Book Ratings for 2011

Although I still have a few (8 actually.... wow) reviews to post for my 2011 reading list, I have finished all of my books for this year (finished last night, just in time!). Here is my list in order of which books I thought were a combination of best-written, highest clarity, most valuable (important), and overall which book I would most recommend to someone!

1. Just Do Something, by Kevin DeYoung

2. Bonhoeffer: Pastor, Prophet, Martyr, Spy, by Eric Metaxas

3. The Pursuit of God, by A.W. Tozer

4. Generous Justice, by Timothy Keller

5. When The Bottom Drops Out: Finding Grace in the Depths of Disappointment, Robert Bugh

6. Think: The Life of the Mind and the Love of God, by John Piper

7. What Does God Know and When Does He Know It?, by Millard J. Erickson

8. The Heavenly Man: The Remarkable True Story of Chinese Christian Brother Yun, by Brother Yun

9. Respectable Sins: Confronting the Sins We Tolerate, by Jerry Bridges

10. The God Who Risks: A Theology of Divine Providence, by John Sanders 

11. Christian Atheist: Believing in God but Living as if He Doesn't Exist, by Craig Groeschel 

12. God’s Lesser Glory: The Diminished God of Open Theism, by Bruce Ware

13. Seeking and Savoring Jesus Christ, by John Piper

14. God of the Possible, by Gregory Boyd

15. Strengths Finder 2.0, by Tom Rath

16. Rites of Passage: A Father's Blessing, by Jim McBride

17. Churched: One Kids' Journey Toward God Despite A Holy Mess, by Paul Turner

Check out the reviews I've already written if you're interested in one of the books as well, and keep an eye out for my last reviews in the next two weeks!

Stay tuned for my 2012 reading list!

Book Review: "Think: The Life of the Mind and the Love of God" by John Piper

What I Liked: The whole concept of this book is one that has been dear to my heart since taking a class called "Faith and Learning" by freshman year at MBI. The goal of this book is getting Christians to turn on their brain, engage in culture, dive into God's Word, and in so doing, learn to love God with our minds. For primarily being a pastor, Piper here finds a beautiful balance between being a biblical scholar, philosopher, and shepherd. I greatly enjoyed the chapters on "mental adultery", Relativism, and Anti-Intellectualism.


What I didn't like: My only real critique of this book is purely from an authorial standpoint. There was a section during the Anti-Intellectualism chapters that focused on how the Father, Son, and Spirit are revealed and concealed at different times. After the section, I found myself scratching my head a bit, wondering why Piper had deemed it necessary to spend so much time on a topic that didn't seem to naturally progress from the arguments/stances he had explicated at that point in the book.


Quotes:
- "There is no reason to believe that a person who thinks without prayerful trust in God's gift of understanding will get it. And there is no reason to believe that a person who waits for God's gift of understanding without thinking about his Word with get it either. Both-and. Not either-or."
- "People don't embrace relativism because it is philosophically satisfying [but] because it is physically and emotionally gratifying. It provides the cover they need at key moments in their lives to do what they want without intrusion from absolutes."
- "If we were to succeed in raising a generation of people who give up serious, faithful, coherent thinking, we will have raised a generation incapable of reading the Bible."
- "If all the universe and everything in it exist by the design of an infinite, personal God, to make his manifold glory known and loved, then to treat any subject without reference to God's glory is not scholarship but insurrection." 


Personal Takeaway: This book challenged me in how I read my Bible. Piper has a whole section discussing ways to read the Bible in a way that more actively engages your mind. It can be so easy for me to simply read in order to check it off of a list. Not only that, but this book encouraged me as one who greatly enjoys learning and thinking, and also challenged me in keeping my mind, pride, and scholastics focused on God and Him alone.


Who's It For?: I would recommend this book to any Christian desiring to take his or her faith seriously when it comes to loving God with "all your mind." It does get more academic at times and may not cater to all audiences in that regard, but it is a wonderful book full of wisdom. 

Review of "Vintage Jesus: Timeless Answers To Timely Questions" by Mark Driscoll

Some two thousand years after he walked the earth, Jesus Christ is still a hot topic. And for all the ridiculous, twisted, Da Vinci Code-esque conspiracy theories and lies about Jesus that have permeated popular culture and even the academy over the years, the truth about his character, nature, and work has not changed. So what exactly is the truth about Jesus Christ?

That's the question the authors of Vintage Jesus seek to answer by breaking it down into a number of sub-questions about Jesus, including Is Jesus the only God? Why did Jesus come to earth? Did Jesus rise from death? Why should we worship Jesus? and others.

Review of "Everything Must Change: Jesus, Global Crises, and a Revolution of Hope" by Brian McLaren

What do the life and teaching of Jesus have to say about the most critical global problems in our world today?

Acclaimed author and Emergent church leader Brian McLaren states, "More and more Christian leaders are beginning to realize that for the millions of young adults who have recently dropped out of church, Christianity is a failed religion. Why? Because it has specialized in dealing with 'spiritual needs' to the exclusion of physical and social needs. It has focused on 'me' and 'my eternal destiny,' but it has failed to address the dominant societal and global realities of their lifetime: systemic injustice, poverty, and dysfunction."

McLaren asks, "Shouldn't a message purporting to be the best news in the world be doing better than this?" What he sets forth in this provocative, unsettling work is a "form of Christian faith that is holistic, integral, balanced, that offers good news for both the living and the dying, that speaks of God's grace at work both in this life and the life to come, both to individuals and to societies and the planet as a whole."

Reading List 2011

I have finished my reading for my study in the Emergent Church. I am bored with it as a topic.... it's such a buzz-word and seems to be written of in every evangelical blog out there. So, I'm still trying to decide if I'm going to write "my thoughts" about it as a movement and it's implications and such or not. Don't get me wrong, it's important to know where you stand on certain aspects of the EC, but so many people have done so much more research than I have. There are substantial resources out there already, and I'm not sure I find it necessary (or even that interesting anymore) to make a contribution here.


I will be, however, updating this blog with my book reviews of the rest of the EC books I read.


Now, in the vein of the blog of my good friend Pheaney, I have decided to compile a list of books I want to read by the end of the year.


I think this will help me to continue reading the books that I already have interest in, and hopefully stop buying more and more books to my "to-read" list (which is becoming ridiculously large).


Here is my pre-limenary reading list of 2011 (in no particular order):

1. Bonhoeffer: Pastor, Martyr, Prophet, Spy, by Eric Metaxas (currently reading)
2. Generous Justice: How God's Grace Makes Us Just, by Timothy Keller
3. The Pursuit of God, by A.W. Tozer
4. God of the Possible: A Biblical Introduction to the Open View of God, by Gregory A. Boyd
5. God's Lesser Glory: The Diminished God of Open Theism, by Bruce A. Ware
6. The God Who Risks: A Theology of Divine Providence, by John Sanders
7. How Long, O Lord? Reflections on Suffering and Evil, by D.A. Carson 

8. God's Problem: How the Bible Fails to Answer Our Most Important Question--Why We Suffer, by        Bart Ehrman 

9. The Reason for God: Belief in an Age of Skepticism, by Timothy Keller

10. The End of Faith: Religion, Terror, and the Future of Reason, by Sam Harris

11. Think: The Life of the Mind and the Love of God, by John Piper

12. Respectable Sins: Confronting Sins We Tolerate, by Jerry Bridges (started moons ago, never finished)

13.

14.   

      I am reserving 13-14 (if I get to them) for whatever comes up. Whether it's a topic a student brings up that I want to brush up on, or a book that catches my fancy. The thing is, I have to finish at least four books before I can add a 13th to the list. And another four after that before I can add number 14.

The question is, which book do I start with?

If you want my older reading lists go here.

From now on however, I'll be posting my Reading Lists/Book Reviews on this Blogspot along with our ElliottEvents blog