Book Review - Do I Know God? (08/10/07 - 3 Comments)
A review of Tullian Tchividjian's new book. There can be no question more important to a person than this one: "Do I know God?" Those who do know Him have the privilege of being adopted into the family of God and being assured of an eternity in His presence. Those who do not have no such privilege and no such hope. In America the vast majority of people claim to be Christians and claim to...
Book Review - The Dawkins Delusion? (08/07/07 - 7 Comments)
Richard Dawkins's The God Delusion is a mega-seller, having been a long-time fixture on the New York Times list of bestsellers. Easily the world's most prominent atheist at this time, Dawkins is becoming still more popular and gaining a wider and wider voice. Just recently he has introduced his "OUT" campaign which seeks to convince atheists to come out with their beliefs and to stop hiding in shame. He is leading the charge for society...
Book Review Updates (08/07/07 - 1 Comments)
This is your weekly notification of the reviews I've added to Discerning Reader. This week I've written four reviews and Scott Lamb has contributed one as well. The reviews are as follows: From Alister McGrath comes The Dawkins Delusion?, a rather brilliant response to Richard Dawkins's bestselling The God Delusion which I reviewed last week. McGrath is probably one of the Christians best-suited to write a response and he does not disappoint. If you've read...
Reformed Expository Commentary (08/03/07 - 9 Comments)
Don't be scared away by the title. After all, commentaries are not only for pastors. So read on! I do not have an extensive collection of commentaries (though, for a guy who has only preached once, I'm doing alright, thanks primarily to my father trimming down his library). But of the volumes I do have, among the ones I've enjoyed the most are titles in the Reformed Expository Commentary series. These are not the...
Book Review Updates (07/31/07 - 0 Comments)
As you know, Tuesday is the day I add new reviews to Discerning Reader. This week we have five reviews for you, four of which were written by me. The fifth is written by a new Discerning Reader reviewer, James Anderson. James has a review of Only One Way?, a book edited by Richard Phillips. He writes, "for those of us who remain undaunted by such cultural pressures, this book offers an invigorating celebration of...
Book Review - The Truth of the Cross (07/31/07 - 14 Comments)
Before I started into the text of The Truth of the Cross I read the three endorsements that came with it, one by Thomas Schreiner, one by Scott Clark and one by Bruce Waltke. It was Waltke's that caught my eye when he said, "The Truth of the Cross is the best book on the cross I have read." A man of Waltke's age, Christian maturity and status must have read more than a few...
Book Review - The God Delusion (07/27/07 - 49 Comments)
The atheistic literary pantheon is currently comprised of three men: Sam Harris, Richard Dawkins and Christopher Hitchens. All three men have written bestselling books and all three have published their most recent efforts in the past year. While I have no reason to believe that they have planned their books to coincide thematically or chronologically, their books do resemble each other in several ways. All three men believe that religion is a blight on...
Book Review - Girls Gone Mild (07/24/07 - 5 Comments)
In 2000, when she was only twenty-three, Wendy Shalit published A Return to Modesty: Discovering the Lost Virtue, a book in which she argued that the sexual revolution may not have been entirely beneficial for women. She decried the lack of modesty this revolution has brought about and, according to TIME defended "compellingly, shame, privacy, gallantry, and sexual reticence." Of course many people, and feminists in particular, were disgusted with the book and ruthlessly mocked...
Review - Letter to a Christian Nation (07/22/07 - 5 Comments)
I found Letter to a Christian Nation a difficult book to read. It is, after all, a book whose purpose is to criticize one of the things I hold most dear--the church of Jesus Christ. While certainly deliberate and measured as these things go, it is still something of a rant against religion in general, Christianity in particular, and, at its narrowest focus, those who call themselves by the name of Christ (and hence, the...
Book Review - Jesus the Evangelist (07/18/07 - 5 Comments)
I typically try to avoid posting book reviews two days in a row (especially after posting both reviews at Discerning Reader), but I wanted to be sure I drew sufficient attention to Richard Phillips' new book Jesus the Evangelist. I have written about the book once before (link) while reflecting on what I learned from studying the account of Jesus at Jacob's Well. But that was just one of the many beneficial lessons I drew...
Book Review Updates (07/17/07 - 3 Comments)
As you know by now, Tuesdays are review days over at Discerning Reader. And this week we've added five new ones (written by four different reviewers) and two great author interviews. There is a book here for everyone! I have already posted my review of When Sinners Say "I Do" at the blog, but have a very interesting interview with Dave Harvey that you'll want to read. I also review Jesus the Evangelist by Richard...
Review - When Sinners Say "I Do" (07/17/07 - 19 Comments)
A person does not have to be married for long to realize that marriage is a lot more difficult than it may seem. Certainly it is a lot more difficult than God intended for it to be. With the fall into sin came the rise of the self, with the loss of perfection came the dominance of sin. Even the best marriages are now tainted by sin, by selfishness, by a distinct lack of love....
The Last Gentleman Adventurer (07/14/07 - 3 Comments)
When he was just sixteen years old, Edward Beauclerk Maurice signed up with the Hudson's Bay Company and was sent from his native England to an isolated trading post in the Canadian arctic as one of the Company's Gentleman Adventurers. A million miles from nowhere, there was no communication with the outside world (beyond the very occasional, very faint radio broadcast) and a ship arrived only once each year. Maurice's job was to trade with...
Book Review Updates (07/10/07 - 1 Comments)
As you know by now, Tuesdays are review days over at Discerning Reader. And this week, like most weeks, we've added four new ones. Two were written by me and two were written by others. From reviewer Scott Lamb comes a review of a book edited by Tom Nettles and Russell Moore and targetted squarely at Baptists. Scott encourages you to pick up a copy of Why I am a Baptist and to join in...
Book Review - Manhunt (07/10/07 - 4 Comments)
I began reading Manhunt on the Monday morning of a long weekend. By the end of the day I had accomplished none of the chores and errands I had hoped to scratch off my list, but instead found myself 350 pages into this book. I eventually pried myself away long enough to get some sleep and then promptly finished it up the next morning. Though I am a lover of history, rarely has my attention...
Book Review (and Interview) Updates (07/03/07 - 0 Comments)
Tuesday is review day over at Discerning Reader. This week we've posted four new ones. I'm guessing that the one which will prove of most interest to readers of this site is Leslie Wiggins' review of Shopping for Time by Carolyn Mahaney and her daughters. "The Mahaney women invite you to pull a chair up to Carolyn’s kitchen table for their weekly Q & A. The Feta cheese and French fries will be flying as...
Book Review - Lincoln (07/03/07 - 7 Comments)
I have long been fascinated with Abraham Lincoln. I first encountered him during a family vacation in Gettysburg, Pennsylvania. Touring the battlefields and the surrounding area we came to that place where he delivered the Gettysburg Address which has rightly gone done in history as one of the greatest English literary accomplishments. A few years later we traveled to Springfield and visited the home where he lived while practicing law. It was there that we...
Pierced for Our Transgressions (07/01/07 - 31 Comments)
The doctrine of penal substitution doesn't, on the face of it, sound too glorious. It is a doctrine involving curse, punishment, blood and death. It is little wonder that people object to it so strenuously. Indeed, this teaching has been at the very center of a rift within the church--a rift that seems to be growing ever-wider and ever more visible. Once the realm of scholars cloistered away in the ivory towers of academia, the...
Book Review Updates (06/26/07 - 6 Comments)
Tuesdays are review days at Discerning Reader and this week we've added five new ones. Because I am reviewing so many books these days, I will only be posting some of them at my blog. The rest will appear over at Discerning Reader and you can read them there if you're interested. I've written reviews of a couple of popular titles, one coming from a professed Christian and the other from an ardent atheist. Sam...
Book Review - Grace (Eventually) (06/26/07 - 4 Comments)
I really don't understand Anne Lamott's appeal. I'll grant that she is a talented writer but clearly this, in an of itself, cannot explain it. I suppose a good bit of her appeal probably stems from her gut-honest authenticity, her willingness to say exactly what she's thinking all the time. She's profound, she's profane, she's shocking and people seem to love her for it. Her latest nonfiction book (she has also authored several novels) is...
