Charles

Though Lost In the Middle, Midlife and the Grace of God deals with that nebulous idea of midlife crisis, whenever that might occur, it has a powerfully challenging message. Though I have moved beyond that general time frame of when we often think midlife occurs and though I understand that according to U. S. demographics old age begins at 81, I found the book helpful and challenging to me personally. The topics dealt with are applicable to Christians of any age. Though Moses prayed, “teach us to number our days…” none of us know when that once appointed time to die will be – we need to have certain things in place in order to live God-honoring healthy lives today.

Tripp demonstrates solid biblical and theological perspectives plus definite understanding of human behavior. One of the main points of interest was his emphasis on latent idolatry and how it surfaces in what is often referred to as midlife. Often times the regret, disappointment, unfulfilled dreams and discouragements of past and missed opportunities pull us down. In reality, upon close examination, some of those things have become those latent idols that should not have been there in the first place.

I participated in a class of forty adults using the book as its study and found the input, response, and interaction to be most enlightening. And of course Tripp wants individuals to deal with the hurts, disappointments, and pains in a manner that enables them to discover God’s wonderful grace in the process. Tripp also reminds us that it is often difficult when we are going through certain situations to be able to make sense out of it. However, those can be hopeful times when we discover more fully God’s plan and will for our lives.

Tripp writes, “The Bible never discusses midlife, just like it never discusses teenagers. Yet, the Bible is able to unpack any of life’s experiences because it is written by the One who made them all.” One characteristic God has put in his children’s lives is hope, and hope often comes in a moment of crisis when we discover his grace.

Tripp’s overall thesis is while the Bible never tells us about midlife crisis, the Bible tells us everything we need to know about midlife crisis. Isn’t that just like our God? He knows our needs and is never caught unaware or unprepared to minister to us. In a highly readable style, Tripp closes with these words, “The notes of disappointment, regret, weakness, decay, defeat, restoration, reconciliation, and sight are not parts of another song. They are each a part of God’s symphony of grace and redemption.” God does love us and has a plan for our lives and in that we have encouragement, hope, and confidence that his grace is sufficient for our every need.

I have recommended this to people struggling with some of these things. I have also encouraged a couple of men’s groups to study this book and the mixed adult class mentioned about is another possibility for some fruitful study and exchange using Lost in the Middle as the point of reference.

We usually do not call attention to commentaries in this review section. There are so many, some very good and others less helpful. In order to encourage expository preaching from a historically redemptive perspective, we believe these two commentaries, one from the New Testament and one from the Old Testament, should be noted. Karen Jobes, author of the 1 Peter Commentary from the Baker Exegetical Commentary on the New Testament series, is an outstanding New Testament scholar.

Jobes has an obvious understanding of the original languages, solid theological perspective, and the ability to communicate the fruit of her labors. I have enjoyed working through several passages that are special to me from her commentary. Her comments reflect both a grasp of the historical, but also has fresh ideas for us today. Just as there is great danger in using only commentaries from the past or only using the latest and most modern, continuity of the past and present works coming together is important. You will find this in1 Peter.

You will also appreciate Jobes’ attention to details, demonstrating her masterful handling of the Greek text, but not in a way that will loose the reader in the process.

This Old Testament commentary by Philip Graham Ryken, pastor of Tenth Presbyterian Church and a PCA teaching elder, is another one of Ryken’s writingsidentifying him as one of the outstanding preachers from the Reformed perspective. Exodus: Saved for God’s Glory represents his most voluminous work to date. He has earlier, in this same Preaching the Word series, written on Jeremiah and Lamentations.

Exodus is one of the key books in teaching us how the promises of the Covenant are kept. Again, as with the above commentary, Ryken studies, preaches, and teaches the Word from a biblically Reformed, historically redemptive perspective. Consequently, not only will you see the faithfulness of God throughout, remembering and keeping his promises to his people, but also how God’s plan of salvation is revealed and developed in this book.

As with other books in this series, but especially this book, there is clearly demonstrated exegesis and solid theology that undergirds Exodus, giving creative ideas on preaching and teaching Exodus for today’s audience. Why this commentary is so special to the author is stated in the preface. These expositions of Exodus were preached while Ryken was substituting for Dr. James Boice “during, and after his sudden illness and death.”

Ryken explains that one must study Exodus in its historical context of the Pentateuch, the five books of Moses. Then we must see how it connects with the rest of the Old and New Testaments. Over and over, he underscores the importance of following the Reformation principle of allowing Scripture to interpret Scripture; that seen from this perspective, “the Bible is an extended interpretation of the exodus. Thus the way to understand Exodus is to study the book itself in the context of the entire Bible.” Ryken emphasizes that Exodus is not only a great story, it is also history and a history that focuses on redemption of Israel as well as the church today.

When read, studied, taught, and preached from this vantage, you cannot help but see the glory of God revealed. This is what the Psalmist saw and wrote about in Psalm 106, says Ryken.

I became acquainted with Michael Green in 1970 from reading his book Evangelism In The Early Church. It was thorough, biblical, and just what I needed at that time in my studies and spiritual life. His credentials are outstanding, from a Senior Research Fellow at Wycliffe Hall, where he teaches evangelism and New Testament Studies, to Regent College, Vancouver where he is professor of evangelism.

Avoiding Jesus is a book that you will enjoy reading, at least from the view of knowing how to answer skeptics, cynics and the curious. Green, who has ministered globally, states that no matter where he is, he finds that men and women tend to come up with the same answers and almost universally is the notion that “Oh, but all religions lead to the same God.” “If not that,” said Green, “then ‘Oh, I have not time for religion.'” Most the responses range from shallow, to escapist, to not wanting to take the time to investigate the truth of Christianity or any other religion.

It makes an enormous difference if there is a God or not, says Green. We cannot bury our heads in the sand. I would add, we cannot do the same by not knowing how to share the Gospel with those kinds of people.

This book contains 12 responses, excuses, or attempts to ignore the truth. More specifically: I’m not the religious kind. You can’t believe in God these days. All religions lead to God. I can do my best. No one can do more. When you’re dead, you’re dead.

You will find him responding to the scientist who sees no need for God: “There is nothing in the scientific method that can either demonstrate God’s existence or disprove it. But for what it is worth, the basic presupposition of the scientific method strongly supports the existence of the mind behind matter.” Or to the person who says “if you are right about Jesus, are other religions all wrong?” To which Green says, “By no means.” But you will not find God revealed in any other religion in fully personal terms who rescues us from sins and self-centeredness. The idea “I must earn or pay something for my salvation” is present in one way or another in all other religions. There is a universal feeling that we must do something to earn our salvation. Green responds by using Jesus’ description of our human condition. The good religious Pharisees failed at earning God’s pleasure, forgiveness, and salvation.

After going through argument after argument with the skeptics and cynics, Green concludes, “If, in Jesus, God himself has come to look for us, it clearly will not do to imagine that as long as we are sincere, it does not matter what we believe. Nor will doing our best solve our problems.” Of course the answer is Jesus Christ.

This book is worth reading and using in a study group, especially for parents and youth workers to use in ministering to youth and in other small group settings to train people in knowing how to share the Gospel, clearly and biblically.

In the recent Equip for Ministry issues we have talked about open theism, denominationalism, and the emerging church movement, to name a few. Knowing something about church history is essential if we are to contend for the faith and its truth. So much of what is happening today is a result of either not knowing or ignoring the lessons from history.

Also, while we need to understand where we are today as far as Christianity is concerned, we will not be successful without starting with a good grasp of history and tradition. This is clearly illustrated in trying to understand evangelicalism in our North American culture. For example, of the two billion plus people in the world who profess to be Christians, over half a billion are evangelical Christians. But some statistics suggest that if Pentecostals and charismatics are counted as evangelicals, there are four-fifths of a billion evangelicals today. Those two groups account for 570 million while other evangelicals exceed 242 million. This is what Sweeney points out in his preface to set the stage for the overview that follows.

Sweeney first gives an overview and summary of the recent debates and scope of evangelicalism. Chapter one is merely a prelude to the good content that follows. Trying to define “evangelical” today is a bit slippery. For example: you have Alister McGrath’s six controlling convictions regarding evangelicalism. You also have David Bebbington’s definition that features four qualities of evangelicalism. Beyond those you can find John R.W.Stott’s three qualities and many broader definitions such as demonstrated by George Marsden, James Hunter and others. It is obvious that there is great diversity within evangelicalism and often unanimity as well.

Dayton and Johnston in their book, The Variety of American Evangelicalism wrote, “American evangelicalism resembles a large, extended family and should be described in only a general manner in terms of their ‘family resemblance’ rather than pigeonholed with excessive, propositional precisions” (page 21). Sweeney tries his hand at defining the term evangelical, “Evangelicals comprise a movement that is rooted in classical Christian orthodoxy, shaped by a largely Protestant understanding of the gospel and distinguished from other such movements by an eighteenth century twist. Or put more simply (though less precisely), evangelicals are a movement of orthodox Protestants with an eighteenth-century twist” (pages 23, 24).

This volume gives good summary of the “great awakenings” and their role on determining evangelicalism in America. He traces America’s great awakenings to those in Europe and Great Britain and then on the North American British colonies. Sweeney talks about the good things, as well as the challenges, that arose out of those awakenings. He reviews some of the people, like John and Charles Wesley, George Whitefield, and Jonathan Edwards who played significant roles in this development.

The book deals with some of the results and impact of the awakenings on the church and world. Although thousands joined the churches, religious controversy was also present and the revivals divided families, churches, and communities.

In the chapter “Crafting New Wineskins, Institutionalizing the Movement,” Sweeney opens up some avenues of understanding the tensions always present in evangelicalism, one being the role of institutions. He points out the truth that movements cannot survive without institutions and yet institutions have a way of squelching the Spirit, hence the need for revival. This was so clearly demonstrated in early America between the “Old Light” and “New Light” and “Old Side” and “New Side” schools of thought. The Old Light camp said we need institutions and tradition while the New Light camp maintained that all we need is the Bible. Sweeney demonstrates how both extremes fed liberalism in early New England.

One of the distinguishing characteristics of evangelicals is that they have always known how to market their faith. They knew how to capitalize on the free market concept. They knew how to advance the faith and did so with much fervor and enthusiasm. The circuit riders, the scholars, and the local churches all played significant roles in advancing the evangelical cause in America.

The book also contains a good summary of the development of the modern missionary movement. Sweeney points out how the early missionaries were able to contextualize their faith with much effectiveness, though there was a constant struggle to distinguish the Gospel from the culture “to become all things to all men so that by all means, they might be saved” (1 Cor. 9 18-22).

The history of black evangelicals contains important parts of the story. Much can be learned from studying the relationship among the races in church history. For example, Sweeney writes, “While evangelicals did not invent the sins of racism or ethnocentrism, the slave trade, segregation discrimination, or racial hate groups, literally millions of white evangelicals have either participated in or sanctioned one or more of these things, distorting their common witness to the gospel” (page 108). In the mid twentieth century this racial tension was demonstrated by both a white and black evangelical association-the white National Association of Evangelicals and the National Black Evangelical Association founded in 1963.

There is a good chapter entitled “In Search of a Higher Christian Life,” dealing with the holiness movement, along with Pentecostal and charismatic movements. This is an important chapter as we look at today’s churches embracing the evangelical framework. These are areas of great tension and controversy within the evangelical family. Today’s struggles and divisions are not new ones. Who were some of the people influential in this arena? What was their emphasis? How was it received? Sweeney uses key people to deal with those questions. People and movements such as: Charles Finney, Phoebe Palmer, Charles Fox Parham, John Wimber, Oral Roberts, Pat Robertson, the famous Azusa Street revivals of Los Angeles, the Assemblies of God and the charismatic movement.

The last major chapter focuses on the fundamentalism and neoevangelicalism that emerged in the late 1800s through the twentieth century, dealing with topics such as the “fundamentals” and their attempt to put down modernism. He also talks about men such as Carl F. H. Henry, J. Gresham Machen, Billy Graham and their role in the neoevangelical answer to both fundamentalism and liberalism. Of course Sweeney points out that we cannot overlook the role of the famous Scopes Trial in this mix. Then there was the decline of orthodoxy in the mainline churches with the influx of German higher criticism, thus undermining the authority and integrity of the Sciptures, and the need for Christians to be salt and light and make a cultural difference rather than withdrawing their cultural influence. He also accents the tensions between those who believed that the best theology had already been produced and those who believed in always reforming their theology according to the Word.

This book is readable, extremely interesting, and tremendously helpful in understanding why we are Presbyterians who are Reformed evangelicals following Presbyterian polity and government. This would be a good book for personal and group study. I recommend it with much enthusiasm.