Book Reviews

Outspoken: Conversations on Church Communication

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Outspoken: Conversations on Church CommunicationTakeaway: Wide ranging book on practical, theological and theoretical importance of communication in the church world.

Purchase Links: Paperback, Kindle Edition

Upfront this is not a normal review.  I did not read it as I normally read, I read it as I was prepping it for the kindle version.  I have not prepped and converted many books, just a handful, but I have done a few based on my own love of ebooks and the desire to get smaller independent books out to a wider audience.  Kevin Hendricks, one of the contributors, contacted me about working on Outspoken because I converted his last book, Open Our Eyes: Seeing the Invisible People of Homelessness.  Outspoken is a very similar style, lots of contributors, lots of short chapters.

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Many Waters by Madeline L’Engle

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Many Waters (Madeleine L'Engle's Time Quintet)Summary: The twins, Sandy and Denis, go back into biblical history and find their place in their special family.

Purchase Links: Paperback, Kindle Edition

Many Waters is the fourth book in Madeline L’Engle’s Time Quintet.  It was not published until 1986, almost a decade after the third book and 24 years after the first book of the series.  Chronologically, it is set between books 2 and 3.  Because I got these at the library, due to availability, I listened to it in chronological order.

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Dr No by Ian Fleming

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Dr. NoSummary: Bond fights the bad guy, tries to get the girl

I feel like I watched a lot of James Bond movies growing up.  But when I go back and watch old James Bond I do not remember many.  So maybe I watched the same ones several times?

I have not actually read any of the original books before.  Other than the original Jason Bourne books, I have not really read any of the old spy novels.  I have enjoyed some of the newer, post-cold war spy novels.

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Luke: The Gospel of Amazement by Michael Card

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Luke: The Gospel of Amazement (Biblical Imagination)Takeaway: A guided devotional reading of scripture can bring new insights.

The Gospel of Amazement is the latest in my current bible reading strategy.  This is a perfect book to add to a long-term look at Luke.  I have read a small group bible study, a book on a short passage in Luke and my next book will be a very academic commentary.  But Michael Card’s book is more of a ‘devotional commentary’.  Its focus is devotional more than academic, but it still brings in clear academic insights.

Card translated Luke himself.  The chapters of Luke are separated into chapters in the Gospel of Amazement and Card gives commentary on small sections.  I may feel the devotional style more because I actually used it as a devotional.

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Inspiration and Incarnation: Evangelicals and the Problem of the Old Testament by Peter Enns

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Inspiration and Incarnation: Evangelicals and the Problem of the Old TestamentTakeaway: Scripture is a diverse, important, human-written, God-breathed book.  

Over the past couple months I have been wandering through an exploration of scripture, what it is, how we can understand it, what we should be doing with it.  Inspiration and Incarnation is the latest book in my exploration.  I was lucky enough to read this one with friends and have an email discussion about it.

Emotionally, I am a bit disappointed by this book.  I knew it was controversial.  Enns resigned his position at Westminster Seminary after controversy with the board of the seminary and this book.  After reading the first two chapters, I kept thinking ‘no wonder he was fired’.  There really are controversial statements in the book, but I think much of the controversy could have been minimized with a better editor.  He seems unnecessarily provocative in a few areas where his point is not controversial.  Intellectually, I am intrigued.  He is pushing in many of the areas I think need to be pushed in the Evangelical understanding of scripture.  I am not sure about some of his conclusions, but the discussion is useful.

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2 Short Reviews of Eugene Peterson Books

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Before I started blogging on Bookwi.se I started tracking my books on Goodreads.com (social network for readers).  I have number of short reviews on Goodreads so as part of cleaning up my blog structure I am going to repost some of the shorts reviews from Goodreads. Christ Plays in Ten Thousand Places by Eugene Peterson … Read more

Uncommon Decency: Christian Civility in an Uncivil World by Richard Mouw

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Uncommon Decency: Christian Civility in an Uncivil WorldTakeaway: Start with your own sinfulness and the other’s humanness

Next week I am going to talk to a small group of college students about how to disagree with others as Christians.  I think this is a particularly important topic.  Luckily I found this book just in time.  Coincidentally, Mouw was on Krista Tippet’s NPR show On Being last week.  The interview has a good overview of the book (although focused more on civility between Christians and non-Christians.)

Mouw quotes Martin Marty’s observation, “One of the real problems in modern life is that people who are good at being civil often lack strong conviction and people who have strong convictions often lack civility.”  This book is his attempt at trying to encourage a “convicted civility”.  Mouw’s civility is not ‘niceness’.  Civility has the root purpose of acknowledging the other person’s Imageo Dei (Image of God).

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The Mission of God’s People: A Biblical Theology of the Church’s Mission by Christopher Wright

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The Mission of God's People: A Biblical Theology of the Church's Mission (Biblical Theology for Life)Takeaway: The church, God’s people, are on mission, or should be.

Purchase Links: Paperback, Kindle Edition, Audible.com Audiobook

I picked up this book on a whim.  I did not know anything about the book or author.  I have been reading books on the bible and theology.  I was out of audiobooks and liked the idea of a series on Biblical Theology.  I was very surprised how good this was.  Christopher Wright is a former seminary professor in India and for the last 10 years has headed the foundation that was started by John Stott to facilitate training of international Christian leaders.

After some research I found out that Christopher Wright is best known for his monumental book Mission of God.  Mission of God was the 2007 Christianity Today Missions Book of the Year.  It tracks how the mission of God is developed throughout the bible.  Wright makes significant contrabutions on how the mission of God is developed in the Old Testament.

The Mission of God’s People builds on his earlier book by asking the next question, What is the mission of the church? Or how does God use his people for his mission?  This is a very biblically focused book that seems to build on the earlier book, but is focused on how the people of God are being used by God for his mission.  Again, Wright spends a good amount of time on the Old Testament.

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