I have a love-hate relationship with money. I think most people do. On the one hand money is a necessity—a resource we depend upon, a resource we need if we are to live and thrive in this world. On the other hand money is spiritually captivating, a resource that offers a particularly insightful look into our hearts. Money is the topic of Randy Alcorn’s new book Managing God’s Money. This is a biblical guide to managing our money with an eye to eternity.

Sunday, August 27, 2006, the sun beats down steadily but not oppressively on the streets of Pamplona. It's a lazy Sunday afternoon in Spain, the kind of day siestas were made for.

The traffic on the streets--if you can call the occasional car "traffic"--is also lazy, relaxed and unhurried, with one exception. A silver van speeds down the avenue, pausing only briefly before shooting through a red light.

In the back of the van a young girl is spread out across the seat, her head cradled in her mother's arms. "I need you to breathe, Allison!" the woman says. "Keep breathing!" But Allison is breathing, the deep breathing that's past sleep, the coma from which she will not wake up. Or perhaps she has already awakened; perhaps, somewhere between the house and the hospital, her soul slipped away from the presence of her panicked parents and into the calm presence of her Father.

The sun shines on a lazy afternoon in Pamplona as the girl's parents speed down the road toward the end of their world.

So begins Luke Veldt’s Written in Tears. That young girl was Allison Veldt, Luke’s thirteen year-old daughter. This book is a journey through the aftermath of that sudden, shocking, unexpected death. Left reeling after Allison died, Veldt found himself looking for answers and for comfort in the words of the Bible. Despite being a pastor and church planter, a man who knows his Bible well, he was still surprised by what he found in God’s Word. As he says in the opening pages of his book, “It took the death of my daughter for me to begin to understand the love of God.”

After Allison’s death, Veldt turned to Psalm 103 and he read it again and again. He read it every day for more than a year. And through that psalm he experienced God’s presence. This book, a short but powerful little volume, shares many of the lessons the Lord taught him through his grief.

Embarking on a short tour of the afterlife is all the rage, it seems. Don Piper got it started with 90 Minutes in Heaven, a really bad book that sold millions of copies. Then there was 23 Minutes in Hell, another bestseller and another awful book. And now hot on their heels comes Heaven Is For Real: A Little Boy's Astounding Story of His Trip to Heaven and Back. It’s currently sitting atop the New York Times list of bestsellers and has over a half million copies in print. I wonder if I'm the only one who finds it a mite suspicious that now that these books are selling like proverbial hotcakes, more and more people find that God wants them to tell their stories of heaven and hell. Probably not.

Heaven Is For Real is written by pastor Todd Burpo and it tells the story of his son Colton who, at age 4, visited heaven. His visit came while he was on the operating table after suffering a burst appendix. He told his parents his story several months later and his parents then waited 6 or 7 years to record it in a book. That book has shot to the top of the charts, resulting in many of you sending me emails to ask, "Have you read it?" So I went ahead and read it. Because that's the kind of guy I am.

You will probably not be surprised to learn that this is not a good book. What I want to do here is offer a very brief review and then I want to tell you why you can legitimately dismiss this book and all the others like it, because I think that's where many of us feel the tension--what gives me the right to dismiss another person's experience?

I've already given you the broad outline. Colton dies (or something close to it) and visits heaven for an unknown period of time. He returns to his body and over the months and years that follow tells his parents about his time in heaven. He tells about spending time with Jesus, about meeting the sister he never knew he had, about fluttering around with wings, about the pearly gates, and on and on. Along the way you'll get descriptions of Todd's various afflictions and you'll read the fine details of Colton's battles with constipation and the great relief he experienced passing gas. Riveting stuff, this.

Every one of Colton's experiences, or very nearly every one, follows a pattern. He tells his father some little detail. His father experiences a gasp or feels his heart skip a beat. “I could hardly breathe. My mind was reeling. My head was spinning.” A Scripture verse comes to dad's mind that validates the experience. Colton gets bored and runs off. Repeat.

As a social experiment it could hardly have been devised better. Put 33 men 2300 feet underground and seal them in with limited supplies and with no guarantee that they will be rescued. Then leave them there for 69 days. What would happen? Would they divide into packs and begin to destroy one another a la Lord of the Flies? Would they resort to cannibalism? Would they resort to homosexuality? These are the questions people were asking when just such an accident happened at the San Jose copper-gold mine in the Atacama Desert near Copiapo, Chile. 33 men were trapped when a slab of rock the size of a skyscraper came between them and the outside world. And all the world watched to see if they could be saved from their tomb.

The last man was rescued from that mine on the 13th of October, 2010. On February 14, 2011 33 Men hit store shelves, a book detailing the disaster and response. 4 months. That hardly seems like enough time to write a book, not to mention fact-check it and edit it and print it. But I’ve got to say, this isn’t a bad book at all. It’s well-written and engaging and, as far as I can tell, quite accurate.

What I find particularly interesting is not the disaster in itself. A mine collapsed, men were trapped and a massive rescue operation was launched. It’s a good story. But what was even more interesting to me were the social, psychological and spiritual dynamics. What would happen when 33 men were trapped deep underground, completely isolated for 17 days and then then in touch with the world but still cut off for a further 52 days? What kind of society would develop? How would the men behave?

There are some books that find their strength in saying new things—the original thoughts or perspectives we’ve simply never heard before. There are other books that find their strength in saying old things—things we’ve heard before but just need to hear again, whether that’s because of lack of faith or lack of memory or just because every time something is said it’s said in a different way. Jonathan Leeman’s new book Reverberation: How God’s Word Brings Light, Freedom, and Action to His People falls squarely into the latter category for me. I have heard it before. And I desperately needed to hear it again.

Reverberation is a book about God’s Word. It’s that simple. But maybe it’s not that simple. Churches and Christians are looking all over the place to find a source of light, freedom and action, to find whatever it is that will stir people, fire them up, lead them to do great things. Some try the latest and greatest programs; some work on dynamic small group ministries; some work toward the best worship by the best musicians; some look to justice. In the midst of all these options Leeman sets the Word of God, the one thing Jesus declared to be necessary in the life of the church and the one thing necessary for the growth of the church. While none of these other things are necessarily wrong, none of them can be central; rather, each must flow out of the centrality of the Word.

“One thing is necessary in our churches—hearing God’s Word through preaching, reading, singing, and praying.” When the Word is central it echoes out into all parts of the life of the church. “Picture it this way. The evangelist or preacher open his mouth and utters a word, God’s Word. But the Word doesn’t sound just once. It echoes or reverberates. It reverberates through the church’s music and prayers. It reverberates through the conversations between elders and members, members and guests, older Christians and younger ones. God’s words bounce around the life of the church, like the metal ball in the pinball machine.” But that is not all. It also reverberates into people’s homes and workplaces, their families and neighborhoods, out onto Facebook and blogs and anywhere else these people go. And what Reverberation seeks to do is to follow this path.

Questions matter. They can help you to grow deeper in your knowledge of the truth and your love for God--especially when you're dealing with the harder doctrines of the Christian faith. But questions can also be used to obscure the truth. They can be used to lead away just as easily as they can be used to lead toward. Ask Eve.

Enter Rob Bell, a man who has spent much of the last seven years asking questions in his sometimes thought-provoking and often frustrating fashion. And when he's done asking, no matter what answers he puts forward, it seems we're only left with more questions. This trend continues in his new book, Love Wins: A Book About Heaven, Hell, and the Fate of Every Person Who Ever Lived, where Bell poses what might be his most controversial question yet:

Does a loving God really send people to hell for all eternity?

The questions you probably want answers to as you read this review are these: Is it true that Rob Bell teaches that hell doesn't exist? Is it true that Rob Bell believes no one goes to hell? You'll just need to keep reading because, frankly, the answers aren't that easy to come by.

How he asks the question is just as important as the question itself. "Has God created billions of people over thousands of years only to select a few to go to heaven and everyone else to suffer forever in hell? Is this acceptable to God? How is this 'good news'?" They say that the person who frames the debate is going to win the debate. That is especially true when the debate is framed in this way, through these particular questions. You're damned if you do and damned if you don't. No offense, and no pun intended.

The Toxic Subversion Of Jesus' Message

Bell begins the book with surprising forthrightness: Jesus' story has been hijacked by a number of different stories that Jesus has no interest in telling. "The plot has been lost, and it's time to reclaim it." (Preface, vi)

A staggering number of people have been taught that a select few Christians will spend forever in a peaceful, joyous place called heaven, while the rest of humanity spends forever in torment and punishment in hell with no chance for anything better.... This is misguided and toxic and ultimately subverts the contagious spread of Jesus' message of love, peace, forgiveness, and joy that our world desperately needs to hear. (ibid)

You may want to read that again.

It really says that. And it really means what you think it means. Though it takes time for that to become clear.

Tim Keller’s career as an author has been rather unusual. Ministries of Mercy, his first book, was published in 1997. It was 11 years before he wrote his second book, The Reason for God, a title that rocketed right onto the New York Times list of bestsellers. Since then he has averaged more than a book a year and each of those titles has garnered a lot of acclaim; within just a few years Keller has established himself as one of the most significant Christian authors. New for 2011 is Redeemer, a publishing imprint with Dutton (which in turn is an imprint of Penguin Publishing) and the first book published under that banner: King’s Cross: The Story of the World in the Life of Jesus.

This is a book about Jesus—Jesus as he is portrayed in the Gospel of Mark. Keller says, “It is an extended meditation on the historical Christian premise that Jesus’s life, death, and resurrection form the central event of cosmic and human history as well as the central organizing principle of the world—and how we fit into it—is most clearly understood through a careful, direct look at the story of Jesus. My purpose here is to try to show, through his words and actions, how beautifully his life makes sense of ours.” Understand Jesus and you will understand the world: that is the central premise of the book.

King’s Cross is based upon a series Keller preached on Mark and the expository tone and structure remains. And yet somehow reading this book does not feel like reading sermons—it feels like meditation upon a text. Its style is pure Keller, probably closest to The Prodigal God, though certainly there are similarities with his other titles as well. This is not an exposition of the entire text of Mark, but rather an exposition of some of the more significant moments. And in that way it reads like a biography of Jesus, an account of his life, his death, his meaning, his purpose. While Keller inevitably turns to the parallel accounts of Jesus in the other gospel, his central focus remains Mark.

Albert Pujols is a phenom. 10 years into his career he has already broken the 400 mark in homers, he has driven in more than 1200 runs and has maintained a batting average of .331. The closest player comparisons to him are men who inhabit the baseball pantheon—Frank Robinson, Lou Gehrig, Ken Griffey. But there’s more to Pujols than his dominance of the game of baseball. He is also a committed Christian who seeks to submit all that he does to the Lord. Pujols happens to be the subject of Pujols: More Than the Game, a new biography written by Scott Lamb and Tim Ellsworth.

A baseball player’s career on the field is easily tracked by numbers. Statisticians have found innumerable ways of measuring and dissecting every component of the game, from the plate to the field to the base paths and everything in between. A man’s entire career can be distilled to a handful of numbers—a few lifetime statistics followed by a number that represents his career earnings. And then he retires and gets old and is forgotten, replaced by the new young superstars. What cannot be easily measured is his impact on those around him—his family, his teammates, his fans. What is special about Pujols is his desire to be an example not just in his statistics but in his life and his legacy. He is seeking to build a legacy not just of phenomenal numbers, but of gospel impact.

Born in poverty in the Dominican Republic, Pujols immigrated to the United States at 16 and immediately began to dominate the game of baseball, first in high school and then in college. Drafted by St. Louis, he spent just one year in the minor leagues before graduating to the big show where he quickly won Rookie of the Year honors (batting .329, hitting 37 homers and knocking in 130 runs; amazingly, that was to prove his weakest season). And he was just getting started. He has played for the All Star team in 9 of his 10 seasons, has won a World Series and has taken home MVP honors 3 times. And heading into his eleventh season he is only 31—just getting warmed up.

But there is far more to Pujols than baseball. He says, “In the Pujols family, God is first. Everything else is a distant second.” And he seeks to bear that out. He is known for continually seeking to point others to Christ, including the guys who end up standing beside him on first base, many of whom have heard him ask, “If you were to die tonight, where do you think you would go?” He is firmly committed to his wife, Deidre, and to their four children. He heads up the Pujols Family Foundation which seeks to “promote awareness, provide hope and meet tangible needs for families and children who live with Down syndrome.”

There can be a very fine line between genius and insanity. Such was the case with Bobby Fischer—perhaps the greatest chess master to ever play the game, but a man who seemed to live his life teetering on the brink of insanity. Fischer is the subject of Endgame, a compassionate but honest new biography written by Frank Brady. It offers an insightful look into the life of a strange, tortured individual whose intellect was matched only by his pride.

Bobby Fischer grew up fatherless, raised by a caring but doting mother, one who was convinced of his brilliance but unequipped to deal with him on her own. Fischer was an obsessive child who, from a very young age, was drawn to puzzle games. He viewed the game of chess as the ultimate puzzle—one that could not be solved, but one that could be mastered. And he sought to master it, dedicating almost every waking hour, year after year, to honing his skills. Even as a teenager he made his mark on the chess world, steadily rising through the ranks and eventually rising to the pinnacle as the World Chess Champion.

Perhaps the most noteworthy aspect of Fischer, apart from his brilliance, is his ego—an ego that seemed to know no bounds. He was remarkably self-assured and utterly convinced that he was the most brilliant chess player in history. All honor, all adoration, all acclaim belonged to him alone. He would demand recognition and demand honor. When he felt he had been slighted in any way he would respond with fury and outrage. He would turn down tens of millions of dollars if accepting the money would in any way prove a blow to his pride.

A.W. Tozer is a man whose ministry has long fascinated me. A man who held closely to biblical, Protestant theology, he was also a man who loved the old Catholic mystics. He had little formal education, yet had the ability to hold the most educated of men and women at rapt attention. He had a single-minded devotion to Christ and the highest respect for the Scriptures. Reading A Passion for God has only increased my fascination with him, for here we see more strange and seemingly irreconcilable opposites. Biographer Lyle Dorsett has written a study of the man that deals as honestly with his faults as with the areas that are laudable. And in this case the faults are almost shocking.

Tozer was a man who loved Scripture and loved nothing more than preaching its truths to all who would listen. "A.W. Tozer heralded biblical truth. He loved the Bible and unflinchingly preached what he believed people needed to hear, regardless of what they wanted." Yet he was a man who neglected the mission field in his home. "On and off over the years, Aiden exercised his role as head of the family by encouraging times of family devotions. These never lasted more than a few weeks. As one son explained, the children just did not want it and they were seldom all together for extended periods in any case."