Category: Tolle Lege

Readability:  1

Length: 217

Author:  David Platt

David Plat writes clearly and powerfully to remind us that American does not equal Christian in Radical. This book is not a protest of America; it is a call to authentic Christianity, a call for which I thank God. May God bless this book not with profits, but with “prophets” who proclaim the glorious gospel of Jesus Christ with all their living.

I remember exactly where I was sitting.

It was in a home where leaders of an American church had gathered – a church that had demonstrated great kindness to me in the past, praying for me and even sending me financial support (completely unsolicited). The pastor sat immediately to my right, and a couple of deacons were on the other side of the den. This was Saturday evening, and I have been invited to preach the following morning in their church.

As we sat around the den, they asked me questions about how my wife and I were doing. I shared with them about inner-city ministry in New Orleans, where we were living at the time. I told them about the ministry in housing projects ridden with poverty and gang violence. I told them about ministry among homeless men and women who struggled with various addictions.

Then I told them about ministry opportunities God had recently given me around the world. I told them about people’s receptivity to the gospel in places that are traditionally hostile to Christianity. I told them that, whether in the inner city or overseas, God was drawing people to himself in some of the toughest areas of the world.

Expecting them to share in my excitement, I paused to listen for their response. After an awkward silence, one of the deacons leaned forward in his chair, looked at men, and said, “David, I think it’s great you are going to those places. But if you ask me, I would just as soon God annihilate all those people and send them to hell.”

It got worse.

The next morning we arrived at the church building, and the worship service began. The pastor rose to welcome everyone , and during his introductory remarks began talking about how thankful he was to be living in the United States. I am not sure what sparked the patriotic address that followed, but for the next few minutes he told the church that there was no chance that he would live anywhere else in the world. Amens were firing left and right from the crowd. Engulfed in nationalistic zeal, I was just waiting for Lee Greenwood to burst into song in the background.

Minutes later I got up to preach on going to all nations with the gospel. When I finished, I walked down to the front while the pastor got up to close the service. These were his words: “Brother David, we are so excited about that God is doing in New Orleans and in all nations, and we are excited that you are serving there. And, brother, we promise that we will continue to send you a check so we don’t have to go there ourselves.”

[http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AZfC7vAbte4]

[http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1SqMTMcyhg0]

As of today there are ten reviews Anthony Esolen’s Ten Ways to Destroy the Imagination of Your Child on Amazon; seven are five star, after that there is a single four, three and one star review. I give you the single star review in its entirety.

I was very excited to read this book because I have 4 and 1 year old girls but unfortunately after spending an entire weekend trying to slog through it, I would not recommend this book to a common parent. The 5 star reviews I just read seem to be from other educators and other authors.

The way this author, who is obviously a very highly intelligent person, wrote the book in what I am calling a “high brow sarcasm” that was very difficult for me to read. The book could have been condensed down to a pamphlet stating the 10 points on what to do to save your child’s imagination, which could have been very helpful. But instead it was “if you want to ruin your child, make sure to not do this”, etc., etc. Then he would follow with story after story from the middle ages on down about how children of those ages were out and about exploring and learning. All of his examples and his writings were very difficult language to understand.

I don’t know what else to say. I was just very disappointed with the way it was written and I quit after half the book and won’t be picking it back up.

Ah, poor soul, he has no imagination. I imagine the reviewer didn’t like Lewis’ Screwtape Letters either, he would rather Lewis given a list of ten facts about demons and bid adieu to the devils correspondence. I for myself love satire, as did Elijah (I Kings 18:27), and I love this book.

For the first time in human history, most people are doing things that could never interest a child enough to make him want to tag along. That says less about the child than about us. If someone should say to us, “How would you like to spend most of your waking hours, five days a week, for the next four years, shut within four walls,” we should go mad, that is, if we had an imagination left.  It is only by repressing the imagination that many of us can stand our work.  Some years ago American feminists, in their own right no inconsiderable amazons against both children and the imagination, invented something called Take Your Daughter to Work Day. “See, Jill, this is the office where Mommy works. Here is where I sit for nine hours and talk to people I don’t love, about things that don’t genuinely interest me, so that I can make enough money to put you in day care.”

Imagine, then, never being able to look upon the sky.  That would drive us mad; and madness, unless it is of the sort that is predictable and spends money, would damage our economy. In Lady Windemere’s Fan by Oscar Wilde, Lord Darlington days, “We are all in the gutter, but some of us are looking at the stars.” That is bad. We want our children to look at the gutter, or, at the least, the movie theater or arcade across the street. What we want is to raise human beings that are not burdened with the yearning to look upward… The sky suggests the vastness of creation and the smallness of man’s ambition. It startles us out of our dreams of vanity, it silences our pride, it stills the lust to get and spend. It is more dangerous for the human soul to fall into that for a human body to fall out of.

http://rcm.amazon.com/e/cm?t=glo-20&o=1&p=8&l=as1&asins=1935191888&fc1=000000&IS2=1&lt1=_blank&m=amazon&lc1=0000FF&bc1=000000&bg1=FFFFFF&f=ifr

Readability:  1

Length: 201

Author:  N.D. Wilson

How does one describe Notes From The Tilt-A-Whirl? Theological mind candy? That just might work. Theology, imagination, fiction, philosophy, sarcasm, nature, science all collide here to form a wondrous Frankenstein. This book will grab your heart and mind in several ways at once pulling them several directions toward a single purpose. The big questions are answered well in a playful but serious way, more serious than those of austere academia often treat them with. 

If you enjoy the writings of C.S. Lewis or Donald Miller but long for something more theologically sound and substantive I commend N.D. Wilson to you. I can’t wait to get his children’s books – for me!

This world shaped by His words can never be tamed by mine.  But there is joy to be had in trying and falling short.

Death is that black stripe above my head on the measuring board.  When I’ve reached it, well, then I can go on the gnarly rides.

Skipping centuries to the modern Enlightenment, Descartes, the Frenchman, had a little trouble knowing that he existed.  But the he looked to the Little Engine That Could and learned that all he needed to do was to think that he was, and he would be.  Cogito, ergo sum.  I think, therefore I am.  Say it often enough, be willing to help out other trains in trouble, and you’ll be fine.  I think I am. I think I am.  Descartes cogitoed himself (and the rest of the world) into being.  Because of the mental ace he found in his mental sleeve, the modern world was built.  Its foundation? Reason can get you anywhere.

You are spoken. I am spoken. We stand on a spoken stage. The spinning kind. The round kind. The moist kind. The kind of stage with beetles and laughter and babies and dirt and snow and fresh-cut cedar.

You are made of cells. I am made of cells. My cells are built on molecules. My molecules make use of atoms. My atoms are mostly space, but the bits that aren’t are called quarks. My quarks are standing because they’re obedient. They’ve been told to by a Voice they cannot disobey.

For Berkeley and Buddhists and most breeds of Hindu, this world is illusory, sleight of hand. It seems material, the way the smoke plays with the mirrors, but it isn’t. The word is Vegas magic. Pick a card.

Kick a stone. There are no tricks here. There are no props, no prefabbed white rabbits. The magic is real, and I stand blinking on the stage because of it. I’m real. I’m heavy. I’m matter. Cut me and I’ll bleed. But I’m not made out of anything, and if the Magician, the poet, the Word, if the Singer were to stop His voice, I would simply cease to be.

In Virginia there lived a man named Roy Sullivan. He was struck by lightning seven times. I’m told the rough odds of this happening are 1.6 x 10 to the 25^th (sixteen septillion). Which is like one man winning the lotto four times, though the luck is of a different stripe.

…After the fourth time Roy Sullivan was struck by lightning, he allegedly told a reporter that a higher power was trying to kill him.

That’s ridiculous. A higher power was not trying to kill him. That would have been easy. Every last one of us is bagged in the end. The more impressive trick is striking someone with lightning seven times and keeping them alive.

There is water in the world that once flew out of the mouths of guards and flecked the face of the Word Himself. There is iron that once tore at his back and iron that once coursed in His blood before it fell on the stones, left for small animals to feed upon in the night. Animals were born and spent a lifetime before being slaughtered, having their hides tanned and cut into strips, interwoven with stone and glass and lashing the skin off the One Poet’s back, baring ribs of calcium. There are proteins still, somewhere in this world, that were used in His beard before soldiers clutched, not knowing how close their fingers came to the Infinite, and tore hard.

But there is nothing now made from his flesh decomposed. That seed sprouted long ago, the firstborn, sprung from the womb of death on the first real day of Spring.

Readability: 1

Length:180

Author: Joshua Harris

There is no magic incantation within Joshua Harris’ book guaranteed to kill lust, and that is exactly why you need to read it. In Sex Is Not the Problem (Lust Is) Harris blends honesty, humility, truth, grace, and firmness as he deals with the monstrous sin of lust. In addition it is extremely practical, and most important Biblically faithful. After reading it I immediately wanted to give it away to all my students, nephews, and nieces.

In our losing battle against lust we’re often misguided in three key areas. We’ve had…

• the wrong standard for holiness,
• the wrong source of power to change,
• and the wrong motive for fighting our sin.

Here’s the mistake I have often made.  I know that media contains a certain amount of sinful content that is dangerous. But instead of seeing how much I can avoid, I spend my energy trying to see how much I can handle. I’m like a person who figure out he can take half a poison pill every day without killing himself. It’s good that he’s not dying, but can it be healthy to take all those halves of poison pills.

Readability:  2

Length: Volume One – 377, Volume Two – 777

Author:  Iain Murray

I don’t remember enjoying Iain Murray’s two volume biography of D. Martyn Lloyd-Jones when I first read it in 2007 as much as I did this time. I certainly liked it before, but now it is among my favorite biographies.  The books are massive, but the journey is worth it, especially if you are a pastor.

Here is a man whose ministry was anointed by God, whom God is still using today through his writings to minister to the church. He is a man, he has faults (part of the greatness of this biography is that it doesn’t cover them up), but he is a man of God, there is much we can learn from him. As I read I was moved, encouraged, convicted, humbled, and uplifted in worship.

Lloyd-Jones was a doctor, but not of theology, he was a doctor of medicine. He gave up a promising career in medicine to enter the ministry, but if you were to ask him he never made a sacrifice. Originally he returned to his Welsh homeland to minister in an obscure little church. This seems to have been his only ambition.  God blessed his ministry mightily there and his influence began to spread.  Just before the Second World War he joined G. Campbell Morgan as co-pastor of Westminster Chapel. In many ways he would stand alone during his thirty year ministry there, but he would also influence and be loved by many.

I don’t really feel as if I have to sell this biography too much. If you have read something by him I expect you will want to. If you have not I encourage you to take up Spiritual Depression, or Preaching and Preachers. After that I am certain you will want to know the man behind the books.

Readability:  1

Length: 121

Author:  Greg Gilbert

The false gospels out there are legion, and where the true gospel is believed it is often relegated to the periphery. Good, short, easily understood books that answer the question, “What is the Gospel?” without being overly reductionist are needed. Greg Gilbert’s book helps meet this need. This isn’t a must read, but it is a good read if you need some clarity with brevity, or if you want to go through the gospel with a “de-churched” friend who has misunderstood the message of Christ.

Now, having looked at Paul’s argument in Romans 1-4, we can see that at the heart of his proclamation of the gospel are the answers to four crucial questions:

1.  Who made us, and to whom are we accountable?
2. What is our problem? In other words, are we in trouble and why?
3. What is God’s solution to that problem? How has he acted to save us from it?
4. How do I – myself, right here, right now – how do I come to be included in that salvation?  What makes this good news for me and not just for someone else?

We might summarize these four major points like this: God, man, Christ, response.

[http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dwREWvTi4_k]

Readability:  1

Length: 167 pgs

Author:  Colin Marshall and Tony Payne

This review is most pertinent to church leaders.  Mark Dever says the Trellis and the Vine is the best book he has read on the nature of church ministry.  He might be right.  This book indeed heralds a “ministry mind-shift that changes everything”.

The authors say that the purpose of church ministry is really quite clear, we are to make disciples by prayerfully speaking the Word of God in the power of the Holy Spirit.  The disciples we make are then to repeat this pattern.  That’s it.  Now that sounds too Biblical doesn’t it?  Put another way the primary task is not to grow the trellis (i.e. structures, programs), but the vine (people).  Oh that such an idea wouldn’t be so revolutionary.  What worth is a beautiful trellis with dying vines on it?

And that’s the thing about trellis work: it tends to take over from vine work.  Perhaps because trellis work is easier and less personally threatening.  Vine work is personal and requires much prayer.  It requires us to depend on God, and to open our mouths and speak God’s word in some way to another person.  What would you rather do: go to a church working bee and sweep up some leaves, or share the gospel with your neighbour over the back fence?

Thus the goal of Christian ministry is quite simple, and in a sense measurable: are we making and nurturing genuine disciples of Christ? The church always tends towards institutionalism and secularization. The focus shifts to preserving traditional programs and structures, and the goal of discipleship is lost. The mandate of disciple-making provides the touchstone for whether our church is engaging in Christ’s mission. Are we making genuine disciples of Jesus Christ? Our goal is not to make church members or members of our institution, but genuine disciples of Jesus.

Or to return to our parable—our goal is to grow the vine, not the trellis.

[T]he two fundamental activities of Christian ministry are proclaiming (speaking the word and praying (calling upon God to pour out his Spirit to make the word effective in people’s hearts).

If you want yet another way of expressing the same point, what we are really talking about is a Bible-reading movement – in families, in churches, in neighborhoods, in workplaces, everywhere. Imagine if all Christians, as a normal part of their discipleship, were caught up in a web of regular Bible reading – not only digging into the word privately, but reading it with their children before bed, with their spouse over breakfast, with a non-Christian colleague at work once a week over lunch, with a new Christian for follow-up once a fortnight for mutual encouragement, and with a mature Christian friend once a month for mutual encouragement.

It would be a chaotic web of personal relationships, prayer and Bible reading – more of a movement than a program – but at another level it would be profoundly simple and within reach of all.

The essence of ‘vine work’ is the prayerful, Spirit-backed speaking of the message of the Bible by one person to another (or to more than one).  Various structures, activites, events and programs can provide a context in which this prayerful speaking can take place, but without the speaking it is all trellis and all vine.

[http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-FYKog12ld4]

Readability:  1

Length: 94 pgs

Author:  Randy Alcorn

What if books on giving money were as popular as books on making money?

Randy Alcorn’s The Treasure Principle had been on my wish list for some time when I found it at a local used bookstore.  It’s one of those small little books published by Multnomah, think C.J. Mahaney’s The Cross-Centered Life.  There were several copies at the bookstore, along with another one of these little Multnomah books, The Prayer of Jabez.  I think they were there for two different reasons.  People read The Prayer of Jabez, practiced it for a little while, decided it didn’t work and was therefore stupid.  People read The Treasure Principle, decided it was stupid, or extreme, and therefore never practiced it.  I’m saddened that so many copies of such a book would end up back at the bookstore.  I hope as a result of my small efforts here you go buy all the used copies and more to give away.

This little book is stuffed with power, conviction, and joy.  Here is the book in summary taken from the last page of the book.

Treasure Principle

You can’t take it with you–but you can send it on ahead.

 

Treasure Principle Keys

 

1.  God owns everything. I’m His money manager.

We are the managers of the assets God has entrusted—not given—to us.

 

2.  My heart always goes where I put God’s money.

Watch what happens when you reallocate your money from temporal things to eternal things.

 

3.  Heaven, not earth, is my home.

We are citizens of “a better country—a heavenly one” (Hebrews 11:16).

 

4.  I should live not for the dot but for the line.

From the dot—our present life on earth—extends a line that goes on forever, which is eternity in heaven.

 

5.  Giving is the only antidote to materialism.

Giving is a joyful surrender to a greater person and a greater agenda. It dethrones me and exalts Him.

 

6.  God prospers me not to raise my standard of living, but to raise my standard of giving.

God gives us more money than we need so we can give—generously.

Readability:  3

Length: 155 pgs

Author:  Michale Lawrence

Michael Lawrence’s Biblical Theology in the Life of the Church is one of the most helpful and important books on ministry I’ve read.  I’m not recommending this book for everyone, but for readers who are teachers and preachers I cannot commend it enough.  I already know I want to read it again next year more slowly and purposefully.  As teachers and preachers we are all theologians, but are we Biblical ones.  I think most are not.  Many will use the Bible to support their theology, but that does not make it Biblical.  Many have a segmented theology, they believe this, and they believe that, but if you were to ask what the Bible was about as a whole they couldn’t provide an answer other than a jumbled composite of their segmented beliefs.  Biblical theology is about the whole story of the whole Bible.  Ignore this overarching storyline will always result in taking a text out of context.

The Bible interprets us by declaring what the main events of reality are, and then telling us to read ourselves in light of that story.

This means that the primary question that the historical-grammatical method is seeking to answer is not, “What does that word mean?” but “What does that sentence mean?” In answering that question, we quickly realize that context is king. So the first step of exegesis is to read the text, the whole text, over and over again. Interpretation actually begins with the whole, not the part. Then, in the context of the whole, we work backwards through the parts, back to sentences, back all the way down to individual words. What we learn and discover there then takes us back to the whole with a more accurate and perhaps nuanced understanding of meaning.

Readability:  1

Length: 155 pgs

Author:  Kent and Barbara Hughes

Disciplines of a Godly Family is the most practical book on parenting I have read while remaining biblically faithful.  The book is honest, simple, personal, and useful.  Eighty years of aggregate wisdom are here for you.  It is worth the small investment of time and money to gain such wisdom.  For those who think children unworthy of such, here is my favorite paragraph form the book.

So consider this:  Though one could travel a hundred times the speed of light, past countless yellow-orange stars, to the edge of the galaxy and swoop down to the fiery glow located a few hundred light-years below the plane of the Milky Way, though one could slow to examine the host of hot young stars luminous among the gas and dust, though one could observe, close-up, the proto-stars poised to burst forth from their dusty cocoons, though one could witness a star’s birth, in all one’s stellar journeys one would never see anything equal to the birth and wonder of a human being.  For a tiny baby girl or boy is the apex of God’s creation!  But the greatest wonder of all is that the child is created in the image of God, the Imago Dei.  The child once was not; now, as a created soul, he or she is eternal.  He or she will exist forever.  When the stars of the universe succumb to stellar destruction,  that soul shall still live.