Book Reviews

Takeaway: Meals are an important part of being human, being Christian, being missional and being with Jesus.

There is much to commend about A Meal with Jesus. If you are interested in being more missional in your Christianity the chapter of meals as mission is great. It talks practically about how important actually getting people in your house and sharing food builds relationship in ways that virtually no other activity can do.

There were also extended discussions using Luke as the primary text about the role of the meal in the life of Jesus. In most of the gospel of Luke, food or a meal is the setting for Jesus’ teaching and Jesus is almost always coming from or going to somewhere to eat. Luke also is very concerned with the poor. In most of his parables in Luke there is a coupling of one parable about a rich or prestigious person with either another parable about a poor person or another character in the parable being poor. Chester connects the meal and Jesus desire to eat with the people. Jesus ate with both the poor and despised and the rich and powerful. Jesus was always gracious to the poor and usually quite confrontational with those that are rich.

Unintentionally this book became another in my six month study of Luke. I am in my last Luke commentary now, but this book helped to reaffirm that scripture is not just about learning or about doing, it is about the way that we become Christians.

There is also a great thought by Chester in the context of one of his discussions of Jesus talking with some Pharisees over a meal. Chester says, “These verses also speak to a professionalized church ministry””a life seen as the epitome of godliness, but all but impossible for those not in full-time ministry.” Jesus was bringing the Pharisees down to size, not as much for what they were doing (observing the law, keeping ritually pure, etc.) but they way they were doing it. The Pharisees, like many of us, were doing life in a way that was unattainable to those around then and then holding themselves up as an example against the other, instead of empowering the other to do what they can.

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Takeaway: The globalization of the world in economics, travel and relationships require the US courts to grapple with international law.

I am fascinated with the court system. Several years ago I read extensively about the Supreme Court and its history and current makeup. After hearing a couple interviews with Breyer about this book I was interested, in part because I know that Breyer has made it part of his mission to work toward the international training of judges.

This is a technical legal book. Breyer is making a case and (as I understand it) legal cases are largely made through understanding of precedent and understanding the legal language of the relevant law. I listened to the audiobook, which is well narrated by Breyer and feels like a constitutional law class (in a good way.)

In a 12 chapter book, Breyer spends the first 9 chapters charting how the US court system has reached our current place. The first four chapters are historical view of how the courts have understood their role during war.

The next two chapters are about how American law has stood outside the US through international commerce regulation and US laws on international Torts and Human Rights.

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Takeaway: A strong monarchy does not prevent political complaints about taxes and the economy.

As the saying goes, “so many books, so little time.” Very Short Introduction books can be helpful as a quick guide to a subject. My English history is not that great, so I picked this up on sale to help fill in some gaps.

The Very Short Introduction series is a mixed bag, some have been excellent and some have been horrible. The most common problem is that some of the guides skip the content and spend all of their time talking about the scholarship. That is not a problem here. This is straight narrative history. Starting immediately before the rise of Henry the VII, going to Henry VIII, Mary and eventually Elizabeth.

I was actually better informed about this era than I thought because of my readings in reformation history. But this was a decent overview. There were two short chapters at the end that talked about the influence of the arts (primarily architecture and music) in the era.

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Summary: A series of letters (modeled somewhat after Hitchen’s Letters to a Young Contrarian and Weigel’s Letters to a Young Catholic)

It is part of my naivete that I was aware of Letters to a Young Calvinist before I was aware of Hitchens’ or Weigel’s book.  And when I typed in ‘Letters to a Young’ on Amazon, I found a dozen or so similar books.

I remember when this first came out, I was first starting to read a bit about Calvinism because of the rise of the Restless and Reformed movement. It is particularly these young new Calvinists that Smith was hoping to reach, although I have heard him say that this book never caught on as he hoped it would.

When it first came out, I remember that it was notable because Smith took a position that the essential parts of Calvinist (or Reformed) thought were not TULIP, but covenantal theology. And part of the ramifications of that was that Smith did not believe that you could be a real Calvinist and be Baptist (because Baptists were not Covenantal in theology). You could subscribe to the principles of TULIP, but that in and of itself is not Calvinism.

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Summary: A highly readable, brief look at the central practice of Christian worship.

NT Wright is not only an incredibly prolific writer, he also seems to be continually updating his earlier books. The Meal Jesus Gave Us was originally published in 2002 and was revised this summer.

Wright is known for his academic publishing, but this is one of his books that is oriented toward the non-professional. If anything this might have been over simplified. This new version is slightly edited and has added discussion questions. It would make a good study for an adult confirmation class or a small group.

The book opens with an introduction imagining what a birthday party might look like to a martian unfamiliar with human rituals. After a brief discussion of how human rituals conveying meaning, Wright spends a couple of chapters imagining what a disciple at the Last Supper and then an early Christian would think about communion.

The second section (the last short 9 chapters) attempts to put some theological meat on the previous imaginings. Because it is Wright, communion is placed in context of early Jewish thought, the kingdom of God, the eschatological vision of Christianity (end times), how communion reflects Jesus death and resurrection and more.

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