Blaze of Light by Marcus Brotherton

Blaze of Light is an account of Green Beret Medic Medal of Honor recipient Gary Beikirch. He earned his Medal of Honor in Vietnam.

I've honestly been dreading having to write this review because…well, I didn't like the book. And I feel horrible about saying that I don't like a book about a Medal of Honor recipient! It's not that it isn't interesting, it is. But it's depressing.

The book is written well in that , while following Mr. Beikirch through his  life you see, even feel along with him, his depression, lack of purpose in life.  Joining the Green Beret's gave him more of something to aim at.  That was actually the most interesting part of the book to me, it was fascinating to hear about the amazingly tough training they went through to become  Green Berets, and even tougher training to become a Green Beret Medic.  His time in Vietnam was intriguing as well.  Especially his actions that earned him the Medal of Honor, and they truly are admirable.

But there is sort of a despairing feeling throughout the book.  He was seeking for some sort of purpose, but the purpose he finds, at least as this book presents it, is lacking in… ironically, lacking in purpose.

Some of Mr. Beikirch's  relatives, who were professing Christians, lead him to God's Word.  He becomes a professing Christian, gets married and then ends up ordained as a chaplain. He still sounds depressed though and ends up having  arguments with his wife, has a big argument with her, goes back to visit Vietnam, meets a former enemy soldier who has found that he needs to forgive in order to heal from the war and Gary is amazing at this. While he's gone his wife leaves their home without telling him, he goes to find her and patches things up.

The book then ends with him having come to the conclusion that you need to die to yourself and live for others instead.  "The battles are fought in our hearts and minds.  The weapons are the values of love, sacrifice, integrity, and service.  Whenever we fight battles with those weapons, life takes on a meaning that others will never know." That falls far short of a message of true purpose.  Why? Why live for others? Because it satisfies ourselves? What if one finds that living for others really doesn't give them fulfillment? What if living a life of selfishness really does satisfy them?  Or what if living for others makes one feel like a good person?  These motives make the purpose of doing or not doing good works contingent on pleasing ourselves, and self is still the ultimate focus. It may take on new meaning by loving and serving others, but not the meaning God wants us to find.  He wants us to live for Him first of all. As Christ Himself said,  "You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind. This is the great and first commandment."(Mat 22:37-38)

Ultimately the book as a whole gives the impression that you don't really need God because some people do truly good works without God. The former enemy soldier had forgiveness towards his enemies, and the book never mentioned that that soldier was a Christian, it also gave other accounts of other, presumably non-Christian, people selflessly living for, dying for and forgiving others.

Any righteousness we come up with on our own isn't righteous enough and is actually offensive to God.  Without Christ's perfection being applied to our account, we will ultimately end up  experiencing God's wrath forever (See the books of Romans and Ephesians) . Only Christ's righteousness will get us into Heaven. This book, by it's 'living for others' is true living message, just seems to present believing in Jesus Christ for salvation as an optional thing with no consequences for not believing whereas the Bible never presents it that way.  As it says in John 3, "Whoever believes in the Son has eternal life; whoever does not obey the Son shall not see life, but the wrath of God remains on him."(Joh 3:36 ESV)  This isn't something that we can just take or leave.  It's serious. It's literally a matter of life or death.

I wouldn't be so critical if I didn't think that this book was supposed to be about a man who discovered that true living is living for God.  But it didn't, it made it seem as though anyone can have true living without Christ.   Understanding our position before God and His requirements of us, is the most important thing to realize, even more important than sacrificing oneself for others. 

The Bible doesn't say that we will find true life if we deny ourselves and sacrifice for others.  We will only find true life by denying ourselves for Christ's sake. And not just denying ourselves but taking up His cross and following Him:  "And calling the crowd to him with his disciples, he said to them, “If anyone would come after me, let him deny himself and take up his cross and follow me. For whoever would save his life will lose it, but whoever loses his life for my sake and the gospel's will save it. For what does it profit a man to gain the whole world and forfeit his soul?"(Mar 8:34-36 ESV)  We WILL deny ourselves and sacrifice for others and consider them more important than ourselves if we are Christians (followers of Christ), but we do not do these things in order to GET and FIND true life, but because we already have true life:  "When Jesus had spoken these words, he lifted up his eyes to heaven, and said, “Father, the hour has come; glorify your Son that the Son may glorify you, since you have given him authority over all flesh, to give eternal life to all whom you have given him. And this is eternal life, that they know you, the only true God, and Jesus Christ whom you have sent."(Joh 17:1-3 ESV)

Again, I feel compelled to say all of this because this book is intended as a potential means to introduce people to Christ but it offers a means to life fulfillment, true living (loving others) that falls short of the Christian/Biblical message of fulfillment.

Thanks for the folks at Waterbrook Multnomah  for sending me a free review copy of this book (My review did not have to be favorable).

view did not have to be favorable).

Church - A. W. Tozer

This book, Church, by A. W.Tozer is a collection of his insights on the topic. He deals with, The Organization of the church, the character of the church, communion of the church, witness of the church…etc. 

There isn't a lot of, how shall I put it? Detailed information.   It may have interest for some people, but I didn't find it very intriguing.  I guess it just seemed like more of a devotional type of work.  It didn't seem particularly expository in any given part.

And I had trouble with several things,

He made statements that kind of confused me, like:

"…would you reach out your hand by faith and pull the Holy Spirit in unto you?  It would make a great and wonderful difference in your life. I've seen it happen and there's no reason why it can't happen for you if you fully obey."

So…faith is not a gift from God/The Holy Spirit? The Holy Spirit waits for me to produce faith and good works and then just enters into my life as a companion, not Someone who is working in me to incline me to do good works and to believe?

"Living under the circumstances you do and living on the high level you live, you ought to have somebody in Korea, Austria or somewhere whom you are feeding - at least one person in addition to supporting your missions and your church, and paying your taxes." What if I just feed my family and help out members of my church family with the bills?  What if we don't have the money to spend for Missions overseas but each member of the church finds opportunities to evangelize those without God in their own God-given sphere of influence?

And then, speaking of Jonathan Edwards, he "wasn't a faultless man.  He was a man who made mistakes made so many blunders that they actually threw him out of his church on one of occasion.  And he was in trouble.  He was not a perfect man…".  Not that Edwards was perfect and that he didn't make mistakes, it's just I don't understand why Tozer seemed to think that Edwards was legitimately kicked out of his church. If I remember correctly, Edwards had rebuked certain people for living in sin and had not allowed certain ones partake of the Lord's table because he didn't think that they were Christians.  Perhaps others would have approached the matter differently, but I don't think these were blunders on his part.

"Deacons are supposed to be young men……they were the ones who did the work around the church…You remember Ananias and Saphira when they died?  Remember who carried them out?  The deacons, the young men carried them out."  That one was just…weird. Why not old men?

There was some good stuff in the book, but overall it wasn't a book that I found particularly interesting and informative.

Many thanks to the folks at MP Newsroom for sending me a free review copy of this book.  My review did not have to be favorable.

My Rating: 2 out of 5 Stars

This book may be purchased at Amazon.com and Christianbook.com

Lt. General William K. Harrison Jr.

I first heard of William K. Harrison Jr. on the radio some time ago.  He was being used as an example of someone who made sure he read the word of God every day, even when things got really busy; and things were really busy in his life, as it was noted that this man was a general in World War II.

 Not a lot of information was given, but that piqued my interest. But I was sort of afraid he'd be some sort of nominal Christian guy who just read his Bible for just for the sake of 'morality', rather than being the real deal.

I tried to find more information about him, and discovered some articles that he had written

One was "Professional Excellence for the Christian Officer"

And the other one is "May A Christian Serve in the Military".  I'll give an excerpt from that one here: 

From the section in that article,  "The Real Cause of War".

"From a Biblical standpoint the answer is simple. The world is dead in sin. Lust, plunder, and war are the natural characteristics of the human race, dead and lost in sin (Romans 1:18-32). Many good Christians seek to eliminate war by dressing up the outside of the cup, seeking to cure the apparent causes of war. The real cause of war is in the sinful heart of man. The Lord said that except a man be born again he cannot see the Kingdom of God. Being born again is a miracle. It comes only when one believes in the Lord Jesus Christ as his personal Savior and as the Son of God. People believe when they hear the gospel. Never has the preaching of the gospel succeeded in converting more than a portion of hearers at any one time.

Even at Pentecost in the great city of Jerusalem only 3,000 believed at the most wonderful exhibition of gospel power in church history. The rapid growth of Christianity in the Roman Empire resulted first in the persecution of Christians, and then ultimately in the decay of spiritual Christian life into the dark ages of medieval centuries. The Protestant Reformation did not produce more than a partial awakening. Today there is an apostasy from the simple, pure Word of God and faith in Jesus Christ, the only begotten Son of God and the only Savior.

We are not called to preach the gospel to save the world from war and crime. We can preach the gospel all we want to, but only a few believe. Christ said that broad is the way that leads to destruction and many are they that find it, and narrow is the way that leads to life and few are they that find it. The preaching of the gospel is to them who are saved a savor unto life, unto them who are lost a savor unto death. The Scriptures say that God is now taking out a people for His name. I can find no place in the Scripture where it intimates that the preaching of the gospel of grace will succeed in converting the world.

On the other hand, it does say that the gospel should be preached to all the world as a witness…."

Those articles made me curious to know more about this guy.  I did some research on the internet, and there was only a bit of information.  The end of the above articles give a short summary of who Harrison was:  "Lieutenant General William K. Harrison, Jr., retired in 1956 after forty four years in the Army. He was assistant division commander of the 30th Infantry Division, rated by General S.L.A. Marshall as the best division in the European Theater during World War II. He was chief U.N. negotiator at Panmunjom, Korea, and subsequently served as commander in chief of the Caribbean Command. General Harrison served as president of OCF from 1954-1972 and as president emeritus from 1972 until his death in 1987."

Wikipedia didn't have much more information.  But I found that there was a biography of Harrison called, "A Man Under Orders"by D. Bruce Lockerbie.  It was published in 1979,is out of print, and the copies I was finding were rather expensive (I think one of the ones I found was $60), even its "list price" is absurd, $1000 something dollars. 

Instead, I found book about the 30th division that he was assistant commander of in World War II.  The book is, "OldHickory: The 30th Division: The Top-Rated American Infantry Division in Europein World War II" by Robert Baumer.  The book was quite interesting in and of itself (you can buy it on Amazon), and Harrison is mentioned quite a bit, though it doesn't really go into his beliefs. But it was interesting to see how much of a leader he was and how courageous. Baumer says, "He would become one of the most frequently seen general officers of WWII in the front lines with his men, and widely admired for his courage."

The author, Robert Baumer, apparently read my review of his book, and he noticed that I had mentioned that I was having difficulties finding a copy of Harrison's biography.  The author messaged me and said that he had a copy of the book that he didn't need anymore, and that he'd send it to me.  It was very, very kind of him. 

So I read the book, and loved it.  Or rather, loved to see what God did in the life of this man.

He was a Christian for most of his life, and God's sanctification of him usually involved his not getting what he wanted. Harrison's aspiration was to use his leadership skills as a soldier.  During World War I, when he graduated from West Point, he wanted to go be sent from there to France, but was instead sent to Arizona to guard the border.  Then, he was assigned to teach languages at West Point.  "While Harrison kept himself respectable in the classroom, his heart had never been teaching foreign languages.  He felt as though he were wasting time. To amuse himself, he turned to puzzling out problems in tactics doing his best not to atrophy as a soldier."   He learned how to teach well, and this served him well later, he became "renowned" for his teaching of troops.  And God kept teaching him submission by giving him tasks that he didn't want.

As mentioned above, he liked solving tactics problems, and he liked coming up with solutions to other military problems as well, just for fun and to keep his military mind sharp.  Even that came in handy later on. 

I was very interested to find that God pivotally used him in World War II.  Two events really stand out.  First, a little before America entered the war, he was assigned to General Marshall's Committee on Allocation of Responsibilities which was given the job of figuring out a reorganization of the Army High command (which was in great disarray).  This especially needed to be done in case war broke out. After weeks of the other members wrangling and disagreeing about how to do it, Harrison, who had kept pretty quiet most of the time, said that he had the solution to the problem.  And that afternoon, dug though the papers he had doodled on for fun and found one that he had done several months earlier. ""On a single sheet of paper, he had sketched out a plan to reorganize the United States Army." He edited it a little and presented it the next day. And that was the plan the committee ended up going with.  Asa result of this, he was promoted to Brigadier General.  A few years later, he was awarded a Distinguished Service Medal for having come up with the plan.

He ended up becoming assistant commander of the 30th infantry division.  His commander, Hobbs, turned over his own responsibility of training the troops over to Harrison.  The top commander was supposed to do that but Hobbs apparently didn't want that responsibility.  Harrison did the job well.  And then when they went overseas, he seemed to be the real leader of the men.  Harrison was one of the "most seen generals on the battlefield".  He did most of the legwork for Hobbs and loved to lead from the front.

The second pivotal thing he did that God used to really help the Allies, came in the midst of disaster. Having arrived in France , The 30th Infantry Division was going to participate in Operation Cobra, which, was to push further into France.  This operation was to begin with a major saturation bombing of the enemy with the troops then moving in afterward. On the day it was to begin, Harrison was with the men up front.  To the men's surprise, the planes (whose pilots didn't have an accurate visual) bombed their own men.  They started firing back at their own planes. The invasion didn't take place that day. They tried again the next day, but the SAME THING happened.  More than 600 of the men had been hit. Harrison, who was with the men again, was almost killed, surviving "an almost direct hit from not one but two bombs". he was thrown down but unharmed. His initial response was out of character, he was very angry, and screamed up at the pilots, calling them an indecent name. I wish that the biographer, who included a lot of dialogue from interviews he'd had with Harrison, would have had Harrison comment on his bad response, which I'm sure he wouldn't have condoned.  Anyway, he calmed down pretty quick though.

 The attack still had to happen, and so, despite many of  their own men being dead or wounded from the friendly fire, Harrison successfully pushed the men forward.  I'll let the Distinguished Service Cross he received later on for this action sum it up. His citation read, "On 25 July 1944, General Harrison quickly reorganized the leading elements of his division which had previously become disorganized by the bombing of friendly aircraft. Realizing that the success of the entire operation depended on the 30th infantry Division carrying out its mission, General Harrison, with complete disregard for his personal safety and unselfish devotion to duty, accompanied the demoralized troops as they began their advance. Through his valor, courage, and presence in the very front of the attack, General Harrison inspired the men to a successful completion of their mission."

A Brigadier General, Stewart L. Hall, who was the 30th Divisions Intelligence chief said, "I believe it was General Harrison's example at that instant that turned the tide3 of the war in the early days of the fighting in Normandy."

Anyway, despite all his hard work, he still didn't get the recognition/promotion that he wanted.  It was when he was wounded some time later(from being up at the front again) that he realized that he had become proud, "Being wounded and out of action became a pivotal incident in Harrison's life, as he himself concedes. 'You see,' he admits, 'I'd been kidding myself all along that I was working to serve God.  But I'm very human, and without my realizing it, I was really striving for myself.  I was particularly upset because, I guess, my abilities as the next Napoleon weren't being recognized.  I knew, and I think my men knew, who was responsible for making the 30th Infantry Division everything it was cracked up to be.  But I was still only the Assistant Division Commander.  My pride made me forget God altogether.'"  He refocused and got back to work with a better perspective.

After the war, he was still  assigned to jobs he didn't really want.  He was summoned to  Japan, "…Harrison was surprised and dismayed to learn that he had not been assigned to a division; rather, he had been personally selected by Macarthur to be executive for economic affairs, then later chief of the Reparations section, Allied Powers' General Headquarters."

And then, when trouble broke out in North and South Korea, Harrison wanted to be assigned to duty in the battle zone, but instead, upon being called to Washington, "he was informed that he had been appointed chief of the Army-Air Force Troop Information and Education Division, another desk job." He was responsible for "propaganda and university extension courses." Still, he did his best in the job, recognizing Who had given it to him:  "What did I know about education or propaganda! Nothing, and I cared even less!  But I figured God wanted me doing that job, or else He wouldn't have placed me there."

A bit later he was assigned to be in command of a training center. He liked training soldiers better than the propaganda job he had had, though it still wasn't the battlefield.  Near the end of 1951, he finally was about to get, what he thought was, his chance to be in the action.  He was appointed Deputy Commander of the 8th Army.    He was finally going to the front.  After a few weeks of inspection tours to acquaint himself with the situation, he was interrupted by another job assignment.  That of being on the Truce team.

This was yet another job he didn't want, and a job that he didn't really agree should be done at this point.  He thought that it would be futile and that they should conquer the North Koreans before negotiating a deal.  But again, God had given him this job, so he needed to do it to the best of his ability.

"Ever since he had been a little boy, Harrison had been preparing himself for a major command in the army.  As Mark Clark says of him, 'Bill was always a cavalry man looking for that chance to shock the enemy with a charge.' But his ambition had never been fulfilled; his skill as a field commander never recognized and so, never tested.  Instead, at the climax of his service, his country called upon him to exercise every other quality for which he had been schooled.  Where a cavalry charge would have failed, lessons learned in the drudgery of bureaus, sections, committees, boards, and other General Staff desk jobs succeeded.  In the always astonishing providence of God, those very traits that Harrison's long years of varied duties had taught him - patience tact, analytical incisiveness, and a resilient spirit buoyed by faith - were what he most needed at Pammujom."

It was a very tough job, but Harrison was able to show the North Koreans that he meant business.  As everyone knows, a sort of deal was reached and has been in place ever since.  Harrison has been in the news, in a way lately, with the heightened conflict with South Korea this past year or two, news articles have revisited the original Armistice along with pictures of Harrison signing it  (sitting at the table on the left in this picture).

I do want to warn about some things though.  Harrison seemed quite staunch in his Christianity, but then there is this excerpt from the book:  "But while he did not use his rank to promote religious activities within the Division, he did what he could to encourage the work of chaplains.  When he found a chaplain doing his best to help the men by raising their morale - whether Harrison agreed with him theologically or not - he encouraged him to carry on."  I didn't quite know what to make of that. I suppose if they were just raising morale fine…but I'm hoping that he didn't encourage any chaplains who have major theological/soteriological differences, like Roman Catholicism (which teaches that Jesus Christ is not the only Mediator between God and man, along with other unbiblical  things).   

I also want to note that there is some swearing and vulgar language in this book.

  

But overall I really liked the account. It's so nice to read of brave soldiers who fought well.  But I truly admire Christian soldiers, as they are the ones with true bravery.  True bravery isn't merely conquering fear, it's trust in God, that all things really do work out for good for His people, conforming them to the image of Christ (Rom 8:28-29).  It's really sad reading about brave men who risk their lives for their country when you realize that they are not Christian, and that they would go straight to Hell if they died.  When you think about it, from a biblical perspective, the bravery of non Christian soldiers is insanity because they ultimately either don't think about God, or trust in their own good works or something other than Christ, and have no overriding fear of meeting their Maker. Even if the military person makes it through war, if he still doesn't become a Christian, it's horribly sad when he dies even just of old age. But that's not the case when you read that a Christian died. It makes me think of the verse, "The Lord takes no delight in the death of the wicked" (Ezek 33:11) in contrast to "Precious in the sight of the Lord is the death of His saints"( Psalm 116:15)

The biography was written while Harrison was still alive (I think he was in his 80s at the time). But he was still living a life of faith at the time, and it sounds as though he did until the end when he went to be with the Lord in 1987. Harrison was a Christian, he trusted in God and knew that God had taken care of his sin, and so was brave in the midst of danger, knowing that God was in control of whatever happened.  That is true bravery.  God-given bravery. And even the monotonous parts of his life were inspiring because he trusted God even in those, doing his best with whatever God gave him to do.  It truly was encouraging to read about God's work in this man's life.

I hope that the book is republished again sometime (maybe without the bad language). Right now there are some more copies available for sale (lowest is $100 right now)on Amazon. But I have found that it is also available to read/digitally borrow for free online at OpenLibrary.  

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Sick of Me - by Whitney Capps

I think it was the cover of this book that really caught my attention.  It shows a girl with her face scribbled out. Sick of Me: From Transparency to Transformation by Whitney Capps attacks the current fad, in American Christianity, of presenting ourselves to each other in all our weakness. Of course, Capps doesn't think that admitting our faults is a bad thing, the problem is that we don't want to change. We are happy in staying in our unchanged, broken state, and ironically, using it as a springboard for glorying in ourselves rather than in Jesus Christ.  As the author states, "The Christian life is never meant to make people think more or better of me.  The goal is for me to look more like Christ, and, should people happen to notice me in the process, for them to think more of Jesus.  "

But that of course, is not biblical and it is not godly.  This book addresses that quite well.  If we are truly convicted about something, we won't feel comfortable not doing anything, besides confessing, about our flaw.   "Conviction never leaves us stuck in sin, but always moves us toward change."   And she explains that with our salvation comes our transformation.  We don't want to be people just concerned about "holy dying", as she terms it, and not concerned about "holy living".

But there were things that I didn't feel comfortable with. For instance, Capps uses some romantic illustrations to picture our work along with the Lord in sanctification: "When I look back on my spiritual journey - the dance I have with the Lord…..Sometimes I would break dance when the Lord was trying to lead me to waltz.  I resisted the gentle pull of His arms, pushing Him away so I could do my own thing." And then again, "You guys, we weren't made to dance alone, and we weren't made to simply observe.  We were made to dance with Jesus.  That's the process.  Will we step on  His toes from time to time? Sure…" Sanctification is not a romance between us and the Lord.  Yes, the Church is to be kept pure, as a bride for her husband, for Christ, but it's not pictured in the Bible as Christ romantically pursuing individual Christians.  And sanctification is more like warfare (aren't we told to put on the armor of God?), not a romance where we stumble in the dance and resist the lover's lead.

And then another thing I felt uncomfortable were statements like this, "Yes, the dance of sanctification is God's to lead.  It's His process.  But even the strongest partner can't lead if His partner won't follow."  That doesn’t make sense to me. The much stronger partner (to use the analogy)can't drag the other along? Or just pick them up? What about the discipline of the Lord? That doesn't involve any kind of force? God never makes His children do something against their will for their own good? I'm hoping that this not what Capps means, but it's how it can be taken.

Anyway, it was things like those that made me not like the book as much as I thought I would.  There is still quite a bit of good stuff in it, it's just that there were various things in it that kept bugging me.

I'll end with a couple of quotes I really liked:

"More than any person in history, Moses was equipped for God's assignment.  But God used forty years of wilderness wandering to strip Moses of his self-confidence.  He didn't need Moses' qualifications, and He doesn't need ours. ….Friend, when God wants to use us, He rarely affirms us; He always affirms Himself."

"Look at the lie the devil is selling.  Don't let the gospel do its work. Don't show them that this thing really works.  Don't live like Jesus can actually change your life for the better.  And for sure don't give evidence or testimony to the fact!"

Many thanks to the folks at B&H Academic for sending me a free review copy of this book.  My review did not have to be favorable

My Rating 3 out of 5 Stars

***

This book may be purchased at Christianbook.com and Amazon.com

Made for the Journey - By Elisabeth Elliot

Made for the Journey by Elizabeth Elliot is an account of her first year as a missionary to Ecuador.  I've read it before as it was previously published as These Strange Ashes. 

Elliot started her missionary full of excitement and triumphal expectation.  She was heading out the jungle to attempt to learn the Colorado Indian language in order to reduce it to writing and translate the Bible into that language. There is a note of underlying criticism throughout of the 'traditional' missionary way of doing things. Having started her work, she fights to have success in even figuring out the language.  She combats laziness in herself, but does start making some progress with the language.  Then everything falls apart.  People die, in tragic ways, including her main language informant.  She has difficulty continuing the study, but does have a good amount of language information to leave with those who would stay while she moved on to different work.  And then, after she leaves, the suitcase she entrusted to the missionary left behind with all (yes, ALL) of the language information is stolen and never recovered.  All of her work seemingly for nothing.

Elliot grappled with the thought, does God actually want these people saved? She came face to face with the sovereignty of God.  As she comments, "Faith's most severe tests come not when we see nothing but when we see a stunning array of evidence that seems to prove our faith vain." Now, I want to note here that though Elliot seems to believe in the overall sovereignty of God, she seems to have some trouble with the particular sovereignty of God, God's work inside of us. At the beginning of the book, in contemplating mankind she says, "Why did He give them in the first place freedom of will, power to choose, when surely He knew that their choices would be evil?...The power to exercise the will has been delegated to us and God will not usurp it."  But God does usurp our wills.  Changing someone into a completely new person is a very drastic act, a very personally invasive act. When we become Christians God changes our will, He makes us New Creations (2 Corinthians 5:17), we are taken out of slavery to sin and we become the slaves of God(Romans 6:22).  I think that Elliot unconsciously acknowledges this in her writings as she seems to contradict herself in places.

There are a few other things I had trouble with, for instance, she talks about the hard part of a missionary trying to figure out how to convert people to Christianity without changing their culture.  I don't completely understand this fear of changing the culture of those we witness to.  Yes, we don’t want to convert people to our ethnic culture, but the culture of those who convert to Christianity will inevitably change. For instance, If people have a culture where they do not wear clothes, they will find in the Bible that God is the One who instituted the wearing of clothing. They will realize that wearing clothing is an acknowledgement of humanity's fallenness. That after the Fall, public nakedness is presented in the Bible as a shameful thing.  Even after we become Christians, though our inner man is renewed, our outward flesh is not yet glorified (2 Cor 4:16, Rom 8:10-11,23).  Though, interestingly, it looks as though clothing will be worn even in the New Heaven and new earth (Rev 6:11, 7:9).  Any practice of any particular culture that is not in accordance with God's will, will disappear in the lives of people who grow in Christlikeness.  And that's not a bad thing.

That said, I still really liked this book.  I just needed to get those things out of my system.  Elliot writes very, very well and really pulls you into the account. You feel as though you are in the jungle with her, experiencing her excitement, exhaustion and confusion. You can "see" and "feel", as it were, the jungle around you and the strange sites and the different people she comes in contact with, her descriptions are so vivid. She portrays clearly her own bewilderment with the acts of God in her work as a missionary, but then pulls the perspective back to submission to God's sovereignty and rightness, whether or not one sees the "why" or the "rightness" of things, we believe in the righteousness of the God who allowed them and so submit. I'll end with a quote from the book, "Faith, prayer, and obedience are our requirements.  We are not offered in exchange immunity and exemption from the world's woes.  What we are offered has to do with another world altogether."

Many thanks to the folks at Revell Reads (A division of Baker Publishing Group) for sending me a free review copy of this book! (My review did not have to be favorable)

My Rating:  5 out of 5 Stars

*****

This book may be purchased at Christianbook.com and Amazon.com

The Kingdom Files (book series) - Who was Esther? and Who was David? by Matt Koceich

These books are intended to teach kids about various biblical characters.  I read the ones on David and Esther.  The books are made up of various "files" for kids to investigate the particular characters in any of the given books. Starting out with a "Fact file", which gives a few facts about the person you are looking into, including a tiny timeline with about three events selected.  Next comes the "Action File", giving a summary of the person's life, along with various illustrations.  Lastly comes the "Power File" which gives you some ideas of what you can learn from the life of the person you are studying, and also provides you with memory verses from various books of the Bible.

I'm sorry to say that I was disappointed with these books. First of all, they seem more like books for kids younger than 8, not 8-12. The biographies skip too much, it doesn't mention that Jonathan's father tried to kill Jonathan when Jonathan defended David, it doesn't mention that David's wives were taken when the city he was living in was raided, it just said that they recovered everything that was plundered.  There is no mention of David's sin with Bathsheba, or his having her husband killed, it just says later on that David made mistakes in his life.  When David's son Absalom is chasing David, it has a "Clue" on the side: "David was being chased by someone close to him.  He was being hunted even though he hadn't done anything wrong." But, don't we know from the Bible that this was a part of the consequence of his sin with Bathsheba (See 2 Samuel 12:11)? That was certainly something that was very wrong.

Also, the "Clues" scattered throughout their book don't make much sense to me.  The introduction to the books says that the "Clue Boxes will offer applications to help you keep track of your thoughts as you make your way through the files." Okay, fine.  But look at one of the "Clues" "Crags of the Wild Goats is located in the Judean wilderness. It's made up of rocky cliffs.  The ibex mountain goat is found in this area".  What kind of application is that?   How does that help me keep track of my thoughts? It helps me keep track of the story, but doesn't keep me an application to anything.  They should have just been called "Fact Boxes" or "Investigating Further".  Their purpose as "Clues" just didn't make sense.

Speaking of facts, in the "Fact File" there is information that is not so factual.  For instance in the fact file in the Kingdom File on David, after talking about the temple and that it was mainly used for sacrifices to God, it says, "Once a year, the high priest would go into the holy of holies, pray to God and ask God to forgive the people of Israel's sins."  And so God just forgave their sins on the merit of the prayers of the high priest? I'm not sure that the High Priest prayed at all. The High Priest had to go in to the holy of holies with the blood of an animal, he couldn't just pray for the sins of the people to be forgiven, there had to be a sacrifice of an animal on their behalf.  "but into the second the high priest alone, once in the year, not without blood, which he offereth for himself, and for the errors of the people"(Heb 9:7)ASV

In the "Kingdom File" on Esther, "On the surface, Esther's story is very similar to our spiritual life stories because she was taken from a faraway place into the presence of a king, just as Jesus saves us from our sins and brings us into His Father's house."  Ummm… Esther probably wasn't the most excited when she was taken away from her home to be one of a bunch of other candidates to have a chance to be the King's replacement Queen…failing that, she would definitely become one of his concubines.  She would probably rather have stayed with Mordecai, where her life surroundings were more likely to be moral. This part of Esther's story is hardly an accurate comparison to Jesus saving us from our sins.

And now for the illustrations…the cover images are pretty neat, ones I would have liked examining as a kid, but the ones on the inside would have disappointed me.  Especially the ones in the David book, where, unlike on the cover, he looks very blond; so much so that when they depict him as a young man and give him a beard he actually looks old.  And at least one of the pictures is biblically inaccurate.  The book tells about where Saul goes into a cave and, unknown to him, David's men are there hiding and David cuts off the corner of Saul's robe.  It doesn't tell WHY Saul went into the cave…but I can live with that.  My problem is that this part is illustrated and has Saul wrapped up in his robe sleeping in the cave and David cutting off the corner of his robe.  That's false.  Not that I think that part should be illustrated in the first place, but don't illustrate it wrong!

All in all, these books just weren't accurate enough for me to like them.

I received a complimentary copy of this book from Barbour Publishing and was under no obligation to post a review.

These books may be found at Amazon.com 

Who Was David?

Who Was Esther?

My Rating: 1 out of 5 Stars
*

The Essential Jonathan Edwards

I've read a biography of Jonathan Edwards before, and I've read a small part of his writings, but still have felt as though I don't know Edwards and his works very well.  When I saw that this book, The Essential Jonathan Edwards:  An Introduction to the Life and Teaching of America's Greatest Theologian, by Owen Strachan and Douglas A. Sweeny, was available to request for review, I thought that this would be a good way to introduce myself more fully to Edwards.

The book is divided into five parts.  Part one gives a high level biography of Edwards with quotations from his works interspersed throughout.  The other sections are more topical,  with chapters dealing with Edwards' thoughts on "Beauty" (having chapters such as The Beauty of God, The Beauty of Creation etc.),  the other sections are "The Good Life", "True Christianity" and "Heaven and Hell".  All of these parts contain summaries of Edwards writings on various subjects along with many  quotations from his writings.

Do I feel like I know more about Edwards writings more?  I suppose so.  Does it make me want to delve into his writings? Sadly, no.  This is probably going to sound awful, but I found this book very boring. I stopped when I was about half way through and just skimmed the rest (the book is over four-hundred pages).  

Perhaps a lot of my boredom came from Edwards' writing style, he seemed kind of mystical or something, in my opinion.  It just grates me the wrong way. It seemed more like some of his thoughts were floating in the air of unlimited conjecture without a firm grounding in exegesis of biblical texts.

Let me give you an example,

"the Old Testament church was as Christ's mother, but the New Testament church is his wife, whom he is joined to and whom he treats with far greater endearment and intimacy.  He forsook his mother also in this respect. Vis.  As he made a sacrifice of that flesh and blood, and laid down that mortal life which he had from his mother, the Virgin Mary.  'That which [is] born of flesh is flesh,' though he did not derive flesh from his mother in the sense in which it is spoken of, John 3:6, viz.  Corrupt sinful nature, and therefore did not forsake his mother for the church in the same sense wherein the church is advised to forsake her father's house for Christ's sake…..Yet Christ derived flesh from his mother, viz. the animal nature and human nature, with the corruption that is the fruit of sin, viz. with frailty and mortality.  This Christ forsook, and yielded to be crucified for the sake of the church."  Huh? That is really confusing. The editors of this book comment, "The doctrine of the church developed here is quite unique.  Old Testament followers of God represent 'Christ's mother, while New Testament believers are 'his wife.'"  It certainly does seem like a unique thought, and I don't see its biblical basis…

Edwards seemed to use a lot of typology, and was too….I'm not sure how to term it, scholarly? For my taste. Especially when he makes typological connections that are not given as such in the Bible.  Also, at times he seemed to be trying to work up emotions or something with his descriptions of the loveliness of God, of Christ.  Can one over 'describe the loveliness of Christ, of God? I think one can if one's descriptions savor more of the imagination than of solid basis in God's revelation of Himself.  Don’t we think that one cannot rival God's own descriptions of Himself in His Word?  Even Edwards? I'd understand more if he seemed to be exceeding texts, which I suppose he could have been doing, but then my opinion would probably be that he used too many illustrations.  I don't know, I'm still thinking about it, It's still rather hard for me to pin down why I don't like his writings, I've read other long dead authors whom I've liked.

I'm sorry if I'm misreading Edwards, but right now, this is my impression.  I'm not rating this book only two stars because I thought the authors did a bad job of putting this together.  I actually think that they probably did an excellent job.  I simply find that I don't particularly like Edwards as an author. 

Many thanks to the folks at Moody Publishers (MPNewsroom) for sending me a free review copy of this book (My review did not have to be favorable)

My Rating: Two out of Five Stars

**

This book may be purchased at Christianbook.com and Amazon.com

God's Book of Proverbs: Biblical Wisdom Arranged by Topic

This book complies and sorts the wisdom of the whole book of Proverbs by topic. So you can look up wisdom on Anger, Conflict, Deception, the Heart, Money, Laziness…etc.  The version I have is a beautifully bound hardcover.  With an elegant design using shades of tan. The inside is very nice and elegant as well.

I really like the emphasis, in the introduction to this compilation, though wisdom is an excellent thing to have, on it's own it will not bring you happiness and salvation.  "King Solomon, the man  responsible for most of the sayings in this book, was considered the wisest man in history…..Even so, Solomon disregarded some of the wisdom God gave him…"  We need more than just knowledge of the right, we need the right Person to make us holy and put His law in our hearts. 

What I didn't quite get in the intro, though, was the statement that "The entire message of the Bible, including this book of Proverbs, is summarized like this:….(after quoting John 3:16)…By turning from our sin and trusting in Jesus, the one who became wisdom from God for us, we can know true wisdom now and be assured of living in God's presence forever."  I don't think that someone would get that message from just reading the book of Proverbs….  The book of Proverbs turns us to God but doesn't directly tell us that we cannot follow its wisdom without Christ.  But perhaps I'm just being too nit-picky here.

Anyway, this is a really handy book to have. Feeling lonely and as if you don't have enough friends? Turn to the Friendship section, in it you will find that "One with many friends may be harmed but there is a friend who stays closer than a brother." Feeling rather proud of yourself today? In the section on pride you will be reminded that "Pride comes before destruction and an arrogant spirit before a fall."

This book would make a great graduation present!

Many thanks to the folks at B&H Bloggers for sending me a free review copy of this book!  My review did not have to be favorable. 

My Rating: 5 out of 5 Stars

*****

This book may be purchased at Amazon.com and Christianbook.com

*Note I don't see the hardcover neutral color version that I have online anywhere in hardcover (or perhaps they haven't updated the picture yet?).  They only seem to have it as an ebook right now.  They do have a dark brown hardcover version though. 

Lies Women Believe - Nancy Demoss Wolgemuth

Lies Women Believe by Nancy Demoss Wolgemuth is a book that goes through various lies that women believe about reality and counters them.  Dealing specifically with many of the lies women believe about God, themselves, sin, priorities, sexuality, marriage, children, emotions and circumstances, this book is designed as a gentle, but firm exhortation to wake women up to see the truth.

I get the impression that many of the women's writings of today cater to women's excuses, unbelief and overall selfishness. We don't need to build up our self-love, "the truth is that we do love ourselves", we need to learn to deny ourselves.  "Our most common malady is not having a low view [of] ourselves, but having a low view of God."

I also loved how the author pointed out that the thought, "I can't help the way I am" because of - fill in the blank-,  is a lie.  She uses Eve as an example: it was not Eve's circumstances that accounted for her miserable condition, it was not that she had had a difficult childhood, been unloved,  abused by her husband, had uncontrollable emotional issues, physical ailments or any of the many excuses women nowadays love to turn too.  No, Eve had a great beginning in life, she was never physically or verbally abused and was in great physical and emotional shape.  And yet she still sinned.  

There were some things I didn't like, however.  For instance, there was some stuff in the "Sexuality" chapter that I was uncomfortable with, I skipped over stuff, and I didn't think the fictional 'Eve's diary' part was very edifying in that particular chapter either (there are some things I just don't need to imagine in my head).  I know that most (probably all) of the advice and counsel is good but I simply didn't think that it needed to be dealt with that thoroughly. 

Also, I didn't agree or see the sense of why she thinks that it is okay for Christians to turn to drugs to help with depression.  It just seems to contradict what she said earlier, about the bad habit people have of turning to movies, alcohol or fun activities to change their bad emotions into happy ones rather than turning to God and His Word first.  I mean, for a Christian, what if there were pills to deal with, not only depression, but lust, anger, pride and fear? Would taking a pill for stopping lust be "killing sin"? Or just sedating it?  I thought that the weapons of our warfare are "not carnal" (2 Corinthians 10:4).  What if a disaster or something happens and those pills are no longer made or we lost access to them? Would we have built up any spiritual muscle for the fight against those emotions?  Or will they manifest themselves stronger than ever because we didn't kill them daily we merely rendered them unconscious so that we didn't have to fight them?  As Wolgemuth says, "When we find ourselves suffering under the weight of negative emotions like anger, anxiety, bitterness, despair, hatred or condemnation, we must learn to look toward God's Truth, keeping our minds stayed on Him rather than simply trying to escape or swap out negative emotions with a feel-good substitute. "   I would add depression to that list.

But overall I thought that the book was very good. Wolgemuth counters the lies with Biblical truth very well, and gives a lot of good counsel.  Here are some more of the concepts that I really liked that are based in the truth:

When people think that you're not normal, they're right! You're not normal, you are a New Creation! You are a saint, not a sinner.

Wives are not their husband's mothers, and they should not act as though they are the Holy Spirit in their husband's lives.

We are not saved by our feelings, our feelings are not facts.  We look to how what God says is true, not to our feelings to figure out reality.

And lastly, the truth may not change your circumstances, but that's okay, it will change you. God is primarily making us holy, not 'happy' - this side of eternity.

Many thanks to the folks at Moody Publishers Newsroom for sending me a free review copy of this book! My review did not have to be favorable.

My rating 4 out of 5 Stars

This book may be purchased at Christianbook.com and at Amazon.com

The Spurgeon Study Bible

The Spurgeon Study Bible is a very neat idea.  As most people somewhat acquainted with Mr. Spurgeon know, he was not a verse-by-verse through a book of the Bible kind of preacher.  He usually would choose a verse (or portion of verses) for one Sunday and would preach on that and then preach on another (non-related, often from a whole different book)verse the next week. And also, some may also notice that his preaching was not always very exegetical.

That being said, this commentary is a great compilation!  It sort of gives a glimpse of how it would have been if Spurgeon went by a more verse by verse preaching style, and it focuses on snippets from his sermons that are more exegetical.

The version that I have is the brown and tan cloth over board Bible.  It is very nicely bound and seems quite durable.  The spine has some fancy looking ridges on it and the front has Spurgeon's signature printed on the bottom left.

There is a lot of good commentary in this work.  But there are also, of course, places where the commentary is not so great. To give an example, in one place he says,  "I hate that plan of reading the Scriptures in which we are told, when we lay hold of a gracious promise, 'Oh, that is for the Jews.'   Then I also am a Jew, for it is given to me!  Every promise of God's Word belongs to all those who have the faith to grasp it…."  That is a ridiculous, irreverent and, to speak very plainly, quite a selfish statement.  Why does everything have to be about us individually? And it absolutely cannot be applied in a general way.  What if there was a married, childless, ninety year old woman who greatly desires to have children and so she reads Genesis and Matthew,  and grasps hold of the promises given to Sarah and Elizabeth, that they would bear children in their old age,  and applies them to herself in faith?  Is that a reverent interpretation of God's Word?

Anyway, I still think that this is a worthwhile Bible to get.  There is a lot of good commentary in here, and of course, it is filled with pithy statements like, "Let us never think that we have learned a doctrine until we have seen its fruit in our lives." and "Anything is a blessing that makes us pray"

And I was particularly pleased at Spurgeon's conclusions in some places that are more or less controversial today.  For instance, in speaking of the flood's being a universal flood some of the commentary says, "If Moses had meant to describe a partial deluge on only a small part of the earth, he used misleading language.  But if he meant to teach that the deluge was universal, he used the words we might have expected that he would use.  I should think that no person, merely by reading this chapter, would arrive at the conclusion that has been reached by some of our learned men - too learned to hold the simple truth of God. " Wow! That's really stating it plainly.

And then, speaking of 1 Corinthians 9-10 ("What no eye has seen, no ear has heard….") he expresses incredulity at "How frequently verses of Scripture are misquoted!  How frequently do we hear believers describing heaven as a place of which we cannot conceive.  They quote verse 9, and there they stop, not seeing that the marrow of the whole passage lies in verse 10.  The apostle was not talking about heaven at all.  He was only saying that the wisdom of this world is not able to discover the things of God, that the merely carnal mind is not able to know the deep spiritual things of our most holy faith…" Rather, these things "must be revealed by the Spirit of God, as they are to all believers."  I was delighted that he had come to that conclusion as I know that my dad (a pastor) has been frustrated by the same thing.

As one would expect with just about anything written by Spurgeon, there is a lot of quotable stuff in the commentary. Overall, it's exactly what one would expect in a Spurgeon study Bible.

Many thanks to the folks at B&H Publishers for the free review copy of this book (My review did not have to be favorable)!

My Rating:  5 out of 5 Stars

*****

This Bible may be purchased at websites like Christianbook.com and Amazon.com