Reading List 2019
A list of every book I read last year.
My first post of each new year always contains the list of books I read the previous year (2014, 2015, 2016, 2017, and 2018). I do it for personal accountability; knowing I have to post my list helps me stay on track. Reading input decreased this year as writing output increased. I wrote a record number of blog posts on my website (47), a record number of guest posts (22), and published 3 books and 1 ordination paper.
In these “reading list” posts, I’ll often share a few anecdotes about favorite books from the year or other noteworthy items. I’ll just let the list be the list this year. As one year ends and another begins, I’m more tired than other years, and because of other writing projects across the winter I can’t seem to find the energy to analyze the last year—maybe that statement tells enough. In 2020, I gotta do better at keeping gas in the tank if I want the car to drive.
Let me know in the comments your favorite book from last year.
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Books Read per Year
1. All The Light We Cannot See by Anthony Doerr (531 pages)
2. Expository Exultation: Christian Preaching as Worship by John Piper (336 pages)
3. Unsettled: Overcoming the Restless Search for Who You Are (The Story of Samson and His Father) by Chase Replogle (242 pages) (Currently Unpublished)
4. A Long Obedience in the Same Direction: Discipleship in an Instant Society by Eugene Peterson (216 pages)
5. Your Future Self Will Thank You: Secrets to Self-Control from the Bible and Brain Science (A Guide for Sinners, Quitters, and Procrastinators) by Drew Dyck (224 pages)
6. Letter from a Birmingham Jail by Martin Luther King, Jr. (80 pages)
7. Sunny Side Up: The Breakfast Conversation That Could Change Your Life by Dan DeWitt (112 pages)
8. A Gentleman in Moscow: A Novel by Amor Towles (480 pages)
9. Don’t Just Send a Resume: How to Find the Right Job in a Local Church by Benjamin Vrbicek (204 pages)
10. Enduring Grace: 21 Days with the Apostle Peter by Stephen R. Morefield and Benjamin Vrbicek (150 pages)
11. The Beginner’s Guide to Spiritual Gifts by Sam Strorms (200 pages)
12. The Paradigm: The Ancient Blueprint That Holds the Mystery of Our Times by Jonathan Cahn (272 pages)
13. A Restless Age: How Saint Augustine Helps You Make Sense of Your Twenties by Ausin Gohn (200 pages)
14. East of Eden by John Steinbeck (601 pages)
15. Five Smooth Stones for Pastoral Work by Eugene Peterson (251 pages)
16. The Solace of Water by Elizabeth Byler Younts (368 pages)
17. The Bible: Romans to Revelation, Part 6 of 6 by God (300 pages)
18. Humble Calvinism: And If I Know the Five Points, but Have not Love... by J.A. Medders (128 pages)
19. Air & Light & Time & Space: How Successful Academics Write by Helen Sword (280 pages)
20. Twenty Thousand Leagues Under the Sea by Jules Verne (524 pages)
21. Taking God At His Word: Why the Bible Is Knowable, Necessary, and Enough, and What That Means for You and Me by Kevin DeYoung (144 pages)
22. Dark Clouds, Deep Mercy: Discovering the Grace of Lament by Mark Vroegop (224 pages)
23. Does the Birth Control Pill Cause Abortions? by Randy Alcorn (197 pages)
24. The Bible: Genesis to Deuteronomy, Part 1 of 6 by God (300 pages)
25. Marriage and the Mystery of the Gospel by Ray Ortlund (128 pages)
26. The Passion of the King of Glory (Retelling the Story) by Russ Ramsey (240 pages)
27. The Deep Things of God (Second Edition): How the Trinity Changes Everything by Fred Sanders (304 pages)
28. Before You Open Your Bible: Nine Heart Postures for Approaching God’s Word by Matt Smethurst (96 pages)
29. Our Secular Age: Ten Years of Reading and Applying Charles Taylor by Collin Hansen and others (176 pages)
30. True Grit: A Novel by Charles Portis (240 pages)
31. Connected: Living in the Light of the Trinity by Sam Allberry (176 pages)
32. Competing Spectacles: Treasuring Christ in the Media Age by Tony Reinke (160 pages)
33. Dreyer’s English: An Utterly Correct Guide to Clarity and Style by Benjamin Dreyer (320 pages)
34. The War of Art: Break Through the Blocks and Win Your Inner Creative Battles by Steven Pressfield (192 pages)
35. Catch-22 by Joseph Heller (544 pages)
36. Called Together: A Guide to Forming Missional Communities by Jonathan K. Dodson and Brad Watson (100 pages)
37. The Bible and the Future by Anthony A. Hoekema (354 pages)
38. Three Views on the Millennium and Beyond by Darrell L. Bock (336 pages)
39. Echoes of Exodus: Tracing Themes of Redemption through Scripture by Alastair J. Roberts and Andrew Wilson (176 pages)
40. The Bible: Joshua to Esther, Part 2 of 6 by God (300 pages)
41. Enduring Grace: 21 Days with the Apostle Peter by Stephen R. Morefield and Benjamin Vrbicek (150 pages)
42. The Storm-Tossed Family: How the Cross Reshapes the Home by Russell Moore (320 pages)
43. Evangelical Convictions: A Theological Exposition of the Statement of Faith of the EFCA by EFCA Spiritual Heritage Committee (321 pages)
44. The Magician’s Nephew by C.S. Lewis (200 pages)
45. The Kite Runner by Khaled Hosseini (400 pages)
46. Draw Near: An Advent Devotional by Laura A. Pyne (110 pages)
47. Onward: Engaging the Culture without Losing the Gospel by Russell Moore (240 pages)
48. The Prodigal God: Recovering the Heart of the Christian Faith by Timothy Keller (192 pages)
49. He Numbered the Pores on My Face: Hottie Lists, Clogged Pores, Eating Disorders, and Freedom from It All by Scarlet Hiltibidal (192 pages)
50. Struggle Against Porn: 29 Diagnostic Tests for Your Head and Heart by Benjamin Vrbicek (171 pages)
51. Of Mice and Men by Steinbeck, John (120 pages)
52. Parenting in the Pastorate: “How-To” Faithfully Raise Kids in Full-Time Ministry by Paul Gilbert (110 pages)
53. Amusing Ourselves to Death: Public Discourse in the Age of Show Business by Neil Postman (208 pages)
54. 1–2 Thessalonians: A 12-Week Study by Matt Smethurst (96 pages)
55. The Bible: Psalms to Song of Solomon, Part 3 of 6 by God (300 pages)
56. 12 Years a Slave by Solomon Northup (248 pages)
57. Kingdom Come: The Amillennial Alternative by Sam Storms (592 pages)
58. Marriage, Divorce, and Remarriage: Critical Questions and Answers by Jim Newheiser (336 pages)
59. The Imperfect Pastor: Discovering Joy in Our Limitations through a Daily Apprenticeship with Jesus by Zack Eswine (272 pages)
60. Evangelical Convictions: A Theological Exposition of the Statement of Faith of the EFCA by EFCA Spiritual Heritage Committee (321 pages)
61. Between the World and Me by Ta-Nehisi Coates (176 pages)
62. How to Write Short: Word Craft for Fast Times by Roy Peter Clark (272 pages)
63. Writing Tools: 55 Essential Strategies for Every Writer by Roy Peter Clark (288 pages)
64. The Glamour of Grammar: A Guide to the Magic and Mystery of Practical English by Roy Peter Clark (320 pages)
65. Choose Love, Not Fear: How the Best Leaders Build Cultures of Engagement and Innovation That Unleash Human Potential by Gary Heil and Ryan Hail (240 pages) (Publishing in March of 2020)
66. The Old Man and the Sea by Ernest Hemingway (128 pages)
67. Help! For Writers: 210 Solutions to the Problems Every Writer Faces by Roy Peter Clark (320 pages)
68. Joy in the Sorrow: How a Thriving Church (and its Pastor) Learned to Suffer Well by Matt Chandler and Friends (240 pages)
69. The Culture Code: The Secrets of Highly Successful Groups by Daniel Coyle (304 pages)
70. The Writer’s Diet: A Guide to Fit Prose by Helen Sword (88 pages)
71. The Bright Unknown by Elizabeth Byler Younts (368 pages)
72. The Bible: Isaiah to Malachi, Part 4 of 6 by God (300 pages)
73. Once for all Delivered: A Reformed, Amillennial Ordination Paper for the Evangelical Free Church of America by Benjamin Vrbicek (115 pages)
74. When Narcissism Comes to Church: Healing Your Community from Emotional and Spiritual Abuse by Chuck DeGroat (200 pages)
75. The Bible: Matthew to Acts, Part 5 of 6 by God (300 pages)
Is God Big Enough to Handle Your Pain?
A book review of Mark Vroegop’s excellent book, Dark Clouds Deep Mercy.
When tragedy strikes, we often don’t know what to do next. Yet, when the Lord’s hand of judgment fell on Israel; when the temple was leveled by pagans; and when the most tender and refined of women resorted to cannibalism (cf. Deut. 28:56–57), Jeremiah knew what to do. He sat in ash and wrote an acrostic poem. Let that sink in. When all around his soul gave way, Jeremiah penned the book we call Lamentations, a series of highly structured and theologically dense poems.
That response to tragedy might strike us as odd. But Jeremiah’s response is a gift to posterity. His laments illuminate the way out of the dark jungle of despair. He gives us a path to walk toward life, healing, and toward God himself.
The Importance of Lament
Mark Vroegop’s new book Dark Clouds, Deep Mercy: Discovering the Grace of Lament draws its title from two verses in Lamentations: one about the clouds of judgment that hung over Zion (2:1), and the other from the stunning promise of fresh mercy each morning (3:22). “Lament stands in the gap,” Vroegop writes, “between pain and promise” (26).
When tragedy strikes our lives, our churches, and our communities, we need a competent guide through the laments in the Bible, which are less familiar to most Christians than they should be. Take our diet of modern worship songs as an example. The book of Psalms is one-third lament, while the overwhelming majority of our modern worship songs are “positive and encouraging,” as one radio station boasts. Focusing on the upbeat in music and calling funeral services “a celebration of life,” are not necessarily wrong, but it does leave us impoverished. We also need to know how to grieve.
Dark Clouds, Deep Mercy has three sections: the first engages with four psalms of lament, the second with the book of Lamentations, and the final explores applications to individual and corporate life. The book has also discussion questions at the end of each chapter. Not only would it be a good book for preaching and worship pastors to read individually, but it’s also a good book for them to read together. Last fall at our church, we preached a 10-week series through the book of Job, and though Dark Clouds, Deep Mercy wasn’t published yet, I wish it had been so it could have better shaped not only our preaching but the whole worship service.
Learning the Meaning of Lament
There’s a famous joke from the show Seinfeld where George’s father creates the holiday Festivus, a foil to Christmas. Each year Festivus beings with the “airing of grievances.” Mr. Costanza bellows, “I got a lot of problems with you people! And now you’re gonna hear about it!” To the uninitiated, it can seem like biblical laments are like that, the mere ranting to God our pent-up anger and disappointment throughout the last year, a vomiting of emotions and a verbal shake of our fists. As Vroegop engages with four Psalms of lament in the first section of the book (Psalm 77, 10, 22, and 13, respectively), I gained a better understanding of what lament, biblically speaking, is and what it is not. And more importantly, the detailed discussion through each modeled how to make use of lament as an individual Christian and in the life of the church. Big surprise: it’s not the way of Festivus.
Biblical laments have, according to Vroegop, three key features. First, there is an address to the Lord. In this way laments are for believers, not those shouting to the void or an impersonal universe. Second, laments complain. The complaint might be overtly because of some sin, or it may be less clear why the tragedy struck, but regardless something has gone very wrong and the people of God aren’t going to pretend it’s okay. Finally, laments have an expression of trust or praise, sometimes both. When all the sawdust of a lament finally settles to the ground, a believer is still a believer because God is God. Often this expression of trust marks a turning point in the psalm. Appendix 4, entitled, “But, Yet, And,” traces a number of examples of this “turn” in various psalms. “In some cases,” Vroegop writes, “the specific word [but, yet, or and] is not present, but the tone of the sentence fits the purpose [of asking boldly or choosing to trust]” (209).
Like the book of Lamentations, Dark Clouds, Deep Mercy was also born out of tragedy. The Vroegops first experienced lament in the wake of a stillborn daughter and they later had other significant troubles during pregnancies. “Pain and fear mingled together in a jumbled torrent of emotion. . . . I wrestled with sadness that bored a hole in my chest,” he writes (17). My wife and I—and I’m sure many in your churches—know a little bit about this. You don’t forget that pale look on an ultrasound technician’s face when she says, “I’m going to grab the doctor,” on her way out the door. But it was in this season of sorrow that the Vroegop’s found solace in the Scripture. “The Bible gave voice to my pain. . . . I discovered a minor-key language for my suffering: lament” (17).
A Book for Those in Pain
Whenever I read a book about suffering, I find myself wondering about the author’s intended audience. Russ Ramsey, the author of Struck, another edifying book on suffering, has said there are two kinds of books on suffering. “There are books that you give to people who are interested in the subject, but not necessarily afflicted or suffering in the moment. And then there are books for people who are in the middle of suffering.”
Dark Clouds, Deep Mercy is more in the latter category, but it’s not the book you hand them on the way home from the funeral. The wounds are probably still too raw for this book. It seems to me that Dark Clouds, Deep Mercy is best given to someone when the steady delivery of meals from the church has stopped, when friends forget to check in, and when acute grief has dissipated but long-term grief still lingers. It is a good book for every pastor to read, but at some time or another, it will also be a book for most people in the pews.
* This book review originally appeared at 9Marks.
** Photo by Alex Plesovskich on Unsplash
We Are the Perpetual Resistance Movement: A Review of COMPETING SPECTACLES by Tony Reinke
A great book by one of my favorite authors.
As we discussed purity and parenting during a seminary class, Rob raised his hand from the back of the room. Our professor called on him. Rob said, “More than I want my daughter to not wear clothing that draws attention to her body, I want my daughter to want to not wear clothing that draws attention to her body. I want her to want the right things, not just do them.”
It was a formative moment in not only my seminary education but in my Christian maturation. Rob was on to something, and I wanted to be on to it too.
Tony Reinke’s new book Competing Spectacles: Treasuring Christ in a Media Age is a book to help us not only look at our smartphones less, but a book to help us want to look at them less by giving us something better to behold.
Competing Spectacles is a solid sequel to his book 12 Ways Your Phone Is Changing You (2017). In a culture of “viral moments competing for our attention,” Reinke explores how we can not only survive spiritually but even thrive (p. 13). “Few of us,” he writes, “have reckoned with the consequences of this tele-visual culture on our attention, our volition, our empathy, and our self-identity” (p. 33). But Reinke has reckoned with the consequences, and he relays them well—not in an alarmist, fear-mongering way but as a concerned friend and father.
Competing Spectacles has an uncommon structure. It’s one long essay broken into 33 mini-sections, which are separated into two parts, “The Age of the Spectacle” and “The Spectacle.” This structure might catch a few readers off guard, but he’s such a gifted writer that a 34,000-word essay isn’t as imposing as it might sound. Reinke is senior writer for Desiring God and author of several other books, The Joy Project (2018), John Newton on the Christian Life (2015), and Lit! A Christian Guide to Reading Books (2011). I’ve only done this for a few authors, but I make it a point to read (and in Reinke’s case, write reviews of) all his books.
“Spectacle” can mean different things. Spectacles are something we wear to help us see. But spectacles can also be what we see. This is the way Reinke uses spectacles throughout the book, spectacles as events. So, for example, each year the Super Bowl is a spectacle. The recent box-office hit Avengers: Endgame is a spectacle. The 2016 presidential election is a spectacle—actually the 2016 election had lots and lots of spectacles to it, something Reinke explores extensively in several sections of the book (especially “§9. Politics as Spectacle,” pp. 39–44).
But a local church worship service is also, by this definition, a spectacle. It’s a different spectacle, a smaller, less sexy spectacle than the latest Hollywood blockbuster or Adam Levine half-naked at half-time, but the gathering of the people of God is a spectacle nonetheless.
Competing Spectacles has tons of crispy writing, the kind of writing prevalent in Reinke’s other books. Just to give you a taste, he writes of the way “we never stop hungering for the Turkish delight-sized bites of digital scandal” (p. 56) and how the spectacle industry is a “gatling gun firing at us new media modules nonstop” (p. 150). That’s good writing! My favorite quote comes during his discussion of the spectacle of the local church. It’s a long quote, but read it slowly, perhaps even out loud.
Matched to the multi-million dollar CGI spectacles of Hollywood, the church’s interior spectacles seem dull. But they are beautiful and profound. Each week the local church reenacts the same things—Bible preaching, the Lord’s Table, water baptism—all of them faith-based, repeated, microspectacles (unlike the sight-based and unrepeated, expiring spectacles of the world). These church ordinances are weighted with cosmic influence. In Colossians and Ephesians, Paul is careful to show how the gospel-driven love and unity of local churches is a spectacle of the victory of Christ to the powers and principalities who seek to destroy God’s created order. The church is the perpetual resistance movement. And from generation to generation, she displays a spectacle of God’s victory to his cosmic foes, repeatedly striking those enemies with déjà vu of their defeat at the cross. (p. 101)
A few weeks ago, with as much passion as I could muster, I read this quote to our church. I might as well have been William Wallace on horseback with blue warpaint. “They may take our lives, but we are the perpetual resistance movement!”
For the first time in our 20-year church’s history, we enjoyed preaching, baptism, and the Lord’s Supper in the same worship service. We preach each week and have regular communion services, but we’ve always done our baptisms offsite in special services. We did this, in part, to mark baptisms off as special—they got their own service. But performing baptisms at another time than Sunday morning and in another location than our church building also meant we disconnected baptisms from the spectacle of a regular Sunday. Yet there is nothing, Reinke implies, regular about it at all. “From generation to generation, [local churches display] the spectacle of God’s victory to his cosmic foes.”
I want Christians to not only come to church each week but to want to come to church. And a big part of wanting to come to church regularly involves coming alive to the extraordinary reality of what happens on every ordinary Sunday in every ordinary local church.
If the local church is to become precious to us, another spectacle—the greatest spectacle—must first become precious to us: the spectacle of the cross of Jesus Christ. The cross is the heartbeat of Reinke’s book; it’s the central spectacle, both the theological center of the book and the geographic center of the book (e.g., the special attention the cross receives in section 17). He writes,
Into the spectacle-loving world, with all of its spectacle makers and spectacle-making industries, came the grandest Spectacle ever devised in the mind of God and brought about in world history—the cross of Christ. It is the hinge of history, the point of contact between BC and AD, where all time collides, where all human spectacles meet one unsurpassed, cosmic, divine spectacle. (p. 79)
Reinke’s book is not a book to get you to simply look at your phone less or watch media with a more critical eye. Competing Spectacles is a book to stoke your desire to want to behold something more than your screens; it’s a book, as the subtitle says, to help us treasure Christ in our media age. Channeling the famous quote by puritan Thomas Chalmers, Reinke writes, “The Christian’s battle in this media age can be won only by the expulsive power of a superior Spectacle” (p. 145).
* Photo by Barbara Provenzano on Unsplash
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HUMBLE CALVINISM by J. A. Medders (FAN AND FLAME Book Reviews)
An accessible and punchy book about how knowing God’s initiative in salvation should keep his children humble.
Nine years ago I was searching for my first job in pastoral ministry. During the interview process with one local church—the church that would eventually hire me—they asked that I fill out an in-depth questionnaire. It had questions about my family, education, and hobbies. There was also a meaty theological section that began by asking, “How do you associate with Calvinism or Arminianism?”
My full answer was a bit longer, but here’s some of what I wrote:
I think the first thing I’d say to a random Christian asking me about Calvinism or Arminianism, would go something like, “I think I know what I mean by those terms, but what do you mean when you use them?” In my experience people often have a very unsavory connotation of whichever side they do not espouse to the extent that the other position becomes a caricature that proponents do not hold themselves. However, if what you describe in your Teaching Doctrinal Statement is what you believe Calvinism to be, I’m totally on board. . .
One of the things that caused me to appreciate this church was not just their theological precision but their humility. Members who joined the church did not have to embrace, or even understand, this thing called Calvinism. It was only the Bible teachers, staff, and elders who needed to agree to teach in concert with the doctrinal statement. And yet, they cared enough to take the time to write everything out so that prospective members (and prospective staff pastors) could know what they were getting into when they joined.
Well, I’m rambling a bit, but this combination of theological precision and humble posture do not go together as often as they should. This is one reason I liked J.A. Medder’s new book, Humble Calvinism: If I Know the Five Points, but Have Not Love . . . Medders is a pastor in Texas at Redeemer Church. He’s also the author of Gospel Formed and co-author of Rooted. If his name sounds familiar to readers of this blog, perhaps it’s because I’ve written about him a few times. He’s one of the twelve contributors to my recent book Don’t Just Send a Resume, and he hosts Home Row, one of my favorite podcasts about writing.
“We don’t need less Calvinism,” Medder’s writes early in the book, “we need more real Calvinism” (p. 27). I agree. Calvinism, which holds to a high view of God’s sovereignty, especially in salvation, ought to produce the most humble of Christians. You can’t rightly claim you were a wretch when God did everything necessary to save you while simultaneously having a boastful smirk and a cocky swagger. It sometimes does happen, but it shouldn’t happen. In fact, I’m sure several people reading this post have been hurt by Christians who espoused Calvinism but did so with such arrogance that you’ve been turned off the topic ever since. “Many of us who claim to love the ‘doctrines of grace,’” Medders writes, “have not grown in showing grace. We have not become more gracious, kind, tender, and compassionate. And that can only mean one thing: we actually don’t know the doctrines of grace” (p. 17).
But others reading this review might be thinking, “Wait—I don’t really know what Calvinism is. Neither do I know the ‘five points’ mentioned in the subtitle.” To this, I’ll say that Medders does of faithful job of bringing readers up to speed. After the introduction there is a short section that covers historical background and definition of terms. In the rest of the book, Medders unpacks each of the five points of Calvinism (often identified by the acronym TULIP) and how each point should produce meek not malicious Christians.
As someone who has read a number of books on this topic, let me also say how enjoyable Medders made his book, which is not easy to do when explaining theology; his sentences snap, crackle, and pop. For example, he writes of those who wield their Calvinism like a lead pipe; getting his first whiff of TULIP; making theological taxidermy a hobby; and predestination as the prequel of our faith in Christ (pp. 19, 43, 45, and 77).
Humble Calvinism is a helpful book for those trying for the first time to understand the Calvinistic view of God’s sovereignty in salvation. And it’s also a convicting book for pastors like me who need to be reminded that if our understanding of Calvinism—or any other doctrine—produces in us arrogance, then we haven’t learned the doctrine as we ought.
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YOUR FUTURE SELF WILL THANK YOU by Drew Dyck (FAN AND FLAME Book Reviews)
An enjoyable book to help you understand why self-control is often so hard to come by and how to get more of it.
Your Future Self Will Thank You: Secrets to Self-Control from the Bible and Brain Science (A Guide for Sinners, Quitters, and Procrastinators)
I didn’t read the book Your Future Self Will Thank You for my sake, but for yours. I read it because I can’t figure out why all you people out there can’t get your stuff together. Just lose that weight, read that Bible, stop checking your phone at the dinner table, and, well, you know, be more in control!
Joking, of course. I struggle with self-control as much as the next guy. We all have Adam for a great-great-grandpa. So does the author, Drew Dyck. And that is one of the things that makes the book so refreshing. “I’m caught,” he writes, “in my own civil war between the good I want to do and the sinful impulses holding me back” (p. 13).
Drew works as an editor for Moody Publishers and has written two other books, Yawning at Tigers and Generation Ex-Christian. In this book, his most recent, Drew shares with readers some of the areas he finds self-control most elusive, whether aspects of prayer and Bible reading or the struggle to consistently exercise and make healthy eating choices. In fact, each of the nine chapters ends with a short section recounting the progress—and sometimes regression—Drew made throughout the time he wrote the book. These personal testimonies from his battles on the front lines of the self-control war, give the book a relatable and unpretentious feel.
One of the most significant takeaways for me came in chapter 4, which was on willpower and habits. It turns out that willpower is like a muscle. You can only exert willpower for so long before it gets fatigued and cries, “Uncle!” Whether you are able to do five pushups or fifty pushups—or a whole lot more!—at some point, even if you were offered a million dollars to do just one more, it won’t matter. Your arms are toast, and your nose can’t get off the carpet. Willpower, so it seems, is a bit like that.
Therefore—Drew encourages us—to direct our limited supply of willpower into the formation of meaningful habits because once a habit is formed, it takes less willpower to keep it going. For example, it’s a lot easier to read your Bible in the morning when you develop the habit of doing so than if you must summon the willpower to do it each and every time. Once a healthy habit is formed, you can then use your cache of willpower to develop another healthy habit. And then another. And another.
But as the subtitle promises, the book has more than brain science. The book engages thoughtfully with the Bible, which has much to say about self-control, including that self-control isn’t simply a muscle; it’s also a “fruit of the Spirit” (Galatians 5:22–23). That is good news for Christians. It’s good news because it means that as we embrace the hope of Jesus Christ offered in the gospel, God begins a gardening process in our lives, so to speak. As our roots of faith go deeper into God, the Spirit of God produces more self-control—and the other fruits we so desperately need God’s help to produce.
It’s no surprise to me that Drew’s book launched on January 1, the time of the year when we make new resolutions. But here we are seven weeks later in the middle of February. How are you doing with your resolutions? How’s that monthly budget working out? And has your plan to read the Bible in a year hit a snag in Leviticus? If self-control has been a struggle for you, I encourage you to buy this book. Your future self will thank you.
* Photo by Patrick Fore on Unsplash
Sunny Side Up by Dan DeWitt (FAN AND FLAME Book Reviews)
A helpful book for new believers to understand the gospel and discipleship.
I’ll say up front that I’ve read several of Dan DeWitt’s books, and I’m a fan. Our family especially enjoyed reading his children’s novella series called The Owlings. (You can read my review here.) His latest book, Sunny Side Up: The Breakfast Conversation That Could Change Your Life, explores Peter’s famous conversation with Jesus after the resurrection. Over a simple meal of fish cooked by a fire, Peter and Jesus exchanged words with profound implications.
Yet as soon as I call the story “famous,” I should point out that it’s not famous to many people. Sure, if you’ve been around Christianity for a while, you’ve probably heard several sermons about it. Indeed, if you attended my church last year on Easter, you heard me preached from John 21. DeWitt, however, is not mainly writing to those of us already familiar with the story and its implications. DeWitt writes for those new to the faith, or perhaps those still wrestling with what it might mean to follow Christ in the first place.
But that’s not to say there’s nothing in the book for a mature believer. There is. DeWitt caused me to think more deeply about what “these” refers to in Jesus’s question, “Simon, son of John, do you love me more than these?” (John 21:15). Additionally, I was challenged by the connection DeWitt repeatedly makes between what it means to follow Jesus at the level of the heart (“Peter, do you love me?”) and the trajectory of ministry that should flow out of that relationship (“Then feed my lambs, Peter”).
I also appreciated how DeWitt underscores the critical connection between love for Jesus and love for the local church. Jesus loves a church as a groom loves his bride. And it’s fitting that the bride should love the groom in return. And as DeWitt recalls a friend saying to him, “You can’t love the church, without loving a church” (p. 57).
If I were to venture one criticism, I might wonder if the breakfast theme throughout the book is played up a bit too much. But regardless, Sunny Side Up is the type of book I’d love to give away in our church welcome bags. It’s warm and accessible. It explains the gospel and encourages both mature Christians and those just starting out that Jesus really does change lives.
* Photo by John Salzarulo on Unsplash
Is It Easy for You to Say “Wait”? MLK’s Letter from a Birmingham Jail
A few reflections on Martin Luther King’s famous letter.
If Martin Luther King Jr. were alive today, he’d have just celebrated his ninetieth birthday. But of course he’s not alive. What he lived for got him killed.
I spent some time reflecting on this yesterday, the day we as a nation set apart to remember his legacy and the causes he advanced and those that still linger. I also took some time in the morning to read Letter from a Birmingham Jail, though near the end of the letter King wryly notes his “letter” is closer to a book than a letter because of its length. The title communicates some of the setting of the letter, but it’s also important to know that the letter is a response to several white clergymen, that is, men who, like me, work in full-time ministry.
While in jail, someone gave King the criticism of the clergy, which had been published in a newspaper. King notes in the letter that he seldom took time to respond to criticism because, he writes, “If I sought to answer all the criticisms that cross my desk, my secretaries would be engaged in little else in the course of the day, and I would have no time for constructive work.”
But because of the nature of the criticism and who wrote it, and perhaps because of the time afforded to him in jail, King responded. And what a response it was. Many thoughts from the letter pricked my conscience, but below was one of the more arresting paragraphs. In poignant language, King is responding to the criticism that his actions are not “well-timed” and that, if he could only “wait,” he might have a more sympathetic audience. Yet saying “wait,” as King notes, is pretty easily done by those who “have not suffered unduly from the disease of segregation.”
I pray that if you have not suffered the disease of segregation—as I certainly have not—King’s words will sober you, as they did to me. I also have a six-year-old daughter, and I can’t imagine telling her she’s not allowed at Hershey Park, the amusement park near my house, because of her skin color.
We have waited for more than three hundred and forty years for our constitutional and God-given rights. The nations of Asia and Africa are moving with jet-like speed toward the goal of political independence, and we still creep at horse and buggy pace toward the gaining of a cup of coffee at a lunch counter. I guess it is easy for those who have never felt the stinging darts of segregation to say, “Wait.” But when you have seen vicious mobs lynch your mothers and fathers at will and drown your sisters and brothers at whim; when you have seen hate-filled policemen curse, kick, brutalize and even kill your black brothers and sisters with impunity; when you see the vast majority of your twenty million Negro brothers smothering in an airtight cage of poverty in the midst of an affluent society; when you suddenly find your tongue twisted and your speech stammering as you seek to explain to your six-year-old daughter why she can’t go to the public amusement park that has just been advertised on television, and see tears welling up in her eyes when she is told that Funtown is closed to colored children, and see the depressing clouds of inferiority begin to form in her little mental sky, and see her begin to distort her little personality by unconsciously developing a bitterness toward white people; when you have to concoct an answer for a five-year-old son asking in agonizing pathos: “Daddy, why do white people treat colored people so mean?”; when you take a cross-country drive and find it necessary to sleep night after night in the uncomfortable corners of your automobile because no motel will accept you; when you are humiliated day in and day out by nagging signs reading “white” and “colored”; when your first name becomes “nigger,” your middle name becomes “boy” (however old you are) and your last name becomes “John,” and your wife and mother and are never given the respected title “Mrs.”; when you are harried by day and haunted by night by the fact that you are a Negro, living constantly at tip-toe stance never quite knowing what to expect next, and plagued with inner fears and outer resentments; when you are forever fighting a degenerating sense of “nobodiness”—then you will understand why we find it difficult to wait. There comes a time when the cup of endurance runs over, and men are no longer willing to be plunged into an abyss of despair. I hope, sirs, you can understand our legitimate and unavoidable impatience. (Martin Luther King, Jr., Letter from a Birmingham Jail, 1963)
* Photo by Brian Kraus on Unsplash
A reminder that Christian ministry must always be about Christ.