Book Reviews

Here is a motivational book for men. Tony Evans confronts most of the issues that men face in life, and the excuses they give as if they were victims. Evans calls men to stop making excuses or, as he calls it, get rid of the “loser’s limp.” Men need to get up and accept responsibility and see life’s situations as challenges and opportunities. The book looks into the lives of many men in the Bible and teaches how they both failed and also how many overcame their failures by the grace of God, and went on to make a impact in their families, church, communities, and the kingdom of God.

This is a book to give to men to read individually or together as a group. In his concluding remarks Evans says, “You may look back and say, ‘I’ve go a lot of stuff following me into the race. I’ve got a lot of junk from the past weighing me down as I try to run.’ Let me tell you something about God. He loves to dispense His grace. If you will come to God with your regrets and your failures, and start loving and serving Him as a driving force in your life, He has an unmistakable, amazing way of using even failure to bring about success.”

This book is the second in a projected series of commentaries on the books of the Bible. The first in the series was Galatians by Phil Ryken.

The objective of this commentary series is to provide pastors, teachers and other Christians a narrative commentary on the books of the Bible. The commentaries are and will continue to be doctrinally Reformed and concentrate on the unifying theme of redemptive history. Redemptive history is the theme and tapestry running throughout the entire canon of Scripture; however, that is not often the understanding of most Christians who tend to see the Bible as a collection of many different books from different authors at different moments in history setting forth a particular message.

Though Duguid may strain a bit at certain places to highlight the redemptive theme, you will see the redemptive tapestry unfold in Esther and Ruth. Esther is a story about God using Esther and her uncle Mordecai to thwart a plot to kill the Jews in the great empire of Ahasuerus. While one of the unusual characteristics of this book is that God is not mentioned, you have to see him working behind the scenes to fulfill his covenant promises to save his people despite their unworthiness.

Duguid has written in sermonic fashion that reflects good exegesis and will provide the reader with many insights into the meaning and significance of Esther. One point of interest is the meaning and ongoing reminder of why the Feast of Purim is established by Mordecai.

While the intent of this series is to present a commentary from a historical redemptive perspective, there is also some good moral application throughout the book. The same applies with part two, Duguid’s messages and commentary on Ruth.

While I admittedly have some question about his commentary on the opening historical situation that lead Elimelech and his family to leave Bethlehem for the land of Moab, I am intrigued by reasons and explanations offered.

This book, as well as the first on Galatians, are helpful tools to have. Commendable efforts are made in each chapter not only to open the text in its original setting, but also based on that understanding to move the reader to the application in our contemporary setting. For example, while explaining the establishment of the Feast of Purim, Duguid writes about festivals and celebrations today from a plus and minus perspective. Celebration is an important part of our life and tradition, but knowing what to celebrate or not is extremely important.

Another example of contemporary application is seeing Naomi, with her daughter-in-law Ruth, returning from Moab to Bethlehem, reminding us that Christ has not left us to return to him, alone. Christ comes to us to accompany us back to the Father’s house. Duguid is careful to show Ruth’s journey from Moab to Bethlehem, from a stranger and outcast to finding a place with Boaz and finally God himself.

This book is the fourth in the series The Swans Are Not Silent by John Piper. He writes three brief biographies of great men of faith who faced controversy at critical times in the life of the church. They contended for the truth of God’s Word not because controversy was enjoyed or for pride and recognition by others, but because the truth of the gospel was at stake. The three men are Athanasius (298-373), John Owen (1616-1683), and J. Gresham Machen (1881-1937). Each in his own way faced the controversy against Christianity and stood his ground for the cause of the truth as revealed in Scripture alone. They faced the battle out of love for Christ and for His Church.

Piper gives one a taste of the lessons to be learned from the lives of these stalwarts of the faith: “In view of the witness of church history and Scripture to the necessity of controversy in this imperfect world, and the compatibility of controversy and revitalization, we will do well to learn as much as we can from those who have walked through controversy and blessed the church in doing so. Athanasius and Owen and Machen have done that. The lessons they have to teach us are many.” Piper then reminds the reader that in the learning “let us resolve to renounce all controversy-loving pride and all controversy-fearing cowardice. And with humility and courage (that is, with faith in the sovereign Christ) let us heed Martin Luther’s warning not to proclaim only what is safe while the battle rages around what is necessary.”

Athanasius was exiled and driven out of his office five times during the great Arian controversy as he defended the deity of Christ. When it seemed the whole world had abandoned orthodoxy, the phrase “Athanasius contra Mundum” (against the world) was coined. What lessons can be drawn from Athanasius’ life? Here are several: “Defending and explaining doctrine is for the sake of the gospel and our everlasting joy,” “Joyful courage is the calling of a faithful shepherd,” and “Loving Christ includes loving true propositions about Christ.” You will find other wonderful lessons as well in reading the book.

Piper quotes J.I. Packer regarding John Owen as being the greatest of all Puritan theologians. Owen lived and served in the middle of the great Puritan century 1560 to 1660. After his conversion the driving force of his life became communion with God and holiness of life. He practiced his faith in a time of great controversy and persecution. God in his good pleasure raised up Owen to serve in various capacities as a pastor, as Vice-Chancellor of the University of Oxford, and a chaplain to Oliver Cromwell and his troops in Ireland and Scotland. From 1660 until his death in 1683 he was a fugitive pastor in London. He was the great evangelical voice for independence against the Act of Uniformity under Charles II and the Anglican Church. During all this time he was a prolific writer of books and articles defending the Reformed faith even though he later in his life became persuaded toward the congregational form of government.

The deep desire of Owen’s heart and life before God was the mortification of sin in his life leading to holiness of life. The other thing that was a driving force was his communion with God through contemplation of Christ. Piper summarizes this thought, “In the midst of all his academic and political and ecclesiastical labors he made many visits to his Friend, Jesus Christ.” In Owen’s own words, “When we have communion with God in the doctrine we contend for-then shall we be garrisoned by the grace of God against all the assaults of men.” Piper ends his biography with these words, “We are debtors to his mighty pen and to the passion for God’s glory and his own holiness that drove it.”

J. Gresham Machen wrote in his book What Is Faith, “Controversy of the right sort is good; for out of such controversy, as Church history and Scripture alike teach, there comes the salvation of souls.” Piper takes the reader back to the early twentieth century to discover the third stalwart of the faith who should be emulated for the defense of the truth in the face of what he termed another religion, namely Modernism. Piper recounts how Machen met Modernism face-to-face and was shaken profoundly in his faith under the influence of Wilhelm Herrmann at the University of Marburg. By the grace of God Machen came through this time without losing his evangelical faith and he came to see that the Princeton theology was firmer ground for life and joy. His experience in Germany also gave him a basis for teaching and preaching that there needs to be both intellectual credibility and joyful, passionate zeal for Christ. Machen wrote, “Preaching doctrine should not be confusing or boring…The preacher should present to his congregation the doctrine that the holy Scripture contains; but he should fire the presentation of that doctrine with devotion of the heart, and he should show how it can be made fruitful for Christian life.”

Some lessons to be learned from Machen’s life and teaching are:

Living in the postmodern world as we do you might think that such a title for a book as Randy Pope has written might seem daring and bold. It is quite obvious as Randy writes that he is very much in touch with postmodern people and they all are looking for the missing piece of the puzzle that gives meaning to life and offers hope in the place of despair. Not only is this true for the irreligious, but also for many Christians. So Randy poses the critical question “What is this piece and where is it found?”

Living in the postmodern world as we do you might think that such a title for a book as Randy Pope has written might seem daring and bold. It is quite obvious as Randy writes that he is very much in touch with postmodern people and they all are looking for the missing piece of the puzzle that gives meaning to life and offers hope in the place of despair. Not only is this true for the irreligious, but also for many Christians. So Randy poses the critical question “What is this piece and where is it found?”

Randy’s has a gift for diagramming so a person can visualize the concepts, and also to engage a person’s thinking by way of the illustrations he uses to lead a person toward a response to the message he is presenting. He also has the gift of communicating truth in such a succinct and clear way that one cannot miss the core answer to life and satisfaction as found in the gospel and God’s Word.

The reader will be excited to know that you can find “the Answer” in such a short read of 87 pages! What a wonderful tool The Answer can be by giving it to people who are searching for meaning, for truth, and for satisfaction in this world of chaos, hopelessness, and despair.

This book is about a paradigm shift that is causing, according to George Barna, “the biggest revolution of our time.” That may be a bit of an overstatement, but what does he mean? “Droves of committed believers are foregoing Sunday mornings to live a 24/7 faith unfettered by the clutter and bureaucracy within the church walls.”

Who should read this book and why? It should be read by pastors and other church leaders who have responsibility to lead the church in a manner that will serve God’s purpose to this generation in the hopes that the rising generation will have a clear understanding and commitment to God’s Word in their daily lives.

Why should we read a book that will appear to beat up on the local church? Because whether we like it or not, we are going through a transition where many who profess to be Bible believing Christians are seeing the church as a hindrance to their spiritual lives. We need to understand what the “revolutionaries” as Barna calls them are saying and why they are saying it. If there is merit in what they are saying about the local church, then it is a sad commentary on how we arrived at this state. This book should be read but with much discernment and carefulness.

He says that he wrote Revolution first to inform people of the radical changes that are reshaping the church and where things are headed. Second, to help “revolutionaries” gain a better understanding of themselves. Third, to encourage people who are struggling with their place in the Kingdom. He further writes that Revolution is designed to advance the Church with a capital “C” and redefine the local church.

He describes the seven passions of those he labels “revolutionaries,” whom he defines as genuine believers who may or may not attend with any regularity church services but eagerly want to advance the Kingdom of God. They want more from God than they are finding in the church. Barna claims that they want to serve Christ every minute of their lives but the local church is keeping them from developing in that direction. Barna further explains that this spiritual revolution is in step with today’s cultural context. I’ll proceed to underscore some of Barna’s main points and make some evaluative comments at the end. Read both parts!

Barna says that one of the startling things about these revolutionaries is that they want to return to a first century lifestyle based on faith, goodness, love, generosity and other “quaint” values. They are not satisfied to play the religious games and go with the flow. They want to look to God’s Word for guidance and not the church. And by large they are unimpressed with the local church because the people involved are really not demonstrating the spiritual fruits that should transform their lives.

He lists what he has identified as seven passions of the revolutionaries. I’ll list them but you can read about them in the book. 1. Intimate worship. 2. Faith based conversations. 3. Intentional spiritual growth. 4. Resources investments. 5. Servanthood. 6. Spiritual friendship. 7. Family faith. These are the things that revolutionaries seem to conclude the local institutional church is lacking. They do not see these things integrated into the lives of the people who attend. “Show me the fruit” is their motto.

Barna says the revolutionaries raise a good question, “If the local church is God’s answer to our spiritual needs, then why are most churched Christians so spiritually immature?”(page 30) In other words, if the people in the church are spiritually developed, they would reflect the principles and characteristics Scripture tells us are the marks of Jesus’ true disciples. From there Barna sites many statistics that relate to that judgment.

Barna gives seven trends that are leading to what he calls a “New Church” that will facilitate this revolution. I’ll list them and you can read them in the book. 1. Changing of the guard. 2. Rise of new view of life. 3.Dismissing the irrelevant. 4. Impact of techonology. 5. Genuine relationship. 6. Participation in reality. 7. Finding true meaning.

While Barna tends to describe the revolutionaries as those trying to grow their spirituality outside the local church, he does admit that there are those who are still in the local church but their primary ministry is not within the congregational framework, but in the raw world. The emphasis, so they claim, is not to draw people into the local church for teaching and experience but to draw them away from reliance upon a local church into a deeper connection and reliance upon God.

Here is my general evaluation of Revolution. There is very little described in this book that cannot be found throughout church history. But it has been accelerated today because of modernity and the postmodern philosophy. The church has always had to struggle with being what the “bride of Christ” is suppose to be and do what God has instructed the church to do. Scripturely, there is no basis for a professing Christian to abandon the church or demean its role in the Christian faith.

It is true that the Western church has caved in to dualism which has tended to separate our religion from the rest of life, and the church has not always understood its role in the Kingdom of God framework. The church has become so inwardly focused that it has not followed Christ’s instruction to make kingdom disciples or equip the membership for kingdom living. That is a valid criticism of the church; however, while we understand the difference between the Church is the capital “C” referring to the universal body of Christ and the local church with the little “c,” we do not cut the umbilical cord between the two. The local church is to contextually represent the Church universal; hence while we analyze, criticize, and help sanctify the local church, Christians are not to forsake the church. And, while the church should always be reforming according to the Word of God, which would involve people living 24/7 for the Lord in all areas of life, we do not help the situation by criticizing and then leaving. Also, we admit that because of the slide into dualism, the church does need to do some serious evaluation or reforming based on that reality.

A second problem I have with Barna’s book is he seems to caution those who are in the church not to be too critical or judgmental of those revolutionaries who criticize the church. He says that God may be ministering to them in different ways; however, at the same time he fails to offer the same caution to those revolutionaries regarding their criticism of the church. The church is not perfect. It does have faults and flaws. God is not finished with the church even though he may be breaking it out of a modernistic, enlightenment model from which things like dualism have been transmitted, but he does not call us to abandon the church. Certainly in many cases the church does need to look differently and people need to demonstrate the characteristics that the revolutionaries are questioning. And certainly we agree that the church is not the savior but Christ, but we also agree that such as are saved are added to the church.

If we understand the connection between the church and the kingdom, God assigns the church to equip its disciples to be kingdom minded, and that has not been done effectively in the past couple of centuries. While some of the revolutionaries are saying that the church is not helping us to develop spiritually, therefore, we must do what we must “to get closer to God,” we have to be warned of risk in doing that apart from the church. When David said in Ps. 139:17 “how precious are your thoughts to me Oh God…” he does not say, how precious are my thoughts about you oh God. We must think God’s thoughts about himself and to be certain that we are attempting to do that requires accountability and that is one of the roles of the church. George Gallup Jr. says that while most Americans believe in God, most do not trust him, I believe because they do not really know him as he reveals himself to us in his Word and the world around us.

Barna says that he writes to encourage the church to listen to the revolutionaries and seek ways the church can add value to the revolutionaries. Then he says he hopes the reader will reflect on what it means to belong to the church and then your particular church. He has a valid point with those statements because I believe we must learn how to listen to what is being said and attempt to carefully understand without becoming so defensive that we wall off the very ones we should reaching. His challenge in the end is to be Kingdom minded, and so is ours except we would offer that within our understanding of the church’s role to make kingdom disciples.

Revolution has some helpful and challenging thoughts, but we must read it carefully less it cause us to downplay the place and role of the local church in the kingdom and encourage us with the idea that we do not have to be a part of the church. The church is the bride of Christ and as such it is the heart of the kingdom, and people’s effectiveness in the kingdom largely depends on the church’s effectiveness in making disciples.

Spiritual warfare has led to a prolific printing of books about Satan’s opposition to Christians as they seek to live and serve the Lord. Stanley Gale has written to help believers develop a mindset about their call to serve as fellow warriors extending the Kingdom of God. Christians are urged to understand that we are not living in peacetime, but in a great conflict between two kingdoms, that of Satan and God.

There are three main sections to the book. In the first entitled “Enlistment,” we are reminded that we have a divine commission and that we are called to active duty as long as we live on this earth. He describes the hostile environment of this fallen world. Even though this is Satan’s territory, Gale warns that it does not mean as some sensationalist writers like to describe it that it is divided into territorial regions under demonic landlords. We are not called to identify such beings.

Gale develops the Kingdom conflict by contrasting the Kingdom of God with Satan’s kingdom and the victory that is won through Christ. The very nature of the growth of the Kingdom comes through evangelism. Christians cannot bear a peace mentality when it comes to proclaiming the gospel of reconciliation and emancipation.

In the second main section addressing the “Equipment” Gale gives a good description of the spiritual weapons to be used in the battle of what he calls “plundering Christ’s spoils.” The most powerful weapon he describes is the Holy Spirit, and he follows that up with an indepth study of the weapon of prayer followed by how to wield the weapons of prayer and the Word of God.

The third main section is “Engagement.” Here Gale does a very good job of encouraging and challenging those who believe to take the gospel into the world and make contact with those who are still captive to the kingdom of Satan. He does it in a manner that will cause you to see there are more opportunities than you might realize. He provides a good chart for a believer to record how many relationships he has in different locations. He calls it “life-sphere mapping.” The chapter on Rules of Engagement is excellent in that it stresses relationships and the importance of communication, which includes listening. We shouldn’t just talk at people, but talk to them especially in a manner as the Apostle Peter says, with “respect and gentleness.” He again emphasizes the importance of prayer in that we “talk to God for people, and we talk to people for God.” A believer does this while being in step with the Holy Spirit of God. The believer engages with communication, and the Spirit, in his own time and way, engages with conversion.

Gale writes in a warm and winsome way that will touch your heart with a desire to re-enlist in the great warfare between the Kingdom of God and the kingdom of Satan. You do not have to do it with a sense of winning a victory, but rather realizing the victory is already won by Jesus Christ.