Monday, October 31, 2011
Book review: Reggie Dabbs with John Driver- Reggie
Reggie
Reggie Dabbs with John Driver
Buy this book
In Reggie, Reggie Dabbs tells of how with God’s help he overcame his broken background to become someone impacting young people around the world.
His story is certainly a profoundly inspiring one. The difference between the situation he was born into and where his is now is astonishing. I had heard bits and pieces of his story in his preaching before but enjoyed reading it in more detail. I could see this book being very encouraging to young people wondering if it is possible to find their way out of the struggles they find themselves in.
Reggie writes with a quite conversational style. The style didn’t overly appeal to me, however I could see how it might appeal to younger readers who are more within his target audience. At times some of the writing felt a bit too dramatic or too strongly designed to promote an emotional response. This particularly stood out to me in the first few pages of chapter one.
I was curious to see how well the gospel was explained in this book as he had not done this particularly well in some sermons I had heard from him previously. It takes until a fair way into the book for him to get to much substantial biblical content. Once he does, his success at dealing with it is mixed. The gospel is not at all well explained before readers are provided with a suggested prayer to commit themselves to Jesus on page 77. In the last few pages of the book the gospel is explained with greater clarity.
His use of other biblical texts tended to suffer from a bit too much paraphrasing. It doesn’t help that he sometimes doesn’t make it clear where he is paraphrasing from, making it harder to look up the stories he was talking about. I was also uncertain of his application of some texts. This was particularly the case with his use of Hosea as being a metaphor for individuals running away from God. I was of the understanding that Hosea was about God’s people as a group rejecting him.
While his story is inspiring and worth reading, I would be someone hesitant to recommend the book due to the issues with how the bible is used in it.
Review copy provided by booksneeze.com
Thursday, October 27, 2011
How do you know God loves you?
As Christians we know God loves us. It is pretty basic theology. Chances are you learned it pretty early in your time at Sunday school or introductory bible study group. However, I think it is not just important that you know God loves you, but also how you know that is true.
What is it that you can point to and say “This is what shows that God loves me.”?
It is tempting to point at some kind of blessing you have received. Because he loves us God may sometimes bless us in various ways. This might take the form of material provision, thriving relationships, pleasant experiences or many other good gifts. We should be thankful for these things.
However, these things are not the best indicators that God loves us for us to cling to. They are way too subjective and temporary for that. Possessions break, relationships sometimes fail and bad things happen. We will always be able to point to someone who seems more blessed than us. It can get very tempting to think that God therefore loves them more than he loves us. Likewise, going through painful experiences or having something you deeply desire withheld from you will make you question God’s love if you are looking to blessings as a sign of his love for you. I have found myself guilty of both recently.
So what should we look to to know that God loves us?
“...God shows his love for us in that while we were still sinners, Christ died for us” (Romans 5:8)
“By this we know love, that he laid down his life for us, and we ought to lay down our lives for the brothers” (1 John 3:16)
In Jesus’ death on the cross, God’s love for us was conclusively proved. We don’t need to grasp at other, lesser evidences. We don’t need to worry about not being loved by him or loosing his love. The proof of the cross stands regardless of whatever may happen to us or whatever we may lack. It is fact regardless of how we feel. God showed us his love through the cross while we were still sinners and if we sin again that demonstration of love is still extended to us. Nothing can separate us from his love. (Romans 8:38-9).
You don’t need to doubt God’s love for you. Look to the cross and know that you are loved.
What is it that you can point to and say “This is what shows that God loves me.”?
It is tempting to point at some kind of blessing you have received. Because he loves us God may sometimes bless us in various ways. This might take the form of material provision, thriving relationships, pleasant experiences or many other good gifts. We should be thankful for these things.
However, these things are not the best indicators that God loves us for us to cling to. They are way too subjective and temporary for that. Possessions break, relationships sometimes fail and bad things happen. We will always be able to point to someone who seems more blessed than us. It can get very tempting to think that God therefore loves them more than he loves us. Likewise, going through painful experiences or having something you deeply desire withheld from you will make you question God’s love if you are looking to blessings as a sign of his love for you. I have found myself guilty of both recently.
So what should we look to to know that God loves us?
“...God shows his love for us in that while we were still sinners, Christ died for us” (Romans 5:8)
“By this we know love, that he laid down his life for us, and we ought to lay down our lives for the brothers” (1 John 3:16)
In Jesus’ death on the cross, God’s love for us was conclusively proved. We don’t need to grasp at other, lesser evidences. We don’t need to worry about not being loved by him or loosing his love. The proof of the cross stands regardless of whatever may happen to us or whatever we may lack. It is fact regardless of how we feel. God showed us his love through the cross while we were still sinners and if we sin again that demonstration of love is still extended to us. Nothing can separate us from his love. (Romans 8:38-9).
You don’t need to doubt God’s love for you. Look to the cross and know that you are loved.
Monday, October 24, 2011
Book review: Tony Reinke- Lit!: A Christian Guide to Reading Books
Lit!: A Christian Guide to Reading Books
Tony Reinke
Buy this book
In Lit!, Tony Reinke explains the benefits for Christians of reading a wide variety of books and how to read in a way that yields the most benefit.
You are probably wondering why we need a book on reading books. I was pleasantly surprised by how much there was to say on the topic. He covers a diversity of reading related topics varying from how the gospel shapes how we think about reading to how to pick what to read to how to helpfully write and highlight in books.
I’d never really thought that much about how a Christian world view might shape how and what we read so his discussion on this was useful. I appreciate the emphasis on the benefits of reading fiction and books that aren’t “Christian”. He does a good job of explaining the benefits of both, why Christians should not feel confined to literature written by Christians and how to read discerningly. Also particularly worth pondering is the chapter on the impact of the internet and technology on how we read, although I’m not sure I agree with his conclusions on e-readers.
The book should be helpful for people ranging from those who barely read to dedicated book worms. The chapters are quite short so it shouldn’t be too intimating for those who don’t read much. Not everything in this book will be useful for everyone. For example, those who love reading could probably skip some of the earlier chapters on the benefits of reading. The chapters are structured in such a way that you probably wouldn’t lose too much by not reading them in order.
I recommend this book. Reading it is worth your time because it will likely help make the rest of the reading you do more fruitful.
Review copy courtesy of Crossway and NetGalley
Sunday, October 23, 2011
Friday, October 21, 2011
Quotable: Friendship
"Friendship is acting out God’s love for people in tangible ways. We were made to represent the love of God in each other’s lives, so that each person we walk through life with has a more profound sense of God’s love for them. Friendship is an opportunity to act on God’s behalf in the lives of the people that we’re close to, reminding each other who God is. When we do the hard, intimate work of friendship, we bring a little more of the divine into daily life. We get to remind one another about the bigger, more beautiful picture that we can’t always see from where we are."
From Cold Tangerines by Shauna Niequist
Sunday, October 16, 2011
Longing for that day
Over the past few months I found myself waiting much longer than would be normal and than I expected to find out an important bit of information that has a massive impact upon my plans for the future. Discussing this situation with my friend while rather tired I said something to the effect of “I think God is trying to teach me trust or patience or something this semester. I wish he’d just hurry up and finish!” My friend made the most reasonable response to an outburst like that and laughed at me. Telling God to hurry up and teach me patience proves how very far I have to go.
As silly as this outburst was, I think the sentiment underlying it is a common one. We want God to just fix us. We want our spiritual breakthroughs straight away. We want to be sanctified on the spot. We want to be made holy without any hassle.
Lately I’ve kept coming back to Philippians 1:6- “And I am sure of this, that he who began a good work in you will bring it to completion at the day of Jesus Christ.” . I’ve blogged about it before. Most of my pondering on the verse have been focused on the fact that God will bring to completion what he is doing. Today I was thinking about the time frame it gives for that happening. The time frame is not months or years or when we manage some level of spiritual effort. The time frame for when God will finish his work in us is when Jesus comes back.
That means that until Jesus comes back we will still be in progress. Certainly we should hope to make some progress in sanctification and some areas will likely become much less of an issue but in this life we will not arrive at fully holy. As long as we are here we will keep struggling. Theoretically God could zap us now so that we never struggled with the slightest sin again. In his wisdom he has decided to not make things work that way. It certainly is frustrating sometimes to be stuck waiting for the day when all things, us included, will be made perfect. We need to let that frustration drive us not to give up but to long for that day and to cooperate with God’s work in our life to make us more and more like him.
As silly as this outburst was, I think the sentiment underlying it is a common one. We want God to just fix us. We want our spiritual breakthroughs straight away. We want to be sanctified on the spot. We want to be made holy without any hassle.
Lately I’ve kept coming back to Philippians 1:6- “And I am sure of this, that he who began a good work in you will bring it to completion at the day of Jesus Christ.” . I’ve blogged about it before. Most of my pondering on the verse have been focused on the fact that God will bring to completion what he is doing. Today I was thinking about the time frame it gives for that happening. The time frame is not months or years or when we manage some level of spiritual effort. The time frame for when God will finish his work in us is when Jesus comes back.
That means that until Jesus comes back we will still be in progress. Certainly we should hope to make some progress in sanctification and some areas will likely become much less of an issue but in this life we will not arrive at fully holy. As long as we are here we will keep struggling. Theoretically God could zap us now so that we never struggled with the slightest sin again. In his wisdom he has decided to not make things work that way. It certainly is frustrating sometimes to be stuck waiting for the day when all things, us included, will be made perfect. We need to let that frustration drive us not to give up but to long for that day and to cooperate with God’s work in our life to make us more and more like him.
Saturday, October 8, 2011
Featured song: Breanne Düren- Catapult
Taking a break from the serious music this week for something fun. You can download the whole EP for free from the widget below.
Thursday, October 6, 2011
Upcoming adventures
Life is about to get pretty crazy for me.
Two weeks from tomorrow I hand in the thesis I've been working on this year. There is still a huge amount of editing to do which is rather stressful. In the next three months, I'll be finishing my time at university, moving house, hopefully getting my drivers licence, presenting at an academic conference in another state, probably writing for an academic journal, attending a Christian conference, preparing for and going on two short mission trips, and possibly still be hunting for a job. Also in the mix is Christmas and writing more of my book. All this is spread out across three states and at least six towns and cities. It's exciting but rather overwhelming! It will certainly be a summer to remember!
There are two reasons I'm posting all this. One is to let you all know that due to the chaos, posting here might become a bit more irregular. I'll be doing my best to keep regular posts happening, but can't guarantee that will happen in the busy periods. If the blog does go a bit quiet for a while, rest assured it will be back.
The other reason is to ask for prayer. I would really appreciate prayer for good health, mental clarity, energy and that the logistics of making all those things happen would come together. Some of what I am doing is packed quite tightly together so there isn't room for me or any of the plans to fall apart.
Thanks for your support!
Two weeks from tomorrow I hand in the thesis I've been working on this year. There is still a huge amount of editing to do which is rather stressful. In the next three months, I'll be finishing my time at university, moving house, hopefully getting my drivers licence, presenting at an academic conference in another state, probably writing for an academic journal, attending a Christian conference, preparing for and going on two short mission trips, and possibly still be hunting for a job. Also in the mix is Christmas and writing more of my book. All this is spread out across three states and at least six towns and cities. It's exciting but rather overwhelming! It will certainly be a summer to remember!
There are two reasons I'm posting all this. One is to let you all know that due to the chaos, posting here might become a bit more irregular. I'll be doing my best to keep regular posts happening, but can't guarantee that will happen in the busy periods. If the blog does go a bit quiet for a while, rest assured it will be back.
The other reason is to ask for prayer. I would really appreciate prayer for good health, mental clarity, energy and that the logistics of making all those things happen would come together. Some of what I am doing is packed quite tightly together so there isn't room for me or any of the plans to fall apart.
Thanks for your support!
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