Summary: A short devotional using music to to think about Jesus and our role as Christians.
John Michael Talbot was a popular musician in his teens in the 1970s. He became a Christian through the Jesus People movement and then through his reading about the early church fathers found his way into the Catholic church, eventually founding a monastic community (with both Protestants and Catholics, married and celebrate, clergy and lay people.)
While John Michael Talbot continued to be musician, he has also written a number of books: devotionals, memoir, prayer and a number about different aspects of monasticism. I have appreciated that he has intentionally continued to write as a Catholic, but in an inclusive way. Intervarsity Press has published a number of his books.
The Master Musician (from Intervarsity) is short, easily read in less than two hours. As someone that was a musician at a Christian college (I was briefly a music major and then played in the Wind Ensemble for two years), I have heard a number of devotionals about music. So many of the ideas of this book were not particularly new.
Talbot talks about the crafting of an instrument and compares that to our spiritual growth as a Christian. He talks about the different styles of music or different ways people gather together as musicians to play are related to the body of Christ. He talks about Jesus as conductor and musician.
These ideas I think are helpful to see another facet of our Christian life. This may be better for someone that is familiar with music than someone that is not. And at the same time, it might be better for someone that has not been a musician in a Christian setting because while I think this is written well, several of the ideas have floated through my world as a musician in a Christian setting previously.
The kindle edition of The Master Musician has some audio and video with it. But I read it on an old second generation Kindle and those additional features were not available there.
The Master Musician: Meditations on Jesus by John Michael Talbot Purchase Links: Paperback, Kindle Edition
Related Bookwi.se Book Reviews
- The Ancient Path: Old Lessons from the Church Fathers for a New Life Today by John Michael Talbot with Mike Aquilina
- The Jesus Prayer: A Cry for Mercy, A Path for Renewal by John Michael Talbot
- When the Church Was Young: Voices of the Early Fathers by Marcellino D’Abrosio
- A Change of Heart: A Personal and Theological Memoir by Thomas C Oden