There are many companies today that allow anyone with a few thousand dollars (sometimes less) to publish a book. There are few requirements other than a manuscript and money. This is a mixed blessing. On one hand it allows people to publish books who arouse little interest in the handful of major publishers. On the other hand, it allows books to be printed that are sloppily-written, or at times, clearly not deserving of being printed.

The Passion of Job by Dr. Richard Spillman is published by Xulon Press, just such a company that caters to the Christian market. In fact, Xulon publicizes the claim (without substantiation) that it is the world’s largest Christian publisher. This book is not the type that would gain interest from a major publisher, yet is well-worth reading. Unfortunately, it succumbs to the stylistic sloppiness self-publishing is known for.

It took me seven years to pick A Journey in Grace from my shelf and finally read it. I so enjoyed it that I immediately turned to the sequel, A Journey in Purity which had been sitting beside it all this time. Where the first title in this series of theological novels addresses the doctrines of grace (ie the 5 Points of Calvinism), the second title examines the purity of the church.

The story of young pastor Ira Pointer picks up precisely where it left off in the final pages of A Journey in Grace. Ira is faced with a church with a huge membership, but with low attendance. The book describes his struggle in attempting to purify the church by making membership meaningful. He leads the deacons of his congregation through the long process of discovering what the Scriptures teach about church membership, responsibilities and discipline and then leads them through a difficult time of change as the leadership attempts to purify the church. There is plenty of intruige and some fun plot twists that keep the book a novel rather than solely theology.

A few weeks ago Jason Boyett wrote me to ask if he could send along a copy of his latest book, A Pocket Guide to the Apocalypse. I rarely turn down a book, so told him I would be glad to read and review this one. He encouraged me to review it honestly and to pan it if I felt that was necessary. He must believe in the old adage that “no press is bad press.”

The Pocket Guide, which is written in a style reminiscent of Douglas Adams’ famous five-part trilogy The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy, is a “comprehensive guide to the last days, a must-have for apocalypse watchers, readers of Revelation and all-around Armageddon obsessives” (from the back cover). To translate, it is a book that pokes fun at those who think they have the end-times all figured out and who like to claim they know when the end is coming. It also seeks to bring just a little bit of clarity to the concepts and terminology surrounding the end-times.

A Journey in Grace, by Richard Belcher, is billed as being “A Theological Novel.” So intrigued was I at the prospect of reading a theological novel that I left this book sitting on my shelf for seven years before I ever thought to read it. And now I can't help but wish I had read it sooner.

I believe the order of the words in “theological novel” is important. This book is definitely better theology than fiction. In fact, as fiction goes, it is quite poor. But as theology it is exceptional. I chose to read and examine it as theology rather than fiction, since that is clearly its primary purpose.

I have often admired authors who have written the great biographies of Christian heroes of the past. Arnold Dallimore, Iain Murray and others, who have invested thousands of hours in reading about and seeking to understand their subject. With enough study the biographer can eventually reach a point where he really understands the person he intends to write about. When he understands him, he can share what he knows of the person with others through the written word.

James White, in The Forgotten Trinity has taken on a more difficult task. He has written a book about One who is beyond human comprehension. While there is much we can know about God, we can only know what He has chosen to reveal about Himself. There is so much more to God that our finite minds can ever comprehend. White seeks to explain what the Bible tells us of the Trinity and to answer the question of why the Trinity has “become a theological appendage that is more often misunderstood than rightly known” (page 16). This book is an outpouring of the love White has for God as He exists in three persons.

I remember the first time I became aware of the impact of feminism. My grandmother, a tiny, sweet, woman, told me about working in an office environment. She mentioned how it used to be that when she approached a door, especially if there were lots of people around, someone would always open and hold the door for her. It was just common courtesy. But by the time she was near retirement, this was no longer the case. Men were intimidated by women and had long since given up acts of chivalry. In fact, the only person she could think of who had held a door for her recently was a young, studded punk rocker with a huge pink mohawk. She blamed this on feminism.

Let me be honest up-front. I did not finish this book. I believe it is only the second book, of the 100+ I have reviewed, that I did not complete. I read the first several chapters and was so disgusted by what I was reading that I elected to merely skim the remainder of the book. After all, I’m a busy guy and have an entire shelf of unread books awaiting my attention. Why would I want to waste my time on what is, unfortunately, complete trash?

Escaping The Matrix by Gregory Boyd and Al Larson is, according to the cover, a guide to “setting your mind free to experience real life in Christ.” The reality is that unless Christ requires that we use the latest in pseudo-occult psychological techniques to free our minds, this book will do nothing of the sort. Indeed it cannot, because much of the teaching of this book directly contradicts the Scripture.

Until I read this book I never would have considered that God’s love was a difficult doctrine. The Trinity is a difficult doctrine to understand - impossible even. The eternal nature of God - that is another difficult or impossible one. But the love of God? I wouldn’t have believed it. But having read this book I believe it now.

The Difficult Doctrine of the Love of God by D.A. Carson is just a short book (96 pages) that is drawn from four lectures Carson delivered in 1998. There was a small amount of editing performed, but the conversational nature of the speech carries through the text. It makes for an easy read, despite some deep theology.

I am amazingly (and perhaps blessedly) naive when it comes to certain aspects of the spiritual battle that wages all around us. We know from Scripture that there is a constant spiritual battle being fought in this world, with human beings the bounty. We know that there is more to the world than what we can see - that angels and demons are real and are present. We do not clearly understand how they operate or even where they are, yet they exist. The Light That Was Dark brings home the importance of being aware of this spiritual conflict and guarding ourselves against ignoring it.

Famine in the Land opens with a quote from the great preacher Martyn Lloyd-Jones. “The most urgent need in the Christian Church today is true preaching; and as it is the greatest and most urgent need in the Church, it is the greatest need of the world also.” Author Steven Lawson continues, “If the doctor’s diagnosis is correct, and this writer believes it is, then a return to preaching - true preaching, biblical preaching, expository preaching - is the greatest need in this critical hour. If a reformation is to come to the church, it must be preceded by a reformation of the pulpit. As the pulpit goes, so goes the church” (page 17). What follows is four chapters which are, appropriately, expository in nature and which examine the priority, power, pattern and passion of expository preaching.