Category: Tolle Lege

Readability: 1

Length: 130 pgs

Author: Steve Lawson

You may not believe me, due to the recommending of books on preaching, but I do try to exercise reserve in the books I encourage you to read.  For those who faithfully sit in the pew eager to feast on God’s preached word you should be as desirous to know what is the soul and essence of preaching as you are to hear it.  Don’t just listen to it, know what it is to be.  Many think they have heard the preaching of God’s word when they have heard nothing of the sort.  Not only should you know what true preaching is so that you can identify it, but so that you can rightly pray for the preacher.  I am glad to know I am not alone in this assessment.  Steve Lawson writes in the introduction to the Expository Genius of John Calvin:

If you are a preacher or teacher may you be challenged to a higher standard in you handling of the Word.  If you are a supporter of one called to this ministry, may you know how best to pray.

Take up this little book, read, pray, and yearn for the adulterated heralding of the gospel.

Exposition is being replaced with entertainment, preaching with performance, doctrine with drama, and theology with theatrics.  Desperately does the modern-day church need to recover its way and return to the pulpit that is Bible-based, Christ-centered, and life-changing.  God has always been pleased to honor His Word – especially his Word preached.  The greatest seasons of church history – those eras of widespread reformation and great awakening – have been those epochs in which God-fearing men took the inspired Word and unashamedly preached it in the power of the Holy Spirit.

‘Their [ministers’] whole task is limited to the ministry of God’s Word; their whole wisdom to the knowledge of His Word; their whole eloquence, to its proclamation.’ – Calvin

‘Let the pastors boldly dare all things by the word of God, of which they are constituted administrators.  Let them constrain all the power, glory, and excellence of the world to give place to and to obey the divine majesty of this Word.  Let them enjoin everyone by it, from the highest to the lowest. Let them edify the body of Christ.  Let them devastate Satan’s reign.  Let them pasture the sheep, kill the wolves, instruct and exhort the rebellious. Let them bind and loose thunder and lightning, if necessary, but let them do all according to the Word of God.’ – Calvin

A sermon rises no higher than a preacher’s soul before God.

‘We want again Luthers, Calvins, Bunyans, Whitefields, men fit to mark eras, whose names breathe terror in our foemen’s ears. We have dire need of such. Whence will they come to us? They are the gift of Jesus Christ to the church, and will come in due time. He has power to give back again a golden age of preachers, and when the good old truth is one more preached by men whose lips are touched as with a live coal from off the alter, this shall be the instrument in the hand of the Spirit for bringing about a great and thorough revival of religion in the land. . . .

 I do not look for any other means of converting men beyond the simple preaching of the gospel and the opening of men’s ears to hear it. The moment the church of God shall despise the pulpit, God will despise her. It has been through the ministry that the Lord has always been pleased to receive and bless His churches.” – Charles Spurgeon

Readability: 2

Length: 264 pgs

Author: Gordon D. Fee and Douglas Stewart

I do not agree with everything Fee and Stuart write here, most critically I disagree with Fee’s translation philosophy.  Still the benefits and skills you would gain by reading it are worth commending it.  Reading How to Read the Bible for All Its Worth would go a long way to correcting many poor ways of reading the scripture such as asking it questions it was not meant to answer, reading it sentimentally, and flip and pickin’.

Interpretation that aims at, or thrives on, uniqueness, can usually be attributed to pride (an attempt to ‘out clever’ the rest of the world), a false understanding of spirituality (wherein the Bible is full of deep truths waiting to be mined by the spiritually sensitive person with special insight), or vested interests (the need to support a theological bias, especially in dealing with texts that seem to go against that bias). Unique interpretations are usually wrong. This is not to say that the correct understanding of a text may not often seem unique to someone who hears it for the first time. But it is to say that uniqueness is not the aim of our task.

The aim of good interpretation is simple: to get at the “plain meaning of the text.” And the most important ingredient one brings to that task is enlightened common sense. The test of good interpretation is that it makes good sense of the text. Correct interpretation, therefore, brings relief to the mind as well as a prick or prod to the heart.

Readability: 3

Length: 238 pgs

Author: John Piper

One way a books value can be determined is if it impacts you as deeply or more deeply upon reading it a second time. This is my second time to read through Let the Nations be Glad!, my first to read the second edition. I love the book more not less, not even just the same. I leave the book wishing for its message to burn inside my chest. This book is verging on being beyond the difficulty level I normally advise, but the message is so God-glorifying I persist and plead with you to read this book. It is a book about what God is about. It has become the book on missions in many seminaries and schools for missions, not without reason.  It opens with one of the best sentences and paragraphs of any Piper book.

Missions is not the ultimate goal of the church. Worship is. Missions exists because worship doesn’t. Worship is ultimate, not missions, because God is ultimate, not man. When this age is over, and the countless millions of the redeemed fall on their faces before the throne of God, missions will be no more. It is a temporary necessity. But worship abides forever.

Worship, therefore, is the fuel and goal of missions. It’s the goal of missions because in missions we simply aim to bring the nations into the white-hot enjoyment of God’s glory. The goal of missions is the gladness of the peoples in the greatness of God. “The LORD reigns, let the earth rejoice; let the many  coastlands be glad!” (Ps. 97:1). “Let the peoples praise you, O God; let all the peoples praise you! Let the nations be glad and sing for joy!” (Ps. 67:3–4).

But worship is also the fuel of missions. Passion for God in worship precedes the offer of God in preaching. You can’t commend what you don’t cherish. Missionaries will never call out, “Let the nations be glad!” who cannot say from the heart, “I rejoice in the LORD…. I will be glad and exult in you, I will sing praise to your name, O Most High” (Ps. 104:34; 9:2). Missions begins and ends in worship.

[M]issions is demanded not by God’s failure to show glory but by man’s failure to savor the glory. Creation is telling the glory of God, but the peoples are not treasuring it.

Missions exist because worship doesn’t. The ultimate issue addressed by missions is that God’s glory is dishonored among the peoples of the world.  When Paul brought this indictment of his own people to a climax in Romans 2:24, he said, “The name of God is blasphemed among the Gentiles because of you.” That is the ultimate problem in the world. That is the ultimate outrage.

The glory of God is not honored.

The holiness of God is not reverenced.

The greatness of God is not admired.

The power of God is not praised

The truth of God is not sought.

The wisdom of God is not esteemed.

The beauty of God is not treasured.

The goodness of God is not savored.

The faithfulness of God is not trusted.

The commandments of God are not obeyed.

The justice of God is not respected.

The wrath of God is not feared.

The grace of God is not cherished.

The presence of God is not prized.

I hope your appetite has been awakened such that heart and mind salivation for truth has commenced. But hold off ordering the book just yet. Baker will put out a third edition next year along with a DVD and study guide. Or read the 2^nd edition now, and plan on reading the 3^rd edition next year.  I did, and I will, and I anticipate loving it even more.

Readibility: 1

Length: 181 pgs

Aurthor: John Piper

Fasting… when was the last time you did it?  Ever?  Why is fasting so rare today and what does this say about us?  Is it because we are physically full that we are spiritually lethargic?

All this questioning might prompt another question, why should we fast?  This book answers that question.  If you are looking for a “how to” book on fasting, this isn’t it.  This book is concerned with a greater question.  Oh, that you would read A Hunger for God, and that there would be some unsettling in the pit of your stomach right now that would cause you to go without food in longing for something more satisfying.  May these snippets whet your appetite for fasting.

Beware of books on fasting. …The discipline of self-denial is fraught with dangers – perhaps only surpassed by the dangers of indulgence. 

‘Desires for other things’ – there’s the enemy. And the only weapon that will triumph is a deeper hunger for God. The weakness of our hunger for God is not because he is unsavory, but because we keep ourselves stuffed with ‘other things.’ Perhaps, then, the denial of our stomach’s appetite for food might express, or even increase, our soul’s appetite for God.

What we hunger for most, we worship.

Half of Christian fasting is that our physical appetite is lost because our homesickness for God is so intense. The other half is that our homesickness for God is threatened because our physical appetites are so intense. In the first half, appetite is lost. In the second half, appetite is resisted. In the first, we yield to the higher hunger that is. In the second, we fight for the higher hunger that isn’t. Christian fasting is not only the spontaneous effect of a superior satisfaction in God; it is also a chosen weapon against every force in the world that would take that satisfaction away.

Readability: 1

Length: 376 pgs

Author: Rob Mackenzie

By many standards David Livingstone would be deemed a failure. As a husband he was often away from his wife and never gave her a home. As a father he neglected his children. As a missionary he would see few converts. As an explorer he would never find the source of the Nile. As a doctor he never had an established practice. As a philanthropist he did not end the slave trade in Africa before his death. But God sees not as we see. Livingstone would write:

No mission which has His approbation is entirely unsuccessful. His purposes have been fulfilled if we have been faithful… And many missions which He has sent in the olden time seem bad failures. (I would comment that God’s purposes will be fulfilled even if we are not faithful. I think Livingstone would agree, the nuance being his purposes fulfilled in us.)

Oh what God has wrought from all of Livingstone’s un-successes! How many missionaries have been inspired? How much soil was prepared for a mighty harvest? Without doubt Henry Morton Stanley’s writing of his interview with Livingstone is what ignited the flames of love in Britian that would extinguish the slave trade. God used his tears as the flood to bring forth a great harvest. His zeal has infected me, thus I am thankful to God for this man.

Yes Livingstone had his faults, and he regretted them. If you wish to live without regret do not become a Christian, repentance necessitates it, and Christianity necessitates repentance. Livingstone regretted and repented of his sins, but he regretted none of his earthly sacrifices.

For my own part, I have never ceases to rejoice that God has appointed me to such an office. People talk of the sacrifice I have made in spending so much of my life in Africa. Can that be called a sacrifice which is simply paid back as a small part of a great debt owing to our God, which we can never repay? Is that a sacrifice which brings its own blest reward in healthful activity, the consciousness of doing good, peace of mind, and a bright hope of a glorious destiny hereafter? Away with the word in such a view and with such a thought! It is emphatically no sacrifice. Say rather it is a privilege. Anxiety, sickness, suffering, or danger now and then with a foregoing of the common conveniences and charities of this life, may make us pause and cause the spirit to waver and the soul to sink; but let this only be for a moment. All these are nothing when compared with the glory which shall be revealed in and for us. I never made a sacrifice. Of this we ought not to talk, when we remember the great sacrifice which He made who left is Father’s throne on high to give Himself for us.

We cannot pay God back, we only fall deeper into debt. The glorious debt of grace, oh to plummet into the red. Father, may such zeal as Livingstone had be graciously put into our hearts for the salvation of men’s souls to Your eternal glory.

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Readability: 2

Length: 154 pgs

Author: Dale Ralph Davis

I think The Word Became Fresh will be profitable for all, but I especially recommend it to all teachers and preachers.  The profit for general readership will be insight in how to read and interpret Old Testament narrative and make application to self.  Do not be intimidated by the subtitle, “How to Preach from Old Testament Narrative Texts.”  The book is a joy to read being full of whit and illustration.

Who would’ve ever guessed that a bizarre soap opera would proclaim the faithfulness of God?  But that is clearly the case when you see Genesis 29-30 backed up against the people-promise of Genesis 12; that is, as you are meant to see it.  And instead of moaning about the family breakdown you will proclaim the faithfulness of God from this text.  The chemistry of divine providence takes the sludge and crud and confusion of our doings and makes it the soil that produces the fruit of his faithfulness.

Is the Lord deficient in understanding kindness or am I deficient in understanding holiness?

Doctrinal appreciation may feed genuine worship but it should never be identified with it.  In our finest hermeneutical moments we are only a step from idolatry.

Readability:  1

Length:  124 pgs

Author:  R.C. Sproul

By God’s grace I am stumbling along learning the sweet grace that is called prayer.  The Prayer of the Lord was a great refresher in prayer.  Sproul goes line by line through the Lord’s prayer reminding us that we are learning from the Master teacher.  Jesus is not simply our Master, our Lord, He is the Master teacher of prayer.  There disciples clearly saw a connection between Jesus’ ministry and His prayer life, thus of all the questions they might have asked, one that they must know from our Lord is how to pray.  If you have grown familiar with the Lord’s prayer, or your prayer life is in poor estate I counsel you to buy this little and gently readable book for your soul’s deep and abiding joy in communion with God.

Readability:  2

Length:  121 pgs

Author:  Douglas Wilson

I really enjoyed reading this little book.  A Serrated Edge is one of those books that while reading it about halfway through I knew I would want to reread it soon.  I probably haven’t had as many LOL moments since reading Through Painted Deserts by Donald Miller.  The book is a defense of satire as a legitimate, biblical way of communicating in some instances.  Evangelical Christians need to mock, make fun of, and deal harshly sometimes, and one of the major things such an approach is needed towards is our own camp.

When Jesus looked on the rich, young ruler and loved him, it is very easy for us to say that we should be loving as He was.  When preachers make such applications, no one thinks anything of it.  But when Jesus looked on the rich, old rulers and insulted them, why do we tend to assume that such a division is never, ever to be imitated?  It is conceivable that such a position is defensible, but why does it never have to be defended?  Some might say (and do say) that we are not Jesus, and so we do not have the wisdom to insult properly.  Fine.  So why then do we have the wisdom to love properly?  Can’t we screw that up too?

The faith that produced Augustine and Ambrose, Chrysostom and Calvin, Hodge and Edwards, is no busy trying to evangelize the world by acting dumber than a bag of hammers.

It is one thing to attack murder, rape, and pillage.  It is quite another to attack prayer, rosaries, inspirational study Bibles, John 3:16 skateboards, and counseling pastors who exude empathy for a fee.  These attacks run the risk of being mistaken for an attack on that which is actually being defended.  If I saw someone approaching a priceless Vermeer painting with a can of orange spray paint, I would wrestle him to the ground – not as an enemy to art but as a friend of it.  But in an insulated community of performance artists, the critic of art vandalism is likely to be thought of as an enemy of art itself.

It would be easy to say that our attacks on modern evangelicalism are the result of some kind of contempt for the heritage of evangelicalism.  But actually the reverse is the case.  We are hard on modern evangelicalism because of its contempt for its own heritage.  We have a high level of respect for what this movement used to be.

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Readability:  2

Length:  180 pgs

Author:  John Piper

Marriage finds power, not by making much of husband and wife, but by making much of Christ and His church.  Marriage is glorious, but it will dissolve into something greater, it is “a parable of permanence”.  I remember first listening via podcast to this book in sermon form in 2007 hoping it would become a book.  It has – This Momentary Marriage. There is power here for your marriage.  “How to” pragmatic books have their place, but too often they are absent of power.  The gospel is that power.

The most important implication of this conclusion is that keeping covenant with our spouse is as important as telling the truth about God’s covenant with us in Jesus Christ.  Marriage is not mainly about being or staying in love.  It’s mainly about telling the truth with our lives.  It’s about portraying something true about Jesus Christ and the way he relates to his people.  It’s about showing in real life the glory of the gospel.

If we make secondary things primary, they cease to be secondary and become idolatrous. They have their place. But they are not first, and they are not guaranteed. Life is precarious, and even if it is long by human standards, it is short. “What is your life? For you are a mist that appears for a little time and then vanishes” (James 4:14). “Do not boast about tomorrow, for you do not know what a day may bring” (Prov. 27:1).

So it is with marriage. It is a momentary gift. It may last a lifetime, or it may be snatched away on the honeymoon. Either way, it is short. It may have many bright days, or it may be covered with clouds. If we make secondary things primary, we will be embittered at the sorrows we must face. But if we set our face to make of marriage mainly what God designed it to be, no sorrows and no calamities can stand in our way. Every one of them will be, not an obstacle to success, but a way to succeed. The beauty of the covenant-keeping love between Christ and his church shines brightest when nothing but Christ can sustain it.

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