February 20, 2016

• Book Reviews - 2015'ish

  (Visit this link for all my book reviews http://tim223.xanga.com/category/book-reviews/ )

  Why God Calls Us To Dangerous Places, by Kate McCord
  This is a beautiful, thought-provoking book, interwoven with stories from her experiences of 9 years in Afghanistan.  Why do we go (or support those who go)?  Primarily, because God loves those people, and His love begins to transform us so that we begin to love them too.  She has great insights about loss, PTSD, ministry burnout, etc... great insights on how to rest in God and be at peace when all around you comes crashing down, when your friends die (or are murdered), when you are threatened, etc.  When terrorists plot to attack us and do attack us, may our heart be that described in this book.  So far opposite from "let's nuke them all", let our heart instead be, "Who will go to tell them about the love of Jesus?"  See also my previous review of her (excellent) book "In the Land of Blue Burqas".

  The 5 Love Languages, by Gary Chapman
  You've probably heard of this book, even if you haven't read it.  I finally got around to reading it.  I was afraid that it was going to be oversimplistic... but it was not.  His main point is that people experience 'feeling loved' in very different ways (words of affirmation, acts of service, receiving gifts, quality time, and physical touch), and that husbands and wives need to learn how to speak the other's love language.  He explains how he 'discovered' each one by various conversations with his clients (he is a professional counselor).  He includes lots of stories, including about those whose marriages were falling apart.  He is a Christian, but keeps most of the book 'generic' and secular... until the last chapter or so, when he explains about Christ's love.  Excellent, worth reading, overall.

  The Secret Thoughts of an Unlikely Convert, by Rosaria Champagne Butterfield
  This is the true story of how a very liberal and atheistic woman found Christ.  She explains her journey into identifying as a lesbian, and her journey to become an English professor at Syracuse University, teaching Gay and Lesbian Studies.  She happened to become connected with a caring Christian, who took the time to invite her to dialog regularly about matters of faith over dinner with himself and his wife.  Through this friendship, she reevaluated Christ and the Bible, and eventually came to believe in Christ.  This began to massively change her lifestyle, as she chronicles.  Later in her life, she became married, became an adoptive/foster mom, and homeschooled her children.  This is a beautiful, well-written, testimony... well worth reading.

  The Verbally Abusive Relationship, by Patricia Evans
  This book discusses relationships (primarily husband-wife) where one person (typically, but not always, the husband) verbally abuses the other person.  Most of the book is focused on description (and true stories).  She categories all people as holding to either a "Power-over" mindset or a "Personal power" mindset, which is rather simplistic, but there is some value in the distinction.  (The "Power-over" mindset perfectly describe the consequences of the Fall that the Bible discusses in Genesis 3:16.)  Chapter 11 and 12 have some great, helpful, advice on how to respond to abuse in a way that will hopefully cause the abuser to notice the problem and begin to change.  Basically, 'set limits'/'boundaries' in your own mind before the abuse happens (for example, 'I will not allow him to yell at me', or 'I will not allow him to demean me'), and then if it happens, respond forcefully 'Cut it out', or 'I will not accept that sort of speech', or, walk away.  In cases of physical abuse, of course, flee.  Chapter 13 on recovery is also good.  Convicting for all to read, and helpful if (/when) we have friends going through this type of marital stress, to be able to provide support and counsel.  Worth reading (or at least skimming, chapters 1, 11, 12, 13).  However, sadly, it is completely secular... so unable to discuss the powerful wisdom from Ephesians, etc.  Eggerichs' "Love and Respect" is more helpful in this area, and also even "For Men Only"/"For Women Only" by the Feldhahns (even though the latter mostly restrains itself to secular points).

  And the Word Came With Power, by Joanne Shetler and Patricia Purvis
  Powerful true story(ies) of how the Bible was translated for the Balangao people in the Philippines.  She shares many stories from her life there.  Especially powerful were all the times when God brought about events that she thought were catastrophic, but actually turned out for the best.  She prayed for the salvation of her host family for a LONG time, and nothing happened.  But eventually, they became believers in Jesus, and became powerful proponents of the gospel.  Also fascinating to hear about the confrontations between the evil spirits and the Spirit of God in the Christians.  Highly recommended book.

  The Post-Church Christian: dealing with the generational baggage of our faith, by J. Paul Nyquist and Carson Nyquist
  This book very well exposes and airs the reactionary complaints that millenials have against the 'institutionalized', 'tradition-bound', 'organized-religion', 'overprotective', 'cultural-christianity', 'anti-homosexual', 'judgmental', 'overly-political', 'hypocritical', Church (as they consider it).
  Unfortunately, the response that J.Paul Nyquist tries to give to his son is rather weak.  He basically says 'try to be understanding to us (the older Christians), give us the benefit of the doubt, cut us some slack, understand our historical context'.  But our response should be to go back to Jesus, that iconoclastic, 'have you never read the scriptures' Man.
  Typical paragraph from the book: "Thirty years ago, the American evangelical church member would never dream of being caught in a bar. Today, churches are being planted there. Amid the social environment found in pubs, we see opportunities to express the hope of Christ to those who enjoy a pint as they talk about life."
  Their main takeaway points: don't give up on the church.  Increase authenticity, yes, sure, fine.  Remove excessive linkages between "God and country", sure.  Remove unbiblical legalism, yes by all means.  But don't throw out the Church - it has an important God-given function.   With this point, I agree.

  You and Me Forever, by Francis and Lisa Chan
  The Chans discuss marriage in this book, but first, they discuss putting Jesus at the center and top priority of one's life.  That is their main point... to stop focusing so much on marriage or singleness, and focus more on the kingdom of God in whatever station of life.  Since they are themselves married, it comes across as slightly tone-deaf to the struggles singles have, however, their bracing 'focus on Jesus'/'put His kingdom first' message is important and needed and overall Biblical.  They make much of Paul's instructions in 1 Cor. 7, and other passages.  They also generally live out what they preach, enhancing their message's impact.  Good book, a little strident at times, but worth reading and pondering.

  Seven Marks of a New Testament Church, by David Alan Black
  Excellent short book (only 50 pages).  He talks about these "7 marks"- Evangelistic preaching, Christian baptism, apostolic teaching, genuine relationships, Christ-centered gatherings, fervent prayer, sacrificial living, based on Acts 2.

  Tactics, by Gregory Koukl
  Excellent book.  When people hear of 'tactics' in the context of apologetics, most millenials are turned off because they assume it's about manipulation and argumentation, which they want to avoid.  Instead, Koukl presents ways of using questions to turn around conversations that start out with someone asking you a hostile question related to your faith, so that you can expose the deeper beliefs underlying the question, and move into a respectful, healthy, dialog.  This book is worth reading over and over, and practicing its contents, not for the purpose of manipulation, but for the sake of truly loving our neighbors, and helping them find out the awesome truth about Jesus.

  From Heaven He Came and Sought Her
  This book is a collection of essays about Particular Atonement ("Limited Atonement").  It thoroughly covers the historical views of the Church in the past centuries, and then gets into the Scriptural/theological discussion.  It's a tough, slow, closely-reasoned read, but worth slogging through.

  The Genesis Account, by Jonathan Safarti
  This is a scientific and theological commentary on Genesis 1-11.  It is a very thorough, even, solid, well-documented, well-reasoned, and objective commentary.  As a reference book, it's not for light reading (some of Sarfati's other books like "Refuting Evolution" or "Refuting Compromise" are easier to read), but it's well worth slowly reading.  It covers all the major scientific evidences for/against various age theories of the earth and evolution, and all the current and past hermeneutical interpretations of Genesis 1-11.  Excellent.

  Cold Case Christianity, A Homicide Detective Investigates The Claims of the Gospels, by J. Warner Wallace
  This is an awesome book.  It focuses on whether the gospel accounts (Matthew, Mark, Luke, John) about Jesus are accurate or not.  The author was an atheist until his thirties, and a homicide detective who specialized in solving cold cases (unsolved crimes from decades past).  When he began to investigate the gospel accounts, he realized that they have all the marks of true eyewitness accounts.  This book covers the same historical facts as many other apologetics books (Josh McDowell, etc), but is extremely well-written, and with a fresh perspective.

  Debating Darwin's Doubt, edited by David Klinghoffer
  This book is basically a collection of online articles written as back-and-forth debate followup to Steven Meyer's "Darwin's Doubt".  It discusses the major objections of all the critics, and offers rebuttal.  It is a little hard to read, and a little repetitive, but overall a good, very solid and thorough, rebuttal of the critics' arguments and confirmation that Meyer's basic point was correct: the sudden appearance of Cambrian animals in the fossil layer cannot be explained through Darwinian/neoDarwinian evolution, nor through any other non-intelligent materialistic causes.  An Intelligent Designer is the proper inference to the Cambrian fossil record.

  • 11:56 am
  • Comments Off