Book Reviews

Piercing Heaven: A Prayer Book You’ll Actually Use

I once met a prominent Christian—a Reformed Baptist theologian, even—who admitted something to me that sounded almost scandalous: He doesn’t care for The Pilgrim’s Progress. He read it as a student, he re-read it as an adult, and it just didn’t do much for him. And with that in view, here’s a confession of my own: I don’t really care for The Valley of Vision, that collection of Puritan prayers collected by Arthur Bennett. There are undoubtedly a few jewels …

Laughing at the Days to Come

A book about suffering is usually born from adversity in the life of the author, and that’s exactly the case with Tessa Thompson’s Laughing at the Days to Come: Facing Present Trials and Future Uncertainties with Gospel Hope. When she was in her mid-teens, she was diagnosed with Neurofibromatosis Type 2 (NF2) and began to lose her hearing. Her father had been diagnosed a short time before, so she had been a first-hand witness to his struggles to adjust to …

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The Heart of the Preacher

There’s no doubt that the pastor’s calling is unique. It comes with unique blessings and unique challenges. Some of the greatest challenges are related to both preaching and to being a preacher—preaching as the actual task of preparing and delivering a sermon week by week, and being a preacher as the life and character that makes a man worthy of this task. These are the twin subjects of Rick Reed’s new book The Heart of the Preacher. Reed currently serves …

The Creaking on the Stairs

You do meet some interesting people in the Christian world, whether such meetings happen through real-life interactions or whether they happen through books and blogs. When it comes to Mez McConnell, I’ve met him in all of those ways—I have read his books, I have read many of the articles he has written, I have stayed in his home and worshiped in his church, and he has stayed in my home and worshiped in my church. I count him a …

Protecting Your Children From Predators

Few things concern parents more than the thought that a predator may have set his sights on their children. Few fears terrify parents more than that they may fail to protect their children from those who would seek to do them harm. Few things break a parent’s heart like learning that their child has been exposed to something they should not have seen or to something they should not have experienced. In this age, and every age, parents need to …

What Is a Girl Worth?

Rachael Denhollander’s What Is a Girl Worth? is a hard book to read. But it’s also an important book to read. While it tells of the horrendous crimes perpetrated by just one man, it warns that many similar crimes have been and are being perpetrated by a great many other predators. While it focuses largely on one woman’s suffering, it reveals how so many other victims have suffered as a consequence of crimes committed against them. And while it tells …

Risen Motherhood

Over the past couple of years I’ve heard more and more women speaking of how the Risen Motherhood podcast or website (founded by Emily Jensen and Laura Wifler) has been a blessing to them. And these aren’t just women I encounter “out there” in the Christian world but women I know “right here” in my own local church. It’s been a joy to hear how they have benefited from these resources, and I know many of them have been looking …

Not Home Yet

If you pay attention to Christian publishing, you’ll observe that certain themes come and go, rise and fall. One author will write a book on a subject and that may ignite interest so that several others follow up to challenge that person’s view, to affirm it, or to pursue it from a different angle. A recent theme, at least in one little corner of the Christian world, has been the notion of “home.” And now Ian K. Smith has added …

The Care of Souls

Have you ever read an “if this is true…” book? An “if this is true…” book is one that challenges you so deeply that you realize that if what it’s saying is true, then you’ve got to make some major changes to your life. R.C. Sproul’s The Holiness of God is one of those books—many who read it suddenly realized they had never actually known God as he is, as the God who is three times holy. Nancy Pearcey’s Total …

God, Greed, and the Prosperity Gospel

It is beyond dispute that the prosperity gospel has swept over the world to such a degree that a significant portion of those who call themselves Christians—whether at home or abroad—hold to a version of Christianity that bears little resemblance to “the faith once for all delivered to the saints.” It is beyond dispute that this gospel promises prosperity to the many while delivering it to only a few. And it is beyond dispute that there is a clear connection …