A Spectacular Burst of Light without Antecedent: A Review of Marilynne Robinson’s READING GENESIS

Marilynne Robinson, Reading Genesis (New York: Farrar, Straus & Giroux, 2024), 344 pages.

I’m conflicted about Marilynne Robinson’s writing.

When I read her essays, I wonder if I can’t understand them because she is so much smarter than me and I lack the minimum intelligence necessary to learn from her, let alone critique her. When I read Robinson, I sometimes feel like Michael Scott from The Office, needing her to stop with the eloquence and “talk to me like I am five.”

Other times I wonder if the problem is not with me. Perhaps Robinson is actually not as good of a writer as everyone says she is because her essays contain too many contorted paragraphs. Sometimes her prose appears to swat at intellectually nuanced “flies” only she can see.

And when I read her material that has an explicit focus on God and the Bible, I become even more conflicted. Sometimes I wonder if her view of God is so much better than my own—and her view of the Bible is so much more sophisticated than my own—that perhaps I understand neither God nor the Bible as well as I should. Yet in other moments, I think of her in the same way as I think of many mainline Protestant pastors and professors, as those who see some truths about God and the Bible rightly and yet also see some really big truths really wrongly.

Having read her much anticipated and much acclaimed latest book, Reading Genesis, I now believe all of this can be true at once.

Hence my confliction.

Who Is Marilynne Robinson?

You might not have ever heard of Marilynne Robinson. But in literary writing circles, not just Christian literary writing circles, she’s a legend. I’ll put it this way. When one podcast interviewer had her on his show a few years ago, he said that lots of people want to interview former President Barack Obama, but, he noted, Barack Obama went out of his way to interview Robinson. She’s the sort of author who, even when writing non-fiction about the Bible, has her book reviewed by The New York Times and The New Yorker, as well as Christianity Today and The Gospel Coalition.

I was introduced to Robinson’s writing in seminary. A professor assigned us the Pulitzer Prize-winning novel Gilead, the first book in a series of four novels. I loved then and still love now so much about the central character John Ames, an aging pastor in rural Iowa, and how Ames cares for his flock, his young son, and his unlikely wife. I’ve read all the novels in the series at least twice. In fact, for a few years, one of my favorite things on YouTube was to listen to Marilynne Robinson read her own novels. You can hear this example when she reads an extended excerpt from the third novel in the series, Lila. Robinson reads so monotone that her words become engrossing, like a rock ballad that constantly feels on the verge of a big crescendo.

Buy on Amazon

Robinson also has had a key role in carrying forward the prestigious Iowa Writers’ Workshop, a group connected to the University of Iowa’s master in fine arts program. (You can think of the Iowa Writers’ Workshop as a kind of Harvard Law for writers.) I don’t imagine my life will ever allow the opportunity, but many times I’ve wanted to apply to the Writers’ Workshop and experience the legacy of writers such as Flannery O’Connor and teaching from instructors such as Robinson.

I cannot do a full review of her latest book Reading Genesis because, as I mentioned above, I might not be smart enough to write that review. I am, however, very familiar with Genesis itself, having preached slowly through different subsections of the book and having worked on an extended writing project that engages with the Abraham narrative. So here we go.

A Close Reading of Genesis

I can say positively that Reading Genesis offers a close reading of the first book in the Bible. Robinson trains her attention on the details using the tools of great literature: repetition, parallelism, inclusio, characterization, foreshadowing, intentional ambiguity, authorial intent, and so on.

I also appreciate how—in the best sense, not the worst—Reading Genesis stands on the author’s own authority. Even when Robinson mentions intricacies of cultures that paralleled Israel’s culture, stories from ancient Canaanite and Babylonian religious texts, her book has zero footnotes and almost zero referencing of “so-and-so” said “such-and-such.” This omission makes for a refreshing departure from traditional commentaries.

And her close reading often leads to profound insights. I’ll quote in full this extended paragraph from near the end of the book, a paragraph about the importance of Genesis for the rest of the Scriptures juxtaposed with the strikingly ordinary lives of the key families within Genesis.

Genesis can hardly be said to end. In it certain things are established—the nature of Creation and the spirit in which it was made; the nature of humankind; how and in what spirit the Creator God enters into relation with His human creatures. The whole great literature of Scripture, unfolding over centuries, will proceed on the terms established in this book. So Genesis is carried forward, in the law, in the psalms, in the prophets, itself a spectacular burst of light without antecedent but with a universe of consequences. This might seem like hyperbolic language to describe a text largely given over to the lives of people in many ways so ordinary that it is astonishing to find them in an ancient text. This realism by itself is a sort of miracle. These men and women saw the face of God, they heard His voice, and yet life for them came down to births and deaths, love, transgression, obedience, shame, and sorrow, everything done or borne in the course of the characterization of God, for Whom every one of us is a child of Adam, made in His image. God’s bond with Jacob, truly a man of sorrows, is a radical theological statement. (224)

I could go on quoting many instances of her helpful insights, the fruit of her close reading, but I’ll only note three final appreciations.

First, when you read between the lines about who she imagines to be her typical audience, you get the sense that she’s probably not only a bit odd to evangelical readers but also odd to liberal readers as well. “If you mapped Robinson’s novelistic reading onto contemporary scholarship of the Bible,” writes Francis Spufford in his New York Times review, “you’d find her in several camps at once.” Frequently when I expect her to endorse without qualification some stronghold of liberalism, such as skepticism toward supernatural elements within Genesis or the documentary hypothesis (which tries to discern supposed multiple authors of Genesis), she doesn’t. Instead of endorsing the skepticism of the supernatural or the documentary hypothesis, she critiques them, or at least nuances the views in a better direction. Indeed, part of the impetus for her in writing the book came from her own frustrations with these modern readings.

To give another example of this, Robinson concurs with modern, liberal understandings that the Genesis flood narrative is downstream and derivative from the creation and flood stories from other religious texts, such as the Epic of Gilgamesh. At the point where the stories have the most similarity, however, she argues that Genesis intentionally subverts and betters the picture of God’s character than what is found in the other religious texts. “The Genesis narrative as a whole can be thought of as a counterstatement of this kind,” she writes, “retelling the Creation in terms that reject in essential points the ancient Near Eastern characterization of the divine, of humankind, and of Creation itself” (28).

Second, I appreciate that Robinson does a good job noting the faults of those in the Bible, especially the faults of the patriarchs, rather than casting them as heroes of the stories. “Readers can be shocked by the fallibility of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob,” she writes. “But the patriarchs are not offered as paragons.” These faults highlight the “breadth of God’s loyalty to all the descendants of Adam” (84).

Finally, I appreciate that all two-hundred and thirty pages have no chapter breaks, having only a gap in the prose every so often, signaled by a blank space or a few asterisks to mark the beginning of a new line of thought. I love it. Robinson uses this same structure in each novel of her four-part series. Rather than finding this breach of convention daunting, I find it aesthetically enjoyable.

A Confusing Reading of Genesis

I also find her reading of Genesis confusing. Sometimes Robinson feels confusing because she seems to simultaneously hold a high view of Scripture along with a view of Scripture so nuanced that I can’t quite understand her view.

I also find her confusing because some sentences get so contorted that I can’t figure out what she is affirming or denying. For example, consider this sentence from a section about the meaning of life. “If [life] is the essence of everything, a breath of the very Spirit of God, it is fit and right that, first, as the basis of all understanding, of all righteousness, life itself should be properly felt and valued” (47). You can try to read that sentence a few more times, and you might get closer to the meaning than I can, but I’m still puzzled. I think she’s saying something like, “If life from God is everywhere, we should respect life more.” But I don’t really know. And so go many such sentences, sometimes even full paragraphs—alas, even full pages. On page 64 there sits a single paragraph that begins on the previous page and extends to the next page. Woof, that’s a big paragraph. All this, again, leads to my confliction.

I’ll give another example, this time from the copy on the jacket cover of the book. I know authors themselves often do not write the promotional material on the jacket cover, but it accurately illustrates the kind of “almost-orthodox-view-but-maybe-not-at-all-orthodox-view” that appears throughout the book.

The cover states that Robinson intends to appreciate Genesis’s “greatness as literature, its rich articulation and exploration of themes that resonate through the whole of Scripture.” Great, I think to myself. I’m here for that. Genesis is not less than great literature, and I’d love to learn more about the many ways the themes at the beginning of the Bible ricochet right through until the end.

Then the promotional blurb continues, “Marilynne Robinson’s Reading Genesis . . . is a powerful consideration of the profound meanings and promise of God’s enduring covenant with humanity.” I’m here for that too.  

But then notice the twist at the end of this final sentence. “This magisterial book radiates gratitude for the constancy and benevolence of God’s abiding faith in Creation.”

Wait, wait, wait—“God’s abiding faith in Creation”?

Reading Genesis well should indeed lead us, I believe, to gratitude. But does reading Genesis produce gratitude for “God’s abiding faith in Creation”? It does not. The dysfunctional family that left Eden clothed in animal skins soon sees one brother kill another brother. And on and on each member of the original family tree goes, sinning spectacularly right through to the end of the book. The only good reading of Genesis is the reading that sees God, in his long-suffering of his loving-kindness, as abiding with a humanity that merits no faith at all. A reading of Genesis that attempts to foreground God’s supposed abiding faith in humanity is not a good reading of Genesis, even when done so with beautiful prose.

Another example of this “almost orthodox” view is seen in a quote I used above. She wrote about how the faults of the patriarchs highlight the “breadth of God’s loyalty to all the descendants of Adam” (84). Later, in a beautiful section of the book on this same theme, she writes “of God’s loyalty to humankind through [all of humanity’s] disgrace and failure and even crime” (174). But the Scriptures do not teach God’s broad loyalty to all humanity and to every person born of Adam, so much as they teach God’s special loyalty and gentleness to the special line of chosen people, a chosen subset within all people. In other places, Robinson seems to know this distinction well. “Out of the inconceivable assertion of power from which everything has emerged and will emerge there came a small family of herdsmen who were of singular interest to the Creator.” Can you see why reading Robinson can be so difficult?

Evangelical readers will also be frustrated by Robinson’s cryptic comments about the historicity of Genesis. At times she seems to suggest that she believes Genesis gives us real history. “From this point in Scripture,” she writes about Noah’s family, “we begin to enter history” (66). But what is she implying about the historicity of Adam and Eve and Cain and Abel? At one point in an aside, she writes, “[King] David, whom I take to be historical . . .” (79). Okay, she takes David to be in some sense historical, but do we have a true, historical account of him and others in the Scriptures? It’s not as easy to tell how she views this. Speaking of the exodus, she writes, “Debate about whether these events actually occurred, whether the figures involved are in any sense historical, can never be resolved and need not be” (199). I disagree. When the Bible presents stories as though they did happen in history, it matters whether they did.

I’ll also mention Robinson’s book also has little mention of Jesus. One might respond to this comment with pushback, saying, Yeah, neither does Genesis itself, and it’s only my evangelical gospel-preaching impulse that “needs” to see him everywhere.

I can receive that. I neither expected nor would I require each section of her book to read like a good Christian sermon. But I would have appreciated hearing more about how all these meandering stories in Genesis of nomadic tribes only find their ultimate meaning in the promise and fulfillment of the serpent crusher with a bruised heel prophesied in the third chapter of the book. This is not merely my reading of Genesis but Jesus’s reading. To an audience more familiar with Genesis than any of us, Jesus once said, “You search the Scriptures because you think that in them you have eternal life, and it is they that bear witness about me” (John 5:39).

Robinson claims in the opening sentence, “The Bible is a theodicy, a meditation on the problem of evil” (3). And what the Bible is generally, Genesis (as well as the book of Job) is specifically, a work exploring the tensions between the goodness and sovereignty of God in a world filled with evil. Yet without a robust engagement with the cross of Christ, his resurrection, and the second coming, I am not surprised Robinson struggles to present satisfactory answers to the problem. Yes, she is correct that the story of Joseph underscores with literal words that what his brothers meant for evil, God meant for good (Gen. 50:20). Behold the beauty of providence. But where the story of Joseph only points through the theodicy glass dimly, the New Testament streams in 4k. God the Father put Jesus forward as a propitiation for sins, writes Paul, “to show his righteousness at the present time, so that he might be just and the justifier of the one who has faith in Jesus” (Rom. 3:26).

*     *     *

In the end, I can’t say whether you should buy and read Robinson’s book, which I know makes for an admittedly strange and unsatisfying ending to my review. My own reflections echo the both-and in the title and sentiments of Jared Kennedy’s review, “What Marilynne Robinson Sees and Misses in Genesis.”

Like many other brilliant individuals God has blessed with oodles of talent, Robinson can be hard to pin down and put into convenient, tidy categories. It’s not fair for evangelicals to dismiss her as a mere liberal, as I’m sure some will certainly do. It seems to me that as Robinson ministers in her own context, her audience would see her as advocating many views that are more often associated with fundamentalism and evangelicalism. We need to appreciate what she does see so well.

At the same time, here is the best I can say: if you do the hard work of giving her words a close reading, as she gives a close reading to Genesis, you might end up as I did, both blessed and conflicted.

* Photo by Jonny Gios on Unsplash

Reading List 2023

My first post of each new year always contains the list of books I read the previous year. If you’d like to see the previous posts, you can do so here: 2014, 2015, 2016, 2017, 2018, 2019, 2020, 2021, and 2022. Mostly I do this for accountability. But I also know a few other book nerds who enjoy these sorts of posts.

As has been the trend over the last few years—as my children have gotten bigger and my responsibilities in life and at church have also gotten bigger—I read fewer and fewer books. I hate the phrase “it is what it is,” but . . . it is what it is. I’m content to know that, before the Lord, I’m making the right choices.

Small as the totals were this year, I had a few favorites. Twice in the early months of the year I read Timothy Keller’s book Forgive: Why Should I and How Can I?. And, yes, that means I count the book on my list twice. Such a great book, by the way. I also enjoyed Collin Hansen’s biography of Keller. If you happen to listen to the audiobook, Hansen included a few classic Keller sermons.

I typically read several books about writing. This year the best two were Stein On Writing: A Master Editor of Some of the Most Successful Writers of Our Century Shares His Craft Techniques and Strategies and Several Short Sentences About Writing by Verlyn Klinkenborg. The Stein book has some PG-13 rated content, so be aware. And the Klinkenborg one has an interesting structure, but I loved it.

I reread All the Light We Cannot See in anticipation of the Netflix series and my article on the book for Christianity Today. No, I didn’t love the series as much as the book, but it did get better and better across the four installments. I also had a cool email exchange with Anthony Doerr after the article, which made my day. . . or maybe my week.

Also a re-read for me was Everything Sad Is Untrue: (a true story) by Daniel Nayeri. Oh man, this is a good book. I read it again for our church book club, and I’m glad I did. It can be a little goofy, but it makes serious points.

I’m a sucker for books about fathers and sons, and I already love Bret Lott, so I really enjoyed his book Fathers, Sons, and Brothers, which is a memoir of his growing up as the son of an RC Cola salesman. The book is not new, but new to me. Related to this theme of father and sons, I also re-read The Road by Cormac McCarthy around Father’s Day, which has become something of a semi-annual tradition for me.

Probably my favorite book of the year, although it came out last year, was Rembrandt Is in the Wind: Learning to Love Art through the Eyes of Faith by Russ Ramsey. I know so little about the art world yet I’m fascinated by it. The phrase “in the wind” from the title has a double meaning. Rembrandt painted himself into the disciples’ boat on the Sea of Galilee, so that’s one meaning. The other meaning comes from the art world. For a painting to be “in the wind” means that it’s stolen, which happened to that particular Rembrandt. Ramsey’s chapter on Rembrandt, along with the epic story of Michelangelo carving the epic David statue, made the book for me. Ramsey is a top-shelf Christian writer, and I echo what one of my writing friends said of Ramsey: “I want to be like him when I grow up.”

I don’t want to skip over the handful of books I endorsed, so I’ll mention those as well. I wrote endorsements for Memorizing Scripture: The Basics, Blessings, and Benefits of Meditating on God’s Word by Glenna Marshall, Trading Faces: Removing the Masks that Hide Your God-Given Identity by John Beeson and Angel Beeson, A Time to Mourn: Grieving the Loss of Those Whose Eternities Were Uncertain by Will Dobbie, and A Call to Contentment: Pursuing Godly Satisfaction in a Restless World by David Kaywood. I’ll say that Will’s book is particularly interesting in that it’s a book written on a needed but underrepresented topic, the time when a believer has someone close to them pass away who likely was not a believer. Will brings pastoral and biblical wisdom to the topic.

I also wrote a review for The Gospel Coalition of Drew Dyck’s excellent book Just Show Up: How Small Acts of Faithfulness Change Everything (A Guide for Exhausted Christians). Drew loves his books with two subtitles, but I don’t hold that against him because so do I.

Did you have any favorites from last year? Let me know in the comments below.

*     *     *

Books per Year

Pages per Year

*     *     *

In order of completion, this year I read . . .

1. Forgive: Why Should I and How Can I? by Timothy Keller (272 pages)

2. The Bear and the Nightingale by Katherine Arden (368 pages)

3. Fathers, Sons, and Brothers by Bret Lott (208 pages)

4. Emotionally Healthy Spirituality: It’s Impossible to Be Spiritually Mature, While Remaining Emotionally Immature by Peter Scazzero (240 pages)

5. Forgive: Why Should I and How Can I? by Timothy Keller (272 pages) [Yes, I read this twice and I’m counting it twice.]

6. Recovering Eden: The Gospel According to Ecclesiastes by Zack Eswine (264 pages)

7. The Author as Abram: Writing to the Land He Will Show Us (currently unpublished) by Benjamin Vrbicek (160 pages)

8. Stein On Writing: A Master Editor of Some of the Most Successful Writers of Our Century Shares His Craft Techniques and Strategies by Sol Stein (320 pages)

9. The Bible: Romans to Revelation, Part 6 of 6 by God (300 pages)

10. Living Life Backward: How Ecclesiastes Teaches Us to Live in Light of the End by David Gibson (176 pages)

11. The Great Divorce by C. S. Lewis (160 pages)

12. All My Knotted-Up Life: A Memoir by Beth Moore (304 pages)

13. Memorizing Scripture: The Basics, Blessings, and Benefits of Meditating on God’s Word by Glenna Marshall (160 pages)

14. Trading Faces: Removing the Masks that Hide Your God-Given Identity by John Beeson and Angel Beeson (248 pages)

15. The Bible: Genesis to Deuteronomy, Part 1 of 6 by God (300 pages)

16. Spare by Prince Harry The Duke of Sussex (416 pages)

17. Inventing the Truth: The Art and Craft of Memoir by William Zinsser (240 pages)

18. The Word within the Words (My Theology, 3) by Malcolm Guite (96 pages)

19. The Three Musketeers by Alexandre Dumas (592 pages)

20. Adorning the Dark: Thoughts on Community, Calling, and the Mystery of Making by Andrew Peterson (224 pages)

21. The Road by Cormac McCarthy (287 pages)

22. Several Short Sentences About Writing by Verlyn Klinkenborg (224 pages)

23. On Revision: The Only Writing That Counts (Chicago Guides to Writing, Editing, and Publishing) by William Germano (208 pages)

24. Church History 101: The Highlights of Twenty Centuries by Sinclair B. Ferguson, Joel R. Beeke, Michael A. G. Haykin (100 pages)

25. The Bible: Joshua to Esther, Part 2 of 6 by God (300 pages)

26. Go Outside: ...And 19 Other Keys to Thriving in Your 20s by Jared C. Wilson and Becky Wilson (144 pages)

27. Understanding and Trusting Our Great God (Words from the Wise) by Tim Challies (244 pages)

28. Cloud Cuckoo Land: A Novel by Anthony Doerr (608 pages)

29. The Elements of Eloquence: Secrets of the Perfect Turn of Phrase by Mark Forsyth (256 pages)

30. The Winners: A Novel (Beartown Series) by Fredrik Backman (688 pages)

31. Wuthering Heights by Emily Brontë (416 pages)

32. The Gospel Waltz: Experiencing the Transformational Power of Grace by Bob Flayhart (255 pages)

33. The Bible: Psalms to Song of Solomon, Part 3 of 6 by God (300 pages)

34. A Time to Mourn: Grieving the Loss of Those Whose Eternities Were Uncertain by Will Dobbie (96 pages)

35. Where the Light Fell: A Memoir by Philip Yancy (320 pages)

36. Timothy Keller: His Spiritual and Intellectual Formation by Collin Hansen (320 pages)

37. Just Show Up: How Small Acts of Faithfulness Change Everything (A Guide for Exhausted Christians) by Drew Dyck (192 pages)

38. Abiding Grace: Unmerited Favor for Salvation and Life by Glen Whatley (158 pages)

39. All the Light We Cannot See by Anthony Doerr (531 pages)

40. Diary of a Pastor’s Soul: The Holy Moments in a Life of Ministry by M. Craig Barnes (240 pages)

41. A Call to Contentment: Pursuing Godly Satisfaction in a Restless World by David Kaywood (176 pages)

42. Everything Sad Is Untrue: (a true story) by Daniel Nayeri (368 pages)

43. The Chosen by Chaim Potok (272 pages)

44. The Bible: Isaiah to Malachi, Part 4 of 6 by God (300 pages)

45. Rembrandt Is in the Wind: Learning to Love Art through the Eyes of Faith by Russ Ramsey (272 pages)

46. Creationland (a currently unpublished play) by Stuart Reese (150 pages)

47. Christmas Uncut: What Really Happened and Why It Really Matters by Carl Laferton (80 pages)

48. The Bible: Matthew to Acts, Part 5 of 6 by God (300 pages)

Reading List 2022

My first post of each new year always contains the list of books I read the previous year (2014, 2015, 2016, 2017, 2018, 2019, 2020, and 2021). I post the list for personal accountability, not to showboat. Knowing I have to confess my list helps me stay on track.

The total this year comes to 63 books. You can see from glancing at the graphs below how the tonnage relates to other years. I’ll just give you the punch line, though, so you don’t have to spend time figuring it out. This year I read fewer books—significantly fewer—than any year since 2015. I know, I know, for many readers, finishing more than sixty books in one year would feel epic. And when compared to the general population, it is epic. I’ll explain.   

Around seven or eight years ago I started taking reading (and writing) seriously and set the goal of reading over one hundred books a year. I don’t typically make it, but I often get much closer than I did this year.

There’s not necessarily one reason why my total finished so low. But I could sum up the reasons in the phrase “intentional sacrifice”; I chose to do other things. I have a large family, and as my older children tend to stay up later at night, so do my wife and I, which means I get up less early. I helped coach sports at my children’s school, which means I can’t pad my reading total by hammering audiobooks while I work out. Right there I lost more than a dozen books. Also, life at our church was super full. We had several staff transitions and geared up to plant a church. All good stuff, right? But it meant I rarely read books at work.

The same sentiment about sacrifice applies to my writing. Not only have I not read fewer books in seven years, but I’ve also probably never written less. I used to write forty blog posts and a dozen guest posts each year, while also tinkering, if not finishing, a book project. This year I wrote a mere half dozen blog posts, a half dozen guest posts, and didn’t do much more than tinker with a book.

I love my part-time job as the managing editor for Gospel-Centered Discipleship. I get to edit and oversee the publication of over 150 articles a year, coach staff writers and editors, and work on our book projects. It’s wonderful to get paid to do something I would do as a hobby. But this work garbles up precious free time that I have in the mornings for writing.

But for all the sadness of sacrificing words read and words written, I know I’m making the right decision. Books to read and books to write will still be there, Lord willing, when children are not.

One final comment. In last year’s recap, I noted that I wanted to read the Bible using my English Standard Version Study Bible and that I also wanted to read all the introductions to each book as I went through the Bible. By God’s grace, I did. That added 66 extra days of reading or over two months’ worth of mornings. This meant I had to read an extra chapter or two each day to finish in a year. The sacrifice was a good one. Even as a pastor, I must keep reminding myself of whether Hosea wrote to the northern kingdom of Israel or the southern kingdom of Judah and why that context matters.

If you have a favorite book from the previous year, please let me know in the comments. I’m always looking for great books to read, fiction or non-fiction.

*     *     *

Books Read, 2013–2022

Pages Read, 2013–2022

*     *     *

In order of completion, this year I read . . .

1. Fahrenheit 451 by Ray Bradbury (160 pages)

2. Confessions of a Pastor: Adventures in Dropping the Pose and Getting Real with God by Craig Groeschel (224 pages)

3. Mother Tongue by Bill Bryson (272 pages)

4. The Memoir Project: A Thoroughly Non-Standardized Text for Writing & Life by Marion Roach Smith (128 pages)

5. Love Me Anyway: How God’s Perfect Love Fills Our Deepest Longing by Jared C. Wilson (256 pages)

6. Redeeming Love by Francine Rivers (479 pages)

7. The Bible: Romans to Revelation, Part 6 of 6 by God (300 pages)

8. The Givenness of Things: Essays by Marilynne Robinson (304 pages)

9. Storycraft, Second Edition: The Complete Guide to Writing Narrative Nonfiction (Chicago Guides to Writing, Editing, and Publishing) by Jack Hart (286 pages)

10. The Subversive Copy Editor, Second Edition: Advice from Chicago by Carol Fisher Saller (200 pages)

11. The God of the Garden: Thoughts on Creation, Culture, and the Kingdom by Andrew Peterson (224 pages)

12. Economical Writing, Third Edition: Thirty-Five Rules for Clear and Persuasive Prose by Deirdre Nansen McCloskey (76 pages)

13. A Separate Peace by John Knowles (204 pages)

14. The Shell Collector by Anthony Doerr (256 pages)

15. The Storm-Tossed Family: How the Cross Reshapes the Home by Russell Moore (320 pages)

16. A Shepherd Looks at Psalm 23 by Phillip Keller (176 pages)

17. Wordcraft: The Complete Guide to Clear, Powerful Writing by Jack Hart (282 pages)

18. But the Blood: A Novel Based on the True Story of America’s Bloodiest County Seat Battle by Stephen R. Morefield (209 pages)

19. The Wisdom Pyramid: Feeding Your Soul in a Post-Truth World by Brett McCracken (192 pages)

20. The Kingdom of Christ: The New Evangelical Perspective by Russell Moore (320 pages)

21. The Bible: Genesis to Deuteronomy, Part 1 of 6 by God (300 pages)

22. Style: Toward Clarity and Grace by Joseph M. Williams (226 pages)

23. Surprised by Jesus: Subversive Grace in the Four Gospels by Dane Ortlund (144 pages)

24. The Problem of Pain by C.S. Lewis (176 pages)

25. The Best Punctuation Book, Period: A Comprehensive Guide for Every Writer, Editor, Student, and Businessperson by June Casagrande (256 pages)

26. The Uneasy Conscience of Modern Fundamentalism by Carl F. H. Henry, Foreword by Russell Moore (112 pages)

27. The Death of the Artist: How Creators Are Struggling to Survive in the Age of Billionaires and Big Tech by William Deresiewicz (368 pages)

28. Adopted for Life: The Priority of Adoption for Christian Families & Churches by Russell Moore (256 pages)

29. Anne of Green Gables by L. M. Montgomery (448 pages)

30. Good to Great: Why Some Companies Make the Leap and Others Don’t by Jim Collins (400 pages)

31. Always Longing: Discovering the Joy of Heaven by Stephen R. Morefield (162 pages)

32. The Bible: Joshua to Esther, Part 2 of 6 by God (300 pages)

33. The Liars’ Club: A Memoir by Mary Karr (352 pages)

34. Tempted and Tried: Temptation and the Triumph of Christ by Russell Moore (208 pages)

35. Ecclesiastes and the Search for Meaning in an Upside-Down World by Russell L. Meek (80 pages)

36. The Unwavering Pastor: Leading the Church with Grace in Divisive Times by Jonathan K. Dodson (160 pages)

37. Onward: Engaging the Culture without Losing the Gospel by Russell Moore (240 pages)

38. The Courage to Stand: Facing Your Fear without Losing Your Soul by Russell Moore (304 pages)

39. The Lincoln Highway: A Novel by Amore Towles (592 pages)

40. The Bible: Psalms to Song of Solomon, Part 3 of 6 by God (300 pages)

41. A Long Obedience in the Same Direction: Discipleship in an Instant Society by Eugene Peterson (216 pages)

42. Boundaries Updated and Expanded Edition: When to Say Yes, How to Say No to Take Control of Your Life by Henry Cloud and John Townsend (352 pages)

43. Four Seasons in Rome: On Twins, Insomnia, and the Biggest Funeral in the History of the World by Anthony Doerr (224 pages)

44. All the Light We Cannot See by Anthony Doerr (531 pages)

45. Boundaries for Leaders: Results, Relationships, and Being Ridiculously in Charge by Henry Cloud (272 pages)

46. The Art of Memoir by Mary Karr (256 pages)

47. Seasons of Sorrow: The Pain of Loss and the Comfort of God by Tim Challies (224 pages)

48. The Possibility of Prayer: Finding Stillness with God in a Restless World by John Starke (200 pages)

49. 1984 by George Orwell (328 pages)

50. But the Blood: A Novel Based on the True Story of America’s Bloodiest County Seat Battle (Audiobook) by Stephen R. Morefield (209 pages)

51. The Secret Place of Thunder: Trading Our Need to Be Noticed for a Hidden Life with Christ by John Starke (192 pages)

52. God, Technology, and the Christian Life by Tony Reinke (320 pages)

53. The Bible: Isaiah to Malachi, Part 4 of 6 by God (300 pages)

54. Primed to Plant: Overlooked Requirements of Church Planting by Dwight Bernier (168 pages)

55. Five Smooth Stones for Pastoral Work by Eugene Peterson (251 pages)

56. Everything Sad Is Untrue: (A True Story) by Daniel Nayeri (368 pages)

57. Leading Change by John P. Kotter (208 pages)

58. American Gods: A Novel by Neil Gaiman (560 pages)

59. Memory Wall: Stories by Anthony Doerr (256 pages)

60. About Grace: A Novel by Anthony Doerr (432 pages)

61. Smart Brevity: The Power of Saying More with Less by Jim VandeHei, Mike Allen, and Roy Schwartz (224 pages)

62. The Bible: Matthew to Acts, Part 5 of 6 by God (300 pages)

Well Done, Good and Faithful Dad: A Review of SEASONS OF SORROW by Tim Challies

Many people remember November 3, 2020 as election day of a contentious United States presidential race. I remember the day, of course, but for two other reasons.

November 3, 2020 was the launch day of the book I coauthored with my friend John Beeson about blogging for God’s glory. Months and months before the book launched, we picked November 3 to release the book. And when we picked the date—as you might expect—we neglected to notice it coincided with the Trump-Biden showdown. Unfortunate timing, to say the least. We could have planned better.

The other event, however, we could have never seen coming.

My favorite blogger is Tim Challies. He’s so faithful in his theology, so consistent in his output, and so generous in promoting the work of others. When John and I thought about which author might write the foreword to our book about blogging, we, of course, asked Tim first. Thankfully, we didn’t have to ask anyone else.

But the day we launched our book was also the day Tim’s only son died.

Buy on Amazon

Tim wrote on his blog the following day, “Yesterday the Lord called my son to himself—my dear son, my sweet son, my kind son, my godly son, my only son.” His son Nick had been playing a game with friends and his fiancée on his college campus when he suddenly collapsed and could not be revived. When Tim posted about the tragedy, he added, “And we ask that you remember us in your prayers as we mourn our loss together.”

I wrote my own prayer to God and posted it online, as did many others. I prayed to our Heavenly Father asking, among other requests, that “when a man who loves words—and spends his life using them for your glory and the good of your people—has nothing to say, whisper to his heart that you are still God and you love him and his wife.”

It’s been two years since that season. Joe Biden is still President, our book is still on Amazon, and Tim’s son is still gone.

But these years have not gone by without effort from Tim to capture the story of his loss and the ways God has remained faithful. Those reflections, many of which have never been shared in public before, became his latest book Seasons of Sorrow. The book chronicles his reflections over the first year of grief. When I finished reading the book, I emailed Tim to tell him that, for so many reasons, this book is the best writing I’ve ever read from him. Here are two main reasons I love the book.

Seasons of Sorrow puts the pain of loss on the page. I’m a sucker for stories about fathers and sons. Cormac McCarthy’s novel The Road and Harry Chapin’s song “The Cat’s in the Cradle” make me melancholy like few other stories and songs can.

In Seasons of Sorrow, we see the picture of a father who loves his son. He loves the way I want to love my sons. He always made a point to wake before his family to pray for them so they would know that, before they woke, their father was praying for them. Tim would make his son coffee before his son went to work. Even now, he writes about occasionally bringing a cup to the gravesite.

All this love makes all the loss so hard and leads to excruciating moments of introspection. In one reflection, Tim asks a question that anyone of us might ask were we in his place, namely, whether the tragedy came from God as punishment for some sin in his life. “Could it be,” he asks, “that Nick’s death is God’s discipline toward me? Could it be that Nick was some kind of idol in my life, and to loose my grip on him, God took him away? Could this all be my fault?” Then he adds, “I’m haunted by these thoughts and questions” (33). As any good and godly father might be. In another passage, Tim wrestles with the emotions involved with emptying his son’s bedroom to prepare it for future use as a guest bedroom. “What right do we have,” he asks, “to barge in and sort through his possessions? Who are we to decide what will be kept and what will be discarded, what will be treasured and what will be thrown away? Yet it must be done” (102). Some nine months after Nick’s death, Tim wrote, “I miss my son today. That goes without saying, I suppose, since I miss him every day. But on this day, the pain is particularly sharp, the ache especially deep” (170). Here, Tim normalizes for readers what I’ve heard others say: there will be good days and bad days.

In all these ways, Tim does not shrink back from putting his pain on the page, telling readers his many frustrations with what William Cooper called God’s “frowning providences.” But that is not all he does.

Seasons of Sorrow points us to both the comfort of God’s promises and the comfort of God’s people. In a reflection he titled “My Manifesto,” Tim affirms his resolve to follow God and trust him despite the pain of loss. “By faith I will accept Nick’s death as God’s will, and by faith accept that God’s will is always good. . . . I will be forever thankful that God gave me a son and never resentful that he called him home. My joy in having him will be greater than my grief in having lost him” (36). Many such things he says. In the concluding paragraph of the chapter, Tim poetically strings together scriptural promise after promise after promise, affirming his belief in them with the concluding words, “This is my manifesto” (37).

In a chapter titled “I Fear God and I’m Afraid of God,” readers will notice overlap with themes from the book of Job. Tim writes of fearing God “in a new way” and of how “some kind of innocence has been shattered.” And still, he affirms his desire to continue praying, “Thy will be done,” while also noting, “even as I pray, I cringe just a little” (45). As Job came to learn, there is an unexpected comfort that comes to us when we remember that the God who is who he is, is who he is—he’s not a small, tribal deity, but sovereign and good, awesome and kind. There’s an unexpected comfort in having our innocence shattered and our foundation rebuilt.

In these ways and others, Seasons of Sorrow pastors and comforts those who grieve by sharing the ways God sent people to pastor and comfort him. In one section, Tim mentions to a friend he’s concerned his own eagerness to see his son one day in heaven has overshadowed the hope of seeing Jesus in heaven. To this, Tim’s friend tells him he does not sound like a pagan. “You sound like a grieving father” he says (122). That’s good pastoring.

Near the end of the book Tim notes the sadness that Nick “was the last male in the Challies line” and that now even the Challies “surname will in the course of time disappear” (183). But to this, Tim also encourages readers by sharing the truth he encourages himself with, writing that “Nick doesn’t need to be remembered by other people, because he will never be forgotten by God” (185). Amen and amen.

*     *     *

In the opening pages, Tim writes, “Writing is how I reflect, how I meditate, how I chart life’s every journey. And so when the sorrow was still new in my heart, when the tears were still fresh in my eyes, when I barely knew up from down and here from there, I began to write” (xiv). He goes on to say that he had to write because writing teaches him what he actually believes and what he should seek to believe. “I had to know,” he says, “whether to rage or to worship, whether to run to bow down, whether to give up or to go on.” Painful as the prose was for him, I am thankful he went on, bowed down, and worshiped.

For all these reasons, the subtitle could not fit more perfectly: the pain of loss and the comfort of God. It seems to me that not only has Tim been a good and faithful dad (the hope he writes about in the final chapter), but Tim has been a good and faithful author. In the coming years I expect I’ll buy more copies to give to those in our church going through their own seasons of sorrow.

* Photo by Jonah Pettrich on Unsplash

What Does “Vanity of Vanities” Mean? A Review of a New Book on Ecclesiastes

The author of the Old Testament book of Ecclesiastes makes some pretty wild statements. He asks rhetorically, “What happens to the fool will happen to me also. Why then have I been so very wise?” implying wisdom benefits nothing.  

In another place, he says, “Man has no advantage over the beasts, for all is vanity.” Later in the book, he writes, “Be not overly righteous . . . . Be not overly wicked” (Eccles. 2:15; 3:19; 7:17–18). Wait—what?

When we consider the biblical story and the good news of God redeeming all of creation through the person of Jesus, perhaps the wildest statement of all could be the opening statement of the book: “Vanity of vanities, says the Preacher, vanity of vanities! All is vanity” (Eccles. 1:2).

How could anything be vanity—or meaningless—if God is redeeming all things?

I don’t actually believe these statements from the book, when rightly understood in their context, are as wild as they seem at first blush. As there is a season for everything, so there is a context for everything—especially when interpreting passages from the Bible.

But what context helps us make sense of Ecclesiastes? How should a Christian benefit from a book that can seem so full of cynicism in one place (6:1–6) and hedonism in another (2:10)?

Back in April of this year, Russell Meek, a friend of mine, released a book to help Christians understand Ecclesiastes. Dr. Meek teaches Old Testament and specializes in Ecclesiastes. His new book is called Ecclesiastes and the Search for Meaning in an Upside-Down World.

Buy on Amazon

The big questions about the meaning of life and the many other questions addressed by Ecclesiastes have never been theoretical for Meek. He writes in the preface of his struggles with substance abuse and later in the book about his troubled childhood and lousy relationship with his father. “I started using drugs when I was around twelve years old, just after grandmother died,” he writes on the opening page, adding, “and that way of facing life stayed with me for a long, long time.”

Later in life, while getting a master’s degree, a mentor helped Meek see Ecclesiastes in a new light. “I started to study Ecclesiastes because I thought I had found in it a kindred spirit who, like me, had thrown up his hands and given up on faith and life and, who had accepted the meaninglessness of these on planet Earth.” Instead, Meek found in the book a “path through life that doesn’t involve the bottom of a pill bottle.”

Meek’s book is a short book, less than one hundred pages. In the first chapter, Meek explores the overlap of words used in Ecclesiastes with other books in the Bible, especially the overlap with the book of Genesis. In the second chapter, Meek argues that the author of Ecclesiastes wants readers to understand the Hebrew word for vanity (hebel) in the context of the Genesis story of Cain and Abel. The word hebel, by the way, being the same word for the name Abel (Hebel in Hebrew). In the third and final chapter, he explores the ending of Ecclesiastes and the emphasis on fearing God and enjoying his gifts.

To be fair, I think Meek’s book is a peculiar, even odd, mashup of a powerful, personal memoir and a technical commentary. He writes about losing his father, the sins of racism, and substance abuse; he also writes about Hebrew words most of us don’t know and essays in theological journals we’ve never read. I told Russ I felt this way when I read an early copy of the book a year and a half ago. However, I don’t really mind the genre blend. In fact, I like it. I was helped by both aspects of the book—his personal testimony and the technical commentary—to better understand what God has for his people in the book of Ecclesiastes. In some ways, Meek’s book has parity with the mashup of Ecclesiastes itself: personal reflections interspersed with philosophical reflections.

Our church is considering preaching through Ecclesiastes next year during Lent. Rereading Meek’s book this summer certainly got me more excited (not less) to preach Ecclesiastes to our people and apply God’s wisdom to our lives. Ecclesiastes exalts the words “given by one Shepherd,” meaning the words given by God, and warns readers to “beware of anything beyond these” (12:12–13). While we should prioritize God’s Word above all other words, I believe Russ’s book about Ecclesiastes will increase your desire to do just that, to “fear God and keep his commandments, for,” as Ecclesiastes concludes, “this is the whole duty of man” (12:13).

* Photo by Daoudi Aissa on Unsplash

Reading List 2020

My first post of each new year always contains the list of books I read the previous year (2014, 2015, 2016, 2017, 2018, and 2019). I do it for personal accountability, not to showboat; knowing I have to post my list helps me stay on track.

My reading intake increased this year from last year, while my writing output decreased a bit. And that was fine with me, even intentional. I read 92 books and over 24,000 pages.

In an unexpected highlight, a new reader to my blog scoured my list of books from past years and noticed something: no books by pastor John MacArthur. This was not intentional. It just sort of happened, or sorta did not happen as it were. So my new friend made use of the rarely used “donate” button buried on my About page and gave me $100 to buy some books. Among the new books, I grabbed two recent ones by MacArthur, including a complete commentary on the Bible, which I now consult each time I prepare a sermon. Why can’t y’all be more like this guy?

You’ll see on the list Atlas Shrugged by Ayn Rand, a beast of a novel. Amazon tells me the book is 1,168 pages! I assume that’s right. I listened to the audiobook, which I had to rent from the library three separate times to finish because the audiobook is sixty-three hours long! And get this—each time I rented the book, I had to go back on the waitlist for three or four months. Yet, despite the long gaps between rentals, each time I reengage the plot, the book still felt surprisingly fresh, which I assume is a testament to the quality of the book and the magnetic pull of the characters.

I didn’t love every aspect of Atlas Shrugged, though. Just to name a few frustrations, the multiple love interests toward Dagny (and her reciprocation) annoyed me; the stark black-and-white, good-and-evil contrast of most characters felt unrealistic; and the final soliloquy by the mysterious John Gault is more becoming to a non-fiction book. Still, the book seemed to me, dare I say it, contemporary and relevant.

One other goofy detail about Atlas Shrugged. Later in the year I also listened to the audiobook of The Ragamuffin Gospel by Brendan Manning, which was read by the same popular voice actor, Scott Brick. The commonality of the reader, coupled with such diametrically opposed themes—“salvation by man’s hard work” vs. “salvation by God’s grace”—made for a viscerally jarring listening experience. I kept mumbling to myself, “This is so strange,” but no one was sharing earbuds with me to commiserate.

I’m not sure how closely anyone looks at my lists, but you’ll notice that Analog Church appears on the list three times. That’s not a mistake. I did actually read it three times. I read the book twice as I prepared a book review for 9Marks. I believe a reviewer should truly understand a book before commenting on it publicly. But 9Marks requested I make some overhauls to the first draft of my review, so I reread the book again before resubmitting. The time commitment was not ideal, but sometimes that’s how a writing project goes. Getting it right counts more than getting it published.

I enjoyed my first book of the year far more than I expected, the autobiography Open by Andre Agassi. At a pastor’s conference in 2019 I heard James K.A. Smith mention the book in an offhand comment, commending it as one of the best memoirs of all time (or something like that). Smith’s recommendation didn’t disappoint. It’s hard for me to fathom the level of transparency Agassi has with his readers. Open really is a fitting title.

I also enjoyed two Crossway books by two female authors: Jen Oshman’s Enough About Me and Glenna Marshall’s Everyday Faithfulness. In the category of Christian ministry, I thought Gospel-Driven Church (Crossway, 2019) was classic Jared C. Wilson: thoughtful and punchy, winsome and gospel-y. The sequel comes out this year in March, which I’m looking forward to reading.

This year I reread two books about writing, as well as a half-dozen new ones. Both Stephen King’s On Writing and William Zinsser’s On Writing Well taught me more the second time around than the first. Andrew Peterson’s Adorning the Dark was a new read, but it will certainly be a book to reread in the coming years. Kudos to Peterson and B&H for publishing the book without a single endorsement. It didn’t need them. Would that we all had such confidence in our work. This fall I also began reading the words of Flannery O’Connor (five books) and words written about her (one book completed and another in the works). I expect this Flannery fascination to continue next year and maybe longer.

My favorite book of the year, outside of the Bible, was once again my beloved World War II novel All the Light We Cannot See by Anthony Doerr. If Doerr and I were stranded on the proverbial desert island with Marie-Laure Werner, Volkheimer, Reinhold von Rumpel, and a makeshift radio, we wouldn’t get bored. Each year when I begin the book afresh, the immediacy of the present tense verbs in the opening lines (and throughout the book) take me to a happy place: “At dusk they pour from the sky. They blow across the ramparts, turn cartwheels over rooftops, flutter into the ravines between houses. Entire streets swirl with them, flashing white against the cobbles. Urgent message to the inhabitants of this town, they say. Depart immediately to open country.” (Pour, not poured. Blow, not blew. Turn, not turned. Flutter, not fluttered. Swirl, not swirled. And so on for 450 lovely pages.)

Before turning you loose on the list, let me add just a few housekeeping notes. Yes, I “count” reading my own books but only once for every ten times I read them; it really does take forever to write a book. In fact, I just finished recording the audiobook for Blogging for God’s Glory in a Clickbait World. Look for that to release in the late winter.

Speaking of audiobooks, I read twenty-five audiobooks this year, which helps pad the numbers and lets me shoehorn extra books into my life—especially novels, which I often listen to as I exercise. Next, just as some people write in their Twitter bios about their retweets, I’ll say that reading a book does not equal endorsement of a book. For example, this fall I listened to The Subtle Art of . . .  What can I say? I was in the mood to see what all the fuss was about. Finally, as I’ve pointed out in other years, I count reading the Bible as six normal-sized books rather than one massive book; breaking it up helps me keep pace from year to year.

Let me know in the comments your favorite book from last year, and if we overlapped at all in our reading, especially in the unlikely event you listened to Atlas Shrugged and The Ragamuffin Gospel in that order. So strange.

Books Read, 2013–2020

Pages Read, 2013–2020

*   *   *

1. Open: An Autobiography by Andre Agassi (400 pages)

2. Gospel-Driven Church: Uniting Church Growth Dreams with the Metrics of Grace by Jared C. Wilson (240 pages)

3. The Gospel According to Satan: Eight Lies about God that Sound Like the Truth by Jared C. Wilson (224 pages)

4. Liturgy of the Ordinary: Sacred Practices in Everyday Life by Tish Harrison Warren (184 pages)

5. Competing Spectacles: Treasuring Christ in the Media Age by Tony Reinke (160 pages)

6. The Bible: Romans to Revelation, Part 6 of 6 by God (300 pages)

7. Leading with Love by Alexander Strauch (208 pages)

8. Tracing the Thread: Examining the Story of Self for Lasting Change by Christy Rood (210 pages)

9. Dark Clouds, Deep Mercy: Discovering the Grace of Lament by Mark Vroegop (224 pages)

10. Proverbs: A 12-Week Study by Lynda Brownback (96 pages)

11. The Abiding Cycle: Knowing God by Experience through Obedience by Glen Whatley (140 pages)

12. All the Light We Cannot See by Anthony Doerr (544 pages)

13. The Good Earth by Pearl S. Buck (368 pages)

14. Living & Active Vol. 1: Scripture Through the Lives of Luther, Calvin, And Knox by Stephen R. Morefield (105 pages)

15. The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe by C. S. Lewis (176 pages)

16. Epic: An Around-the-World Journey through Christian History by Tim Challies (176 pages)

17. Learn how to become a blogger: An EASY step by step guide to starting your own blog by Matthew Arnold (118 pages)

18. Make Money from Blogging: How to Start A Blog While Raising A Family (Make Money from Home) by Sally Miller (123 pages)

19. God’s Passion for His Glory: Living the Vision of Jonathan Edwards (With the Complete Text of The End for Which God Created the World) by John Piper and Jonathan Edwards (272 pages)

20. The United States v. You: A Practical Guide to the Court-Martial Process for Military Members and their Families by R. Davis Younts (113 pages)

21. Platform: Get Noticed in a Noisy World by Michael Hyatt (288 pages)

22. Enough about Me: Find Lasting Joy in the Age of Self by Jen Oshman (176 pages)

23. The Bible: Genesis to Deuteronomy, Part 1 of 6 by God (300 pages)

24. Blogging for Dummies by Amy Lupold Bair (432 pages)

25. How to Blog for Profit: Without Selling Your Soul by Ruth Soukup (229 pages)

26. Influence: Building a Platform that Elevates Jesus (Not Me) by Kate Motaung and Shannon Popkin (168 pages)

27. Coronavirus and Christ by John Piper (112 pages)

28. The Last Battle by C. S. Lewis (176 pages)

29. Trade Craft, issues about blogging (6 issues) by Various (200 pages)

30. The Ten Commandments: What They Mean, Why They Matter, and Why We Should Obey Them by Kevin DeYoung (208 pages)

31. Pilgrim at Tinker Creek by Annie Dillard (304 pages)

32. The Commonwealth v. You: A practical guide to the Pennsylvania Criminal Justice System for those facing charges by R. Davis Younts (121 pages)

33. Jesus Driven Ministry by Ajith Fernando (256 pages)

34. The Writing Life by Annie Dillard (124 pages)

35. Tons of blog posts about blogging by Various (350 pages)

36. The Lord’s Prayer by R.C. Sproul (129 pages)

37. The Lord’s Prayer by Thomas Watson (332 pages)

38. Extreme Ownership (How U.S. Navy SEALs Lead and Win) by Jocko Willink (384 pages)

39. Adorning the Dark: Thoughts on Community, Calling, and the Mystery of Making by Andrew Peterson (224 pages)

40. 12 Rules for Life: An Antidote to Chaos by Jordan B. Peterson (409 pages)

41. The Bible: Joshua to Esther, Part 2 of 6 by God (300 pages)

42. On Writing (A Memoir of the Craft (Reissue)) by Stephen King (320 pages)

43. Everyday Faithfulness: The Beauty of Ordinary Perseverance in a Demanding World (The Gospel Coalition) by Glenna Marshall (176 pages)

44. A Solider of the Great War by Mark Helprin (880 pages)

45. Atlas Shrugged by Ayn Rand (1,168 pages)

46. Blogging for God’s Glory in a Clickbait World by Benjamin Vrbicek and John Beeson (181 pages)

47. Placed for a Purpose: A Simple and Sustainable Vision for Loving Your Next-Door Neighbors by Chris McKinney and Elizabeth McKinney (143 pages)

48. The Thirteenth Tale: A Novel by Diane Setterfield (432 pages)

49. Analog Church: Why We Need Real People, Places, and Things in the Digital Age by Jay Y. Kim (216 pages)

50. Stand Firm: Living in a Post-Christian Culture by John MacArthur (152 pages)

51. Lord of the Flies by William Golding (224 pages)

52. Analog Church: Why We Need Real People, Places, and Things in the Digital Age by Jay Y. Kim (216 pages)

53. Beartown: A Novel by Fredrik Backman (432 pages)

54. The Bible: Psalms to Song of Solomon, Part 3 of 6 by God (300 pages)

55. Analog Church: Why We Need Real People, Places, and Things in the Digital Age by Jay Y. Kim (216 pages)

56. World-Class Assistant: Hiring, Training and Leveraging an Executive Assistant by Michael Hyatt (176 pages)

57. The Truth about Us: The Very Good News about How Very Bad We Are by Brant Hansen (208 pages)

58. On Writing Well, 30th Anniversary Edition: The Classic Guide to Writing Nonfiction by William Zinsser (336 pages)

59. Educated: A Memoir by Tara Westover (352 pages)

60. You’re a Miracle (and a Pain in the Ass): Embracing the Emotions, Habits, and Mystery That Make You You by Mike McHargue (240 pages)

61. Finding God in the Waves: How I Lost My Faith and Found It Again Through Science by Mike McHargue (304 pages)

62. Gentle and Lowly: The Heart of Christ for Sinners and Sufferers by Dane C. Ortlund (224 pages)

63. The Ten Commandments of Progressive Christianity (Cruciform Quick) by Michael J. Kruger (58 pages)

64. Christianity and Liberalism by J. Gresham Machen (176 pages)

65. The Subtle Art of Not… : A Counterintuitive Approach to Living a Good Life by Mark Manson (224 pages)

66. When People Are Big and God is Small: Overcoming Peer Pressure, Codependency, and the Fear of Man by Edward T. Welch (252 pages)

67. Where the Crawdads Sing by Delia Owens (384 pages)

68. How the Nations Rage: Rethinking Faith and Politics in a Divided Age by Jonathan Leeman (272 pages)

69. Dear Edward: A Novel by Ann Napolitano (352 pages)

70. Free to Focus: A Total Productivity System to Achieve More by Doing Less by Michael Hyatt (256 pages)

71. Blogging for God’s Glory in a Clickbait World by Benjamin Vrbicek and John Beeson (181 pages)

72. 12 Ways Your Phone Is Changing by Tony Reinke (224 pages)

73. Writing for Life and Ministry: A Practical Guide to the Writing Process for Teachers and Preachers by Brandon J. O’Brien (128 pages)

74. The Terrible Speed of Mercy: A Spiritual Biography of Flannery O’Connor by Jonathan Rogers (208 pages)

75. The Ragamuffin Gospel: Good News for the Bedraggled, Beat-Up, and Burnt Out by Brennan Manning (272 pages)

76. The Bible: Isaiah to Malachi, Part 4 of 6 by God (300 pages)

77. A Little Book for New Preachers: Why and How to Study Homiletics by Matthew D. Kim (128 pages)

78. Essays of EB White by E. B. White (380 pages)

79. Missions by the Book: How Theology and Missions Walk Together (Yet Unpublished) by Chad Vegas and Alex Kocman (224 pages)

80. The Song of Solomon: An Invitation to Intimacy by Douglas Sean O’Donnell (192 pages)

81. The Book Woman of Troublesome Creek: A Novel by Kim Michele Richardson (322 pages)

82. Mystery and Manners: Occasional Prose by Flannery O’Connor (256 pages)

83. Wise Blood: A Novel by Flannery O’Connor (256 pages)

84. God Is the Gospel: Meditations on God’s Love as the Gift of Himself by John Piper (192 pages)

85. The Gospel: How the Church Portrays the Beauty of Christ by Raymond C. Ortlund Jr. (144 pages)

86. The Violent Bear It Away by Flannery O’Connor (256 pages)

87. A Good Man Is Hard to Find by Flannery O’Connor (288 pages)

88. The Copyeditor’s Handbook: A Guide for Book Publishing and Corporate Communications by Amy Einsohn (200 pages)

89. The Subversive Copy Editor, Second Edition: Advice from Chicago (or, How to Negotiate Good Relationships with Your Writers, Your Colleagues, and Yourself) by Carol Fisher Saller (576 pages)

90. The Bible: Matthew to Acts, Part 5 of 6 by God (300 pages)

91. Bark of the Bog Owl by Jonathan Rogers (248 pages)

92. Everything that Rises Must Converge by Flannery O’Connor (288 pages)

Where Does Long-Term, Faithful and Joyful Ministry Come From?

Pastors and churches go through seasons; times of prosperity and abundance, and times of scarcity and decline.

In many ways, even surprising ways, throughout the Covid19 lockdown and financial upheaval, our church did far more than limp along; we continued our work with enthusiasm. But for me personally—as the lead pastor of our church—the spring of 2020 was more of a long spiritual winter. The cooler spiritual temperature began a year ago when a key staff member moved away. When he left, I strapped my boots on tighter and went to work harder than before. I read Fernando’s book in the midst of the spiritual dryness—the frenetic activity at church had worn my soul thin. Jesus Driven Ministry came at just the right moment.

Jesus Driven Ministry focuses on aspects of ministry that featured prominently in the ministry of Jesus during his earthly life. The chapters cover topics you would expect such as prayer, the Word of God, and discipling young leaders. But Fernando also covers overlooked though important aspects of ministry, such as having a sense of God’s joyful affirmation, visiting homes, resting from ministry, and ministering to the sick and demon-possessed.

The Blessing of Perspective

Western readers will find Fernando’s work a helpful exploration of biblically principled ministry in an international setting. His work often references ministry challenges that westerners have rarely faced. For example, Fernando is familiar with war and hardship in a way I am not. In many places in the book he alludes to a civil war in Sri Lanka that existed in the background and sometimes the foreground of his ministry. “As part of their strategy,” he writes, “militants often come to the south where I live and plant bombs in strategic places” (25). He explains how these challenges created unique ministry challenges and opportunities. The war was so bad in 1989, he notes, that “there was never a time when a body was not floating in the river at the edge of our city” (96). Fernando ministered to people who saw human carnage almost daily.

Buy on Amazon

In another place, Fernando notes that because his organization does not pay bribes, some initiatives they wanted to accomplish never materialized (26). I’m currently overseeing a renovation project at our church, but I’ve never had to wrestle with the temptation of paying a building inspector to make a certain problem go away.

Perspectives from church leaders in international settings can challenge, correct, and encourage our own ministries. Of course, simply reading books by fellow pastors outside the US isn’t the same as pastoring in a foreign city but books like Jesus Driven Ministry can help us sift true Christianity from cultural attachments and help us discern between what is wheat and what is chaff.

The Blessing of Transparency

Fernando’s transparency on the difficulties of Christian ministry are also encouraging. In ways that didn’t come across as self-serving, the book was a show and tell of ministry scars. As the Apostle Paul could write of bearing on his body the marks of Jesus (Gal. 6:17), so Fernando showed how he bears the marks of Christian ministry on his soul. These struggles often led him to consider quitting. “This is why in my twenty-six years as director of Youth for Christ in Sri Lanka, there have been many times when I have wished to resign from my job. A few times I even wrote a draft of a letter of resignation” (67).

Further, Fernando deftly analyzes how anger can build up over the course of a ministry: “When I turned fifty, I made a list of the biggest battles I face in my life and ministry. High up on that list was the battle with anger over the way people have treated me. One of the saddest sights in the church today is that of Christian workers who are angry—angry over the way they have been hurt by others, by circumstances, and sometimes, they feel, even by God” (111). Anger, like rust on the chassis of a car, can build up over the course of a ministry. It weakens our effectiveness and threatens our fidelity to the gospel. Fernando’s record of his struggles in ministry reminded me I’m not alone. His remedies for discouragement and anger are soul-stirring and worth considering if you’re a discouraged pastor.

The Building Blocks for Ministry for the Long-Haul

Ultimately, Jesus Driven Ministry considers what propelled Jesus into ministry and what sustained him in it—and how those same things should sustain us. This emphasis on longevity comes through in Fernando’s prayer for his book, namely, that men and women “commit themselves afresh to those vital basics of ministry that make for long-term ministry that is both fruitful and joyful” (16).

* This originally appeared at 9Marks.org

** Photo by Shavin Peiries on Unsplash

Real People in Real Places to Hold Real Hands and Wipe Real Tears

Stephen has come to church six times in six years. Surprisingly, he showed up again last week, even though COVID has forced our church into outdoor meetings under a 90-degree sun. Even with online options, Stephen showed up to stand six feet apart from others and to introduce me to his girlfriend. With a sober but deeply thankful smile he said, “This is Pastor Benjamin; he came to our house the day after Mom died.”

That event was five years ago, but he remembers that I came; I suspect he always will.

At significant moments—either those of great joy or great sorrow—we need real people in real places to hold real hands and wipe real tears and give real hugs. As churches across the country wrestle with the best ways to foster fellowship when our gatherings are inhibited, Jay Kim’s book Analog Church shows us the importance of gathering to the Christian life.

Technology and the Church

Analog Church has three parts: worship, community, and Scripture. In each section, Kim explores both the advantages and limitations of technology. Throughout, Kim argues that God requires embodied realities as part of the essence of the church—or as the subtitle says, real people, places, and things. To use an example, a person might find someone to date using an online app, and the app might even be used to arrange the date. But you can’t date online; you have to go somewhere and buy a meal or hike a trail or play golf. As Kim notes, technology can help us communicate but not commune. Communion requires more than fast Wi-Fi; it requires flesh and blood.

Buy on Amazon

Advancements in technology claim to improve three main areas of humanity: speed, choices, and individualism. In other words, technology offers us whatever we might want and gives it to us quickly. But, Kim argues, we need to recognize that following Christ requires a wholly different set of values: “discipleship requires patience, depth, and community—the very things that stand in contradiction to the values of the digital age” (26).

In the chapters on worship, Kim talks about how stage and sanctuary lighting technology can lead to a culture of performance, not participation. “Rather than accentuating the lyrics we’re being invited to sing together, these image backgrounds often become mesmerizing shows accentuating a musical performance, and we end up watching rather than participating” (44).

In the chapters on community, Kim notes that the Greek word we often translate as church, ekklēsia, means gathering. He also notes that all of Scripture’s one-another commands require physical proximity; they require ekklēsia or “gathering.” He writes, “All these [one anothers] are difficult at best, and impossible at worst, to do online. These practices of the church, the gathered community of God’s people, require physical presence” (100).

Finally, in the chapters on Scripture, Kim doesn’t so much critique reading the Bible from a screen per se, but the social media trend to pull warm, comforting verses from their context and overlay them on appealing backgrounds. Practices like these, over time, tend to convey that Scripture exists to comfort God’s people but never confront them. To counter this trend of decontextualizing Scripture, he encourages pastors to preach sermons based on longer passages of Scripture, even grounding a topical sermon series on something like marriage or evangelism in a series through one book of the Bible.

With regard to preaching, Kim continues to stress the importance of the physical presence of the preacher with his congregation, as opposed to live-streaming a preacher from a different campus. “Preaching,” he writes, “is a participatory act involving both the communicator and the community, in the moment, not simply after the fact. . . . [It is] an act that must be witnessed rather than simply watched. Participation in the transformation process begins at the moment of the sermon delivery” (67–68, emphasis original).

A Needed Admonition for Our Technologically-Obsessed Age

The shockwaves of the technological innovation explosion that has occurred in the last century ultimately reaches every church and pastor. When we were remodeling our church building three years ago, the contractor simply couldn’t understand my hesitations about including too much technology as part of the remodeling effort.

“If you pick that small of a screen for your sanctuary,” the contractor told me, “the size will be all wrong when you show videos.”

“We generally don’t show videos on Sunday,” I said.

Then we talked about how our new slide system works. The contractor told me to make sure I keep our church logo on the screen when we transition between slides. “Why would we do that?” I asked. “Can’t we leave the screens black between slides? And for that matter, can’t we keep the screens clear as often as possible?”

He responded, “In my context, you never miss an opportunity to market.”

“But,” I said, “people are already in our church building. Why do I need to remind them of our logo?”

So the conversation went for several minutes, each of us remaining equally mystifying to the other.

Screens, of course, aren’t sinful. But the larger point is that many churches pursue relevance to the neglect of faithfulness, and technology has become a significant domain where that flaw flashes in bright lights. I appreciate that Kim, writing as a pastor in Silicon Valley, perhaps the technology capital of the world, chose to write in a tone that attempts to win over churches and pastors to a better, more biblical way. For example, he writes,

[I]n addition to the harm it’s done to our churches, the unchecked effects of the digital age on the worshiping life of the church are doing damage to the very men and women charged with serving and leading the church into the future. They are doing damage to you—tapping into the insecurities, uncertainties, and performance-driven tendencies in the worst possible ways (51).

Kim’s illustrations indicate his familiarity with the struggles technology brings church leaders. He was once told to make sure he regularly looked into the camera as he preached so the other campuses would feel connected to him. “The thought of looking into a camera,” he writes, “to ‘connect’ with people who would be gathering on another day in another room on the other side of the city struck me as an exercise in missing the point” (47). I assume many in his book’s target audience have pondered the same thing, if not out loud in a staff meeting, at least in their inner dialogue.

A few aspects of the book were a bit theologically concerning. For example, Kim hints toward a more egalitarian perspective on ministry. Also, for those who already agree with Kim’s central thesis, the book might not give as much application as you may like. Even so, I was helped as I read the book. Each time I pick up my iPhone to refresh my email, I think about the nefarious connection Kim describes between the technology that drives casino slot machines and the apps on our phones (133–37).

Analog Church is a marvelously timed book in light of the fact that in a COVID world many people are suddenly wondering, “is virtual church enough?” Kim compellingly argues it is not. I’m hopeful many will take to heart its fundamental arguments as our churches begin to regather in the coming weeks and months.

* This originally appeared at 9Marks.org.

** Photo by Andreas Kruck on Unsplash

EVERYDAY FAITHFULNESS by Glenna Marshall (FAN AND FLAME Book Reviews)

Glenna Marshal, Everyday Faithfulness: The Beauty of Ordinary Perseverance in a Demanding World. Wheaton: Crossway, 2020. 176 pages.

Last summer I killed one of the fruit trees in our backyard orchard—not on purpose, of course. I sprayed the Japanese Beetles who munched our harvest and suspect I mixed the concentration of chemicals too high. One particular nectarine tree couldn’t handle it. I had hoped for a resurrection this year, but after the tree lost its leaves in the fall, they never grew back. Now, it’s just a naked trunk and twigs. Like everything in 2020, the damage to the orchard hit harder; a late frost killed the buds on five of the seven remaining trees. Moral of the story: growing food ain’t easy.

Glenna Marshall’s new book, Everyday Faithfulness: The Beauty of Ordinary Perseverance in a Demanding World, opens with a different but similar story, the story of a struggling gardener tending a struggling garden. Marshall confesses, “I hated the heat, the bugs, and the incessant need for weeding . . . the weeks of waiting for plants to break through the earth, grow, blossom, and then turn out vegetables.” Then she asks, “I mean, I could just drive to the grocery store and buy some tomatoes, right?” (p. 11–12).

Maybe you can relate to floundering orchards and gardens. I know I’m sympathetic to her question; it would be so much easier to buy fruit and veggies from a store.

Buy on Amazon

Worth noting, however, is the way the writers of the New Testament consistently use the difficult work of farming as a metaphor for Christian spiritual growth, not in spite of the difficulties but because of them. Yes, in today’s world, we have the option to buy tomatoes and nectarines from a store, but we still can’t buy prepackaged Christian maturity. Growth in Christlikeness can’t be outsourced. But the New Testament also reminds us faithful farming reaps a reward (Galatians 6:9).

Everyday Faithfulness is Marshall’s second book. She’s a writer and pastor’s wife in Missouri, and blogs regularly. The book has an introduction and nine chapters exploring what faithfulness and perseverance look like, for example, when life is busy, we doubt God’s promises, and our hearts are cold (chapters 3, 5, and 7). Although Marshall wrote the book primarily for women, I found the book relatable, challenging, and encouraging, especially the chapter on waiting. I appreciated her repeated, simple threefold challenge to pursue God through his word, prayer, and the local church (cf. David Mathis’s book Habits of Grace). Each chapter ends with a short biographical sketch of one of Marshall’s friends who exemplifies the theme of the chapter. I thought these were a nice touch, although a few seemed too short to show the faithfulness lived out, as though we had to take Marshall’s word for it.

Throughout the book, Marshall does not hide her own struggles to follow God in daily faithfulness, whether the struggle to get up early to spend time in God’s word or to occasionally turn off Netflix at night. In one place, as she critiques the desires we all have for low-effort-but-high-yield Christianity, she writes, “I didn’t want to put down slow-growing roots; I wanted to be a chia pet” (p. 41). During one difficult season in life, she tells readers, “I didn’t pick up my Bible for months” (p. 51).

While being honest about the difficulties of daily faithfulness, the book still issues a strong call to follow the Lord, even when life is hard—perhaps especially when life is hard. In this way Everyday Faithfulness shares a similar emphasis with Kevin DeYoung’s book The Hole in our Holiness, showing that the grace of God is not just for past sins; God’s grace also produces daily perseverance. “His yoke is lighter and easier than legalistic rules and false religion,” Marshall writes, “but it doesn’t allow us to roam free from all connection to him. His yoke tethers us to him and pulls us in the direction he leads us” (p. 54). And holding fast to God teaches us the wonderful truth that God “is holding fast to us” (p. 98).

The encouragement to everyday faithfulness reminds me of the line from author Annie Dillard that how we spend our days is how we spend our lives. Marshall asks, “If we’re not holding on to him now, how can we be sure we’ll be holding on to him later?” (p. 52). In other words, if we want a life of faithfulness, then we must spend our days in faithfulness. Near the end of the book she writes, “Regular habits of drawing near to Christ today keep us aligned with him tomorrow. And tomorrow’s habits of drawing near to him will keep us near to him the next day” (p. 149). Amen and amen.

If God feels distant or trials abound or you can’t seem to slow down enough to hear his voice—if your Christian life feels like a leafless trunk and twigs—reading Everyday Faithfulness might provide the water, sun, and fertilizer you need to begin bearing fruit again.

* Photo by Timotheus Fröbel on Unsplash

ENOUGH ABOUT ME by Jen Oshman (Fan and Flame Book Reviews)

Jen Oshman, Enough about Me: Finding Lasting Joy in the Age of Self. Wheaton: Crossway, 2020. 176 pages.

Although strange at first, I grew to love it—the whole summer I rarely looked in a mirror.

During college I worked at a Christian sports camp in southern Missouri, and mirrors were not hung around campus except for the one I stood before as I brushed my teeth at the beginning and end of the day. I wouldn’t have realized mirrors are everywhere about our homes and schools and businesses, but you notice the contrast right away when mirrors go missing. You notice how mirrors invite occasional glances to check and recheck your appearance. And I admit all this as a dude, even one who’s wardrobe for a hundred days that summer consisted of an unbroken recycling of five gym shorts and t-shirts. The absence of mirrors, in a small but significant way, gave camp counselors the gift of self-forgetfulness.

Jen Oshman recently published Enough about Me: Finding Lasting Joy in the Age of Self with Crossway. The book doesn’t talk about mirrors and sports camps in southern Missouri, but the book does aim to set us free from our obsession with us, an obsession that steals our deepest joy rather than cultivating it. Jen and her husband Mark served as missionaries in Japan and the Czech Republic and now serve as church planters in Colorado. Oshman is the mother of four daughters, a podcaster, and a regular blogger on her own website, a guest contributor to places like The Gospel Coalition, and a staff-writer for Gospel-Centered Discipleship.

The audience for Enough about Me is primarily women, likely those in their 20s­­–40s who would show up to a women’s Bible study at a church. But the book intentionally aims at accessibility for those new to the faith. For example, Oshman writes near the middle of the book, “If you’ve ever been to church, you’ve likely heard the word gospel” (p. 69), which she then goes on to explain. New and non-Christians will feel at ease with statements like this and the stories of women grappling with what it might mean to follow Jesus and find lasting joy. Throughout the book, she introduces readers to many of evangelicalism’s favorite authors from the past and present, people such as Augustine, C.S. Lewis, Timothy Keller, Jared C. Wilson, Gloria Furman, and Jen Wilkin.

Oshman opens the book with the story of her tears as a young college student. Reaching goals hadn’t provided the comfort and joy she had expected they would. On the floor of her college dorm, she grabbed the Bible she brought to college but had never opened. “Although I believed in God,” she writes, “I didn’t know his word. That night, however, I grabbed it like a lifeline, reaching out for something more, something to help me catch my breath, find peace, and heal me” (pp. 20–21).

I found the final chapter particularly compelling, where she argues that a sub-Christian life is a life with a “safe, small god,” and “weak, meager faith” leading us to a “doable, manageable calling.” In short, a small god who beckons small faith who demands small obedience. The chapter made me think of a pointed question I recently heard posed by author and pastor Ray Ortlund. Ortlund asked something like whether Jesus was the glorious miracle worker that he says he is or if he is more of a “chaplain to our status quo”? Ouch. His question popped me in the nose before I had time to put up my guard.

But when we ordain Jesus as the Chaplain of Our Status Quo—or to use the words Oshman uses of a small god calling us to small obedience—our lives shrink and shrivel; they enfold inward until they collapse. The biblical story of redemption, however, tells a different narrative, one that expands our life rather than snuffing it out (p. 164).

Oshman closes the book by returning to where she opened, the story of her on a dormitory floor finding joy in God’s Word and the big God of the Bible calling her to big faith and big obedience. Oshman writes, “God, in his mercy and power, lifted my eyes from myself to him. It was in beholding him, that joy came” (p. 164).

I loved the book so much because, as Oshman tells her story of awakening, she also tells mine. And although the details may be different, if Christ has captured your heart, she’s telling your story too. Jen Wilkin writes in the foreword: “What is more fulfilling than a life spent chasing self-actualization? A life spent giving glory to the God who transcends” (p. 12). Enough about Me helps us embrace this paradoxical truth, the truth that we find life when we lay down our own to follow Jesus.

* Photo by Laura Lefurgey-Smith on Unsplash

EPIC by Tim Challies (FAN AND FLAME Book Reviews)

Tim Challies, Epic: An Around-the-World Journey through Christian History (Grand Rapids, MI: Zondervan, 2020), pp. 176.

The potency of words tends to decrease over time. Take the word “love” for instance. Broad application has cheapened the word. Do we really love our spouse and Netflix? I hope we don’t love each in the same way.

Buy on Amazon

The same degrading has happened to the word “epic.” Can both nachos and Niagara Falls be epic?

As I followed Tim Challies on social media over the last couple of years, I would say that we could legitimately use the word epic to describe his travels. He toured South Korea one week, blogged from his home in Canada the next, interviewed pastors in Africa the following week, and then was back in Canada for church on Sunday. At least that’s what it seemed like, and this adventure went on for months and months. I only casually followed his travel schedule via his Instagram posts, so I didn’t know why he was traveling so much. Now I do. And I’m thankful for all his hard work.

Tim Challies is the author of several books, co-founder of the publishing company Cruciform Press, and an influential Christian blogger. For months he traveled back and forth to every continent except Antarctica for his latest book project Epic: An Around-the-World Journey through Christian History. The book releases today, along with the documentary about his travels.

33 Faith-Building Reminders from Around-the-World

Epic tells the story of the spread of Christianity from the early church to the present day. But the method Challies uses to tell the story is novel. He doesn’t give readers the typical recounting of history through people and places. Instead, by visiting, photographing, and in many cases holding thirty-three different objects from Christian history, Challies narrates the expansion of the gospel. The story begins with a statue of Augustus Caesar and ends with the YouVersion Bible app, that is, the story moves from the world of the Roman Empire to the world wide web.

In seminary I took several graduate-level classes in church history, so I was already familiar with many of the stories told in the book, such as the broad outline of John Calvin’s life or the thousands who flocked to hear George Whitefield’s open-air preaching. But using specific objects to tell these same stories added freshness. Looking at Calvin’s chair—the chair he sat in for hours and hours as he prepared his many sermons, books, and commentaries—or seeing the rock upon which Whitefield stood to preach, somehow made these men more life-sized in a good way, a relatable way.

Challies does not only roll the highlight reel of Christian history; he covers lowlights too. For example, he writes about a Reformation-era indulgence box displayed in a museum in Wittenberg, Germany. The indulgence box resembles what John Tetzel would have used while raising money for the Pope with the jingle often attributed to him: “When a penny in the coffer rings, a soul from Purgatory springs” (p. 51). Challies writes, “The coins that slid through the slot and into the coffer represented a gospel of salvation by works, a gospel foreign to the Bible, a false gospel.” But it was from this lowlight that God birthed the Reformation, the recovery of the biblical gospel, the good news of salvation by faith alone through Christ alone.

View fullsize

Sample of the book’s layout (from Amazon website).

Zondervan did an excellent job designing the book. I appreciate the colorful but simple layout, which complements the accessible writing. My middle school daughter spent time reading the book when it first arrived. Later, I read my eleven-year-old son the story of ancient graffiti that mocked an early Christian named Alexamenos (chapter 3), a great story by the way. If Challies ever writes a sequel, perhaps he’d consider making it more of a prequel: the roots of Christianity in the history of the Old Testament.

Two Helpful Takeaways from EPIC

As I read Epic, two takeaways hit me, one takeaway Challies highlights in the book and another that came from reading the book in our present crisis.

First, a beautiful disconnect exists between the simplicity of many of the objects and their significance. A simple chair for Calvin to write, a simple organ for Wesley to compose hymns, a simple reading stand for Edwards to study, and a simple rock for Whitefield to preach. “Whitefield Rock, though it is but a slab of stone in an open field,” Challies writes, “reminded me that God does not need great buildings, the beautiful churches and cathedrals of Christendom. All God needs to carry out his work is a faithful believer who will faithfully preach his gospel” (p. 97).

Second, it was an odd but beautiful blessing to read a church history book as the coronavirus stalks the globe and kills thousands of people and infects a million more. Church history reminds me that God’s people have been through long and hard times, and that God’s glory often shines brightest across a dark background. Challies brought out this truth well when discussing the persecution of the church. The most moving story in the book for me was about Marie Durand, who was imprisoned in France as a young woman and released decades later. She carved into a stone the word French word for “resist” as an encouragement to her and the other imprisoned women to resist recanting their Christian faith. I tend to forget these stories. But I need the reminders, not merely to know facts about dead people from faraway places but for the vibrant awareness of God’s faithfulness that I need to live for God in our day. The “great cloud of witnesses” that the author of Hebrews mentions has only grown over time (Hebrews 12:1).

I mentioned above that words and phrases have a tendency to become diluted over time, like the words “love” and “epic.” In a similar way, book reviewers tend to overuse and cheapen the phrase “highly recommend.” But I do highly recommend the book Epic. Here I stand and can do no other.

* Picture of Rylands Manuscript P52, which Challies talks about in Chapter 2 (Photo from Wikipedia).

Trailer for the accompanying Epic documentary:

Discover the story you're already a part of. Through thirty-three objects, Tim Challies explores the history of what God is accomplishing in this world-wheth...

Reading List 2019

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.

*   *   *

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)

HUMBLE CALVINISM by J. A. Medders (FAN AND FLAME Book Reviews)

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. . . 

Buy on Amazon

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.

Related Posts

YOUR FUTURE SELF WILL THANK YOU by Drew Dyck (FAN AND FLAME Book Reviews)

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).

Buy on Amazon

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)

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.

Buy on Amazon

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

Reading List 2018

My first post of each new year always contains the list of books I read the previous year (2014, 2015, 2016, and 2017). I do it for personal accountability. Knowing I have to post my list helps me stay on track.

The goal in previous years had been to read 1 book per week, but this year I tried to up it to 2 per week.

I didn’t make it. I only read 87, with 17 of them being audiobooks. I was on my 2-per-week pace until the fall. Because of other projects, my time for extra reading all but disappeared.

My favorite books were The Imperfect Pastor by Zack Eswine, which was a re-read for me, and The Art of Rest by Adam Mabry, which I wrote a review of here.

One surprising change this year is that I had the privilege of reading almost 20 books before they were published, with 15 of them being books I did design work on (for example, all the “How-To” books with Sojourn Network). That was fun, and the tiny bit of extra income got reinvested right back into my own writing projects, mostly in editing and cover design.

Speaking of my own projects, when counting up the number of books, you’ll see below that I counted the reading of my own soon-to-be-published books a few times. I felt this was at least sort of legit because I probably read them 5 more times than I’m taking credit for reading them! Editing and proofreading is—apparently—demanding work!

Because of all the extra writing, design work, and helping a friend with his seminary coursework, much of my reading was dictated to me this year. I’m hoping next year I’ll have more time to explore things I’m interested in, such as the dozen Eugene Peterson books I recently bought and hope to work through slowly this spring.

Let me know in the comments what was your favorite book of the year.

*   *   *

Books per Year

1. Selected Blog Posts on the Topic of Pornography (55,000 Words), Part 1 by Various (200 pages)

2. Selected Blog Posts on the Topic of Pornography (55,000 Words), Part 2 by Various (200 pages)

3. White Fang by Jack London (160 pages)

4. Life in the Wild: Fighting for Faith in a Fallen World by Dan DeWitt (128 pages)

5. Dead Wake: The Last Crossing of the Lusitania by Erik Larson (480 pages)

6. Real Artists Don’t Starve: Timeless Strategies for Thriving in the New Creative Age by Jeff Goins (240 pages)

7. Crazy Busy: A (Mercifully) Short Book about a (Really) Big Problem by Kevin DeYoung (128 pages)

8. The Bible: Romans to Revelation, Part 6 of 6 by God (300 pages)

9. Father Fiction: Chapters for a Fatherless Generation by Donald Miller (2224 pages)

10. In the Garden of Beasts: Love, Terror, and an American Family in Hitler’s Berlin by Erik Larson (448 pages)

11. On Pastoring: A Short Guide to Living, Leading, and Ministering as a Pastor by H. B. Charles Jr. (208 pages)

12. Thunderstruck by Erik Larson (480 pages)

13. On Preaching: Personal & Pastoral Insights for the Preparation & Practice of Preaching by H. B. Charles Jr. (160 pages)

14. The Pastor’s Ministry: Biblical Priorities for Faithful Shepherds by Brian Croft (192 pages)

15. 12 Ways Your Phone Is Changing You by Tony Reinke (224 pages)

16. The Pastor’s Family: Shepherding Your Family through the Challenges of Pastoral Ministry by Brian and Cara Croft (171 pages)

17. Struck: One Christian’s Reflections on Encountering Death by Russ Ramsey (176 pages)

18. Openness Unhindered: Further Thoughts of an Unlikely Convert on Sexual Identity and Union with Christ by Rosaria Champagne Butterfield (206 pages)

19. Charting the Course: How-To Navigate the Legal Side of a Church Plant by Tim Beltz (112 pages)

20. Journals about blogging (3 issues) by ConvertKit (120 pages)

21. Reset: Living a Grace-Paced Life in a Burnout Culture by David Murray (208 pages)

22. Gaining By Losing: Why the Future Belongs to Churches that Send by J.D. Greear (256 pages)

23. Chasing Contentment: Trusting God in a Discontented Age by Erik Raymond (176 pages)

24. The Bible: Genesis to Deuteronomy, Part 1 of 6 by God (300 pages)

25. Unstoppable Force: Daring to Become the Church God Had in Mind by Erwin Raphael McManus (352 pages)

26. Book Launch Blueprint: The Step-by-Step Guide to a Bestselling Launch by Tim Grahl (76 pages)

27. Ephesians For You: For reading, for feeding, for leading (God’s Word for You) by Richard Coekin (224 pages)

28. Brothers, We Are Not Professionals: A Plea to Pastors for Radical Ministry, Updated and Expanded Edition by John Piper (320 pages)

29. Redemptive Participation: A “How-To” Guide for Pastors in Culture by Mike Cosper (104 pages)

30. The Art of Rest by Adam Mabry (144 pages)

31. Gospel Fluency: Speaking the Truths of Jesus into the Everyday Stuff of Life by Jeff Vanderstelt (224 pages)

32. Fierce Grace: 30 Days With King David by Stephen R. Morefield (212 pages)

33. Eating You Way Through Luke’s Gospel by Robert J. Karris (112 pages)

34. Supernatural Power for Everyday People: Experiencing God’s Extraordinary Spirit in Your Ordinary Life by Jared C. Wilson (224 pages)

35. The Preacher’s Catechism by Lewis Allan (224 pages)

36. Why Pray? by John F. DeVries (240 pages)

37. Saturate: Being Disciples of Jesus in the Everyday Stuff of Life by Jeff Vanderstelt (256 pages)

38. Immeasurable: Reflections on the Soul of Ministry in the Age of Church, Inc. by Skye Jethani (224 pages)

39. The Solace of Water: A Novel by Elizabeth Byler Younts (368 pages)

40. Family Ministry (Gospel-Centered Discipleship) by Greg Gibson and Patrick Weikle (128 pages)

41. The Happiness Advantage: The Seven Principles of Positive Psychology That Fuel Success and Performance at Work by Shawn Anchor (256 pages)

42. Before the Lord, Before the Church: “How-To” Plan a Child Dedication by Jared Kennedy (108 pages)

43. The Monk Who Sold His Ferrari: A Fable About Fulfilling Your Dreams & Reaching Your Destiny by Robin Sharma (198 pages)

44. A Peculiar Glory: How the Christian Scriptures Reveal Their Complete Truthfulness by John Piper (304 pages)

45. The Nightingale: A Novel by Kristen Hannah (608 pages)

46. Healthy Plurality = Durable Church: “How-To” Build and Maintain a Healthy Plurality of Elders by Dave Harvey (108 pages)

47. The New Testament Documents: Are They Reliable? by F. F. Bruce (149 pages)

48. Finding a Pastor: A Handbook for Ministerial Search Committees by Joel Hathaway (128 pages)

49. The 4-Hour Workweek: Escape 9-5, Live Anywhere, and Join the New Rich by Timothy Ferriss (416 pages)

50. The Supremacy of God in Preaching by John Piper (176 pages)

51. The Bible: Joshua to Esther, Part 2 of 6 by God (300 pages)

52. Jesus, My Father, the CIA, and Me: A Memoir... Of Sorts by Ian Morgan Cron (257 pages)

53. Walk with Me: Learning to Love and Follow Jesus by Jenny McGill (303 pages)

54. Reading the Bible Supernaturally: Seeing and Savoring the Glory of God in Scripture by John Piper (432 pages)

55. John Piper: The Making of a Christian Hedonist (a PhD Dissertation) by Justin Taylor (311 pages)

56. Sabbaticals: “How-To” Take a Break from Ministry before Ministry Breaks You by Rusty McKie (122 pages)

57. Expository Exultation: Christian Preaching as Worship by John Piper (336 pages)

58. Don’t Just Send a Resume: How to Find the Right Job in a Local Church by Benjamin Vrbicek (204 pages)

59. Struggle Against Porn: 29 Diagnostic Tests for Your Head and Heart by Benjamin Vrbicek (171 pages)

60. Leading from Your Strengths: Building Close-Knit Ministry Teams by Eric Tooker, John Trent, Rodney Cox (112 pages)

61. The Lemming Dilemma: Living with Purpose, Leading with Vision by David Hutchens (68 pages)

62. A Gentleman in Moscow: A Novel by Amor Towles (480 pages)

63. The Imperfect Pastor: Discovering Joy in Our Limitations through a Daily Apprenticeship with Jesus by Zack Eswine (272 pages)

64. Grounded in the Faith: A Guide for New Disciples Based on the Apostles’ Creed by Todd A. Scacewater (62 pages)

65. Leadership through Relationship: “How-To” Develop Leaders in the Local Church by Kevin Galloway (106 pages)

66. Raised By Grace: A Family Discipleship Guide by Michael R. Morefield (73 pages)

67. The Bible: Psalms to Song of Solomon, Part 3 of 6 by God (300 pages)

68. The Life of Pi by Yann Martel (326 pages)

69. Who is Jesus by Greg Gilbert (144 pages)

70. The Cross and Christian Ministry: Leadership Lessons from 1 Corinthians by D. A. Carson (160 pages)

71. The Prodigal Prophet: Jonah and the Mystery of God’s Mercy by Timothy Keller (272 pages)

72. Spiritual Leadership: Principles of Excellence for Every Believer by J. Oswald Sanders (256 pages)

73. The Old Man and the Sea by Ernest Hemingway (128 pages)

74. The Elements of Style by William Strunk (86 pages)

75. Struggle Against Porn: 29 Diagnostic Tests for Your Head and Heart by Benjamin Vrbicek (171 pages)

76. The Writer’s Diet: A Guide to Fit Prose by Helen Sword (88 pages)

77. The Hospitality Commands: Building Loving Christian Community: Building Bridges to Friends and Neighbors by Alexander Strauch (64 pages)

78. The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn by Mark Twain (224 pages)

79. Studies in Words by C.S. Lewis (352 pages)

80. Wisdom of Our Fathers: Lessons and Letters from Daughters and Sons by Tim Russert (320 pages)

81. The Pastor and Pornography (9Marks Journal, Fall 2018) by 9Marks (88 pages)

82. The Art of Rest by Adam Mabry (144 pages)

83. The Bible: Isaiah to Malachi, Part 4 of 6 by God (300 pages)

84. 1 Peter for You by Juan Sanchez (192 pages)

85. Don’t Just Send a Resume: How to Find the Right Job in a Local Church by Benjamin Vrbicek (204 pages)

86. Struggle Against Porn: 29 Diagnostic Tests for Your Head and Heart by Benjamin Vrbicek (171 pages)

87. The Bible: Matthew to Acts, Part 5 of 6 by God (300 pages)

THE ART OF REST by Adam Mabry (FAN AND FLAME Book Reviews)

I can’t say whether you’ll love The Art of Rest by Adam Mabry as much as I love it. You might not need his book as much as I do. Throughout the last year I have especially felt the need to practice better rhythms of work and rest. God made us to experience both, not just one or the other. But until this last summer, being vaguely aware of my inability to rest had not coincided with the ability to change. The Art of Rest helped me turn the corner.

Mabry is a local church pastor in the busy city of Boston with a young family, which means he doesn’t write about rest from a hammock on the beach with a Corona in hand. He knows what it’s like to slam doors too hard when his young children dilly-dally instead of getting ready for school. He knows the pressures of pastoral ministry that seep into home life. He knows what it’s like to buy a house and renovate it while living there. Oh, and besides church planting, loving his family, and renovating a home, Mabry is a PhD student. In other words, he’ll see your busy and raise you ten.

This is part of the reason I like The Art of Rest so much. Mabry writes as a fellow pilgrim. He, too, is searching for asylum from a common but often ignored idol: busyness. “In the West,” Mabry writes, “we’ve managed to take something that has in every culture until recently been a vice and, through the magic of repeating a bad idea long enough, have turned it into a virtue!” (p. 29).

Buy on Amazon

A strength of the book is the way Mabry connects our busyness problem to our hearts. Our refusal to rest, Mabry argues, betrays our lack of trust in God and our propensity to rebel against our humanness. It’s patterns of biblical Sabbath that remind us we are neither little gods nor beasts of burden but dearly-loved image bearers of God.

Another strength of the book is the way Mabry avoids binding prescriptions for how the principle of Sabbath should look in your life. In the final chapter he offers suggestions, not rules, for practicing Sabbath.

One might say a weakness of the book is that it’s not an extensive treatment of Sabbath. Because his book is short and written so breezy, it could come across as simple. But to say that would be to criticize the book for being something it wasn’t supposed to be. We don’t fault marathon runners for not being linebackers. Additionally, the simplicity, brevity, and punchiness of Mabry’s writing shouldn’t be misconstrued as the same as shallow. By way of example, consider one section where he connects our understanding of God to our understanding of rest. He writes,

If God is a hurried taskmaster constantly turning knobs and pushing buttons, frenetically refining his work, it’s hard to imagine resting with him. But if God the Father, Son, and Spirit are the very definition of love, and fundamentally relational, then the idea of resting with him becomes more than imaginable. It becomes desirable. (p. 25)

I certainly wouldn’t call this trinitarian observation simplistic.

The Art of Rest is just one of several books I’ve read this year circling around the theme of rest. The others include Crazy Busy by Kevin DeYoung (2013), Reset by David Murray (2017), Chasing Contentment by Eric Raymond (2017), and Sabbaticals by Rusty McKie (2018). All of these complimented each other, but I felt the most helped by Mabry’s book.

When I was given The Art of Rest back in April, I read it, and after reading it, I immediately bought five copies and gave them away to friends. Then I bought and listened to the audiobook. Then six months passed before I re-read his book and wrote this review. When I read the book this second time around, I still loved it. But I was encouraged that I needed the book less than I did the first time around, which is a good thing. It’s the reason Mabry wrote his book. He tells readers that he writes to “sell Sabbath rest” to us. He wants us to know the how of Sabbath, the why of Sabbath, and the look-how-wonderful-this-is of Sabbath.

I get no kickbacks for writing this review, but I do confess that just as Mabry wants to sell us Sabbath, I want to sell you The Art of Rest.

* Photo by Drew Coffman on Unsplash

8 Sojourn Network “How-To” Books in 30-Seconds Each

I love writing book reviews, which I know makes me weird to many of you—like, Didn’t you get enough of that in High School? But over the last year Sojourn Network has released so many helpful books in their “How-To” series that I don’t have time to write about each of them. So, I thought I’d just get in front of a camera for a few minutes and tell you a bit about each book.

If you don’t know anything about Sojourn Network, it’s a group of pastors and churches banded together for encouragement, training, and church planting. I think they are doing a lot of good things.

Full disclosure: I was privileged to help these books come into print, so I have a vested interest in their success. But I wouldn’t be telling you about them like this if I didn’t actually think they were helpful. I’d love for you to check them out. There are more coming in 2019.

Let me know in the comments which book sounds most interesting to you.

Healthy Plurality = Durable Church: “How-To” Build and Maintain a Healthy Plurality of Elders by Dave Harvey

Life-Giving-Groups: “How-To” Grow Healthy, Multiplying Community Groups by Jeremy Linneman [Listen to my interview with the author here.]

Charting the Course: “How-To” Navigate the Legal Side of a Church Plant by Tim Beltz

Redemptive Participation: A “How-To” Guide for Pastors in Culture by Mike Cosper

Filling Blank Spaces: “How-To” Work with Visual Artists in Your Church by Michael Winters

Before the Lord, Before the Church: “How-To” Plan a Child Dedication Service by Jared Kennedy with Megan Kennedy

Sabbaticals: “How-To” Take a Break from Ministry before Ministry Breaks You by Rusty McKie

Leaders through Relationship: “How-To” Develop Leaders in the Local Church by Kevin Galloway

Buy on Amazon

Buy on Amazon

Buy on Amazon

Buy on Amazon

Buy on Amazon

Buy on Amazon

Buy on Amazon

Buy on Amazon

God Loves a Cheerful Preacher

Just the other day, I walked through my front door, thinking about church stuff, when the question “What is God?” randomly popped into my head. Without any effort or hesitation, my mind rattled off: God is a Spirit, infinite, eternal and unchangeable in His being, wisdom, power, holiness, justice, goodness and truth.

Don’t be too impressed, though. Of the 107 questions and answers in the Westminster Shorter Catechism, I think I can only recite two—that one and the famous first question (Q: What is the chief end of man? A: Man’s chief end is to glorify God, and to enjoy him forever.). Although my memory can’t capture the entire catechism, my automatic mental response is proof that catechisms unite two important things: clarity and memorability.

Buy on Amazon

Lewis Allen, in his new book, The Preacher’s Catechism (Crossway 2018), seeks to capitalize on the doctrinal clarity of catechisms and their memorability. Allen also focuses on a third element that he believes catechisms offer: the ability to probe the heart. He writes, “The Westminster Shorter Catechism is an outstanding resource for the heart needs of every preacher” (p. 21). I might not have believed that sentence when I first read it, but now I’m a believer.

The Preacher’s Catechism has 43 mini-chapters, each beginning with a reprise of a question from the Westminster Shorter Catechism that aims to edify both preaching and the preacher himself. A good example of this tailoring is in the first chapter. “What is the chief end in preaching?” he asks. “God’s chief end in preaching is to glorify His name,” he answers.

Allen is a gifted writer and a church pastor in England. I appreciated his occasional clever tweaking of a familiar Bible passage. On page 31, he writes, “God loves a cheerful preacher.” And when discussing the struggles associated with retirement from the preaching vocation, he reminds us, “Naked [we] came to preaching, and naked [we leave] it. Blessed be the name of the Lord” (p. 105). . . .

* This Review was originally published by the Evangelical Free Church of America. To read the rest of the review, click here.

BLESSED ARE THE MISFITS by Brant Hansen (FAN AND FLAME Book Reviews)

When author and radio host Brant Hansen does a thirty-second radio commercial, I enjoy it.

When Hansen does a three-minute monologue between songs on a Christian radio station, I enjoy it.

When our mutual friend invited both of us on a road trip last summer to Philadelphia to watch the final Lord of the Rings movie, which was accompanied by a live orchestra, I really enjoyed it.

And when he writes a book, I enjoy that too.

Buy on Amazon

In fact, because I enjoyed his last book Unoffendable so much (reviewed here), when I learned he was writing a new one, I asked if I could be on the book’s launch team. That new book is called Blessed are the Misfits, with the long and misfit-like subtitle of Great News for Believers who are Introverts, Spiritual Strugglers, or Just Feel Like They're Missing Something.

The book, he would say, is born out of personal struggles. You wouldn’t necessarily know this from listening to a couple of radio clips, but Hansen has Asperger’s, and on top of that he also has nystagmus, which causes his eyes to shake and his head to move involuntarily. All this invariably leads him into both amusing and very frustrating experiences. Some of these he shares in his book. Perhaps you have parts of your life that are awkward and difficult to share. Everyone does.

But, I must confess, I’ve been a misfit member of his book-launch team. His book released in the fall, and this is the first time I’ve written about it! Because the central theme of the book is that the love of Jesus is not for those who see themselves as upwardly mobile—an unfortunate, but common misconception—but rather that the love of Jesus is for those who recognize their great need, perhaps Brant will overlook my misfit-launch-team participation.

Buy on Amazon

I did loan the book to a friend, which is some promotion. My friend enjoyed the book very much. However, I now realize in loaning the book, it probably didn’t help the book sales. Again, sorry, Brant.

I could share several funny sections from the book, but I’d rather share one of the more serious ones. It’s the story of Brant‘s father, who was a Christian preacher while Brant grew up. But his father was a different person at church than he was at home, which made things very difficult for Brant and the rest of the family. He writes,

People really liked my dad’s preaching and singing. My brother and I were often told what a wonderful man he was.

We were also absolutely petrified of him.

Honestly, I still don’t know what happened to him, or when. There are a lot of things I don’t want to remember. I recall bits and pieces, like being four years old, in a fast-moving car late at night, while my mom drove my preacher dad to the hospital. He was in the back seat, breathing into a paper bag.

I remember late-night yelling matches. I remember my mom yelling, “Who is she? Tell me who she is!” over and over.

I remember visiting Dad over the years, through grade school and middle school, in psychiatric wards and mental institutions. When you visit your dad in these places, it makes an impression on you. When you see him preaching days later, you remember that too.

I remember our bathroom floors. Very well. I’d sit there, sometimes for hours. I’d make up stories to distract myself from the arguing. Sometimes I would bring my favorite puppet, a little furry green monster, with me (I was big on puppets), and I’d sit and act out little sketches.

That was the coping plan. Go somewhere and lock the door and sit on the floor and rock back and forth and make up a puppet story or just try not to exist. . .

I remember my brother heroically intervening in my parents’ room when Dad was beginning to physically attack my mom. . . (pp. 90–91)

This section goes on for another page or two, only getting more difficult to read. I share this part of the book, and not one of Hansen’s many goofy stories, in the hope that you might check out the book. But more importantly—and I believe Brant would say this himself—I share this section in the hope that you won’t dismiss Christianity as a religion for the put-together, the good-doers, the never-need-help. Instead, I want you to know that the hope of Christianity is for misfits who only have their need to bring to God.

* Photo by Ian Parker on Unsplash.