in time. Holmes and Watson explore and resolve various 'conundrums', thereby demolishing many of Holmes' objections to religion and faith.

How could I not read this book? Sherlock Holmes solving Bible mysteries? Yes, please! After all, who among us hasn't lost sleep wondering why Ahitophel hanged himself? Or trying to resolve the apparent discrepancy between the Old and New Testamment references to Zechariah, son of Berechiah, and Zechariah, son of Jehoida? Or why Jehoiachin is included in Jesus' genealogy? Nail-biters, one and all.

Wednesday, September 4, 2013

American Gods, by Neil Gaiman

***

An excerpt of a review recently posted on Schaeffer's Ghost:
However, American Gods demonstrates a fundamental misunderstanding of religion. Not all religions are man-made. There is a God who is not made by human hands—in fact, He made man … and everything else. (Gen. 1:1; Ps. 96:4-5; John 1:1-3; I Cor. 8:5-6) [...] He doesn’t get tired (Is. 40:28), and unlike other ‘gods’, He lives eternally (Jer. 10:11-16). [...] He has power over life and death, and nothing and no one compares to Him (Deut. 34:37-39)—certainly not some man-made idol (Is. 40:12-20). In fact, the other ‘gods’, such as they are, are commanded to worship Him (Ps. 97:7, 9). 
This God is no figment of human imagination (Acts 17:29). And while He desires—and deserves—our worship, He certainly doesn’t need it (Acts 17:24-25). We can no more harm or weaken Him by withholding our worship than, well, a tiny ant can hurt our feelings by making funny faces at us. It’s absurd. He is supremely powerful, supremely self-sufficient, and, more than that, He’s supremely sovereign (Ps. 115:3). Which means that our refusal to honor Him will itself be used to bring Him more glory (Ex. 14:4). 
[...] Where Mr. Wednesday and his fellow gods are willing to steal, cheat, lie, and kill in order to win the worship they crave, God never lies (Titus 1:2; Heb. 6:18). [...] And unlike the selfish, callous, manipulative Mr. Wednesday, God is so perfectly loving that He is love. In fact, He’s the source of love—the only reason we even know what love is is because of God (I John 4:7-19).
Full review available here.