Reading for the second time with Rosanna. This is a good book to read and re-read.
Recently in Books Read Category
John Paton: MIssionary to the New Hebrides
Thoughts to follow. Or not.
Available from Amazon.com for $13.00
I was recommended to read this book by my friend Nathan Carr and give him my thoughts.
It’s not easy reading. Keep a dictionary on hand. I’m finding it difficult to follow because his vocabulary isn’t your average Joe’s.
Thankfully, Leithart is helping to encapsulate, however wordy and lofty his language can sometimes be, thoughts I have been having about the Church as a unified whole, thoughts on the Lord’s Supper and Baptism, and promises to give flesh to thoughts on ethics (especially in relation to a character education program I was once a part of). I think it’s a good read at this time in my life as I understand how to relate to my brothers and sisters in the kingdom of our Lord.
Available from Amazon.com for $10.49
Hmm. This is an interesting book that I was given by my friend Josh Williams. I’m not done reading it yet, but that begs the question: why is it 1:50am and I’m up and cannot find it within myself to put this book down?
Further, why am I online writing about it?
I’ll keep you updated. It’s certainly been a fascinating and frustrating read so far. Yet, I can’t stop reading it and find myself agreeing more than I do disagreeing. I found this statement to ring true, especially in light of what I wrote in this entry in which I said:
Why are we sometimes (or oftentimes) afraid to boast in the Lord? For me, it is owing to the fact that I feel that I must intellectually defend Him and don’t feel prepared to do so. I do not really think that He can authenticate Himself to those who would hear my boast without my being a great orator or defender of the truth.
Anyway, here’s what Miller said, in quoting the words of an unsaved friend of his:
The thing I loved about Nadine is that I never felt like she was selling anything. She would talk about God as if she knew Him, as if she had talked with Him on the phone that day. She was never ashamed, which is the thing with some Christians I had encountered. They felt like they had to sell God, as if He were soap or a vacuum cleaner, and it’s like they really weren’t listening to me; they didn’t care, they just wanted me to buy their product. [1]
That’s food for thought. Do I feel like I need to sell God? Do I listen to them only to wait for the chance to force my presentation of Jesus onto them? Or, am I listening to their hearts, trying to understand them, and transposing Jesus and His kingdom into their particular situation? Do I realize that God pursues His own as uniquely as He created them to be, and His truth, while unchanging in its substance, He desires to be changed in its appearance?
WAKE UP, ROB! My God, haven’t you ever read Galatians 4:5-6?
5 Conduct yourselves wisely toward outsiders, making the best use of the time. 6 Let your speech always be gracious, seasoned with salt, so that you may know how you ought to answer each person.
Ugh. We cookie-cutter the gospel, don’t we? We think there’s only one way to present the kingdom of heaven. And we try to run everyone through that mold, when the way Jesus presented Himself to others, if you read the Gospels, was rarely the same way twice. The truth was always the same, but how He used different metaphors, and how He responded differently to the person, depending on where the were spiritually.
I need to keep reading.
Update I finished reading the book. I’ve quite forgotten about it except for the time he set up a confession booth at his college and confessed his sins to the students. It was a good read while reading it, it hasn’t really impacted me in a lasting way. Ah well.
End Notes
[1] Miller, Don. Blue Like Jazz: Nonreligious Thoughts on Christian Spirituality. Nashville, TN: Thomas Nelson, 2003. p. 46.
Available for $16.99 from Discerning Reader
This is a new book given me by John Zimmerman, signed by the editor, no less! It contains a multitude of sermons by Edwards that up to this point have been previously unpublished. I am looking forward to digging in more deeply.
