Book Reviews: the Shack

Posted on by metroupe


OK, I haven’t read the book…but I saw it at Borders. I read the line on the bottom by Eugene Peterson (comparing it’s importance to Pilgrim’s Progress) and it made me scratch my head. So what is this all about? I went to Tim Challies’ site to see if he had anything to say…unfortunately it doesn’t sound good at all. Challie puts lots of quotes in his write up, and he is a balanced reviewer. His conclusion…don’t waste your time.

The world is going crazy over this, but it doesn’t appear that the answers provided by the shack to the problem of evil (depicted in the murder of a little girl) are really Biblical answers. Doug Wilson also gives it a thumb’s down (to put it lightly), he is not one of my favorites, but he is a literature guy.

Here is another review from the guys at Mathias Media. Paul Grimmond politely shoots down the book but says that each of us really need more “shack time,” meaning time in the presence of the real God. The more I read about this book, and read quotes from it the more upset I get…

For anyone still reading….Al Mohler did an episode on his radio program analyzing the book. I think this will become something of a fad with some emergent folks and hopefully only a minor distraction in the long run. What is not a minor distraction is the mindset that it grows out of…the post modern, group hug, everyone is right and no one is wrong mindset.

.

Some Highlights from a Good Book

Posted on by metroupe

I have been reading this book recently and it has really fed my soul. Sooo….in order to convince my pastor friends and aspiring preachers and church planters to buy this book, I decided to read a few excerpts to give you a flavor. There are about 7 minutes of highlights here, I hope you enjoy!

I have loaded it here:

Book: Agape Leadership

Posted on by metroupe

I have recently been reading the book “Agape Leadership” by Robert Peterson and Alexander Strauch. It is a short book of about 80 pages which walks through the life of Pastor R.C. Chapman, a brethren pastor from England in the 19th century. Besides having a picture of Chapman with a cool beard, the cover of the book comes with its own commendation: C. H. Spurgeon said of Chapman, “The saintliest man I ever knew.” That is high praise coming from the Prince of Preachers. If that is how Spurgeon felt about this man, I think I want to know something about him. The book is easy to read and has a devotional quality about it. Each chapter/vingette of his life is arranged topically and addresses topics such as gentleness, hospitality, evangelism, and how he worked with and trained up other Christian leaders. The book has been a continual refreshment, challenging me and making me thirst for a much deeper experience of God’s grace in the details of my life. If the book has any significant faults it is probably that it doesn’t identify any of Chapman’s shortcomings. He obviously had some, but it is hard to imagine what they might have been. The man was truly like Jesus and I have benefitted in reading this book and discussing it with a brother from Church. I enjoyed it so much that a bought a bunch of copies to give to others. After reading this book, I can’t help but wonder where the modern Chapman’s have gone. I know that I want to be like this man because he was very simply, very humbly like Christ.

You can get it on Amazon.

Growing In Evangelism

Posted on by metroupe


I feel like I have recently come over a major mountain pass in my efforts to grow and understand Biblical evangelism. I have often struggled with this personally. I look around and see the cheap salesmanship methods of “winning” people to Christ and I am left more than a little flat, it seems that so few of the “converts” ever bear fruit. We know from the parable of the sower that only what bears fruit counts. On the other hand, I have not seen a great harvest of souls from my own efforts. I have spoken to many people, made many invitations to church, given out Bibles and tracts, and have still felt like something was missing. In the last few weeks I started listening to some messages by Michael Ramsden- I have another post about him from last week- a guy from Ravi Zacharias ministries. I also began reading a book by Randy Newman (which I found in the footnotes of Mark Dever’s book- “The gospel and Personal Evangelism”, which I would also recommend). This book is called “Questioning Evangelism,” and it is not challenging the act of evangelism, but proposing that in the process of doing this we spend a lot more time asking questions than just giving answers. I cannot agree with everything that he says, but it appears to me that this man has a heart for God and for the lost. I have not finished the book yet, but in the first 60 pages I feel like a light has come on that has been missing for many years.

He offers several reasons to use questions, rather than just giving answers. He doesn’t give his reasons just this way, but this is kind of what I have come away with: What is so good about using questions?

  1. This is the most common method of Jesus. He asks questions of people in responses to their questions or statements far more often than he gives an answer. For example, the to the rich young ruler he says, “why do you call me good” (Mark 10:17-18); when asked about taxes he asks for a coin and whose image is on it (Matt 22:17-20); When asked about healling on the sabbath he asks a question about a situation where a sheep falls in a pit (Matt 12:9-12).
  2. He also says that asking questions can help us get out of a defensive position, and put the person challenging us on the defense by asking them to explain what they believe. People often enjoy making us squirm by asking us to do this, and little do they know how difficult it is to articulate you own faith commitments.
  3. It can help to disarm a person by showing that we are not just interested in an argument.
  4. It can be a great way to show love to people, because when we ask questions- and then really listen we are showing genuine interest in their lives and what they believe.
  5. Questions can help a person to wrestle with and see their own assumptions and inconsistencies, often in a way that is more effective than if we told them.
  6. Asking questions and having dialogue creates the potential for a relationship, and that is a much better way to share the gospel than giving a sales pitch.

I hope you buy this book, read it, and put it into action. I have already started to ask more questions when I speak to people and I elated!

Response to An Atheist

Posted on by metroupe


I just finished reading Doug Wilson’s book, “Letter from a Christian Citizen,” and I feel like I want to buy a copy for all my friends, and several of my enemies. He has a definite flair for defending the faith and making skeptics look like sophomores. Wilson takes up a response to Sam Harris’ book, “Letter to a Christian Nation,” and he answers most of the main arguments point by point. The main idea is that if we take atheism seriously, then we are left with a meaningless world that undermines atheistic criticisms of Christianity, and everything else. That is a mouthful, and easy to say. It is also easy understand once you think through the logic. But it took a little while for me to let it sink in.

However, taking time to understand the real implications of atheism is perhaps the greatest way to refute it. Atheists, of the Sam Harris variety at least, deny the existence of anything but matter. On that basis they deny the existence of God and criticize Christianity. After doing this they appeal to all sorts of non material principles to tell other people how to live. After supposedly clearing the deck of theological debris, they proceed to use of laws of logic, demand certain rules of proof, call for standards of ethics, and even insist upon telling believers that they “should” not apply their faith in the public arena. These all smack of “immaterial” things, the kinds of things that they say do not exist. In this regard atheists are like an anarchist filing a law suit, or a flat earth advocate trying to prove their point by talking about satellite orbitals.

Anyway, Wilson does an excellent job, and these 100 or so pages are worth your 8 bucks.
you can get the book at American Vision