Book Review: The Cross — The Pulpit of God’s Love

When I saw The Cross: The Pulpit of God’s Love on the Westminster Bookstore website, I knew I had to read it.  Not only do I greatly appreciate the writing of Iain Murray, but it deals with that subject which I cannot learn enough about — The Cross!  This book did not disappoint in drawing my thoughts to the cross. 

From the second sentence Murray writes, “The purpose of gospel preaching is to make known what God has done in the cross of Christ.”  He then goes on with powerful succinctness to lay out how the atonement proclaims God’s love.  It is this love the author urges the reader to proclaim.

The main thrust of the book is to encourage gospel ministry and the center of this work is the cross.  While Murray faithfully demonstrates how we learn about who God is through the death of Christ on the cross, he also calls ministers to proclaim this message practically to all.  He says, “the good news of a provided forgiveness is to be as universally proclaimed as is the command to repent.” 

It is clear Murray believes in particular redemption, but in the conclusion from the book Murray makes it clear how it is dangerous when the doctrines of grace become more theoretical than practical.  God displaying His divine love through the cross should spur us on to tell others.  If we are to do so in such a way that is convincing, the truth of the cross must be impressed daily upon our own hearts.

I highly recommend The Cross: The Pulpit of God’s Love for anyone wanting to continue to understand what the cross of Christ is all about and how it should encourage us to spread the gospel.  It will be particularly helpful for any in or seeking full-time ministry as it focuses on that which is at the heart of gospel ministry.  I was impressed with the depth of content in this short book (about 40 pages).  I hope the little time invested in reading this will continue to have an effect on how I think about the cross, ministry, and evangelism.

Excerpt:

Persuading men of God’s love is the great calling of the Christian ministry.  It is part of preaching ‘to root out all the secret reserves of unbelief concerning God’s unwillingness to give mercy, grace and pardon to sinners.’  It cannot be done without conviction in the preacher that this love is a wonderful reality, and that it is to be pressed on all his hearers.       

Next Book Review:  The Reason for God by Timothy Keller

Book Review: Young, Restless, Reformed

One of my book purchases at T4G was Young, Restless, Reformed: A Journalist’s Journey with the New Calvinists by Colin Hansen.  I was excited to see what Colin had to say about this movement, sinceI would probably be considered one of these “new calvinists.”  I had read Colin’s article in Christianity Today, which goes by the same title, but was left wanting more.  My hope was that this book would expand the ideas laid down in the article. 

Colin states that many have heard of the Seeker-Sensitive and Emergent movements in the churches of America, but he knew more people who were young and a part of this “reformed” movement.  This book takes you on a tour around the United States to various churches, seminaries, or conferences which are building Christians who are young, restless, and reformed.  Each chapter in the book deals with a different aspect of this movement (if it can be called a movement).  As I read through the chapters dealing with the Passion Conference, Bethlehem Baptist Church, Yale University, Southern Baptist Theological Seminary, Covenant Life Church, the New Attitude Conference, and Mars Hill Church I was struck by how different all these places were yet how they were all centered around the Gospel of Christ. 

Colin does a great job of outlining the impact of each of these.  One can easily see why these can be appealing to believers, even if they do not agree with everything.  I learned much about various churches, various people, and their beliefs.  One surprise was a church in New Haven, Connecticut called Trinity Baptist Church, which seems to be building a great ministry.

One area I wish Colin would have spent more time talking about is why he thought this group is growing.  There might be hints to it here and there, but a nice wrap up of why this is happening would have been  helpful. 

If you keep hearing about John Piper, Albert Mohler, C.J. Mahaney, Mark Driscoll, Josh Harris, Ligon Duncan, and  Mark Dever and don’t know who they are, this book is a good introduction.  It is also good to learn about other intricacies of the movement.  For example, I currently attend The Southern Baptist Theological Seminary but have no experience with the Southern Baptist Convention.  I learned much about some of the ideas floating around in the SBC and how not everyone is on board with what SBTS is doing.  Any student attending SBTS with no background with the SBC (like I lacked) would do well to read chapter four in this book. 

To gain, perhaps a better understanding of this book check out this review as well. 

Excerpt (Quoting Tom Schreiner):

“If a church asked me, ‘Are you a Calvinist?’ I’d say, ‘Yes, but I don’t use the word Calvinism. I teach what Scripture says, and I explain it in terms of biblical theology, what the Bible as a whole is teaching, the framework of Scripture.  That’s what I want to teach this congregation.  I want this church not to be a Calvinistic church but a biblical church.  Now I think there’s a lot of overlap there biblically.  But we’re not indebted to John Calvin; we’re indebted to the Scriptures at the end of the day.’”

“It is simple in the sense that you go into a church and you teach the Scriptures and you love people,” Schreiner said.  “That sounds easy, but it’s hard.  You have to be patient.  You can’t expect to turn things around quickly.  It doesn’t always succeed.  Maybe the church is so immature that they kick you out.  Maybe you’re so immature that you get kicked out.”

Book Review: A Gospel Primer for Christians

Stop reading this review and go buy this book.  Then after its on its way, come back and read this.

I was excited when I saw this book on the Westminster Bookstore website.  There are two reasons why I wanted to buy this book.  First, I hoped it would deepen my own understanding of the gospel and be a resource I could use over and over again for my own personal walk with Christ.  Second, I hoped I would be able to use it in family worship.  After reading this book I have found it to be valuable in both ways. 

A Gospel Primer for Christians: Learning to See the Glories of God’s Love is a book not to just be read once and put on a shelf.  It is written so the believer might preach the gospel to himself or herself each and every day.  The truths of the gospel are not just powerful and transforming at the time of conversion, but are designed by God to continue to produce fruit in saints’ life as his or her understanding grows.  Pastor Vincent makes this clear in the introduction, “God did not give us His gospel just so we could embrace it and be converted.  Actually, He offers it to us every day as a gift that keeps on giving to us everything we need for life and godliness.  The wise believer learns this truth early and becomes proficient in extracting available benefits from the gospel each day.”  What Vincent has done by writing this book is to help the believer in extracting these benefits.

The book is divided into four parts.  Part one is entitled, “Reasons to Rehearse the Gospel Daily.”  Here Vincent gives 31 impacts the gospel should have on our life.  These include a cure for distrust, enslaved by Christ’s righteousness, perspective in trials, and mortifying the flesh with fullness.  All of this is written in the first person so it is as if we could speak these reasons to our self as a reminder.  I decided to put a small number next to each section so I would read one of the reasons each corresponding day of the month. 

Part two is entitled, “A Gospel Narrative — Prose Version.”  In this part Vincent simply lays out the gospel in prose.  It is no more than eight pages long so it does not take long to read.  I have been reading over this each day with my devotional time so I might continually preach the gospel to myself.

Part thrre is entitled, “A Gospel Narrative — Poetic Version.”  This is the gospel, just in the form of a poem.  Vincent has done a great job at helping the reader make the gospel memorative.  I think this part might be especially helpful in teaching young children the gospel.  I think it would be very appropriate to even put it to song.  How cool would it be if Sovereign Grace took these as used them as lyrics to a song!

Part four is entitled, “Surprised by the Gospel.”  Vincent here gives teestimony to the gospels work in his own life.  It is encouraging to hear his struggles, even as a pastor, over justification and sanctification.  I think this section will offer much encouragement to many believers who can easily fall into the trap of trying to keep themselves in God’s good favor. 

One of the great features of this book are the footnotes.  Read the footnotes, all of them!  I am not a big footnote guy, but in this book all the footnotes are Scripture where you can find the truth VIncent is talking about.  It is truly a powerful aid and brings the truth of God’s Word to the forefront.

Like I said at the beginning, buy this book.  Buy it because you want a gospel-centered life, buy it because you want to teach the gospel to your kids, or buy it because you want to use it to disciple someone else.  You won’t be disappointed, you might even be surprised by the gospel.   

Book Review: Culture Shift

Let me be honest.  The reason I live in Louisville right now is because of one man.  If God had not worked through this man, who knows where I would be attending seminary.  That man is Albert Mohler.  His commitment to the sufficiency, inerrancy, and authority of God’s Word has brought The Southern Baptist Theological Seminary back from the depths of liberalism. 

You can imagine how excited I was to hear of the publishing of his first book, The Culture Shift: Engaging Current Issues With Timeless Truth.  I do not know of another theologian who has a more comprehensive grasp of what is going on in the culture or one who answers the questions more biblically than Dr. Mohler.  What more appropriate topic could he write about for his first book? 

As I thought about what books I wanted to read this summer Culture Shift was at the top.  It did not disappoint.  Dr. Mohler clearly articulates how Christians are to think and live in this culture.  He talks about very specific events which have taken place (or are taking place) and then guides the reader to think biblically about the issue.  He systematically clears away all peripheral distractions and is able to tackle the heart of the problem.  From the Christian in politics, to the Supreme Court, to torture, to education, to postmodernism, to abortion, to natural disasters, to nuclear war, Dr. Mohler gives us insight on how we should approach these topics. 

While this book is about the culture, it is also about wisdom.  Dr. Mohler has given us godly wisdom and points us to fear the Lord so we can deal with cultural problems.  The subtitle of this book (Engaging Current Issues With Timeless Truth)really says what he does.  The chapters of the book deal with very specific examples.  One might think that these examples will one day be obsolete, but Dr. Mohler masterfully applies the Truth of God’s Word so the reader will have the timeless truth.  He is not just giving us renewed thinking on limited topics, he provides a lens for the Christian to look through no matter what cultural issue they encounter.

It would serve everyone well to read Culture Shift.     This is an excellent book, which does not take long to read.  The benefits gleaned, though, will last a lifetime. 

Excerpt:

“…a faithful Christian will affirm the true character and power of God–His omnipotence and His benevolence.  God is in control of the entire universe, and there is not even a single atom outside His sovereignty.  At the same time, God’s goodness and love are beyond question.  The Bible leaves no room for equivocation on either truth.” — pg. 126

“We must speak were the Bible speaks and be silent where Scripture is silent.” — pg. 126-127

2008 Summer Goals

As I finish up a few seminary classes, I was think about what I was going to do this summer.  There were a lot of thoughts floating around in my mind.  So I decided to pick three of those thoughts and make them my goals to accomplish over the next three or four months.  So here they are:

1.  Write Family Goals.  These are goals I want to see accomplished in my family, specifically how my wife and I are going to raise our son based on ths Scriptures.

2.  Review Hebrew.  I took Elementary Hebrew this past semster and I am taking Syntax and Exegesis next semster.  I want to be ready for that and not forget all I have learned.

3.  Read!  I want to read at least 20 pages a day.  With all of these books from Together for the Gospel, I haven’t read any yet.  It is amazing how many of these books I can get through this summer if I just read 20 pages a day. 

My third goal is why I really wrote this post.  This summer is going to be a summer of reviews on Heart of Ezra as I read through a bunch of books.  You can look forward to reviews on The Culture Shift; A Gospel Primer; Young, Restless and Reformed; The Reason for God; In My Place Condemned He Stood; Why We’re Not Emergent; Worship Matters and hopefully many others.  May your summer be profitable as well!